Embracing Your WEIRDNESS is the Secret to Lasting Confidence with April Diaz

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
And one of the things I talk about often is
the idea of faking it until you make it, which
again I don't believe in at all, but would love
to hear your thoughts on. When people say, oh, just
fake it till you make it, you're good.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
I'm so glad that you said that you don't believe
in it or you don't like it, because I was like, Oh,
if she does, I'm I'm gonna have to tread real
lately or go about it in a different way. Yeah,
I think it's total bullshit, just to be like very
I think it's a really unhealthy way to go about
life because it disembodies you, creates disintegration, it's not authentic,

(00:43):
and I don't think it actually gets you to where
you want to go. Maybe this is just a simple
little trajectory shift in it. But when folks say, you know,
I'm just gonna fake it till you make it, I say,
what if instead we train differently so that you can
get different results.

Speaker 3 (01:00):
Welcome to her Unshakeable Confidence with Dynamic Mother Daughter duo
Simone and Olivia Conego, where they discuss the secrets of
transformation and how to build bold confidence and unwavering resilience.
From intimate conversations with inspiring guests to sharing their personal
journeys of triumph and challenge. Simone and Olivia create a
supportive space where every woman is encouraged to rise above

(01:23):
her fears and love the woman in the mirror, Tune
into her unshakeable confidence, and join this special journey of
connection and growth. It's like catching up with old friends
who inspire you to be bravely and uniquely.

Speaker 1 (01:36):
You welcome to this week's episode of her Unshakeable Confidence.
I'm Simone Canego and I'm Olivia Canego and today we
have April Dias with us. So I met April. Welcome April.
Let's start with that.

Speaker 2 (01:51):
Thank you. It's great to be here.

Speaker 1 (01:53):
See I say like I messed up up all the
time and you. But so we met through Brand Builders group.
We met at an event. We sat at the same table,
and she's super cool. She's got a lot of great
things going on. And we actually when we first started talking,
we were like, oh, we have something big in common.

(02:16):
What's the big thing we have in common.

Speaker 2 (02:18):
We both have Ethiopian kiddos and biological kiddos, and so
we've got this big beautiful blended, interracial, multi ethnic family.
But the Ethiopia piece was pretty cool, pretty special because
that doesn't happen super often.

Speaker 1 (02:31):
Yeah, I was like, you have what you have?

Speaker 2 (02:33):
What? So it's like an instant bond, Like, oh, so
many things to talk about here.

Speaker 1 (02:39):
I know, and it really does bond you like it's
such a it is an interesting thing that happens. But
so that might become part of our conversation today. But
we want to start off with a question that I
really love because it's so interesting to hear each time
how guests respond differently, like everybody. And this is what's
in important is because whoever you are, that whatever you

(03:04):
answer to something, it needs to be unique to you.
It's not because you copied someone else or felt like
you had to say it a certain way. So what
does confidence mean to you?

Speaker 2 (03:16):
Confidence means, I think, the courage to match your insides
with your outsides, that what is internal shows up externally,
and that there is an aligned and integratedness to who
you are and how you show up in the world.

(03:36):
I think that's the first thing. The second thing that
confidence means to me is like the full representation of
who you are. So I think those are interconnected to
each other. But it's like, like I just was on
a call with a friend and client and she said, like,
one of the things that I love about you, April

(03:58):
is like you just say what you mean and you
don't like hold back. And there's a confidence piece in
there for her that she there's a connection that her
and I have with each other in that because she's like,
I want more of that, and I see you practicing
that and so like that. Yeah, that practice of being
able to express what is internal externally, there's a holisticness

(04:19):
to that.

Speaker 1 (04:21):
Yeah, it's I love both of the things you've said there,
but I wanted to say that the kind of embracing
all the parts of you. So I'm actually doing a
speech later this week and one of the things I'm
talking about is how, you know, we go to a
networking event and how do we introduce ourselves, Like, oh, hi,

(04:42):
I'm Simone Canego and the keynote speaker today. Okay, that's
not who I am, right, it's all the things inside
of me. And you know, yes, I have six children,
We've adopted children. I went to school for accounting and
I was miserable, and then I went back to school
to be a team. I mean, there's so many different things,
you know. I love to collect masks from all over

(05:03):
the world, but when we go to networking, we tend
to just say this is who I am, and that's
not who you are. And so I think a big
part of confidence is embracing all of the different parts.
So I love that.

Speaker 2 (05:16):
Yeah, Oh, can I add one more thing to that?

Speaker 1 (05:18):
Actually, yeah, of course.

Speaker 2 (05:20):
One of the things that has helped in my own
confidence journey is owning my whole story. And one of
the things that I say a lot is your whole
story matters. And so even as like an adoptive mom,
right like our kids have come from really hard places
and have experienced things that I will never understand or experience.
And one of the things we said to our kiddos
from the time they were like two years old, like

(05:42):
before they even understand what this meant, is your whole
story matters. And it's now a kind of a core
philosophy belief in my business and in the work that
I do with leaders, is your whole story matters. And
when we isolate segments detac which from parts of our stories,
I actually think it harms our confidence because we know

(06:04):
there's like a piece of us out here that is
not connected to the hole, and so we're constantly like
posturing or puffing up or powering up in ways that
aren't authentic to who we actually are. And so I
think you one of the ways you build your confidence
is by owning and embracing your whole story so that
you can walk fully in the shoes that you got.

Speaker 1 (06:27):
And I do think that is so important. I will
tell you that I didn't realize that for a very
long time, I was someone that really struggled with self
doubt because of an experience I had when I was
a teenager. I had an abusive boyfriend. And now I
talk about it all the time, because I didn't realize
for years that that was one of the big pieces
I was missing to kind of allow me to step

(06:49):
into my confidence because I just shoved it down. I
stuffed it down. I didn't talk about it. I mean, yes,
the kids knew about it, my husband knew about it,
but it wasn't something that I would openly say to anyone. Yeah,
but when I realized, when I started kind of embracing
all the different parts of me, then I was like, oh,
there's nothing to be ashamed of. There's there's no shame here,

(07:11):
there's no guilt here. Is these are all the parts
of me, and I think that has made such a
big change for me.

Speaker 2 (07:18):
Yeah, and a lot of times it's those parts that
are painful. But I am a huge believer that your
pain can become this place of supernatural power. And that's
where we feel powerless, is when we're not owning those
painful places or those parts of us that we don't
really like or we feel like are a little quirky
or off or whatever. But like again, when there's kind

(07:38):
of that embrace and that owning, it can become this
place of power, and then it's like, that's like real confidence.
It's not posturing confidence. Confidence, it's like the whole thing.

Speaker 4 (07:50):
I guess one of the things I think I struggle
with is incorporating all of the parts of me just
in different settings. I feel like I let go of
certain parts just to fit the vibe. Maybe that's the
appropriate saying there.

Speaker 5 (08:06):
And I do feel like there is kind of like
a lack Like recently I had as a law school
prom and you finally got to show like the fun
side of everyone's personalities.

Speaker 6 (08:18):
And I think it was like a for me. I
realized that.

Speaker 4 (08:22):
I've been judging people way too harshly based off the
personas that they put on in school and vice versa.
Like I've been a lot more friendly now with people,
and people have been a lot more friendly with me
now that we've really experienced each other's personalities.

Speaker 2 (08:36):
I love that. I love that you got another opportunity
to reveal a different part of you. Yeah, to the
people that you've been walking through law school with and
the fact that you had some openness to go maybe
I got it wrong about you, maybe or not is whatever,
and there might be more to you than I thought.
That's cool.

Speaker 1 (08:55):
Yeah, I think that's really cool. You didn't tell me
that story, so it's good to hear it because I do.
I do think that, like, no matter we're all human
and no matter how hard we try to walk into
a room and say like, Okay, I'm not going to
judge anybody, I'm just I'm not going to even think
about that stuff, like there are things that pop into
your head and then but the important part is getting
to know the other person, taking the time, and then

(09:17):
taking those barriers down because we all have them. We
all we all have this idea that we want people
to see us a certain way. And what you're going
to realize is that doing that doesn't make you stronger.
It's when you go ahead and take down those barriers
and say, hey, this is me and hopefully you'll love
me how I am. And if you don't, you know what,

(09:39):
there's other people that will.

Speaker 2 (09:41):
Yeah, I mean, Olivia. I think that that brings up
an interesting point for me as I'm reflecting on what
you said, and that is judgment disconnects us from one another,
and I think that the best way to connect is curiosity.
So judgment does connects, curiosity connects And I'll admit I'm
like the Queen of judgment because it seems very efficient, right.

(10:03):
It's like I can I can figure things out and
figure out like who's worth the time to talk to you?
And like it's it's a very it's a very limiting
approach to have judgment, but it feels efficient at the time.
But what you did at your lostco problem is you
had some curiosity about these people that are sitting in
the stats next to you and going through courses with you,
classes with you over this period of time, and that

(10:26):
curiosity has allowed for some connection, and I wonder, I
just know our world would be a very different place
and people would have even more confidence in themselves if
they had a curious posture. I met somebody recently who
I had a very strong sense of who they were
and their story, and it didn't connect to me, like

(10:48):
it didn't make sense to me. And then I ended
up having another conversation with them, and I heard a
lot of the backstory of this person, and their perception
to me was very different from their actual story. And
she wasn't she wasn't trying to posture or prove herself
to be one way versus the other. It's just I

(11:09):
had my own judgments and my own thoughts about like
who she was and how she was showing up in
the world. And then I heard her story and I
was like, holy crap, I got that so wrong. And
I was grateful that there was a little bit of
curiosity in me to go, like what else is here,
and like, tell me more about how you got to

(11:30):
where you are right now, And in that conversation it
opened up so much more. And now I'm just fascinated
by her because like her work and what she looks
like and what she does is there's so much more
richness to her and it has made me better in
the short period of time that I've known her. And again,
I wonder how much better our world would be if

(11:50):
we had an ounce more of curiosity.

Speaker 6 (11:53):
I completely agree with that.

Speaker 1 (11:56):
Yeah, I think it's really important. It's something I haven't
thought about in that respect, but I think that, you know,
I think about, Okay, stop the judgment. But it's kind
of the positive side of it is be more curious
because when you're more curious, you find out more and
then you stop the judgment anyways, So I love that now.

Speaker 2 (12:16):
It's like the antidote to judgments is curiosity.

Speaker 1 (12:20):
Yeah, something new for my world today. So let's talk
about holistic confidence because I know that's something that you'd
like to talk about, and I just want to hear
more about what you think about because everybody has ideas okay, confidence,
this confidence that what do you mean from the holistic
side of it.

Speaker 2 (12:41):
Yeah, So I think that everyone is confident in some way,
they have some ounce of confidence somewhere, but then there's
another part of themselves where it can break down for
one reason or another. I think a lot of the
reasons why people don't have confidence it is because they're
not getting wins. They haven't defined what a win looks

(13:03):
like for them, and so there's like a weakness or
soft spot where they feel that insecurity or that imposter syndrome,
or you know, that sense of self doubt. And so
holistic confidence to me looks like paying attention to your
whole self, to your whole story. And so in the
work that I do, it's in the six parts of

(13:25):
being your whole self. It starts with physical, and it
involves your emotional, your mental, your relational, your spiritual, and
your renewal. And where there is a piece of yourself
where you're not feeling confident, it will show up in
those other parts. But if you want to increase confidence
in one of those parts, there are some specific things

(13:47):
that you can do in order to kind of pull
those triggers and help to elevate confidence in that part
of yourself, which will impact your whole self. Does that
make sense? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (13:56):
Absolutely so. Are there certain areas that you tend to
see people struggle more when you look at the different
parts to it?

Speaker 2 (14:06):
Yeah, I would say the number one part for women
is physical that's what our data shows. At least every
woman that I have met has had a trickier relationship
with her body in some way, shape or form, at
some part some point in her life. In some ways,

(14:26):
it's cultural, right, like society is real brutal on women
and what we're supposed to look like and how we're
supposed to show up in the world physically. But some
of it is also because our bodies as women just
go through the frickin' rainer. I mean not just every
twenty eight days, but in like every season of life,
there's just a lot. I mean, Olivia, how old are you,
I'm twenty two, twenty two, so I mean yeah, from

(14:50):
the time that we're small and especially triggering and puberty,
all the way through menopause, like there are major, major
shifts that happened in our body. So I think that
is definitely the number one is women are experiencing some
confidence issues in our bodies. How we're feeling, how we're
showing up in the world, what we're able to have

(15:13):
the capacity to do with our bodies, All of that
is connected. But then I would say the second part
that feels most stretched or has the most tension is
in the renewal space. It is in how do we
process and handle stress and how do we move through
the world without burning out? Like how do we fulfill

(15:33):
our capacity and our potential without burning out? And there's
a real sense of like confidence crisis of can I
do it all and still hold on to myself?

Speaker 1 (15:46):
And do you think people can do it all? Because
I'm so Here's why I asked that question. Yeah, so
you know, there's so much discussion about balance. I'm just
not a balanced believer because I believe that, yes, overall,
in life, like you have certain things, but each day
is something different, Like today you spend a lot of

(16:07):
time on phone calls, right, And there's certain days where
I spend tons of time working and I don't have
as much time for my family or for myself, and
other days I spend more time on myself. So it's
kind of like I look at prioritizing versus actually thinking
about balancing. So what's your thoughts on that?

Speaker 2 (16:28):
Yeah, we're sympatic on that. Simone. I think balance is
a myth. I think balance is something you swing through
from one extreme to another. I'm much more a fan
of rhythms. I remember, right, like probably a year before
I became a mom. But another mom that I really
respected who was super high achieving, She was very ambitious,
she had like all this. She was a badass, leading
in incredible ways. And she said, April, some ty, some

(16:52):
days you're going to be really awesome at home and
really bad at work, and other days you're going to
be really bad at work and really great at home.
And the balance is kind of this longer term projectory
or projection of like is their overall balance? Right? I
also remember, like when our kids first came home, I
was like paranoid that I was not giving them balanced

(17:14):
meals every day. I was like, they're not getting enough
fruits and veggies today, Like all they want to do
is eat you know, chicken nuggets today, or all they
want to do is eat bread. And I remember girlfriends
to me saying like, look at the whole week are
they Are they getting you know a good amount of
those fruits and veggies throughout the week and not just
maybe in one single meal. And I was like, oh, okay,

(17:34):
so yeah, I do believe that we can have it all,
but we can't have it all all of the time.
And there are going to be some periods where like,
there are things that are really high and other things
that are really low, and that's the balanceness over time.
I'm with you.

Speaker 1 (17:49):
When my husband was in residency, so he's a surgeon,
and when he was in residency, his attending said to him, so,
just so you know, you're either going to be a
really great father or a really great surgeon, or at
best you'll be mediocre at both. You have to decide.
And he was like, what are you saying to me?

(18:12):
But I mean that's not how he sees it. He
sees it as like there's days, yes, he is super
skilled and he is a great surgeon, and there's days
where he is going to spend twelve hours doing work
and he'll come home and we'll be asleep, right And
then there's other days where he's like, oh, like yesterday,
he's like I'm done, it's two o'clock and I'm like,

(18:34):
I love that, but I am actually working right now,
so I can't just like chill and hang out. But
you know, it's always interesting to hear people's perspectives of,
you know, how you have to live your life in
a certain way and basically you have to do all
these things and make yourself miserable because you're not going
to be good enough.

Speaker 2 (18:51):
And I just don't agree with any of that. Yeah,
I mean that's a great example by your husband. And
at the end of the day, you have to lead
yourself holistically first, and so again there's a longer term
perspective on how do you do that, not just the
twenty four hour cycle, but a period of time where
how are you actually leading yourself physically, emotionally, relationally, mentally

(19:13):
throughout it all? And there might be times where you're
pulling out and going I need like a concentrated time
to renew and to recover my life. And there might
be times where you need to be like all in
like Olivia, I would guess for you being in laws
scowl right now, Like you've got some long, steady days,
right for sure. And there's a focus and a prioritization
here to lead yourself holistically so that you're able to

(19:36):
finish the degree, so you're able to pass the bar. Right,
You've got to consider all of these other factors of
your life in order to get you to the place
that you want to go.

Speaker 4 (19:44):
Yeah, I think what I have learned in this past,
what if it's been like almost I'm almost done with
my second semester of my first year.

Speaker 6 (19:53):
Is that balance does not exist at all.

Speaker 4 (19:55):
And I think the best way to explain that is
usually based off the state of my apartment. I like
to keep it clean, Like I'm genuinely I try to
be a cleaner person.

Speaker 1 (20:06):
Okay now while she's home, though, you know, okay, none is.

Speaker 6 (20:08):
Actually completely changed.

Speaker 2 (20:09):
Okay.

Speaker 4 (20:10):
Growing up, I was very messy, and then I moved
out into my own space in college and I realized, huh,
making your bed actually makes your room look nice.

Speaker 6 (20:17):
You do have to do the dishes on a daily basis.

Speaker 4 (20:20):
But so like, I was looking around my apartment today
and I was like, it's been a while since I've
dusted everything.

Speaker 6 (20:25):
And I think that's like a really good example.

Speaker 4 (20:27):
Because I've been focusing so much on school, I don't
have to be dusting every week.

Speaker 6 (20:31):
That's not the priority. The priority is school.

Speaker 4 (20:34):
But when I do find that free moment, it is
like nice to take care of the things that are
in school.

Speaker 2 (20:40):
And when you do that, you get a boost confidence,
don't you? Oh yeah, cause you why why do you
get a boosta confidence when that happens?

Speaker 4 (20:47):
Because it's checking something off my list. I love the feeling,
regardless of how big or small it is. And my homeless,
my outside of school is kind of sits untouched for
a very long time until I can get to it
just because of the nature of what I'm doing.

Speaker 6 (21:02):
And it feels really nice to get that thing off.

Speaker 4 (21:03):
And it's also just like, hey, you did something productive,
like good for you.

Speaker 2 (21:07):
You got to win, yeah, and you did something that
mattered to you. I think that's the other thing when
I think about confidence again, particularly for women, is that
confidence like we get to define what matters to us
and where we will feel to win, right, whether that's
fitting into the pair of genes, that your favorite pair

(21:28):
of jeans that you love, or having your apartment dusted,
or that you get straight a's for a semester. Like,
you get confidence based on the goals achievement that matter
to you, so you define it.

Speaker 6 (21:44):
I like that like that you build it yourself through.

Speaker 4 (21:49):
I mean it seems way more achievable that way than
just saying have some confidence.

Speaker 2 (21:54):
And it's embodied. Like I think part of the BS
about like even imposter syndrome, is it's based on somebody
else's exterior external projection onto you of like this is
what you need to be doing in order to feel
validated or to feel valid or valued. And it's like,

(22:15):
who says, Like, what matters to me is this, And
so if I do this, then I'm gonna walk a
little taller, I'm gonna put my shoulders back, I'm gonna
have a little strutt messed up because I did something
that mattered to me, and it was it was probably
even just for me, but other people benefited. Win win.

Speaker 1 (22:35):
You're a big duster.

Speaker 6 (22:36):
Now I haven't dusted yet.

Speaker 1 (22:40):
I was like, Okay, I think, I mean, but I
do think those little things are important. You know, we
tend to look at wins as like these huge things
like okay, I did I finished my thirty two page paper. Okay,
well what about just you know, you went to the
grocery store and bought something other than Cheeto's, right, I mean, yeah,
we don't give ourselves credit for the little things that
we're doing, and I think we have to remind ourselves

(23:01):
that everything counts. When we do something, it's a win,
it's a win.

Speaker 2 (23:05):
It does totally.

Speaker 1 (23:08):
So you had some struggles over the last few years
with your health and so I'm very curious about it
because I had another friend go through something similar and
I kind of wanted to hear about your experience and
how it even started.

Speaker 2 (23:24):
Oh my gosh. Yeah, So we're recording this on March
the twenty fifth, twenty twenty five, and March thirtieth, two
years ago. I got really sick overnight out of nowhere,
just like my body crashed and literally non functional, like
couldn't get out of bed, and ended up going to

(23:48):
a series of doctors, having hundreds of blood tests done,
a bunch of referrals to all kinds of you know,
different kinds of doctors, infectious disease and rheumatologists and all
sorts of and nobody could figure out what was wrong.
Everyone was like, you're fine. Every test came back normal,
everything tested within like what was supposed to be, and

(24:10):
I was like, I'm clearly not normal. I literally was
pretty non functional for the better part of six months.
And then I found a different kind of doctor, functional medicine,
and within a couple of weeks they had a pretty
good idea of what was going on, did some different
kinds of testing, and the results came back very conclusive.

(24:30):
I had a highly elevated mold toxicity. And the first
conversation that I had with my doctor was, Listen, I'm
forty three years old, but I am not moldy. Yeah,
I had a lot of life to live. I'm getting older,
but I'm not moldy. And he chuckled, and it set
me on a trajectory of really intense treatments. So it

(24:51):
has been almost two years to the day since I
got sick. It's been a roller coaster. I have had
lots of ups and downs, and treatment has been really intense.
In twenty twenty four, I had over two hundred medical claims,
a couple hundred thousand dollars worth of medical treatment, and
my capacity was significantly lower as my body was healing.

(25:15):
We had a move it was It's literally been the
worst two years of my life. It has been devastating
on every single level. And honestly, it has caused me
to like double and triple down on this whole idea
of holistic leadership because I have had to practice what

(25:36):
I've preached. I have had to I've been like case
study number one all over again. Of does the stuff
that I talk about, the ways that I coach leaders
is it actually true even in the worst of times
and the worst of circumstances. And I'm not out of
the journey yet. I'm still in process and my body

(25:56):
is still healing and recovering two years later. But I
would say I believe even more deeply that this is
the only way to live life is with this holistic approach,
because without it, like just things fall apart and there's disintegration.
So it has been, it's been wild.

Speaker 6 (26:17):
I've the first question off the bat, is mold in
your house?

Speaker 4 (26:23):
Yeah, okay, this has been a growing issue that I've
been seeing all over social media, especially in dorm rooms
in colleges that have not been renovated for years. And
the idea that like this like frat plague or whatever,
what do they call it? The frat flu is not
actually a frat flu.

Speaker 6 (26:41):
It's just mold toxicity. And the more and here, like
is this a real thing? People don't take mold seriously enough.

Speaker 4 (26:48):
I think probably half of New York City is having
issues with mold in their apartments.

Speaker 6 (26:53):
Super scary thing. Also wanted to add that when I
so I have Crone's disease and so chronic illness.

Speaker 4 (27:00):
When I first diagnosed I can totally relate the first
two years.

Speaker 6 (27:03):
First year was so.

Speaker 4 (27:05):
Miserable for me because it was not only so draining
on my body, but the idea like I'm stuck with
this forever.

Speaker 6 (27:13):
And I was sixteen when I was diagnosed.

Speaker 2 (27:15):
Wow, and.

Speaker 4 (27:17):
Yeah it was terrifying at the time, and you let
like I didn't. I felt like I didn't process it
for a long time looking back that it was just
this thing I had and I did a medication for it,
and that's it.

Speaker 6 (27:32):
But it's so much more.

Speaker 4 (27:34):
It affects me on so much more of it everyday
level and a mental level and a physical level. It's
so hard to explain to people that don't go through
chronic illnesses like how tiring it is.

Speaker 6 (27:44):
But just know that people are out there that I
understand you and I'm so sorry.

Speaker 2 (27:50):
Yeah, I mean same. I think one of the gifts
of the nightmare has been I have such deeper empathy
and compassion for folks that have been or are going
through chronic things. I mean, prior to getting sick, I
was literally the healthiest, strongest, fittest, leanest I'd ever been
in my forty three years of life at that point,
and and then like it was like the bottom fell
out for me, and I was like what it just

(28:12):
did not compute that I could go from like, you know,
this place to this place but now, Like one of
the things that I have felt really grateful about is
that every doctor and my husband have believed me, and
that's not common, for it is not most I learned

(28:34):
it takes seven to ten years on average for women
to get diagnosed with mold toxicity. It took me six months,
and I felt like it was hew, like it was
the longest part because I had never been sick for
the long I was never sick before and so six
months of being sick was like, what is going on?
What is wrong with me? So yeah, I mean I
my heart breaks and I also feel like a fierce

(28:56):
advocate now of like there are answers, there are solutions,
there is a forward. One of my core pillars is
that your body is the basis for your whole life,
and when your body suffers, everything else does too. Like
you just described to Livia, like, emotionally, wow, going to
the depths, the grief, the conflicting emotions. Mentally, like the

(29:19):
way that your thoughts go like can get wild, relationally
has an impact because for me, like my world got
real small, like it was, I had no capacity for
anybody other than really my husband, my kiddos, and a
couple of really close friends. I had no capacity relationally.
It just it impacts every other part. And so yeah,
to pay attention to the whole thing is a great

(29:41):
need and consequence.

Speaker 6 (29:43):
Did anyone else in your house it gets sick?

Speaker 2 (29:47):
Uh? Yes? And no. The rest of my fan had
some minor symptoms. There were a couple of weird, outlying
factors that made me the lucky one to get you know,
prone to that kind of response and that kind of deal,
so gratefully, I mean, the rest of them were okay
for the most part.

Speaker 1 (30:06):
Yeah, I think it's a really scary thing. You know,
we don't think about that. I mean, there's all different
things that could be happening, right, but you know, we
live in Florida. Our roof leaks, right yep. I mean
things happen all the time. And I don't know enough
about it to know that. You know, are is it
that you have to be prone to certain things that

(30:27):
you get really sick from it? Or is it just
exposure is going to affect everyone? Because it seems like
there's a lot of moldy places around here, but a
lot of people seem still okay.

Speaker 2 (30:39):
Yeah. A lot of it has to do with exposure,
for sure, And again that was kind of one of
the factors for me, is I was pretty much constantly
exposed to the molds in our house. And then some
of it is genetic dispositions, So there's a chromosome that
I seem to have that makes both me more prone
to symptoms and my body crashing and then even like

(31:00):
a deeper level of response. So yeah, and that's what's
so interesting about being a human, right is that like
different things impact different people all the time, whether it's
mold or people with bad boundaries, or it's a boss
with a certain personality, right, Like, we all have kind
of soft spots within us and how we interact with

(31:20):
the external world, and our role is to pay attention
to how those different soft spots or kind of weak
tender points are going to be impacted and then what
are we going to do about it as a result.
And I do think that is a confidence thing too,
Like again, it pays you gain some confidence or you
lose some confidence based on how you respond to some
of those external situations and circumstances impacting you in your

(31:44):
everyday life.

Speaker 1 (31:46):
So that had I mean, obviously it's still difficult, but
that beginning part that idea will Okay, you're fine, just
keep going, You're fine, You're fine. And one of the
things I talk about often is the idea of faking
it until you make it, which again I don't believe
in at all, but would love to hear your thoughts

(32:08):
on When people say, oh, just fake it till you
make it, you're good.

Speaker 2 (32:12):
I'm so glad that you said that you don't believe
in it or you don't like it, because I was like, oh,
I'm gonna have to I'm gonna have to tread real
lightlier go about it in a way. Yeah, I think
it's total bullshit, just to be like very I think
it's a really unhealthy way to go about life because
it disembodies you, creates disintegration, it's not authentic, and I

(32:37):
don't think it actually gets you to where you want
to go. So maybe this is just a simple little
trajectory shift in it. But when folks say, you know,
I'm just gonna fake it till you make it, I say,
what if instead we train differently so that you can
get different results. And by that I mean you do

(32:58):
different things than you are currently doing to get you
in a different destination. Athletes train all the time in
order to get the results that they're looking for. They
don't fake it till they make it to get on
the field and score a touchdown or a goal or whatever. Right,
They're not faking it. They train in order to get
the results that they want. So I think that part

(33:18):
of the fake it so you make it is actually
a kill to the confidence, not the other way around.

Speaker 1 (33:24):
I agree. I so what I like to say for
people to do instead because I'm a big believer in
the words you use, the words you say to yourself,
the words you say about yourself. And I think a
way to start building confidence is not faking it till
you make it, but saying it until you become it.
So you use your positive affirmations to move you forward.

(33:45):
You don't tell yourself that you look like shit in
the mirror. You say, you know what you are, unique,
you look amazing. Let's go right. I mean all these
things that because if we can say horrible things do
ourselves all the time and believe them, then the opposite
is true. We can say positive things to ourselves and
then we do become them, right. I mean when we

(34:06):
look back at when I was a kid and you know, oh,
what will other people think? You know whatever? And again
I had great parents. My mom is still alive, she's great.
But it was that different mindset of that you had
to do things a certain way, you know, like I
said before, of like stuffing down the shame of something

(34:26):
because you couldn't you couldn't talk about that stuff. And
so if I would have at that age been able
to use that different mindset of just keep saying it
because you will become it, because when you keep saying it,
you put in the work. Trust me, I'm not just
saying you're going to sit on your couch and say, oh,
you're going to be an ask shot tomorrow. No, come on,
you keep saying it and you put in the work.

Speaker 2 (34:49):
Yeah, I fully agree with that. I love that you
said that, because what you're doing is you're training your
brain to think differently, and then as you think differently,
you do differently, and when you do differently, you get results.
It's it's literally science. It's not rocket science, but like
it's science and it'll get you into a different place.
That's great.

Speaker 4 (35:07):
I don't know who first came up with fake it
till you make it, though, because it's kind of a
horrible thing to say, especially like if you think about
it from a financial level, like overspend until you get
to the point where you can spend, Like that is
horrible advice.

Speaker 2 (35:23):
If you really fleshed it out in a variety of context. Yeah,
it's like you stick a kid behind a wheel and
you're like, fake it till you make it, kiddo, and
you're like, or you just destroy the car and now
you're in the hospital.

Speaker 6 (35:33):
Horrible.

Speaker 2 (35:34):
It just does literally does that make sense. It is illogical.
Our brains don't function like that in no way, shape
or form. Does it actually benefit you or build confidence?

Speaker 1 (35:45):
Yeah, it's just telling you that you're not good enough
from the start. Yeah, yeah, you're not good enough, so
just pretend you are. Well, Okay, that doesn't work that way. Yeah,
speaking about drivers, So I was watching okay, some random
stupid shit on Instagram or whatever. I was watching, and
there's these videos of this kid it's HiT's like the

(36:07):
worst driver in Australia. Have you, either of you guys,
seen this. Okay. I don't know why that one's coming
up on my feed. I have no idea, but it is,
and it is absolutely hilarious.

Speaker 2 (36:17):
Like he is.

Speaker 1 (36:18):
Driving and his when his with his mom or with
his dad, and they're just like out of their minds
the entire time. And I'm just thinking, like, why don't
you start like on a course, like why are you
taking me out into the road, And he's like, I
know it's for amusement, but I was like, oh my gosh, Okay,
he's trying. He's not faking it. He's trying really hard.

Speaker 2 (36:40):
That's the other part, Like even if trying doesn't get
you to where you need to go right like you
can you can try, but if you're if you haven't
trained properly, you're still in a real bad spot. So
I'm gonna laugh and I'm gonna text you later, Simone
if that video appears on my phone right because after
I said it, yeah, listening to us and now it's
like gonna.

Speaker 1 (36:58):
Be Australia's worst driver. I think that's what the thing is.
So let's see if I say it twice, if it
will show.

Speaker 2 (37:03):
Up for you, it doesn't be so creeped out yeah,
well you want to go on to questions.

Speaker 6 (37:11):
Sure, what do you like? I'm that was a very
weird way to say that I don't know.

Speaker 4 (37:17):
Okay, Well I want to ask about your experience adopting
children then, because if the balls in my court, I
get to ask, yes, you.

Speaker 1 (37:27):
Do whatever you want you want, So I threw it
to you.

Speaker 6 (37:29):
How did you first decide to adopt?

Speaker 2 (37:33):
So my husband and I had been married for probably
five years, and we weren't sure that we wanted to
have biological kids. That we probably would, but we weren't positive.
But we started learning about the orphan crisis in Sepsahar
in Africa, and we were kind of captivated by it
and had a very just strong sense of kids don't

(37:55):
belong in orphanages or without any sort of parental units,
like they need to be in families. So we started learning,
exploring we thought we would. We finally decided we wanted
to have bio kids, and then entered into a pretty
and early infertility journey, and after a few years of
lots of failed fertility attempts, we reached a point in

(38:17):
that process where we decided we did not want to
go any further. We knew we wanted to adopt anyway,
and so we started the process. We knew I had
a friend who had adopted from Ethiopia, and so that
became just a pretty easy Yes, we used the agency
that they used and all of that, and so yeah,
it was kind of a that was the easiest decision. Really.

(38:39):
It was just this, like we had spent some time
in Kenya as well, kind of in between that time
of like we thought we wanted to adopt, but we weren't.
We hadn't committed yet, And then we spent some time
in Kenya and we're at an AIDS orphanage and we
held some babies there, and my husband and I had
one of those moments we looked at each other's eyes
and we're like, this has moved from wouldn't it be cool,

(39:03):
or wouldn't this be something that might be good to
do for our family down the road into we gotta
this is absolutely a thing that needs to happen for
our family to be formed. So it was a few
years later before we started the adoption process.

Speaker 1 (39:18):
But yeah, how are you how old were your kids
when they came home?

Speaker 2 (39:23):
Two and a half years on paper? You know how
that goes, And eleven months. Our daughter turned one just
like three years, three weeks after she came home. Wow. Yeah,
they were little. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (39:35):
When we traveled to Ethiopia the first time to bring
Ari home, Ari was four and a half years old
and we brought Olivia and Emma with us and they
did not want to leave. So there was a guest
house at the orphanage and so we would stay. We
stayed at the guest house and we're like, do you
want to go around and see Atta Sababa? Do you want?

(39:56):
And they were like no, we're good. I was like,
there's even a mall. They're like know. They just wanted
to sit in the baby rooms and hold the babies
all day long. And when we went home with Ari,
we knew we were going to come back one more time.
I mean, the girls were crying because we were leaving
their favorite babies behind. And I was like, it doesn't

(40:18):
work that way. You don't just go and say, oh,
I'm going to take this baby. But they were little,
they didn't really understand how it worked. And so we
literally started the adoption process again for when we requested
an older boy again and we were matched with Millie
and she was two and a half years old, and

(40:38):
you know, I can't believe that in a little bit
over a year, I could potentially be an empty nester.
It's just crazy to think.

Speaker 6 (40:48):
I like the potential.

Speaker 1 (40:51):
I always you never know. I mean again, after COVID,
I say potential about any of these things, because you know,
everybody came home, so you just don't.

Speaker 6 (41:01):
Know what I did not come home. I have not officially.
I guess I'm coming home this summer, but that's temporary.

Speaker 1 (41:06):
Well, you've never left, so that's fair.

Speaker 6 (41:09):
I haven't returned yet. I just would like to say
I haven't returned yet.

Speaker 1 (41:13):
Oh oh, but you are? You are this summer?

Speaker 2 (41:16):
Oh yeah, yes, that's a fun.

Speaker 1 (41:18):
One first for some weeks. Oh come on, we're gonna
have the best time.

Speaker 6 (41:21):
No, it's gonna be so fun. But it's I'm I'm
working at home this summer, so that's why.

Speaker 1 (41:26):
Not for me, but no, right right right right?

Speaker 2 (41:29):
Yeah? In a law fields. Yes, for an internship. That's awesome.

Speaker 6 (41:35):
So how so I was reading your story a little bit.
You had your biological child's like weeks.

Speaker 2 (41:41):
After not week's. Okay, we went from zero to three
kids and fifty yes, love it. Yeah, it was fast.
It was fast, but Juda Natasa came home in January
twenty eleven, and then we pretty miraculously got pregnant in September,
so nine months later, and we literally Brian and I
had got out for a date two weeks two weeks

(42:04):
before we got pregnant, No, two weeks after. It was
two weeks after we had gotten pregnant, so we didn't
know we were pregnant, and we looked at each other
and we're like, I think we're going to survive. I
think we're gonna make it two little babies, and we
were just like in it to win it, but not winning.
We were just like barely surviving. And I was pregnant.
And then he came seven weeks early, so we had
three kids under the age of four, and it was wild.

(42:28):
We had like three rules in those first couple of years.
It was like, keep everyone alive, love each other as
best we can, and just get shit done. It's just
like we had three rules to live by as a family,
and if we could do two out of those three
on a given day, we thought we were kind of
doing pretty good, at least better than the average baseball player.
So now it's all normal because they're sixteen, fifteen, and thirteen,

(42:51):
so things look very normal in the DIA's house on
the age level when I tell people our kids is age.
But our story has been anything but normal.

Speaker 1 (43:00):
We're not normal. There's nothing about us that's.

Speaker 2 (43:02):
Not normal's overrated anyway.

Speaker 1 (43:03):
And I like weird honestly, I like quirky. I like
being different.

Speaker 2 (43:09):
It makes for a good story.

Speaker 1 (43:10):
Yeah, at least yes, I mean all the things that
probably used to bother me, now I embrace them because
I'm like, this is what makes us cool. Like it
doesn't matter, None of that stuff matters. That's we're supposed
to be who we are, not supposed to change everything.

Speaker 2 (43:24):
So question back at you, then, do you think that
that has been part of why you have this unshakable
confidence It's because you have learned to kind of hold
embrace those weird, quirky, abnormal, weird things about yourself. Has
that been part of your secret sauce?

Speaker 1 (43:40):
Absolutely? I think that Again, if you're talking about what's
your story, your whole story, that's part of our whole story, right.
I mean I was saying, like, I do have weird things,
and I like I like weird. I really do, so.

Speaker 6 (43:55):
Weird is awesome.

Speaker 1 (43:56):
Yeah, and I think that it's important to think about
it like that. I think when we start to when
we stop thinking about oh if I do this, someone
might not like me, or if I act this way
or none of that stuff should matter, right, You should
be able to be you through and through and again
I do. I do like the weird stuff, like, for example,

(44:19):
this isn't even that weird, and it probably won't work
because if you're on zoom, it doesn't work. Can you
hear if I whistle that? Can you hear it?

Speaker 5 (44:27):
Yeah?

Speaker 6 (44:28):
Okay, it doesn't work on.

Speaker 1 (44:29):
That, so I can work with Yeah. No, you can't
whistle on zoom. It takes it out of there. It's
like you can't hear a vacuum on zoom either. So anyways, okay,
so this is just a quirky thing. But when I
was in middle school, I learned how to whistle without
having to move my mouth, so I can do this.
Is like my party trick.

Speaker 6 (44:50):
This is not your only party trick.

Speaker 1 (44:52):
Okay, but that's a good one, right, No, but you.

Speaker 4 (44:54):
Have really other good ones too, Like she can try
it tie a cherry stem like.

Speaker 6 (44:57):
To me as a kid's with her tongue.

Speaker 2 (45:00):
Yeah, yeah, that's one can do that too, and that
mostly makes you a good kisser.

Speaker 1 (45:03):
Just so you know, good for you, good for me.

Speaker 6 (45:07):
I want to hear that, dude, I mean fair enough.

Speaker 4 (45:10):
God used to say up that when you guys were like,
I don't know younger, I don't know how young we were,
you used to do like crazy long planks at parties.

Speaker 1 (45:18):
Yeah. I could do a plank for like eight minutes.
I can't. I can't do thirty seconds these days, but
I used to. So we can shut head off the list.

Speaker 6 (45:27):
You got a lot of cool, cool tricks up your sleeves.

Speaker 1 (45:30):
Yeah that's a quirky.

Speaker 2 (45:33):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (45:33):
Yeah. So I'm going to ask the question this time,
what good What's the best advice a woman in your
life ever gave you? Because I know I give great
advice every single day of my life, right, Olivia, every day? Yeah,
So what's the best buy someone ever gave you?

Speaker 2 (45:52):
Oh my gosh, I've been the receiver of a lot
of good advice. Okay, this is from Mindy, and I'm
thinking about her because yesterday was her sixtieth birthday, so
I got to send her a little video happy birthday

(46:14):
that her husband is putting together this whole thing. And
she's been in my life for almost twenty five years.
And I told her in the video that one of
the things that has been true is that my husband
and I haven't made like one significant life decision without
her counsel. She's just so freaking wise. And probably what

(46:36):
the best piece of advice she gave me was twenty
one two years ago. I was in my mid twenties, Olivia,
just a little bit older than you, and she said
to me, April, you have a popeye arm. And I said,
what does that mean? And she said, you have one
really really strong arm that is ambition, goals, working hard,

(46:58):
getting shit done, like all of the like go get
her things, you know. And she said, but this other
arm that you have is totally emaciated, and that is
the arm of rest and recovery and renewal and of
really taking care of yourself. And she told me that
like on the heels of having two panic attacks in
the span of a couple of weeks. And I'm not

(47:20):
prone to panic attacks, like anxiety is not my natural bent,
so having them was like a really serious warning sign
of like something is really wrong here, and now I'm
going through light and so that popeye arm advice or
just perspective was really good. And she just said, you
need to learn how to recover your life. You need

(47:42):
to learn rhythms of rest, you need to learn how
to be renewed in your whole self. And I think
that that piece of advice, that conversation probably saved my life,
my marriage, my leadership, all kinds of things, because she
was right. She was totally spot on right. I ran
so fast, so hard, so intensely for long periods of time,

(48:05):
and it was going to destroy me. And so learning
how to not have a popeye arm and to really
have to like two strong arms that are equally balanced,
has been a soul saver, a lifesaver for me. I
love that.

Speaker 1 (48:20):
That's such great advice. Olivia, do you have your calendar?

Speaker 6 (48:25):
Yes, you have to see you don't.

Speaker 1 (48:29):
Know the story we didn't tell you before. So on
each episode, Olivia reads the quote of the day from
the unf Yourself calendar. I started this with her two
years ago. I sent her this calendar and we realized
it's very valuable and we love it. So it's part
of the podcast each week. Okay, now, now Olivia, go,
but tell us how to unf ourselves today.

Speaker 4 (48:50):
You have to see there's a problem before you can
do anything about it.

Speaker 2 (48:54):
Oh, I love it.

Speaker 6 (48:57):
Yeah, got it.

Speaker 1 (49:00):
Acknowledge those right, I mean, and acknowledge.

Speaker 6 (49:03):
Them early earlier, I was just I was talking to
a girl. This is a very minute example, and she.

Speaker 4 (49:10):
Was like, I just didn't realize how big of a
paper that we had to write, and so I couldn't
get the last couple of points down in the amount
of time that we had to do.

Speaker 6 (49:20):
And I always think that's what that reminded me of, even.

Speaker 4 (49:23):
Assessed the whole thing before you start, honestly, in the
earlier the better.

Speaker 2 (49:29):
Yeah, it made me think of the first task of
a leaders to define reality. And I don't think reality
always is a problem, but certainly there are problems to acknowledge.
And yeah, you gotta you gotta define reality if you're
gonna be able to move forward from it. That's cool.

Speaker 1 (49:49):
Okay, So I'm going to ask you the basics, where
can people find you? And I know and I know
you're going to include We're going to include in the
show notes a quiz that you're offering to Yeah, our listeners,
So tell us more.

Speaker 2 (50:03):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, so probably the best place to find
me is our website. It's azerncode dot com, e z
r A and d CEO dot com. I will say
that if you're listening to this in the next couple
of months, like before June, we're gonna have a new
snazzy website come this summer, so come back and check

(50:25):
it out. But azernot dot com is the best place
to check me out right now. But I'm on LinkedIn,
I'm on Instagram, April LDS on all of the platforms there,
so that's the best place. But yeah, something that Simonia
and I talked about earlier is I think one of
the ways talking about reality and problems and all of
that moving forward, well, to really build a sense of

(50:48):
a deeper sense of your confidence is you need to
know where you're at right now and then where you
need to go next, like what is your best next
step forward? And when you take that step a builds confidence.
So we have a free twenty question quiz on our
website and we'll drop the link in the show notes too,

(51:08):
to get a holistic assessment on where you're at right
now and what it would be the best place for
you to take a next step, and we've had hundreds
and hundreds of women and men take this assessment over
the last couple of years and it's just a really
helpful tool to be able to figure out what is
my best next step forward and really build that confidence up.

Speaker 1 (51:31):
I love that, So I want to thank you for
joining us today, April. I'm going to end like we
have been ending recently, which is with a confidence tip
of the day or the week, because we only do
this once a week, so let's say of the week.
Confidence grows when you keep promises to yourself. Start small,
wake up, when you say you will speak up what

(51:53):
it matters, finish what you start. Every time you follow through,
you show yourself your trustworthy and that is the foundation
of unshakable confidence. So thank you for joining us on
this week's episode. Always remember you are unshakable Bigus.

Speaker 3 (52:13):
Thank you for listening to her Unshakable Confidence with Simone
and Olivia Canego. We hope this episode has made your
day just a little bit brighter and giving you the
inspiration you need to confidently go about your week. Always
remember to be authentically you don't forget to like and
subscribe so you never miss an episode and feel free
to connect with them on Instagram at Simone Canego and

(52:36):
at Olivia Canego.

Speaker 2 (52:38):
Till next time,

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