The Photo

In September 2007, a twenty year old Lionel Messi took part in a charity calendar shoot at Camp Nou for UNICEF. He was already talented, already someone Barcelona was building around. But he was still years from becoming the player the world would eventually call the greatest of all time.

A local family had won a raffle for a photo with a Barça player. Their six month old son ended up in Messi’s arms, then in a plastic tub of water while Messi helped bathe him.

The baby’s name was Lamine Yamal.

The photographer, Joan Monfort, has talked about how the shoot actually went. Messi, he said, is introverted and shy. He walked out of one locker room straight into another one with a plastic tub full of water and a baby in it, and he didn’t know how to hold him at first.

There was nothing polished about it. No one in that room, including Messi, was thinking about legacy. A young athlete was doing an awkward, slightly uncomfortable favor for a charity raffle winner, the way you say yes to something small and unglamorous because it’s the right thing to do that day.

Nineteen Years Later

This year, Yamal was nineteen and playing for Spain in the World Cup final. Messi was thirty nine and playing for Argentina, in what a lot of people were calling his last World Cup, even though he never confirmed that himself.

He’s said before that he’s taking things day by day, no promises about the future. Whether that match really was his last time on this stage, only he knows. Maybe not even he had decided.

That uncertainty is what makes the story interesting to me, more than the ending does.

If Messi had known for certain it was his last World Cup, showing up fully would have been the easy part. You know it’s the finale, so you empty the tank. What’s harder is playing that way when you don’t know.

You have to decide to show up like it matters without any guarantee anyone will ever call this the big one. That’s what he did back in 2007 too, in a locker room with a baby he’d never met, for a charity calendar nobody expected to matter in twenty years.

The Final

Spain won 1-0 in extra time. Ferran Torres scored the winner off a Nico Williams assist, and Argentina played the closing stretch down a man after a red card. It’s Spain’s second World Cup title since 2010. Yamal, the baby from that 2007 photo, is a World Cup champion at nineteen.

After the final whistle, the cameras found Messi sitting alone on the field, taking it in. Everyone will read that image and decide what it means. Some will call it the end of his World Cup career. Others will call it the end of his time in an Argentina shirt at all, which is not the same ending.

The truth is nobody watching knows which one it was. Maybe he doesn’t fully know yet either.

We do this constantly, not just with athletes. We watch someone’s face in a hard moment and write the story for them. But the meaning of a moment like that isn’t something you can read off a person’s expression from the stands or a television screen. It’s built later, in private, by the person who lived it.

What This Means at Work

I think about this a lot when I talk to leaders about confidence, because most of us aren’t waiting for a World Cup final. We’re waiting for permission. We hold back until we’re sure something is going to count before we give it everything. The big presentation. The promotion decision. The interview.

In the meantime, a hundred smaller rooms go by unnoticed. The one on one where an employee first admits they’re struggling. The onboarding conversation with a new hire who’s terrified and hiding it. The five minutes you spend actually listening to someone on your team instead of rushing to the next meeting.

None of those rooms come with a sign that says this is the one that matters. You don’t find out until years later, if you find out at all.

Confidence at work doesn’t get built in the highlight reel moments. The real work happens in the plastic tub moments, the awkward and unscripted ones, when you show up fully anyway because you can’t afford to wait for proof that this is the moment worth showing up for.

Nobody in that locker room in 2007 knew what they were building. Not the photographer, not Messi, not the mother who brought her baby to a raffle prize photo shoot. None of them had any idea what the future held.

Nineteen years later, that baby lifted a World Cup trophy. Messi sat alone on that same field afterward, and we have no idea what was going through his mind. Maybe the photo crossed it. Maybe it didn’t. Either way, back in 2007, nobody in that room could have guessed where this would end up.

You may not know either. Not today, not in the meeting that feels small, not in the conversation you almost skip. Show up like it’s the one that matters. One day, looking back, it might be.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you build confidence without knowing if a moment matters? You treat it like it does anyway. A moment being significant isn’t something you can prove in advance. Confidence is the decision to show up fully before that proof ever arrives, because most of the time it never does.

Why do the small, unnoticed moments at work matter for confidence? Because they’re where confidence actually gets built. The highlight reel moments, like a big presentation or a promotion, are rare. The daily ones, like an honest one on one or a hard conversation you don’t avoid, are where the habit forms.

What’s the difference between confidence and certainty? Certainty means you already know how things will turn out. Confidence means you show up fully anyway, without that guarantee.

The post What a Viral World Cup Photo Teaches Us About Confidence appeared first on Simone Knego.

Have you ever wondered why making friends feels so much harder as an adult?

In this episode of Her Unshakeable Confidence, Simone and Olivia Knego explore the challenges of building meaningful relationships through different seasons of life. From navigating friendships after college to embracing change, they share why creating your village takes intention, why casual friendships matter, and how stepping outside your comfort zone can lead to lifelong connections.

This conversation is a reminder that the relationships you invest in today can shape your confidence, support, and growth for years to come.

Actionable Takeaways

• Invest in relationships before you need them—your village is built over time.
• Don’t wait for others to make the first move; put yourself out there.
• Embrace casual friendships alongside your deepest connections.
• Don’t let fear stop you from trying new experiences or meeting new people.
• Build a life you enjoy independently instead of waiting on others.
• Welcome change as an opportunity for growth rather than something to fear.

Chapters

00:00 – Why Adult Friendships Feel Different

02:29 – Finding Your People in Every Season of Life

04:51 – Building Your Village Before You Need It

07:12 – Friendships Beyond Age and Shared Backgrounds

09:29 – Casual Friendships vs. Deep Connections

14:12 – Independence and Doing Things on Your Own

16:33 – Growing Up, Change, and Adult Relationships

20:30 – Nobody Has It All Figured Out

25:14 – Put Yourself Out There and Keep an Open Mind

27:20 – Confidence Tip: Don’t Let Fear Hold You Back

Connect with Us

Don’t forget to subscribe to Her Unshakeable Confidence for more empowering stories and actionable insights. Leave us a review, share your favorite moments, and tag us on social media!

Take our new QUIZ and discover what’s really holding you back and how to break free.

Get Free AUDIOBOOK

Order Simone’s New Book 

REAL Confidence A Simple Guide to Go from Unsure to Unshakeable

Order Simone’s The Extraordinary UnOrdinary You Book

Connect with Simone Knego:

• Instagram: @simoneknego
• Facebook: @speakersimoneknego
• LinkedIn: simoneknego
• Website: www.simoneknego.com
• Book a free call with Simone

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• Instagram: @oliviaknego
• LinkedIn: oliviaknego

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My youngest daughter Mili leaves for American University in a few weeks.

She’ll be studying in Washington, D.C., a few miles from her brand new nephew. She’s already declared herself the favorite aunt.

She’s close enough to actually show up for weekends and evenings, she’s also close enough in age to still know what’s cool, which she will absolutely remind everyone is the real qualification.

I love that logic.

This is a brand new season for me. I will be watching my last child go off to college. A time I never could have pictured after raising six kids.

And almost in the same breath, I’ve become a grandmother.

Two seasons that are supposed to happen years apart. Showing up at my house in the same summer.

For so many parents, a child going off to college is a hard transition. We spend years juggling so many things for so many people. When there’s suddenly one less thing to juggle, it can feel very empty. Isn’t that how it’s supposed to go? One chapter closes, you grieve it a little, and then the next one opens. That’s the story we’re told about change. Endings first, beginnings after.

I remember laying in my oldest son’s bed the night he left for college, crying into his pillow. With each child after that, it got a little easier, because I could see the incredible opportunities waiting for them on the other side. Sad and nervous every time. But it was never really about me.

Mili is sad, nervous, and very excited, all in the same breath. She’s gone to the same school since preschool so this is a big change for her. She’s thrilled that D.C. puts her close enough to spend weekends and evenings with her brother, sister-in-law and nephew instead of only seeing them on holidays.

I am sad, nervous, and very excited for her too. I am also so incredibly proud of everything she has already accomplished. This new season will bring a lot of change. She gets to try new things, meet new people, and figure out what she actually wants for her life.

I think we get taught to brace for change instead of embrace it. We treat every new season like a threat to the one we’re currently standing in, like there’s only room for one identity at a time.

Mother of six. Grandmother. Wife of thirty plus years. Founder growing her business.

I used to think I needed to tidy those up into some kind of order. Finish one before starting the next.

Turns out real life works differently. So does confidence.

Real confidence means trusting yourself enough to hold more than one thing at a time, without needing any of them to get smaller to make room.

Mili doesn’t have to stop being my youngest favorite daughter to become an aunt. I don’t have to stop being her mom to become someone’s grandmother.

The seasons aren’t taking turns. They’re overlapping, on purpose, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

So here’s what I keep coming back to as I help her pack for college with a nursery still fresh in my mind.

The season you’re standing in right now, whatever it is, probably didn’t ask your permission and probably doesn’t care if you feel ready. You can spend it waiting for things to slow down and make sense. Or you can embrace it exactly as messy and full as it is.

If there’s a season showing up in your life before you feel ready for it, here’s the invitation. Stop waiting for it to make sense first. Pick one thing about it you can lean into today, even a small one, and start there.

My daughter Olivia and I got into this exact kind of family shift on the podcast recently, what it looks like to hold onto each other while everyone’s roles keep changing. If this hit home for you, you can listen to that conversation on the Her Unshakeable Confidence podcast.

The post Embrace the Season appeared first on Simone Knego.

Have you ever felt like you had to figure everything out on your own?

In this heartfelt episode of Her Unshakeable Confidence, Simone and Olivia reconnect while sharing exciting family updates, including Simone becoming a grandmother. Through conversations about parenting, support systems, postpartum struggles, and advocating for yourself, they explore how confidence grows when we ask for help, speak up, and trust ourselves.

This episode is a reminder that whether you’re raising children, navigating health challenges, or simply moving through life, you deserve to be heard and supported.

Actionable Takeaways

Build a strong community and allow yourself to lean on others for support.

Trust that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to parenting or life.

Advocate for yourself when something feels wrong.

Keep asking questions and seeking answers if you feel unheard.

Teach confidence by encouraging independence and self-advocacy.

Focus on impressing yourself rather than worrying about what others think.

Chapters

00:00 – Family Updates and Becoming Grandma “Mona”

02:20 – Learning About Parenthood and New Beginnings

04:43 – Parenting Without a Handbook

07:10 – Why Community Matters

09:34 – Postpartum Support and Mental Health Conversations

13:02 – Women’s Health and Self-Advocacy

16:00 – Raising Confident and Independent Kids

18:05 – Watching Your Children Grow

18:50 – Confidence Tips: Impress Yourself First

Connect with Us

Don’t forget to subscribe to Her Unshakeable Confidence for more empowering stories and actionable insights. Leave us a review, share your favorite moments, and tag us on social media!

Take our new QUIZ and discover what’s really holding you back and how to break free.

Get Free AUDIOBOOK

Order Simone’s New Book 

REAL Confidence A Simple Guide to Go from Unsure to Unshakeable

Order Simone’s The Extraordinary UnOrdinary You Book

Connect with Simone Knego:

• Instagram: @simoneknego
• Facebook: @speakersimoneknego
• LinkedIn: simoneknego
• Website: www.simoneknego.com
• Book a free call with Simone

Connect with Olivia Knego:

• Instagram: @oliviaknego
• LinkedIn: oliviaknego

Looking for more?

Visit Our Etsy Shop: theunshakeablestudio

Check out our inspirational mugs, shirts, and more at The Unshakeable Studio. These items are filled with gratitude and designed to inspire personal transformation in one’s life.

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The post Unleash Your Family’s Power: Parenthood and Finding Your Voice! appeared first on Simone Knego.

If you’ve searched “how to feel more confident at work” or “how to stop feeling like a fraud” lately, you’re not alone. You’re part of a very large, very current wave.

Right now, confidence is having a rough year. Not just personal confidence. All of it. CEO confidence dropped in the first quarter of 2026 as tariff and geopolitical uncertainty stalled decisions. Consumer confidence took a hit too, with the University of Michigan’s Consumer Sentiment Index falling to its lowest reading since December. And inside organizations, only 58% of executives say they’re confident in how their company manages change, according to Perceptyx research.

When the people at the top feel shaky, that feeling doesn’t stay at the top. It trickles into every meeting, every performance review, every “do I actually belong here” moment your team is quietly having at their desks.

Why does workplace confidence feel lower right now?

Confidence at work is dropping for three overlapping reasons: economic uncertainty, organizational change fatigue, and a newer factor, AI reshaping what counts as valuable work. Each one on its own would be enough to shake people’s confidence. Together, they’re doing real damage to how capable people feel at their jobs.

The new twist: AI is changing what imposter syndrome looks like

Imposter syndrome used to show up at predictable career milestones. A first job. A promotion. A big career pivot. The advice was always the same: fake it until your confidence catches up with your experience.

That advice is running into a problem. A growing number of experienced professionals are describing something workplace researchers are now calling AI driven imposter syndrome. These people didn’t suddenly get less capable. The rules for what counts as valuable work are shifting faster than anyone can comfortably keep up with, and their confidence is taking the hit for it. That’s a genuinely different problem than “I’m new here and I don’t know what I’m doing yet,” and it needs a different kind of answer.

What percentage of people experience imposter syndrome?

Roughly 70% of people experience imposter syndrome at some point in their careers, according to research that’s been replicated across multiple populations since it was first identified by psychologists Pauline Rose Clance and Suzanne Imes. Among female executives specifically, KPMG found the number climbs to 75%.

Nearly half, 45%, of workers say they’ve avoided a promotion, a new role, or a stretch opportunity specifically because of imposter syndrome. That’s a talent pipeline problem dressed up as a soft skills problem. Every leader who quietly opts out of the next opportunity because they don’t feel ready is a leader your organization doesn’t get to develop.

And one more data point that I think matters more than people realize: research suggests that faking confidence, even when it feels hollow at first, can lead to a real and lasting increase in self belief over time. Confidence isn’t only built by feeling ready before you act. Sometimes it’s built by acting, and letting the feeling catch up.

Why affirmations alone won’t fix workplace confidence

A lot of workplace advice on confidence stops at “just believe in yourself” or “list your wins.” Those things help, but they’re not the whole answer, and treating them like the whole answer is part of why so many capable people still feel stuck.

Confidence that actually holds up under pressure is a practice, built the same way strength is built, through repetition, through evidence, and through a willingness to fail publicly and survive it.

This is where I always come back to what I call the REAL Method®. Real, lasting confidence comes down to four things:

Respect yourself. Not in a bumper sticker way. In the specific, daily way of not talking to yourself like you’d never talk to someone you respect.

Embrace your failures. Not as evidence you don’t belong, but as the actual raw material confidence is made from. You can’t build evidence of resilience without something to be resilient about. I’ve written more about redefining failure as a growth tool here.

Ask yourself what you want. So much workplace anxiety comes from chasing goals that were never actually yours. Confidence gets a lot easier to access when you’re aiming at something you actually chose.

Live without limits. Meaning the limits you’ve quietly accepted as permanent are usually more negotiable than they feel at 11pm on a Sunday.

What this means for the people leading teams right now

If you’re in HR, L&D, or leading a team through this stretch, here’s the practical takeaway. Your people aren’t imagining the uncertainty. It’s real, it’s economic, it’s organizational, and now it’s technological too. Telling them to “just be confident” without acknowledging that context will land flat.

What actually helps is building environments where people can take a visible risk, be wrong, and stay in the room. Psychological safety isn’t a nice to have this year. It’s the thing standing between a team that freezes under pressure and one that adapts.

Confidence, at the individual and the organizational level, isn’t about having zero doubt. It’s about knowing what to do with the doubt when it shows up. That’s a skill. It can be taught, practiced, and rebuilt, even in a year that’s given everyone plenty of reasons to lose it.

Frequently asked questions

What is causing low confidence at work right now? A mix of economic uncertainty, organizational change fatigue, and AI reshaping how work is evaluated. Leaders at every level, including CEOs, report lower confidence heading into 2026 than in prior years.

Is imposter syndrome the same as anxiety? Not exactly. Imposter syndrome is a psychological pattern, not a diagnosable condition, but it’s strongly associated with anxiety, burnout, and low self esteem, and the two often show up together.

Can confidence actually be rebuilt, or is it fixed? It can be rebuilt. Confidence works more like a skill or a muscle than a fixed trait. Practices like the REAL Method®, evidence based reflection, and psychological safety at the team level all measurably help.

Simone Knego is an international keynote speaker, USA Today bestselling author of REAL Confidence: A Simple Guide to Go from Unsure to Unshakeable, two time TEDx speaker, and host of the Her Unshakeable Confidence podcast. She helps HR leaders and organizations build the kind of workplace confidence that holds up under real pressure, not just the kind that looks good on a slide.

The post Why Confidence Feels Harder to Find Right Now (and What Actually Builds It Back) appeared first on Simone Knego.

Have you ever wondered what real confidence actually looks like? 

In this special episode of Her Unshakeable Confidence, Simone and Olivia Knego revisit a heartfelt conversation originally recorded before the release of Simone’s book, REAL Confidence: A Simple Guide to Go From Unsure to Unshakeable, which is now available. Together, they unpack the REAL Method while exploring self-respect, failure, self-worth, relationships, and the journey from seeking external validation to finding confidence within. 

Through honest stories, humor, and vulnerability, they share a reminder that confidence is not about perfection. It is about embracing who you are and changing the way you see yourself.

Actionable Takeaways

Respect yourself by setting boundaries and ending self-sabotaging behaviors.
Reframe failure as learning instead of proof that you are not enough.
Pay attention to the stories you tell yourself and challenge negative thoughts.
Ask yourself what you truly want instead of constantly putting others first.
Stop seeking external validation and begin building confidence from within.
Focus on showing up authentically rather than performing confidence.
Remember that confidence is not changing who you are. It is changing how you see yourself.

Chapters

00:00 – Introducing the REAL Method
02:18 – Respect Yourself and Stop Self-Sabotage
08:15 – Self-Talk and Changing the Story You Tell Yourself
14:12 – Control–Alt–Delete: Reframing Negative Thoughts
16:34 – Why Failure Is a Lesson, Not an Ending
26:31 – Asking Yourself What You Really Want
32:12 – Living Without Limits and Dropping the “Just”
35:42 – Performing Confidence vs Living It
42:03 – Healing Through Vulnerability and Sharing Your Story
46:13 – What Confidence Truly Means

Connect with Us

Don’t forget to subscribe to Her Unshakeable Confidence for more empowering stories and actionable insights. Leave us a review, share your favorite moments, and tag us on social media!

Take our new QUIZ and discover what’s really holding you back and how to break free.

Get Free AUDIOBOOK

Order Simone’s New Book 

REAL Confidence A Simple Guide to Go from Unsure to Unshakeable

Order Simone’s The Extraordinary UnOrdinary You Book

Connect with Simone Knego:

• Instagram: @simoneknego
• Facebook: @speakersimoneknego
• LinkedIn: simoneknego
• Website: www.simoneknego.com
• Book a free call with Simone

Connect with Olivia Knego:

• Instagram: @oliviaknego
• LinkedIn: oliviaknego

Looking for more?

Visit Our Etsy Shop: theunshakeablestudio

Check out our inspirational mugs, shirts, and more at The Unshakeable Studio. These items are filled with gratitude and designed to inspire personal transformation in one’s life.

Listen to Episode on:

The post REAL Confidence: A Candid Conversation With My Daughter appeared first on Simone Knego.

The post Top Confidence and Leadership Keynote Speakers for HR and People Teams in 2026 appeared first on Simone Knego.

Every company says they want innovative employees. Almost none of them have built a culture where it’s actually safe to be wrong.

That gap is costing more than morale. According to PwC’s Global Workforce Hopes and Fears Survey, only 56% of workers feel it’s safe to try new approaches at work, and just 54% say their team treats failures as opportunities to learn and improve. The same research found employees with the highest levels of psychological safety are 72% more motivated than those with the least.

So here’s the leadership development gap nobody’s talking about: companies will spend big on communication training, time management workshops, and DEI seminars. Almost none of them teach leaders how to fail in front of their teams, talk about it, and turn it into something useful. That’s not a soft skill. It’s the skill that determines whether your best people speak up or stay quiet, whether they take the smart risk or play it safe, and whether they stick around long enough to become your next generation of leaders.

The Data Behind the Silence

Fear of failure isn’t a personality quirk. It’s a measurable, costly pattern showing up across the workforce right now.

• A 2026 study from INTOO and The Harris Poll found 74% of U.S. employees say innovation is part of their job, yet 41% worry a single mistake could cost them their job.
• Research from Nyenrode Business University and IE University found that more than 40% of employees experience fear of failure between 20-40% of the time or more, and nearly half believe they’d perform better at work if that fear weren’t there.
• Organizations with high psychological safety see a meaningful boost in innovation and a notable drop in turnover, while teams without it watch their best ideas stay unspoken.

Put those together and the picture is clear: your team has ideas. They’re just not bringing them to you, because somewhere along the way, they learned that being wrong costs more than staying quiet costs.

Why “Fail Fast” Culture Talk Doesn’t Fix This

Plenty of companies have a poster in the break room about embracing failure. Posters don’t change behavior. Leaders do.

Employees don’t calibrate their risk-taking based on what’s written in the values deck. They calibrate it based on what happened the last time someone on their team got something wrong. Did their manager use it as a teaching moment? Or did it quietly show up in their next performance review?

This is where leadership development almost always misses the mark. We train leaders to give feedback, to coach, to delegate. We rarely train them to model failure themselves, out loud, in front of their team, without spinning it into a humble-brag about how it all worked out in the end.

Picture two managers who both miss a deadline because they misjudged the timeline on a project. The first calls a quick team huddle, says plainly what they got wrong in their planning, and asks the team what they’d flag earlier next time. The second quietly absorbs the blame, fixes it themselves, and never mentions it again.

Six months later, those two teams look completely different. The first manager’s team brings them problems early, because they’ve watched what happens when something goes sideways: it gets named, fixed, and moved past. The second manager’s team has learned the opposite lesson, that mistakes disappear quietly or they don’t happen at all, which means problems surface later and bigger, usually right before a deadline instead of three weeks ahead of one.

Same mistake. Same outcome on the project itself. Completely different effect on how the team behaves going forward.

What Embracing Failure as a Leadership Tool Actually Looks Like

This isn’t about throwing out accountability or pretending mistakes don’t matter. It’s about building the muscle to respond to failure in a way that makes your team braver, not smaller.

1. Leaders narrate their own missteps in real time. Not the polished, years-later version with a tidy lesson attached. The actual moment: what they got wrong, what they noticed, what they’re adjusting. When a leader does this consistently, it gives everyone else permission to do the same.

2. Mistakes get separated from identity. The difference between “I failed” and “I am a failure” is the entire difference between a team that takes smart risks and a team that plays defense all day. Leaders set that tone, whether they mean to or not.

3. The first conversation after a mistake is about learning, not blame. Save the performance conversation for patterns, not single moments. If the first question after something goes wrong is “what happened” instead of “whose fault is this,” people stay engaged instead of going quiet.

4. Recovery becomes part of the story, not something to bury. Teams that watch a leader recover from a real setback learn more about resilience than any training module could teach them.

This is the foundation of the REAL Method®, where embracing your failures isn’t a footnote, it’s one of the four pillars of building real, lasting confidence at work.

What This Actually Costs You in Turnover

The clearest business case for embracing failure shows up in retention numbers, not just innovation metrics.

Organizations that prioritize psychological safety, the same trust that lets people admit mistakes without fear, see meaningfully lower turnover alongside their innovation gains. PwC’s research found that 22% of employees say they’ve left a company specifically because of trust issues with leadership, and 61% say a perceived lack of trust directly impacts their ability to do their job well. For teams that include women, employees of color, people with disabilities, or LGBTQ+ employees, the retention impact of psychological safety is even more pronounced, with some research showing retention rates increase by four to six times when that safety is present.

Run the math on what that means for a mid-sized team. If even a handful of your strongest people are quietly disengaging because they’re managing the fear of getting something wrong rather than focusing on the work itself, you’re not just losing ideas. You’re losing the people who had them, usually to a competitor who figured this out first.

The Business Case Is Already in the Numbers

This isn’t a feel-good argument. It’s a retention and innovation argument. SHRM’s State of the Workplace research shows leadership and manager development has been the top CHRO priority for two years running, and the organizations getting it right are seeing it show up in productivity and innovation metrics, not just engagement surveys.

If your leadership development strategy doesn’t include how leaders handle their own failure, you’re building confident-sounding leaders who quietly teach their teams to play it safe. And in a market where innovation is the job description for nearly three out of four employees, playing it safe is its own kind of risk.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why is failure considered a leadership development tool? Because how a leader responds to their own mistakes, not just their team’s, sets the standard for how much risk people are willing to take. Leadership development that skips this teaches confidence on the surface while teaching caution underneath it.

What’s the difference between psychological safety and just being lenient on mistakes? Psychological safety means people trust that raising a problem or admitting an error will be met with problem-solving, not punishment. It has nothing to do with lowering standards. Teams with high psychological safety still hold a high bar; they just get there faster because people speak up before small issues become big ones.

How do you build a culture that embraces failure without losing accountability? Separate the conversation about what happened from the conversation about patterns. A single mistake is a learning moment. A repeated mistake, after support and clarity were already given, is a performance conversation. Conflating the two is what makes leaders either too harsh on one-off errors or too soft on real patterns.

What’s a simple first step for a leader who wants to try this? Talk about one of your own recent mistakes with your team before asking them to talk about theirs. Leaders who go first see the fastest shift in how openly their team communicates.

Related Reading

• The Hidden Cost of a Low-Confidence Culture
• Why Confidence Is the Foundation of Every High-Performing Team
• How to Lead a Stuck Team (And What Great Leaders Do Differently)

Simone Knego is a keynote speaker, USA Today bestselling author of REAL Confidence, and host of Her Unshakeable Confidence. She helps organizations build teams that take smart risks instead of safe ones.

The post Why Embracing Failure Is the Most Underused Leadership Development Tool appeared first on Simone Knego.

Have you ever held yourself back because you were waiting for someone else to join you?

In this episode of Her Unshakeable Confidence, Simone and Olivia Knego discuss Olivia’s summer adventure of moving to a new city, living alone for the first time, and stepping into her dream internship. Together, they explore the confidence that comes from trying new experiences, embracing independence, and taking action instead of waiting for the perfect moment. Through honest conversations about self-discovery, personal growth, and navigating unfamiliar situations, they share why some of life’s greatest opportunities come when you’re willing to step outside your comfort zone.

Actionable Takeaways

• Stop waiting for others to do the things you want to experience.
• Take action even when you’re uncomfortable or uncertain.
• Use new experiences as opportunities to learn more about yourself.
• Treat yourself with the same respect and care you expect from others.
• Explore new places, ideas, and opportunities with curiosity.
• Remember that confidence is built through action, not waiting.

Chapters

00:00 – Olivia’s Summer Adventure Begins
02:00 – Adjusting to a New City and Living Alone
04:05 – Why You Should Stop Waiting for Others
07:20 – Learning Independence Through Daily Life
12:40 – Treating Yourself with Respect First
14:35 – Exploring a New City and New Opportunities
16:55 – Regrets, Study Abroad, and Taking Chances
19:05 – Confidence Through New Experiences
21:18 – Taking Action Builds Confidence

Connect with Us

Don’t forget to subscribe to Her Unshakeable Confidence for more empowering stories and actionable insights. Leave us a review, share your favorite moments, and tag us on social media!

Take our new QUIZ and discover what’s really holding you back and how to break free.

Get Free AUDIOBOOK

Order Simone’s New Book 

REAL Confidence A Simple Guide to Go from Unsure to Unshakeable

Order Simone’s The Extraordinary UnOrdinary You Book

Connect with Simone Knego:

• Instagram: @simoneknego
• Facebook: @speakersimoneknego
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I just became a grandma for the first time.

He’s going to call me Mona one day.

For now I’m just getting used to being someone’s grandma at all, and I love every second of it.

But the part that’s stuck with me most isn’t about me.

It’s watching my son and daughter in law step into parenthood and figure it out together.

Day by day, decision by decision, they’re doing an amazing job.

They had nine months to prepare. They read the books, took the classes, set up the nursery, asked the right questions ahead of time. You can tell.

But preparation only gets you to the door.

The real test starts the moment he’s actually here. That’s where I’ve watched their confidence show up.

They trust their gut, they ask for help when they need it, they adjust on the fly when the plan meets real life at three in the morning.

Most people just don’t call that confidence when it shows up in a nursery instead of a boardroom.

I’ve spent years on stages talking about what confidence looks like in leadership. Frameworks, slides, stories about boardrooms and big career moments.

Now I’m watching the same thing play out in their house with a newborn.

Preparation gives you a foundation.

Confidence comes from what you do once you’re standing on it.

A few things I keep coming back to as I watch them:

Preparation and confidence aren’t the same skill.

They read up, took the classes, did the research. They still spent the first week home figuring out things no book covers.

What time he actually wants to eat versus what the schedule says. How he likes to be held when he’s fussy. Which cry means hungry and which one means something else entirely.

None of that comes from a book. It comes from paying attention and adjusting in real time, which is exactly what they’ve done.

I’m learning from them.

I raised six kids and figured I’d seen most of it. I haven’t.

They communicate differently than I did, they divide the work differently, no rigid roles, just whoever has the bandwidth in that moment. They ask for help without the guilt I used to carry, the guilt that told me asking for help meant I wasn’t doing enough.

Leading well sometimes means watching the people coming up behind you and taking notes instead of giving them.

Confidence sounds like steadiness, not certainty.

No panic. No second guessing every decision out loud in front of each other. Just two people moving through something hard, together, dividing up the 2 a.m. feedings and the diaper changes without keeping score.

That’s the same thing I describe on stages when I talk about leadership under pressure.

Confidence isn’t having the answer. It’s making the call anyway, and trusting you’ll adjust if you need to.

This is their thing. I’m just here to help when needed.

I don’t feel any pull to take over, because it’s not mine to take over.

I have thirty plus years of parenting instincts telling me how I’d swaddle him, how I’d handle the crying, what worked for my six. Honestly, I wouldn’t do it any differently.

What matters is letting them build their own rhythm as parents, in their own way, without me weighing in unless they ask.

It’s the same thing I talk about with leaders at work. People do their best work when you let them do their own thing without judgment, when you trust them enough to figure out their own approach instead of handing them yours.

We’re quick to tell people what they should be doing when we don’t actually know the full situation they’re living in. Their day, their baby, their marriage, their exhaustion level at 3 a.m.

I only see a slice of it. That’s not enough information to start handing out advice nobody asked for.

Watching them has been one of the proudest moments of my life.

It’s gone pretty smoothly, honestly, and what gets me is how calm they are through all of it. Even the lack of sleep doesn’t rattle them, because they know that’s just part of it.

No drama, no complaining, just two people enjoying this season for exactly what it is.

That’s exactly what confidence looks like when nobody’s watching and there’s no stage lights involved.

This is the confidence I want more people to see modeled. Real preparation, paired with the steadiness to handle whatever the plan didn’t cover.

It’s the same thing I see in people right before they walk into a leadership role for the first time, step on a stage for the first time, or take a seat at a table they weren’t sure they belonged at.

They’ve done the prep work. They’ve read the reports, rehearsed the pitch, studied the data. And then the real moment arrives, and the prep work only gets them to the door.

What happens next is the same thing happening in my son’s house right now.

Trust your gut. Ask for help. Adjust in real time. Keep showing up.

You don’t need every answer before you start.

You need the willingness to stay steady while you figure out the rest.

That’s true whether you’re walking into a boardroom or walking into parenthood for the very first time.

Proud Mona over here!

The post What Watching My Son and Daughter in Law Become Parents Taught Me About Confidence appeared first on Simone Knego.