Confessions of Someone Who Cannot Be Concise

There are certain character traits that follow us everywhere.

Not in a dramatic, personality-defining way.

More in a quiet, persistent way—like that one habit you’ve had since childhood that simply refuses to disappear no matter how much life evolves around it.

Apparently, mine is the inability to be concise.

And it has now officially followed me into academic writing.

Which is slightly inconvenient considering I am currently preparing a 15-page literature review as part of the research foundation behind Leaders on Edge.

Now let me say something very clearly before I go any further.

I take this work incredibly seriously.

The research.
The peer review process.
The academic integrity behind building ideas on the work that has come before us.

For as long as I’ve been in leadership, I’ve deeply admired the mentors and thinkers who contributed to peer-reviewed literature. The people who didn’t just share ideas, but tested them, examined them, challenged them, and refined them through scholarship.

That process matters.

It protects the integrity of knowledge.
It keeps ideas grounded in evidence rather than opinion.
And it’s something I’ve always respected enormously.

So when I began preparing the research review behind the frameworks I’m developing, I approached it with the seriousness it deserves.

Careful reading.
Careful synthesis.
Clear organization.

A disciplined 15-page review.

At least that was the intention.

At some point yesterday, I paused to review what I had written so far.

You know… just a quick check to see how the structure was coming together.

I glanced at the bottom of the document.

Thirty-two pages.

Thirty-two.

For a fifteen-page paper.

And I haven’t even finished the sections on recovery cycles yet.

At first I stared at the number in disbelief.

Then I did what anyone in this situation eventually has to do.

I laughed.

Because if you know me—even a little bit—you probably saw this coming.

The Trait That Never Left

Here’s the thing about character traits.

They don’t politely stay in one chapter of your life.

They follow you.

The way you think as a student often becomes the way you think as a professional.

The way you process information early in life tends to remain your default approach decades later.

And in my case, my brain has always had one operating principle:

If something is interesting, I want to understand all of it.

Not just the summary.

The full context.
The surrounding research.
The mechanisms behind the idea.
The opposing arguments.
The studies that led to the conclusions.

Pull one thread and I want to see the entire tapestry.

Which is wonderful in many contexts.

It’s less wonderful when you’re supposed to produce a concise literature review.

The Very “Typical Katie” Moment

Somewhere around page twenty-five I had a realization that felt very familiar.

This was one of those moments where you can almost hear the people who know me best saying:

“Yep… that sounds like Katie.”

Because this is the same pattern that shows up everywhere else in my life.

When I’m learning something, I want the whole system.

When I’m building something, I want the deep structure behind it.

And when I’m writing about something I care about, my instinct is to include every piece that might help someone understand it more fully.

Which is probably why I am now in the slightly amusing position of needing to figure out how to turn thirty-two pages of research into fifteen.

The Serious Work Beneath the Humor

Despite the humor in this situation, the work itself is something I care deeply about.

One of my goals with Leaders on Edge has always been to ensure that the frameworks I’m building are not just personal observations from leadership experience.

They are grounded in the broader body of knowledge that already exists.

Psychology.
Leadership development.
Emotional regulation.
Neuroscience.
Burnout research.

There are brilliant thinkers who have spent decades studying these areas. The responsible thing to do when building something new is to respect and integrate that body of work.

That’s what the literature review process is about.

It’s the difference between simply having ideas and situating those ideas within the larger field of knowledge.

Which is why I’m taking the research process seriously—even if my page count suggests I might be taking it a little too enthusiastically.

The Leadership Lesson Hidden in the Page Count

If there is a leadership lesson hiding in this very “Katie” situation, it’s this:

Our character traits rarely disappear.

They simply evolve with us.

The same tendencies that shaped us earlier in life continue to show up as we grow.

Curiosity.

Intensity.

Depth.

Attention to detail.

Those traits can be tremendous strengths.

But they also require awareness.

Because sometimes leadership—and writing—requires something that doesn’t always come naturally.

Restraint.

The ability to distill.

To choose the most important points.

To make something complex understandable without losing its depth.

So yes, the research is serious.

The peer review process matters.

And the literature that has come before us deserves respect.

But it also turns out that somewhere inside a 15-page review…

there is currently a 32-page reminder that character traits travel with us.

And apparently mine decided to come along for the ride.