How Childhood Perceptions Shape Roles in the Business World
When we were young and lacked life experience simply due to age and environmental opportunities (or lack thereof), we shaped a perception of life that is unique to us. As mammals we seek comfort and routine. What one recognizes as safe, others may not. You may feel that some of your colleagues are risk takers, while others you work with “play it safe,” staying within their lane or literally in their cubicles.
How you view others’ behaviors is purely based on your perceptions, and those perceptions lead to expectations that are either met or unmet throughout your life. Only you can have
the life that you have; only you can see the world from your eyes; only you can understand what was, what was created, and how to merge with the leader within.
At every point in our lives, we have the opportunity to see how our subconscious makes autopilot choices. Until we bridge the knowledge of root behaviors to our current thoughts and actions, we will continue to create environments that can be unfavorable for ourselves and others.
Have you ever wondered why your company thrives financially, but you can’t seem to keep employees happy? Have you ever felt that no matter what you do, the work never seems to end and you’re never quite satisfied? How about when you think someone else is the problem, but after they leave the issues creep right back into a new situation? Until we look at what we are personally doing, personally thinking, personally taking action or inaction on, we will continue to allow our autopilot child to lead the way. However, we have the ability to consciously lead, bridging the past to create our desired present with awareness and authority. And then we can apply it to win!
Taking steps toward our personal awareness requires time and vulnerable honesty. Recognizing our own red flags and how we bring them into the workplace is key to laying the groundwork for building YOUR brand. You may be working for someone else’s company, but your personality is still a part of their brand. Your brand is YOU. Getting the promotion or the bottom line in the black depends on how you represent your brand.
Let’s take an honest assessment, whether you are CEO or an entry level intern:
- Do you often have “squirrel brain” in certain conditions? Under what circumstances do you feel scattered? What needs to happen for you to feel soothed and on the right track again?
- How much is tension, burnout, or miscommunication costing your organization in lost productivity or morale? How much is overlap from outside sources?
- When team trust is low, do you know what part of your leadership may be contributing to it?
Obviously, these questions aren’t always easy to answer and aren’t necessarily a catch-all for each of our individual experiences. We all have different love languages that are accessible at varying moments and from environment to environment. And we have unique needs and hear things differently than others might. Clearly, we are extremely complex, yet very simplistic in our fundamental mammal needs.
However, when we begin to explore our needs on a daily basis, we also begin to better understand those needs. Then we can assess our perceptions of what may be threatening our success. I say “perceptions” because everything truly is within our own control. We may feel that things are spiraling out of control, but how we choose to view situations is always within our power. With consistent practice in needs awareness, we can begin to hold ourselves accountable for our reactions.
Knowing where the perceived adversity is coming from is key. When we discover patterns from long-standing, perceived subconscious viewpoints – that falsely believe something is repeating from the past and threatening our “safety” – we create scenarios that are unnecessary and unhelpful. At minimum, try handling your reactions with less intensity, using healthy communication to create a path towards trust and an understanding of all
viewpoints.
We may have different stories. However, how we ruminate, act or decipher events across our lifespan has a predictable pattern. Cracking the code to our needs is not for the weak! But with time and diligence, you can build your brand within a branded world. It requires constant self-talk, along with disciplined self-awareness, to unpack the things holding us back. It may sound daunting, and I’ll be honest, it can be. However, you’re worth it; your company or job is worth it; your home life is worth it. We all have the ability to accept our past, bridging it with our current needs, to merge with the leader within.
By Laurie Ann Wrage, trainer, keynote speaker and Emotional Resilience Expert; originally published in SBAM’s January/February 2026 issue of FOCUS magazine
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