Summary: Ever notice how smart, successful people keep tripping over the same emotional banana peel? They overreact in meetings and avoid hard conversations, opportunities are sabotaged, and stress, doubt, and anxiety become constant companions. It’s not because they’re broken. It’s because their leadership operating system is running on automatic, installed decades ago, rarely updated, and full of hidden bugs called patterns. And here’s the kicker: most leaders don’t even know the software exists. Read on to see what you need to change.
Dear Dr. Sylvia,
I do need a new upgrade. I also do not want to spend years in therapy. What I want are some guidelines to help me make changes that will make my life at work and at home easier and more productive.
That’s it!
Signed,
Pattern Pioneer
You Don’t Need More Willpower. You Need a New OS
Dear Pattern Pioneer,
You asked the right question. Now, I will answer it. Here is the level that quietly runs your leadership life while you think you’re in charge. First, take the following test.
The Hamburger–Underwear Test
Let’s get real.
You would never:
- Eat only hamburgers for months
- Wear the same underwear for a year
- Keep using a phone from 2002 and expect it to run today’s apps
Yet leaders do the equivalent every single day with their inner operating system.
For example, they handle conflict the same way they did when they were 22.
And often, they manage stress using survival reflexes learned in childhood.
Finally, they repeat relationship patterns and call it “personality.”
No updates. Forget patches. Also, no antivirus for toxic habits.
And then they wonder why they’re exhausted.
Your Brain Has Three Pattern Levels
Every decision you make shows influence from three layers of programming:
1. Thought Patterns: the visible layer
These are the stories in your head:
“I’m not ready.” “I must be perfect.” “They don’t respect me.”
They feel rational, but they’re usually recycled scripts from old experiences.
2. Emotional Patterns: the reactive layer
This is where stress, defensiveness, people-pleasing, control, and shutdown live.
Your body reacts before your brain finishes the sentence. Emotional intelligence is vital; however, it is simply not enough for whole-person change.
3. Unconscious Survival Patterns: the hidden layer
These are wired in early.
They decide whether you fight, flee, freeze, or fix, long before logic shows up.
In other words, this is the level that quietly runs your leadership life while you think you’re in charge.
Automatic Patterns Are Stress Machines
When you don’t know your patterns, they run the show.
They create: Chronic anxiety or self-doubt masked as perfectionism. Then there is fear of conflict or addiction to it. Even worse, burnout can be disguised as dedication.
It’s not the workload.
In fact, it’s the outdated programming underneath the workload.
Your New OS Will Always Need To Be Upgraded
This is why I created GLIMMERS at Work: The New Leadership Operating System for Head, Heart, & Gut, so your patterns stop hijacking your future.
Here is what happens when leaders learn to recognize their thought scripts, their emotional triggers, and unconscious survival responses,
You don’t just feel better, you lead differently.
Stress becomes information, not a threat.
Conflict becomes a doorway, not a disaster.
Fear becomes a signal, not a sentence.
And that, my friends, is what a real upgrade looks like.
So ask yourself:
If you wouldn’t live on hamburgers and dirty underwear, why are you still leading from an operating system that hasn’t been updated since adolescence?
Time to reboot.
To your success,
Sylvia Lafair
PS. Contact me, and I will set up a strategy call with one of our coaches. You need to have the best information possible to make this year one of creativity and productivity.
