Don't Bring it to Work with Dr. Sylvia LaFair

Hello and welcome to Shedding the Bitch Radio, where you can discuss, debate, and get advice on how to discover and shed the bitches of fear, insecurity, self-doubt, and negative mindsets so you can realize your dreams and life purpose and create and accelerate the riches you want in life. Join us here live every Tuesday at noon Eastern and dialogue with us at 818-572-2910. You can also chat with us at blogtalkradio.com/sheddingthebitch or share your stories on our website at sheddingthebitch.com. Whatever the bitch is that's holding you back from living your life to the fullest, it's not worth giving up the riches in life that you deserve. So call in now and let Bernadette Boas know what's holding you back.

818-572-2910. Good day, good day, good day, everyone. Yes, it is a beautiful, beautiful Tuesday. I am hanging out at my hometown, Atlanta. Absolutely gorgeous, but excuse my sounding very nasally and maybe my throat a little scratchy. These allergies from this very warm, warm season are absolutely killing me and has actually taken me to the bed for a couple days last week as a result. So we'll push through, won't we, because it is absolutely gorgeous. I hope it is wherever you are. The flowers are blooming and the grass is growing, along with the weeds. But at the same time, it's a great, great, great time to get out. You might be listening to us at nighttime or first thing early in the morning, and so wherever you are, I hope you're having a rich and wonderful, wonderful day. We have a great program lined up, and I just learned that we actually have one of our top global gurus that we'll be talking with. So you're going to want to hear all about that. I do want to do a shout-out to my nieces, beautiful, beautiful nieces Lauren and Kristen. They came into town from— one from San Francisco, the other from D.C. They're both very politically involved, so they came down to help some campaigning that was going on over the weekend, and it was absolutely fabulous to actually host them in my hometown. Because as you all know, I'm one of 12 children. I have 22 nieces and nephews. I'm the only one who really lives, from my siblings' perspective, outside of Atlanta. I do believe my brother is still commuting back and forth to LA with his wife. But it's a great opportunity and a great honor for me to kind of host my nieces and nephews, even my siblings when they come into the area because I don't get to do it that often. But I want to work on changing that. So just a shout out to the two of them. I'm so proud of you. I'm so honored to be your aunt and just watching you grow. And they're just out of college, one most recently, another a few years. It's just a beautiful thing. So I wanted to do that. I told them that I would. Let's see, what else is going on in the world of Shedding the Bitch? We just have a lot of great activity going on. I'm getting a lot of suggestions and I'm just going to throw it out there. We won't talk a lot about it, but just know that I might be tapping on you at some point in the future. But I'm getting a lot of attention to really folks wanting me to do especially with Snapchat and Instagram being so popular, they want me to actually kind of engage with you, but with you, like you with me, in very short, very productive, effective coaching sessions, just how you are working on whatever bitch that you're dealing with and how you're working to shed it so you can be creating the riches in life that you deserve. I'm kind of putting a plan together around that. I want to make sure it's meeting your needs and it's going to be of great quality and result-driven and action-oriented for you. So stay tuned for that, and I might be pinging you out on our social networks in regards to getting your feedback when it comes to that. So just a little teaser there, not much detail at this moment. Let's see. Upcoming shows. Well, first off, our month of March, I had mentioned to you we were getting very specific around some key skills that are critical, especially to women in the workplace. So we had conversations with Bled Sapirsky about decision-making and how to make very effective, very quick even, and immediate decisions when need be. And then we spoke to Edward Doe all about negotiation. They're critical skills, and we've had conversations even with me in regards to selling and pitching yourself and branding. Well, this month we're really focused on kind of how you can or should behave and how you really need to just overcome those struggles that you might be dealing with. So before we get to today's conversation, next week we will be talking to Kathy Bass. She's a returning guest as well. Our guest today all around the fact for entrepreneurs, you know, we understand your struggle. Many of us on this program and part of the program are entrepreneurs ourselves. Some of us are ex-corporate. Some of us are lifetime. However, we understand what it is that you might be dealing with whether you're a solopreneur or you're starting your business or maybe you're very mature in your business and wanting to continue to grow. Cathy Bath put together this great film all around entrepreneurship and around the struggle is real. So we'll talk with her. We'll also talk with another longtime colleague and friend, Abby Vega. She is one of those who, like many of us, especially if you're anywhere over the age of 20, you've already faced some really big challenges in your life. Yes, let's— if you're 30, 40, 50 and plus. And so she talks about her sweet route to happiness. Maybe some people pronounce it route to happiness. And she wrote all about it. She teaches all about it, speaks about it, and coaches all about it. So she'll be here to share her story so you can possibly relate and learn as a result of what she has been through. And then, of course, we then are already into May. Do you believe it? My favorite time of the year because it's when I go off on a beach vacation with my sisters, and we talk all about that later. But Ask Bernadette will be coming up the first week of May. So you think it's far off. It's not. So get your questions, stories, or challenges that you're having in any area of your career, business, or life, and get them posted onto Facebook and Twitter. Even you can email them directly like many of you do, BernadetteBoas@sheddingthebitch.com. You can post them to LinkedIn. We just want to make sure you are getting the support that you need. And if it is not me that can answer that particular question, story, or challenge, I will reach out to our experts that are in my network. And we want to make sure that you are getting those results. Then what we do is we bring them here onto our First Tuesday episode each month to really drill into them further and provide you even deeper tips and advice than maybe what you can get on Twitter or Facebook. All right, so that's what's coming up. May's going to be great. It's all about moms and adventure and a lot more. But today's conversation, we all deal with this and can relate to this and need help. We need help. So it's all about don't bring it to work. So if you've ever gotten frustrated by a colleague who never stops talking or one who walks away the minute a situation becomes difficult, It's time to get to the bottom of workplace behavior that leaves you ready to pound your head on your desk or start looking for another job. So Dr. Sylvia, Dr. Sylvia Lafair, our returning guest, one of our favorites, helps you find what underlies annoying behavior and, more importantly, what to do about it. What you're going to hear today and what you're going to learn about today is some key things to listen for So you can then respond effectively. Maybe you actually get defensive or, you know, you respond in a different way. She wants you responding effectively. And then understand how behavior from your original organization— and she's going to get in depth about this— the family, that's her original organization, is the family, and how that shows up in your work and workplace. Then she's going to talk through with us 13 key behavior patterns in all workplaces that have your name written all over them. All right? So great conversation, great tips are coming your way all around how to deal with those annoying situations. But before we do, I want to give you your risk question. Then we'll take our break and come back and meet Dr. Sylvia and get into this conversation. So your rich question I want you to be thinking about, and 99% chance she will answer it. If not, then you can always reach out to her. You can even reach out to us during the program at 1-818-572-2910. If you take us with you, meaning download it, then we will be sure that we talk her contact information throughout the program so you can reach out to her. So your rich question is this: What annoying behavior negatively impacts your productivity and effectiveness in the workplace. You need to pay attention to it and you need to be aware of it so then you can also listen today for some tips and advice in regards to it. So what is that annoying behavior that really impacts you negatively in the workplace? Hashtag with us @Leadership. You can hashtag with us annoying behavior if you want, and of course, shed the bitch. All right, are you all pumped up for this? This is gonna be great. We're gonna take a brief break. I'm gonna take some water for my throat, and when we get back, we'll meet Dr. Sylvia Lafair and dive right into this conversation. We'll be right back.

You are listening to Shedding the Bitch Radio with Bernadette Boas. We are inspiring individuals around the globe to discover, confront, and shed their bitches of fear, insecurity, and negativity. So they can create the riches in their career, business, and life they deserve. Be sure to check out Bernadette Boas' book, Shedding the Corporate Bitch: Shifting from Bitch to Rich in Life and Business, available on Amazon and sheddingthebitch.com. We also want to thank our sponsors, TSR Consulting, who offers a broad range of tax services for small to corporate size clients. Go to TSRConsulting.com to learn more. And Parker House Virtual Services, who provides virtual assistance and social media support for small to medium-sized businesses. Email Deborah Parker at deborahparker78@gmail.com for more information. To become a sponsor or advertiser on our program, email us at mediarelations@sheddingthebitch.com. Shedding the Bitch Radio airs every Tuesday at noon Eastern time. Be sure to go to blogtalkradio.com/sheddingthebitchradio and follow the program for all of the updates and announcements of our guests and show topics. Now let's return to Bernadette and Shedding the Bitch Radio.

Welcome back everyone. I want you to meet Dr. Sylvia Lafair, co-founder and CEO of Creative Energy Options, Inc. She refers to it as CEO, Inc. Is known for her groundbreaking leadership education method. She began her career in psychology to explore why people do what they do in personal relationships. Seeing the connection between how families behave and how work teams operate, she developed corporate team-building activities to stop office politics politics, and enhance team communication and collaboration. Dr. Sylvia's professional coaching programs have been utilized internationally, and her unique pattern-aware concepts have proven effective worldwide. Now, Dr. Sylvia is founder of Creative Energy Options and the world's leading authority in pattern-aware leadership development. Is also, and I'm so happy that I could help kind of announce this too, she was one of the world's top 30 leadership professional gurus in 2016, and guess what? She's also just been selected again as one of the top 30 leadership, global leadership gurus for 2017, and she's number 19. And she has an award-winning book, Don't Bring It to Work. You can look for it on Amazon.com. Dr. Sylvia, welcome to the program.

Oh, great to be back, Bernadette. It's a joy.

I wish I had like an applause soundtrack so I can cheer your latest acknowledgment of the top 30 global leadership guru. That is absolutely amazing.

Awesome.

Thank you. Yeah, it's a fun thing, I'll tell you. A lot of interesting people on that list.

Well, I'm going to have to take a look at it immediately after I get done here, and plus I'll share it around because, you know, when someone, you know, when that's being acknowledged, you know, there's a lot of, a lot of individuals out there doing, or so-called doing, coaching and leadership and really addressing things to be kind of brought up and elevated to top 30 globally. That's just— I'm very impressed and I'm honored to be able to have you on the program.

Well, thank you. It's a delight.

Yeah, thank you. Well, let's dive into this because this is a great conversation and a great topic. Because we all know that person, but at the same time, we could probably be that person, you know, in the same vein. So what is the why, or why do you do what you do, and why do you love this area of work? Because you've been doing it for a while, for quite a long time. What is it about it?

Well, I'm definitely a millennial in my mindset, but not in my body. I've been doing this for 30 years. Yeah, so it's interesting how it started, and it's sort of a sad story, but you know, it has a happy ending in its own way. Um, I grew up in a family business, and my dad would come home from work and he would just always be complaining. And as a little kid, I remember saying to him, Daddy, if work isn't fun, why do you do it? And he just kind of smiled at me and said, well, honey, you know, when you grow up, that's what you do. But I thought, I don't know about this. Anyway, when I was 14, he came home and And my mother and my father went out to dinner. They came back, and in the middle of the night, he had a heart attack and died. And, uh, there I was, kind of a shattered 14-year-old, thinking work did it, work did it, work was the enemy.

Oh wow.

And for a long time, I saw work, any kind of work— I mean, it didn't matter what you did— but it was going to get you. And I had to figure out how people can be happy at work, what makes the difference. So I have such an incredible passion around all the research and learning I've done because I don't want other kids to have to end up the way I did because of the stress of work taking their parents away.

So, oh my gosh, well, one, I— yes, that is a sad story, but you've made a, you know, you've kind of turned it around and made it a career to kind of address it. What do you think manifested? What are your own kind of behaviors or patterns or, you know, emotions did you deal with as a result of that experience?

Well, I'll tell you how I saw it at work years later that made me realize how deep the patterns are from our original organization and what we learned.

Right.

So we had— before I started working in the business world, we had a personal growth center in suburban Philadelphia. And I had an assistant who I just adored. Her name is Lisa, and we're friends even today. We're both grandmoms at this point. Anyway, she walked into the office one day with a big grin on her face, and it was too happy. I looked at her and got nervous. She said, "Could I talk with you?" And I work with my husband Herb. She said, "Could I talk with you and Herb for a few minutes?" So we went in a room, and with a big grin on her face, big grin, she said, "You know, Sylvia, how you teach, follow your heart." And I thought, not a good thing to teach. I don't think I'm going to like what I'm going to hear. And she said, "You know, I made the decision that if I got enough money back from my taxes this year, from income tax, I was going to go back to school." Now, I should have been thrilled and delighted. Instead, I looked at her very immaturely or pattern-wise burst into tears and said, "You can't do that." And my husband looked at me, he said, "Sylvia, you can't stop somebody from going back to school." Anyway, we asked Lisa to leave for a few minutes and he said to me, "What do you think is really going on?" And I said, "Well, she's so terrific and I depend on her and I love working with her." You know, all the things you would say. He said, "It's not about that." And finally I looked at him and I said, my father didn't ask permission to leave, he just left. And Lisa, while she's being sweet and kind about it, is leaving. And I realized that so many things that happened earlier are sitting there under the surface that impact us at work. So my passion and my career has been helping people really look at the patterns. You call it the bitch, you know, the negativity and the struggles that come. And another word for it is the patterns that have developed that we have to bring up and look so we can release them. And I called Lisa back in the office, Bernadette, and I said to her, look, this would— I mean, she was in shock. I said, this isn't about you.

I bet.

And I told her you know, what I had come up with. And it was interesting because I ended up saying, I'm going to be in charge of your going away party. So it was a happy time.

Wow. Well, and I, you know, so, well, there's— gosh, there's like 3 things I made note of there. So you kind of had this like revelation, but really, how do people get under the covers of that? To really kind of recognize— for instance, you know, I recognized that my thinking I was adopted for— until I was like 9 or 10 because I'm so different than my 11 siblings kind of manifested itself in never feeling like I fit in, you know, for a good part of my life, probably until I was like 40, 41. How do you get people, and what's your process or methods for getting people to really dig deep to uncover that type and recognize it.

Well, you're giving the words that need to be said, dig deep. And too much, I mean, look, I love Twitter. I love 140 characters. I love thinking simp— not simply, but effectively. But we have to dig deep. And what we've created, we call the WAY OUT. And OUT stands for observing, your behavior and seeing where you have patterns that seem to repeat and repeat. Then you have to go to the you in out to understand where they came from, which doesn't take years and years. It's not psychotherapy. There are routes to get to this in this day and age. We have the, the intellectual and emotional technology to get there. So you have to observe, begin to connect the dots, understand look where the roots of this came from, and then do the heavy lifting to transform. And you have to put some elbow grease in, just like any exercise. You have to, you have to work at it. So I want to just a quick, quick little, little story somebody told me that, that underscores this, you know, in another way. This, the mother was telling me, she yelled up to her daughter, hurry up and get ready for school, you're going to be late. And the daughter yells down, I don't feel well, I don't want to go. And the mother said, oh, come Come on, I've heard that before, just get ready. And the daughter yells down, nobody likes me and they talk about me behind my back. And the mother said, I've heard that before, and besides, now you're the principal. There you go.

That's awesome.

Yeah.

Oh, that's so— oh, that's awesome. It's so true.

That's when you get it right.

Absolutely. So, out. Observe, understand, and do the heavy lifting. The— the heavy lifting. So what was that statement that you made though? What do you call this? This whole method or—

The OUT technique.

The OUT technique.

O-U-T. It's the way out. Yep.

The way— and I love that. All right. Fabulous. Um, on a side note, what part of suburbia in Philadelphia? I'm from Philly. I'm not sure if we knew— I knew, I knew that you lived in Philly at some point.

Oh no, I didn't know that. Huh. And in the northern suburbs, Abington area?

Yeah.

Well, I'm—

oh, okay. And I'm in like the Main Line, Havertown, you know, Villanova area.

You were in the fancy area.

Well, no. Well, I'm from Havertown, so no. And I had 12, 11 brothers and sisters.

No.

Okay, I was just curious when you said suburban Philadelphia. So explain your organization, or your original organization. I love that. So how did you come about that?

Well, it was very interesting, and this is how I changed my career. And to all your listeners, pay attention. There's some time in your life where something, somebody's going to say something. Somebody's going to offer a suggestion. And boom, all of a sudden you're going to pivot and change what you do. So we had the Personal Growth Center and we did a lot of psychotherapy and had a lot of alternative therapies there, you know, music therapy and art therapy and so forth and so on. And one night we were working with a group of parents whose adolescent children were driving them nuts and the room was packed. And at the end of the night, a man walked over to me and he said, "Will you come work with my senior leadership team?" And I looked at him and I said, "Why?" He said, "They're fighting." I said, "So what?" So he said, "But Sylvia, you work with people who have to get along, families. They have to get along." And I thought, well, that's an interesting thought. So I said, you know, I'll go in with my knowledge. You know, I had a doctorate in clinical psychology and specializing in family therapy, so I wasn't going in with organizational development processes. I was going in with what I knew, and by God, it worked, you know, and got them to, quote, play nicer in the sandbox, if you will. And that led me to see that the same issues that people have in their families of feeling either discounted or betrayed, or they're the favorite, and, you know, it— they have to be the one-up on everybody. I mean, you, you must have had every pattern on the planet in your family. You had enough No siblings for that.

Yes, yes, yes. I'll call you one day for some mental health.

But yeah, but the truth is what we learned, Bernadette, we learned in that family, the original family, about how to communicate, about how to handle conflict, is very deep in our nervous system. It's old. We learned it to survive. Then we go to work and we're in teams and here's what I started seeing. Bosses are like parents, coworkers like siblings. We get salaries like allowances and we even have a timeout that's called a performance improvement plan. So it's not that different. I mean, we really created it to be very similar.

Right, right, right. And it's, you know, is it just also the fact that it's a, you know, it's a community of people, humans, you know, that bring together all their emotions, all their experiences, all their environments, all their societal norms into, you know, a kind of a closed, enclosed place called the workplace. So you have all the same dynamics.

Absolutely. And you know, it doesn't matter if it's a big corporation or if it's a startup. You know, it doesn't matter if you're selling a product or a service. Everywhere— and we've been pretty lucky to be able to work with all manner of organizations around the world. There are certain basic kinds of things that we all say, do, be, and We get trapped in some of it. It's what you're talking about, about the bitch, you know. We get trapped in some of it, and the greatest thing we can do is begin to observe it and transform it. So I love what you're doing. I want you to know that, because you're getting people to really look at, hey, what is it about me, you know? What do I have to do different? And I love it.

Right. Well, thank you, thank you. But this is about you and how you handle it. So, yeah, yeah. So kind of give us— and you've peppered it, but kind of give us like a list of the situations, the obstacles that you and your company deal with. So as people are listening, they, you know, they can go, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I have this situation. So is there kind of like a standard set of things that you address in your, in your OWL technique and the other work that you do?

Well, here's what I look at when I work with teams. Business is set up to creatively solve problems. That's the fun of it. And it's juicy. We love it, you know. Okay, how do we overcome this? You know, how do we do that? Once you've solved the problem, hooray for you, hooray for your team, hooray for your company. But if you keep having the same problem over and over, guess what? It's not a problem anymore, it's a pattern. And that's where we get stuck. So it's beginning to say, why is this happening again? You know, why can't we get— and then the biggest thing we do is help people become self-aware. You've got to start with self. I mean, there's a ton of stuff out there. Everybody's talking about it. It happens to be right. You have to look at your part in a situation. And you know, when we do day workshops to teach people about the behavior patterns, and I'll talk about that in a few minutes, before lunch everybody's there and they get it, they love it, and at lunch they walk out and I hear somebody saying, oh my God, that's just like my boss, that's just like the gal 'Oh, and then somebody say it's just like my mother-in-law.' You know, they come back and I say, 'How many people here really got the patterns? How many saw them?' Every hand goes up. Then I say, 'How many of you see it on yourself?' And maybe 3 hands go up. I say, 'Well, guess what? Now we're going to look at your part in this,' because we, we play off of each other, you know. We, we just do. So that's what we— when we go in, we have a new program. It's called EDGE, and it's about envisioning, discovering, growing, and executing, and it's for teams, and it's really— and a team can be anywhere from 2 to 10 people, 2 to 12 people. You can't do it with groups much larger than that, but it's really beginning to say, okay, What part am I playing in this? And if someone— I love what you asked, what annoying behavior impacts you in the workplace that people are going to hashtag and get into you. It's your behavior and it's their behavior, and then how do you begin to use that magical thing called communication to effectively change what's going on.

Oui, EDGE everyone, EDGE. I do want to remind— or I want to make sure that you all have contact information for her so you can be actually going out there and looking at these programs and looking at what Dr. Sylvia offers and what she's talked about in her workshops and whatnot. So be sure to go to CEO Options— I'm sorry, I'm sorry, CEOptions.com, and you'll learn all about her. You'll learn all about her programs and her resources. You can also always reach out to her at sylvia@ceoptions.com. And then be sure to— and trust me, all you have to do is Google her and you'll find her Facebook and Twitter handles and whatnot. Her Twitter handle is Sylvia LeFaire and her Facebook handle is CEOptions. But trust me, Google her and you'll find everything about her. And even her book, go to Amazon and be sure to look for her book, which is Don't Bring It to Work, and it's a very popular, well-used book in corporate, and I'm sure at home as well, so be sure to take a look for all of that. All right, we're going to take a brief break, but when we get back, I want to get into these patterns that she's been talking about, and hopefully we'll get to the 13, and if not, we'll at least get to enough to where you can pick up everyone's tips and advice on how you can address that annoying behavior that we asked you to be thinking about that might be impacting you at work. So we will be right back.

You are listening to Shedding the Bitch Radio with Bernadette Boas. We are inspiring individuals around the globe to discover, confront, and shed their bitches of fear, insecurity, insecurity and negativity so they can create the riches in their career, business and life they deserve. Be sure to check out Bernadette's book, Shedding the Corporate Bitch: Shifting from Bitch to Rich in Life and Business, available on Amazon and sheddingthebitch.com. We also want to thank our sponsors, TSR Consulting, who offers a broad range of tax services for small to corporate size clients. Go to TSRConsulting.com consulting.com to learn more. And Parker House Virtual Services, who provides virtual assistance and social media support for small to medium-sized businesses. Email Deborah Parker at deborahparker78@gmail.com for more information. To become a sponsor or advertiser on our program, email us at media relations at sheddingthebitch.com. Shedding the Bitch Radio airs every Tuesday at noon Eastern time. Be sure to go to blogtalkradio.com/sheddingthebitchradio and follow the program for all of the updates and announcements of our guests and show topics. Now let's return to Bernadette and Shedding the Bitch Radio.

Welcome back everyone, we are talking with a global leadership guru, just voted one of the top 30 global leadership gurus, Dr. Sylvia Lafaire. And we are talking about kind of not bringing it to work and patterns that originate from your original organization, that is the family, that could be impacting you at work. So Dr. Sylvia, I am dying to hear what these patterns are, and I'm going to be taking notes as to which ones I have. That might be impacting me. But can you share with us and start kind of giving us an idea of what these behavioral patterns are that could have our name on them?

Yeah, I'd love to, but before I start talking about them, on our website, on ceoptions.com, you can go and take the leadership behavior quiz. It's a short quiz. It's a lot of fun. Well, fun, I don't know if it's fun.

It's fast.

And you will end up— you'll end up getting an idea of what pattern— I call it sticky— out of the 13, there are usually 1 to 3 that have your name on it. So I'm going to tell you full disclosure how I started working with this and getting the patterns, because as we worked with this earlier, we didn't have the names for it. And then little by little, it started to kind of get clear. And one— this is one day, this is years ago. Remember, I'm the elder millennial of the day. Years ago, I was in an office working, consulting with a group in the morning, and something happened that was very annoying. And I kind of slammed my hand down on the desk, not that hard, but hard enough to pay attention to. And I said, this is ridiculous, and it really has to stop. And as I was leaving, I heard two people say, oh, sometimes she gets so dramatic. And I thought, "Oh, what do they know?" And I left, you know, I didn't pay attention. Later in the day, I was in another meeting, so it's the only constant in this was me, same Sylvia, but another group. And again, something happened that was, you know, kind of unpleasant. And what I did was I remembered from the morning, so I didn't put my hand down on the desk, but I kind of had my arms up you know, sort of waving one hand in the air going, wait a minute, wait a minute, you know, we've got to look at how to stop this. And somebody who I was friendly with as we walked out said, oh, Sylvia, you know, you're dramatic, sometimes you're too dramatic. That was the second time in one day. Well, you know, three is the charm. And that night I was home and my daughters were in college at the time, and one of my daughters called and she was telling me something, and it was very annoying. And I said, oh, Julie, that's so ridiculous, blah blah blah blah blah. She said, Mom, when you get that dramatic, nobody can talk to you. I'm gonna hang up. We'll talk another day. Clink. And I thought, 3 times in 1 day? So innocently, I looked at my husband. I said, am I that dramatic? And he said, you've got to be kidding. You're just paying attention to that? So I thought, okay, so that was— remember I said if it keeps repeating, it's a pattern? Pay attention.

Yes.

So I started to, to really track this, Bernadette, and it was so interesting because I— that was the observed part. Then I went to understand, and I, the opposite of you, I only have one sibling, an older brother who was king of the hill, you know. And if my brother said tomorrow's Thursday My parents thought that was the most brilliant thing they ever heard. And if I said tomorrow's Thursday, they go, oh, that's cute, right? So if I wanted attention, I had to do a dramatic hissy fit. Camera action, everything on Sylvia. So I learned it early. I didn't realize I took it into the workplace, and I did. And people liked me and fun and, you know, but sometimes that drama could could get annoying. So I thought to myself, okay, that's one of the patterns. So anybody out there— and ladies and gentlemen, there are as many drama kings as there are drama queens. Okay, yeah. Hey, amen to that. So then I thought, okay, if, if, if that's it, I don't want to walk around the rest of my life with "Hello, my name is Sylvia, I'm a drama queen" on my forehead. That didn't feel very good. And I thought, what do you do about it? And then I thought, well, it's good energy and I love the adrenaline of it. What can I do that will turn the adrenaline into something positive? And I became a really good storyteller. Same— I mean, it's like acting. I mean, it's stories so that when I do work, I have lots of stories that I can tell that give me the same adrenaline rush but they have purpose. The drama queen has no purpose except to say, look at me, look at me, look at me. A storyteller says, you can listen to me and look at me, but I'm going to tell you something that will make a difference. So that's one of the big patterns. So now we're down to 12. So anybody out there who thinks you're a drama queen or king, know that you can transform it. And it's not that hard. You just have to pay attention to it, right? That makes sense so far.

Absolutely, absolutely.

So I'll tell you another one because sometimes the hand and the glove fit perfectly. So my husband grew up in a family where arguments never got resolved, so early on he learned to get out of there. So he became an avoider. So when arguments would come, he would take the keys if it was a personal argument, and he'd zip out of here and get in the car and pshh, he was gone, right? And we worked together. Our business for 30 years has been a family business, if you will. And so we had to learn to work together, and the drama queen and the avoider Truthfully, it could be like a Saturday Night Live skit. I mean, it can get really ugly if you— the drama queen is blah, blah, blahing and the avoider is getting the heck out of there and you can take days to resolve those kind of issues. So one day we had finally named him as the avoider. We were beginning to name these patterns over the years to see what really makes sense and one day Whatever I said, I was annoyed with him, and I waited for him to go get the keys, and he looked at me, he said, sit down. I said, why? He said, because we're going to resolve this. I said, but you're supposed to get the keys and run out of here. He said, no, no, the avoider becomes an initiator. They're the ones who start the conversation to make the change happen. And I was— the drama queen in me was like a balloon that got all the air sucked out of it. And I said, but that's not how we've been doing it. He said, well, too bad. That's how we're going to do it. It took us under 5 minutes to resolve something that could have ended up being a couple of hours of dissension.

Right.

And it happens at work all the time. Our patterns clash with each other. So if you're in a meeting, any kind of meeting, and there's an avoider there, just notice they'll be looking at their watch saying, oh, I forgot, I, you know, I have to get to the hospital. I forgot I'm having open heart surgery.

See ya.

Yeah, so that's another one. I don't know if either of these hit you yet, but I want to talk about a couple more that I think are very much— as I said, there is many drama kings as drama queens, so that one I'm not giving to women. But there are a few that have women's names on them, and one of them is the pleaser. You know, for generations, we as women learned to say yes to an awful lot of things or keep our mouth shut about an awful lot of things because it was about safety and survival. And so, so it's for, for women who are pleasers, I have one thing to tell you, and that is remember, no is a complete sentence. No is a complete sentence. You don't have to have qualifiers after it, but you have to learn to say it. It's— it's— people have such a tough time getting the word no out. But when a pleaser can see that they did it because they had to be the, the good little girl, you know, keeping everything safe and kind and smiling and, you know, the cheerleader, etc., They become fabulous truth tellers. So the health of these patterns, Bernadette, is that they have an opposite, a transformed opposite. It's the same energy. Yeah, go ahead.

No, no, no, that was gonna be my question. I was sitting here thinking, gosh, it sounds like there's these 13 patterns, but then there's these 13 you know, opposites, um, you know, things that people should be doing to change. That's awesome.

All right, absolutely, absolutely. And it's like, you know, in some families, one of the kids— one or two in, in a family as big as yours, maybe one or two— but usually there's one who becomes the superachiever, the one who has to win all the awards, who, you know, everybody's saying, oh, isn't he or she terrific?— and this could be gender, not gender-specific. I'll get back to a few gender-specific in a minute. But the superachiever has to be first, has to be first. There is no second. There's first and there's last. There's no second, third, or fourth. And it's grueling for people to be in that situation so that the superachiever, once they begin to see that pattern and people kind of start to stay away from them— I call them the me, me, me guy or gal is to transform it into becoming a creative collaborator. And that is, we know that the time of the solo winner in the world doesn't really exist anymore. Even people who, you know, when I was just watching the Masters the other day that was down in your neck of the woods in Augusta, yeah, and talking about all the the trainers and the coaches and the people who were there to support. You don't win on your own. I mean, you're there by yourself, you know, making sure you can get that sweet little golf ball into that hole over there, but the idea is you've had a lot of people around you, and once you become a creative collaborator, you begin to see that winning is a team effort, and it takes pressure off. And it makes such a difference. And you can come in second or third or fourth, you know, but you begin to say, was I pleasing me or was this pleasing my family? Was I there because they needed this or I wanted this? And these are questions that you have to ask yourself. You know, we have a list of them. That's why I'm suggesting to take the leadership quiz, you know, the behavior quiz to see which one. I'll tell you, you know, with— it was very funny. Somebody called one day and said, I took the quiz and I don't agree with the answers. And they were talking to one of the other coaches and this woman said, there's something wrong with the quiz. And the guy she was talking with said, well, you know, tell me, when did you take the quiz? She said, oh, I took it 3 months ago. I just wasn't ready to discuss it. And he said, and you were what? She said an avoider, but it's not right.

Oh, that's hysterical. That is hysterical. Well, and you just hit on mine. Well, I— well, first off, I want to remind everybody, the leadership quiz, ceoptions.com. Go out there, and like she said, it can be fun, but it'll tell you the 3 behaviors, 3 patterns.

No, no, you'll get the main one. You'll get your main one, the main pattern that And, and it can change occasionally, but most of the time it's— this is pretty hardwired into your nervous system. So it'll give you the first pattern. You know, you can take the quiz more than once, maybe get one or two, but you'll get your main one. So, and another one I want to get back to, to where, you know, the, the women of the world are, is in life, as I said, pleasers. Often rescuers. And a lot of people who are in the helping professions, a lot of the women in the helping professions, are professional rescuers. And it's exhausting because we're always there wanting to help everybody out. And guess what? The, the rescuer turns into a mentor. And the difference is, it's one of those Teach people to fish, don't give them the fish, you know, because we have— it's a natural tendency. Let me help you. Let me do it for you. So it's also very much, you know, the women are there, and it's generational. I mean, these things have— we've been trained culturally in many instances to, you know, behave, be good, and That's why I love when you say, you know, you figured you had to have been adopted because you just didn't fit into the mold. But so you were, I would call, the rebel.

Yeah, yeah, the rebel, the superachiever. Yeah, yeah, yeah, the rebel's one of them.

Well, but let me tell you about the rebel because I can see what you're doing with that rebel energy. Is rebels become community builders. Rebels— and that's what you're doing, you're building an incredible community of people to change their behavior for the better, and you're creating a community by, by your work and your radio program, etc. So you've taken that energy. There's nothing— it's not that the energy is bad, it's just that when you get stuck in the patterns, they won't take you as far as you want to go. Drama queen wouldn't take me anywhere near storyteller does, you know. Avoider couldn't take my husband anywhere near being an initiator and saying, nope, I'm going to be the one to solve the situation, or at least bring it up so we have to talk about it.

Absolutely. Nice. All right, any more?

I know you have a lot of them. Yeah, the, the one I will tell you that for me still is the hardest one to see transform, sadly, is the splitter. And the splitter is the one who will talk out of both sides of his or her mouth, and it's not gender-specific. This is— they're, they're usually almost sociopathic, not psychopathic, but sociopathic, you know, because they just want to tell everybody everything, but then they stand back It's like if I said to you, you know, Susie said she doesn't like the way you talk, and you think to yourself, who's— what does Susie know? And then I go to Susie and say, you know, Bernadette's really annoyed. She said, what do you know? And then you and Susie walk by each other with icicles, and the splitter is standing on the side saying, huh, I got it, I'm the winner here.

They're very hard. In the work—

yeah, in the workplace, I usually— I tend to be pretty positive, and I tend to see the good in people and situations and, and figure out how to make things change. When I see a splitter in the workplace, I will usually tell the, the boss, you know, if it's the boss, it's a whole other story, but if not, I think you're going to have to unhire that person. I remember once there was an assistant, an administrative assistant, and she would set the meetings up for her boss who I was working with, and I would talk to the admin and she'd say, Sylvia, no, nobody's going to tell you, she's— well, she used your favorite word. She said, she's such a bitch. And I'd say, oh really? And I think, why is she telling me that?— the boss, she would always be very sweet to. But the boss was having lots of people— it was a female boss— not coming to her. And finally she said to me, "Something's wrong here, Sylvia." And I said, "Look, I'm getting, you know, all this mixed— these mixed messages from, you know, Deborah." And I said, "I think you better really think about—" 'Your best interest here.' And she said, 'But you always can help everybody do better.' I said, 'Not always, not always.' And Deborah didn't want to change. You— there is that, you know, that saying, and you have to want it, right? Have to want to look at it, or at least it has to hurt enough that you will then look at it. So those are, you know, in, in my book Don't Bring It to Work are the 13 patterns. And in my— the other book I just want to bring up, because I think you probably have quite a few women listening to you, I wrote a really cool book called Gutsy, which is what you are. How women— how women leaders— well, it's true. I can hear it in your voice and all you've been doing all these years. It's Gutsy: How Women Leaders Make Change. And it has the 13 patterns. It goes in a different— it's a different book than Don't Bring It to Work. It takes women on a different kind of journey, but to find themselves. But both books have the 13 patterns. So I think that there are other patterns, but it starts to get into overwhelm. So I think I gave the key ones to you.

Super, and I want everybody, go to Amazon or go to CEOptions.com and look at her books, you know, especially Don't Bring It to Work, her gutsy book, if you're a woman listening to this, and you know, it is self-awareness we talk about all the time here, so be sure that you're hooking into Dr. Sylvia because she and her team really, I mean, she's not voted top 30 global leadership gurus for nothing. And I also want to mention for her and for all of you that as being part of the Shedding the Bits program, she is offering for her— with her coaching program, 10% off for those who listen and reach out to her. And again, you can reach out to her directly, Sylvia@ceoptions.com. But she'll offer her program. She has various programs, so look at everything that she does and and decide which one is best for you. Or like that woman she mentioned earlier in the program, give them a call. Give her a call directly and speak to her about what it is that you're looking for for some support. But she has career transition programs where it's 8 sessions, and you can receive that for $1,850. Or another one is her leadership enhancement, because that's really, you know, kind of core to her. And she has programs that she wraps up 10 sessions for $3,000. And then she also has an award-winning, which none of us will be surprised that it's award-winning, her 4-session Total Leadership Connections program. And that's beginning May 3rd through the 5th. So you're— it's like perfect timing for you to be able to go to ceoptions.com and take a look at all of her programs and look into that May 3rd to the 5th Total Leadership Connections program and get more information there. All right, before we wrap up though, I kind of want to put a pretty package on this by just saying you've mentioned the way out technique, you mentioned the EDGE, we've talked about the pattern, we talked about self-awareness as a whole is really what this comes down to. What kind of last tip or piece of advice would you provide our listeners as far as them getting on this path of self-awareness and how to go about doing that?

I think that the best gift you can give yourself is really understanding that solving a problem is solving a problem. If it keeps repeating, it's a pattern. Connect the dots and then grab a coach who can help you see the way out. That's my best advice.

Do you have a program called Connect the Dots? Because that's awesome.

No, maybe I'll have to start one. Right.

No, no, that's true. So connect the dots, everybody, and look for those patterns that keep repeating themselves and connect the dots. I love that. Dr. Sylvia, thank you so much for being part of the program again, and I look forward to having you back again and again and again. To share your great advice.

Thanks. It's just wonderful, and you're a treasure, so know that.

Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you. I appreciate that. All right, Dr. Sylvia LeFaire, everyone. CEOptions.com. Email her at sylvia@ceoptions.com as well. Twitter handle, Sylvia LeFaire. Facebook, CEOptions. You can't miss her. Just Google her and you'll find her. And of course, go to Amazon and take a look at her books. All right, that was fabulous. As always, time flies. So I'll just mention that take a listen back to this program as well. She went through a number of the patterns and really kind of not only the pattern in itself, but actually the kind of the transformation, the shift that she helps individuals with. So take it back and listen, because there was tons of tips and advice peppered into this discussion. Then join us next week. We'll be talking to Kathy Bach. The struggle is real, entrepreneurs. We understand that, don't we? She'll be talking about what she captured from a number of fellow entrepreneurs in her movie, The Struggle Is Real: Entrepreneurship. You'll get to be able to relate to potentially something maybe you're going through that they could provide you some guidance on. And then Abby Vega will join us at the end of the month for a sweet route to happiness discussion. And then, of course, we're gearing up for Ask Bernadette the first Monday of the month, which I'll talk to you about that later because that's my big annual yearly beach trip, and I take you on the road with me. So we'll talk about that next week as we get closer to it. I want to thank Dr. Sylvia Lafair and all of you, Deborah Parker of Parker House Virtual Services. For being part of the program and out there social mediaing with all of you. And just everyone, please have a rich and prosperous week, and I'll look forward to talking to you right back here next Tuesday at noon Eastern time for another Shedding the Bitch program. Thanks, everybody.

Thank you for listening to Shedding the Bitch Radio with Bernadette Boas. Boas. Join Bernadette every Tuesday at noon Eastern as she helps you shift your bitches to riches. And the dialogue is always going on at sheddingthebitch.com. See you next week.