Chapter Connections

Each year I accumulate stacks of notes from the meetings and events I've attended. I was looking through some recently, and one phrase stopped me: 'Work and personal journeys don't run parallel—they intertwine and influence each other.'

Think about who we are. We're Instructional Designers. Facilitators. Leaders. And as diverse as we are within this talent development industry, our personal journeys have been even more diverse. 

The passion you have for your hobbies, the struggles you face at home, the triumphs you celebrate personally—they all shape the professional you bring to the table.

At our annual holiday event last month, we encouraged attendees to share a personal win that they took into their work life, or a lesson learned at work which they also applied at home.

As we step into 2025, I want to challenge you to keep that spirit alive. Take this mindset back to your offices. Bring your whole self—your unique, diverse journey—into your work every day.

I also invite you to let ATD Orange County intertwine with your work life. Don't let your Chapter be a silo separate from your career. Let the flow go both ways. When you learn a new strategy here, take it back to your teams. When you're facing a tough challenge at work, bring it here to your peers.

Our journeys are diverse and powerful, but only if we share them. So in the year ahead, let's make sure our paths don't just run parallel. Let's ensure they intersect, influence, and elevate each other. That's how we'll make 2026 a year of genuine growth—together.

Here’s a behind-the-scenes look at ATD-OC’s Marketing: we often ask our Chapter leaders to share their experiences as they guide the evolution of our talent development community. Kim stands out as a steadfast advocate, both within social media and in the real world, for our volunteers and their hard work in building up our community through creative programs and networking events that actually connect. Every time we’ve asked her for thoughts on her leadership journey, she has graciously shared her experiences with openness and honesty. Her positive influence is evident across our social media channels, and we are truly grateful for her ongoing support as we continue to grow and evolve into 2026 and beyond.

It's Saturday. If you've followed this series throughout the week, our thanks for being here. Here's our summation.

Your Fresh Start of 2026 offers a choice: add more resolutions to your list or direct your finite energy more intentionally.

• If you want to apply AI research: Use the Power Member resources and test them in our chapter sandbox.

• If you want to transition careers: Immerse yourself in our projects to learn the language of L&D.

• If you want to prove your worth: Build your portfolio through active chapter contributions.

Before you commit to another certification, another conference, another year of consuming content you'll never apply, return to those four questions:

• What are your passions and interests?

• What are your skills?

• What causes you the most concern?

• How much time do you actually have?

For those of us in learning and development, ATD-Orange County represents one opportunity through which we practice our craft, contribute to our profession's growth, and connect with people who understand both the work and the struggle. 

The real question isn't about where to volunteer. It's where to direct your finite energy so that this time next year, you're not just older but genuinely more capable.

Find that space. Show up. See what challenges your assumptions.

She's right. It's deeper than networking.

When you work alongside someone toward a shared goal, you form bonds that social media and conference small talk can't replicate. You see how they solve problems, handle setbacks, and celebrate small wins. You watch someone navigate a difficult conversation with grace. You experience the moment when your idea merges with someone else's and becomes better than either of you could have created alone.

But equally important: you get to witness what's possible. You see how experienced practitioners think through ambiguity. 

"The stereotypes get challenged," Phillips said. You challenge your own assumptions about what you're capable of. And you challenge your assumptions about the field itself—what seemed simple from the outside reveals its complexity. 

The Insight: Volunteering is where you discover what you're actually capable of by doing it alongside people who:

We started this week with an invitation to conduct a 'pre-interview' with ourselves before directing our focus and energy for 2026. This post deepens our reflection with an insight shared in our February State of the Industry Learning Event.

The Insight: Early last year*, Robert Coleman, Director of Services at OneOC, described two types of work that keep mission-driven organizations alive. The "blue music" is the mission itself—the reason everyone shows up, the inspiring work that fills the house with life. The "grey music" is operations—the infrastructure work that builds the house in the first place.

"You have to be both," Coleman explains. "The reason you're there, of course, is for the organization's mission. So everything that you do is for the mission. But you cannot survive as an organization, you cannot keep that mission alive, if you do not pay attention to the operations."

Here's why this matters for your professional development: most of us are drawn only to the blue music. We want to work on inspiring projects, transformational initiatives, visible wins. But the professionals who become indispensable understand the grey music—fundraising, grant writing, accounting, HR, professional development, measurement strategies.

When you volunteer, you often get access to "grey music" work that your day job doesn't expose you to. You see how organizations actually make decisions when resources are limited. You discover how difficult it is to measure training relevance when serving diverse needs. You learn that mission-focus and operations-focus aren't opposing forces—they're interdependent.

And perhaps you apply those lessons back at the office.

Coleman's challenge at OneOC illustrates this perfectly. They can't provide training that covers every nonprofit's specific mission—the blue music is too varied. Their training focuses on the grey music skills that every organization needs regardless of their particular cause.

The question for your career: Are you building capabilities only in your organization's blue music? Or are you developing transferable grey music skills that travel with you?

*already?

We started this week with an invitation to conduct a 'pre-interview' with ourselves before directing our focus and energy for 2026. This post follows up on one of those questions.

The Question: What are your skills?

Here's what they don't tell you when you develop a skill: it's perishable. Project management, facilitation, data storytelling, strategic communication—if you don't use them regularly, they don't just sit dormant. They atrophy.

Even more insidious: they become credentials on a résumé rather than capabilities you can deploy. You can say you're skilled at something, but when the opportunity arrives, the muscle memory is gone.

Volunteering keeps those skills alive, but more importantly, it tests their boundaries. A marketing professional working with a nonprofit communications team discovers that member engagement operates differently than customer acquisition. A data analyst helping with organizational metrics learns that mission-driven organizations measure impact in ways corporations don't.

This testing reveals what transfers and what doesn't. It shows you where your expertise is portable and where it's context-dependent. That knowledge makes you better at your primary work because you understand the shape of your own capabilities more clearly.

We began this week with a post challenging us to develop our discernment skill. In a decade that will likely be defined by competing attention for our time, how are we ensuring that we are focusing our energies on what matters most to us, either professionally or personally? This week, we're following up with some ideas to help us in our reflections.

The Pattern: You resolve to "stay current with AI" or "master strategic influence." You consume content—webinars, articles, LinkedIn posts. You feel productive. Nothing changes.

The Reality: Knowledge without application doesn't compound. It evaporates.

Think about how you'd approach learning a language. You wouldn't just download vocabulary apps and watch Spanish films with subtitles. You'd know that's preparation, not practice. Real fluency requires conversation—awkward, mistake-filled, iterative conversation.

Professional skills work the same way. You can study frameworks for instructional design or read case studies about stakeholder management. But until you actually facilitate a difficult conversation, design something for a real audience with real constraints, or navigate conflicting priorities with actual humans, that knowledge remains theoretical.

Volunteering offers what consumption can't: a place to practice with real stakes but without career risk. For those of us in learning and development, engaging with an organization like ATD-Orange County means testing new approaches on chapter projects before introducing them at your day job. It means speaking the language of L&D with practitioners who will notice when your phrasing sounds memorized versus lived.

This isn't about adding volunteering to your overflowing list. It's about redirecting energy you're already spending—from passive consumption to active practice.

The quiet days between Christmas and New Year invites a familiar ritual: fitness goals (Walk every morning!), habit changes (Read more books!), personal transformation (Learn a new language!). They also provide a rare opportunity to define what we want to see of ourselves in the coming year. 

But as a Talent Development professional, have you applied that same "resolution energy" to your career?

We’re not suggesting a different set of resolutions(A webinar a week! Learn how to use AI!) to add to your list. We’re inviting you to create space to ask yourself: “Where should I direct my finite energy for professional growth?”

2025 has proven to be a year of endless distractions and competing demands. Personally, I think that defines the decade. The skill that matters most is not productivity. It’s focus. Discernment.

Before you commit to another certification course, another conference, another stack of books you'll mean to read, consider conducting a pre-interview with yourself:

• What are your passions and interests?

• What are your skills?

• What causes you the most concern?

• How much time do you actually have?

We pulled these questions from an SCNG Premium article in their “Be the Change” edition. The article focused on how best to identify where you would invest your time and energy as you volunteer to improve your community.

We’re looking at them as a method for identifying where you would invest your time and energy as you seek to improve your profession. Using those questions as a foundation, you can focus on the following:

• What do I actually want to accomplish in 2026? 
• Where do I want to invest my energy? 
• How do I want to grow my career?

We’re moving from adding resolutions to directing our limited energy towards personal and professional growth that compounds.

This week, we’ll consider these questions, analyze the pattern that we’re in, and propose new ideas for reflection.

1. The Difference Between Consumption and Practice
2. Skills Are Perishable
3. The Blue Music and the Grey Music
4. Capabilities that Advance Careers Are Social
5. From Resolution to Results

This is not an article the Board wants me to write. Because I'm going to talk about how I should have said “No” when asked to serve.

This year, I held two positions on the Board: Marketing and Programming. It seemed a no-brainer to me. I was already doing Marketing and had plans to take it further. Programming? I was passionate about building a calendar that reflected the full breadth of our talent development community. 

But these are volunteer roles added on top of work and personal responsibilities, and at the end of the year it became obvious: taking on both roles hadn't doubled my impact. Instead, I had split an already divided focus even thinner.

At the end of the year we ask our Chapter Leaders about lessons learned. For me, it's the reminder that focus matters. When you spread yourself too thin, you don't just do less. You abandon the very innovations that made you say yes in the first place.

Losing the Vision

I felt the impact of this split focus most acutely in Marketing.

This was the role I knew best. I had a clear vision for 2025: I wanted to stop just telling our members what's on the calendar and start showing the wider L&D community why membership itself matters. Market the value, not just the events.

We communicated our programs effectively. But the campaigns I'd designed to elevate the chapter's reputation never happened. By trying to do everything, I ended up saying an implicit "No" to the very innovation that motivated me to take the role in the first place.

Innovation Through Refusal

I was more protective of Chapter Programs than I had been of my own time. After analyzing previous years' results, we set a clear direction: programs aligned with a broader spectrum of ATD Talent Development Capabilities, with more in-person connection opportunities. That meant saying "No" to speakers whose proposals didn't fit our vision, even when they were perfectly good topics. 

But those "Nos" forced us to innovate. We had speaker interest; we just needed a better format. That's how "Inside the Design" was born. Instead of standard presentations, we challenged speakers to share what went into designing the programs they were now delivering nationally. Our initial “Inside the Design” interview was absolutely fabulous and is a format we’re planning to continue.

That success proved a point: saying "No" adds strength to what you say "Yes" to. Strategic refusal isn't negative—it's structural. It creates the space innovation needs to stand.

What Choice?

So, looking back, which role should I have declined back in January?

I’m still not sure.

Marketing had momentum. I'd done it for a year. I had the plan and the experience. Programming needed immediate reinvention, and I had gravitated toward that urgency.

I can't say if that was the right call. What I do know is this: by taking both, I robbed Marketing of the innovation it deserved. And Programming? I got lucky with what I managed to pull off.

The silver lining is that we’re correcting course. For 2026, we have a dedicated leader focusing solely on Marketing. They will be able to say "Yes" to the initiatives I had to neglect.

And maybe that's the real lesson here. Strategic focus isn't about protecting your time—it's about protecting the integrity of what you're trying to build. Sometimes the most important leadership decision is knowing which "Yes" you need to walk away from.

Since the 2024 Holiday event, Lara has gone above and beyond in engaging with our young SIG professionals, offering guidance, encouragement, and fresh ideas that have elevated our programming. She has played a key role in planning and shaping upcoming events, always bringing creativity, dependability, and a collaborative spirit.

In addition to her volunteer work with our members, Lara has generously supported the ATD-OC website—updating the event registration section, revising key information, and ensuring our online presence reflects the professionalism of our chapter. Her attention to detail and willingness to jump in wherever needed have made a meaningful difference.

Lara’s participation at chapter events, her positive energy, and her genuine commitment to our community make her an invaluable asset. She embodies the spirit of service and leadership, and we are truly fortunate to have her in our chapter.

Member since 2024