Alicia Green Crider

I’d credit much of my success to having the audacity to try things before I feel fully ready. At times, it’s raised eyebrows—friends joking, “You’re doing what now?”—but I’ve learned that growth lives in those moments of uncertainty.

Real progress comes from being willing to step into the unknown, to experiment, and yes, to fail. So many people hold themselves back out of fear, but the willingness to try—even without guarantees—is often what sets everything in motion.

The best advice I’ve received is that you can always restart. When I took a job at Amazon, I moved from Philadelphia to Nashville, and my parents told me, “You can always come home—if you don’t like it, you can stop and start somewhere else.”

At Amazon, they often say that many things in life are two-door decisions, while only a few are one-door decisions. Obviously, having a child would be a one-door decision—there’s no going back—but most things allow you to restart and shape them into what you want.

I finished my master’s degree last year, something I never thought I would do or invest in. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized that you can always restart.

Within the training and learning & development space, being willing to put your best foot forward and maintain a positive attitude is more than half the battle. Managing technological changes, learning new skills, and keeping up with current trends are all important, but I see them as just one part of success.

If you approach learning and development with the right mindset, it will take you far.

I think the biggest challenge, as we look forward in the tech landscape, is going to be figuring out how we can use AI to our benefit instead of becoming outdated as instructional designers.