“That’s just who I am,” she said.
My client Zoe wanted to be more patient, but she was convinced it was a genetic defect she’d inherited from her father’s side of the family.
“I’ve always been impatient. My family knows it. My team knows it. That’s just my personality.”
“Really? Says who?” I asked.
“What if that’s complete bullshit?”
She smirked but said nothing.
When Zoe first hired me, her top priority was to work on being more patient. Her leadership team had stopped communicating openly with her because they didn’t want to deal with her short temper and she was afraid they weren’t telling her things she needed to know. It was also affecting her relationship with her husband.
The Story We Keep Telling Ourselves
Here’s what Zoe—and honestly, most of us—are guilty of: we’ve confused our childhood programming with our core identity.
We’re walking around letting our junior high selves be in charge of our executive decisions.
Master Coach Steve Chandler calls this our “false persona”—“something that went through its final edit in middle school. It is not real. It is not you.”
Think about that for a moment. Your professional self is being dictated by your 13-year-old self. No wonder things seem so hard.
What Actually Drives Results
There’s a difference most people completely miss:
Your personality TYPE – how you’re naturally wired – isn’t going anywhere. If you’re someone who processes information quickly and makes fast decisions, that’s not changing.
Your personality PATTERNS – your knee-jerk behaviors – are totally changeable. The impatience, the interrupting, the “I have to control everything, or it won’t get done right”—those are learned habits, not genetic defects.
Being authentic is consciously authoring who you choose to be instead of being a slave to whatever programming got downloaded into your brain before you were old enough to question it.
Two Versions of You
I asked Zoe to think about this:
- Automatic Zoe: Reacting from whatever mood she’s in, letting her emotions decide how meetings go, defaulting to “well, that’s just how I am.”
- Authored Zoe: Choosing her response based on what the situation actually needs from her as a leader.
What Authentic Actually Means
The word “authentic” and “author” have the same root—auth. You are literally supposed to be the creator of who you are.
Being “authentic” isn’t staying trapped in your old patterns because “that’s just who you are.”
Being authentic is consciously authoring who you choose to be instead of being a slave to whatever programming got downloaded into your brain before you were old enough to question it.
The Leadership Choice That Changes Everything
You want to be authentic? You get to decide how you show up to that difficult conversation. You get to choose what kind of leader you are when decisions need to be made and your team is relying on you for guidance.
Your natural wiring? That’s your raw material. It’s not your prison sentence.
What Happened Next
Six months later, Zoe’s team started communicating openly with her again. Not because she became a different person, but because she learned to pause and ask herself: “What does this moment require from me?”
Your Move
Next time you catch yourself saying “That’s just who I am,” stop and ask yourself:
“Wait—who decided that? And who do I actually want to be right now?”
The most effective leaders I work with get this: You’re not stuck with your factory settings. You get to upgrade your operating system.
Your personality isn’t a limitation—it’s your starting point.
What version of yourself are you going to author this week?
If you’re tired of being held hostage by patterns that don’t serve you anymore, let’s talk. Sometimes we need someone else to help us see what we can’t see on our own. Book a call here.