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The Path To Leadership
We podcast about strong leaders, loyal employees, avoiding burnout, and raising profits building strong cultures. Everyone is a leader, but the path isn't always easy. Developing critical skills to build stronger, more successful and profitable organizations.
The Path To Leadership
Behind the Highlight Reel: The Myth of Overnight Success
Have you ever watched someone seemingly burst onto the scene out of nowhere and wondered, "How did they get so successful so fast?" The truth is far more complex and fascinating than what meets the eye.
Success isn't a sudden event but a culmination of years—sometimes decades—of consistent work, learning, failures, and resilience that happened quietly behind the scenes. Drawing from my own 26-year journey before starting Catalyst Development, I pull back the curtain on what truly builds sustainable achievement and authentic leadership.
We're living in a world dominated by carefully curated highlight reels. Social media shows the promotions, awards, and celebrations, but rarely reveals the late nights, rejections, and struggles that preceded them. Add to this our natural cognitive tendency toward recency bias—our brain's preference for what we've just noticed—and we get a completely distorted picture of how success actually unfolds.
The most valuable growth happens not in the spotlight but in the shadows: through missteps that teach us what doesn't work, through unexpected detours that connect us with vital people and opportunities, and through the patience of cultivating deep roots before anything visibly sprouts. Just like plants that grow strongest when their foundation is solid, leadership capacity develops through nurturing and time—not through shortcuts or pretending to have all the answers.
What would change if we started celebrating our progress rather than chasing perfection? What if we shared the unfiltered stories of our journeys rather than just the highlight reels? When we embrace authenticity in our paths to leadership, we not only honor our own growth but create permission for others to do the same.
Ready to reframe your understanding of success and leadership? Join me in abandoning the "overnight success" myth and instead valuing the beautiful, messy, nonlinear path that actually builds true leaders. Share your journey—both triumphs and struggles—and discover how your authentic story becomes your greatest strength.
Follow Catalyst Development on LinkedIn @catalystdevelopment and @drkatieervin
www.cdleaders.com
Learn more about Supervisor 101 at www.cdleaders.com/supervisor101
Theme music by Emma Jo https://emmajo.rocks/
Welcome back to the Path to Leadership. I am really excited about this episode because I wanna continue the conversation that I had last week. Last week's episode was all about stop fake it till you make it and really focus on learning it while you earn it, and the feedback from that episode was so much fun. So many people who sent me a note to I saw at events were like, oh, that one hit me just really deep, that one hit me to my core, because we're told throughout our life you know, if you don't, if you don't got it, fake it till you make it smile, till you get there. And it's like, oh my gosh, no, no, stop faking it. It's okay to own what we don't know. It's okay to acknowledge that we don't know everything. That's how we learn, that's how we grow, and I think that so often we're afraid of not knowing everything. That that causes us to fake it or to be inauthentic. And so I made me think as I was thinking about last week's episode.
Dr. Katie:I started to, you know, lay out this week's episode, because this week's episode is all about the falsehood of overnight success. Oftentimes people will pop up, and especially in these social media days, people will pop up and you're like whoa, where did they come from? It's like they just started their business or they just popped into my algorithm, or I just saw them at an event and now I'm seeing them everywhere, and so that's really the whole idea of an overnight success is really a lie. There's so much that goes on behind the scenes, that happens before that, and so, like when I started Catalyst Development, I would have people say, you know, I would lay out my business plan and I would lay out the leaders program, which is the cornerstone of the work that I do with companies and individuals, and I'd have people say, oh my gosh, you're so far ahead for just open your business. And I just was like, yeah, I've been doing this for 24 years. I've been building on top of everything.
Dr. Katie:I was in my undergrad studying sociology and psychology and how people tick and how they move and how they behave, and then my master's in human resources development, so how they learn, how they grow. And then you throw in all of my years of HR experience and all my years of operational experience in figuring out how not only organizations work, but how organizations get tripped up and roadblocks and struggles, and how group dynamics come into play and leadership dynamics come into play, and so I've really spent 26 years doing research and I mean we can even throw in I mean I'm 49, I'll be 50 next January. I mean you can even throw in. You know probably another, I don't know 35 years. So let's just say really I've been working on this for 35 years because even when I was young, when I was a teenager, I can pull this thread of people through my life Like I've always wanted to help people succeed. I've always wanted to see people grow. I've always wanted to create an environment where people feel like they fit in. I didn't always do it in the best way. I didn't know what I didn't know back then, but I do know that so much of what I've learned and grown through the years, there is this thread all the way through it. So it's a thing.
Dr. Katie:And so let's really start with talking about the allure of highlight reels and recency bias. You know social media. We spend so much time on social media these days. I know there's a lot of people that are like I'm not even going to be on social media anymore, but it causes burnout, it causes stress, it causes so much because we're only seeing people's highlight reels. Now, there's some people out there that are really authentic and really fantastic on social media, but a lot of times we're just celebrating awards and promotions and launches, but we're not celebrating the late nights, the rejections, the burnouts. And again, I am seeing more and more people, especially on LinkedIn, which I really appreciate, tell their story of how they got here and that they're not an overnight success. But there's still some of those people that are struggling with that and I think that's really important that we understand that there's also recency bias, and recency bias is really that we confuse the latest success with the first and only success.
Dr. Katie:Recency bias is a cognitive bias that occurs where we're really just our brain really favors the most recent historic events. It's really a memory bias. It gives greater importance to the most recent events, so we tend to hold on so quickly to what we just recently saw, and so that's why, you'll see, we get this comfort level with this recency bias, because it's like, oh, it's right there in front of me, I've seen it, I've been around it, it's there, and our brain is just more focused on looking for it. Have you ever been to an event where you've met somebody and then, next thing you do. You see them everywhere. Or you buy a I have an orange Jeep and so you buy an orange Jeep and then all of a sudden you start seeing orange cars everywhere. That's that recency bias, where we start seeing things because our brain has that in the front of its mind. And so where we can really get confused is when we see somebody really coming on strong and not in a bad way strong, but really coming on with a lot. They're really in our algorithm or they're really around us and you think, oh my gosh, they are killing it. They've got so much going on. But really the truth is behind the climb.
Dr. Katie:And it's really funny because I was meeting with a friend last year, jill Hathaway, who is with the Small Business Center at UMKC. She's phenomenal, phenomenal and she's so helpful helping small businesses startup, grow and thrive. And it was funny because her and I were talking and she said you know how's business? And I said well, you know, we're only two years old and I got a lot going on personally. And you know, I just don't know. I don't know if we're going to make it. I don't know that I can keep doing this. And she said you know, I hear your name everywhere. I hear your name, I hear Catalyst Development everywhere. I don't understand how you don't have all kinds of business and I was like me either me, either Everyone I talk to I hear that same thing and I don't know what's going on. And so she really helped me sit down and look at the behind the scenes stuff, the missteps, the things I might be missing pivots.
Dr. Katie:I need to take kind of those hard lessons, understanding the importance of, as I'm growing a business, as I'm growing who I am. People have to know me and they have to trust me and they have to understand like they really have to understand the work that I'm doing, and so it takes time. You can't just tell people, hey, I'm doing this and expect people to show up and I've talked about this in previous podcasts Not everyone's going to wave the flag for you, not everyone's going to be there for you. A lot of people don't know how to show up, and so we've got to really understand how to ask people to show up for that for us. And it's whether we're in business or whether we're working in a corporate setting or a nonprofit most people do want us to succeed. They just don't know what we need from them, us to succeed. They just don't know what we need from them, and so we have to really tell our story really well and help people understand what we need, how we go.
Dr. Katie:And I tell people all the time. You know, I will meet with people that say, you know, I'm looking for a new job. And it's like well, what are you, what are you looking for? Anything, I just need a job. Well, you know, the restaurant in the corner is hiring, like they're looking no, no, no, that's not what I want to do. Well, what do you want to do? Because when we can really narrow in and tell people you know, here's what I'm looking for, here's what I need or here's how you can support me, they will do that.
Dr. Katie:But it really takes us to get real true about what's going on behind the scenes. And I will tell you too. I have found that not just in the last two years but throughout my career. When I've told people the truth, like hey, I'm really struggling here or I've made a misstep, you know, there's going to be some jerks that take advantage of it. There's going to be just some assholes that try to leverage what they know about you and it's heartbreaking and disappointing and you don't want people to behave like that. But also I can't let that limit what other people can do to help me in this climb, and so I'm one of those that I will trust from the beginning and then, once you prove that I can't trust you, I really struggle to regain trust. It's a whole nother another podcast and therapy appointment but it's true. But what I found was, if I get guarded in the truth of the climb, if I get guarded in telling people my struggles or my concerns or my challenges, then I don't give them an opportunity to be there to help or to support or to cheerlead, which is something that's so important, and we all need those type of people in our corner. And so I caution from you know, keeping everything so close to the vest that you are struggling alone, but also just being careful who you trust your story to. But learning through your journey is really where growth happens in the process, it's not the outcome.
Dr. Katie:My husband shares all the time. He was at Indiana State working and he got a job in Florida and he went down there for the job and we didn't know each other at the time. It was not a great job. It was not a great fit, it was not a great opportunity. Uh, and he was so disappointed and came back to Indiana state. Well, the week he came back to Indiana state, we happened to be at the same event together and met each other.
Dr. Katie:And there's times, you know and he doesn't say this often, but every once in a while he'll say I should have never taken that job in Florida. And I'm like but you had to take that job, you had to go to Florida. You had to dip your toe in the water. It had to not be a fit, because had you not gone to Florida, where would you be? Where would you have gone? You would not have been in Buffalo, wild Wings the night we met. You would probably be someplace else. You would have found a different job. You were looking for a different job and maybe that job would have been a great success and you would have gone and done my son's the same way. He says gosh, I wish I would have never gone to college right out of high school. You told me not to and I did it anyways.
Dr. Katie:It was COVID times, it was tough, but he landed into a surveillance job out there that it wasn't the most glamorous and glorious and fantastic job, but he learned so many really cool skills and made so many great connections and networking. So when he dropped out of school and came back to Kansas City he instantly fell into a great job that paid him well and paid his bills. And again, sometimes he'll lament I should never have gone or I shouldn't have done this, and it's like that's part of the journey, that's part of the process. If you wouldn't have gone there, you wouldn't have gotten here and I think about that so much in my own career as well. If I wouldn't have taken that misstep, if I wouldn't have made that decision. What did I learn from that? Where did it get me? How did it get me here? And that's really what we have to celebrate is where that growth happens, where those lessons are learned, that shape who we are as leaders. It gets us where we are.
Dr. Katie:What failure and hard work taught us? That our instant success never could Like that grind of running a business, you know doing the business, putting in the long hours, you know scraping by. That grind is what really got us here and got us where we are, and so that role of resilience, being able to do really hard things. I hear so often people say you know I can do hard things, but we really really can. And when I'm struggling, when I am or can't get something done, I think you've done really hard things in your career. You've overcome a lot, whether it be family challenges, whether it be getting my doctorate which is no easy feat, starting a business. I've done really hard things and so I can't get down in the failures or the missed opportunities or the things that didn't work for me. I just really got to focus on the path that got me here and that's why the podcast is called the Path to Leadership. That is why I believe that our paths tell such important stories.
Dr. Katie:What are those lessons that we learned along the way? What are those lessons that we learned along the way? What are the things that really played into the resilience? Who are the mentors? Who are the people, who are the ones that have been there, and whether they've been with us long-term, whether they're here in a pivotal and critical moment, there's people that we surround ourselves with that help us along this journey, and our mindset in long-term success our mindset we've talked about growth mindset and how we keep pushing and going and growing is really important. And this all ties back to my word of the year, which I talk about all the time, which is cultivate how I'm planting seeds, professionally, personally and in my business, in my personal life, with relationships and then with myself. It's those real intentional things that I'm doing this year to cultivate myself. And what's really fun is seeing some of the seeds that were planted, quite frankly, five years ago before I even started my business, seeds that were planted two years ago when I first started the business, seeds of people who've seen me speak that are starting to sprout, that are starting to take off. It's just really exciting. But it takes that intentional work, it takes that watering, it takes that nurturing, it takes that patience. Watering. It takes that nurturing. It takes that patience. Sometimes you know there's those plants that the roots run deep but they don't sprout until the roots are firmly into the ground. And those are really the plants we want to really nurture and grow, because we want the roots to be firmly planted. We don't want them to be superficial roots that are easily toppled over. We want to make sure that we set ourselves up for success. So I want you to really think about celebrating your progress over perfection. What are the things that you're learning as you're growing? Learn it while you earn it. What are the maybe things that you see in a negative light that were mistakes or missteps or roadblocks or barriers that really were just opportunities for you to learn, to grow, to push through? Maybe it's to pivot, maybe there was such a glaring roadblock that you're like, oh, that is the wrong direction. There are times that I will just be so frustrated and I will just sit calmly, do a quick meditation, say, all right, universe, what are you trying to tell me? What message am I supposed to hear? What am I supposed to see? What am I supposed to be doing? Give me the direction. And so we've got to stop chasing that illusion of I want to become an overnight success. I read the book and I get up at five and I do these 10 things and I want to make a million dollars. That is all fantastic and kudos to you if you do those things and they work for you. They don't work for everybody, and so find what works for you, value your journey. So I really want to challenge you to share one unseen part of your journey, whether it be on LinkedIn, with a trusted peer, share your story. Let people know that it's not a highlight reel. We're all going through stuff, we're all learning it while we earn it. We are all growing as we're going, we are doing the best we can, and so I really encourage you find those trusted people that you can share your story with and let them know and be proud of the path that you've taken. I will tell you it's funny, because I've had a few people lately that I've been so lucky to speak to some really great groups and really great events. I've been able to work with some really neat people and I've had a couple people introduce me and they say you know, this is Katie Irvin and she spoke to our group and you know she really spoke to me and it was so powerful and I appreciate it. And before I would be like oh no, no, no, no, no. Thank you so much. But oh my gosh, don't put that much pressure on me. But then I think you know what I've earned this. I have the battle wounds and the scars, and when I speak, when I work with people, I let them know that it hasn't been a perfect journey. Then I am vulnerable enough to say I do take missteps, I do make mistakes and I don't want anyone to quote, unquote be me or be like me. When people would say, oh my gosh, I just want to be like you, I would cringe for a little bit and then I'm like you know what. But if that means that you're being authentic, that you're working hard, that you're admitting your mistakes, that that you're grinding it out, that you know you're, you're surrounding yourself with people that want you to grow and want you to be successful, find what that means to you. What is your level of success? What does success mean to you? And I think that's where I'm gonna stop and we are gonna talk about success next week. I just recently did a talk for Leawood Leadership Graduation and talked about defining your own path to success. I talk about it all the time. What does success mean to you? And so we're gonna pick that up next week on the path to leadership. Again, thank you for joining me. Thank you to the people that are subscribing to the podcast so it downloads. Thank you to the people that are going in and rating the podcast five stars. It really helps with the growth of the podcast. Honestly, I truly would do this if no one was listening, because I just love doing this, but I also love that the people that do listen are getting little nuggets from this. So please continue to share. I want to know what's working for you. What are you doing behind the scenes? How can I support you? Please do not hesitate to reach out. Have a phenomenal week, do great things, celebrate your progress, and I'll talk to you next week on the path to leadership. Bye everyone.
