Welcome to The Strategic Pause- Mildly Unhinged Learning and Development pros Katrina Kennedy and Jill Parish press pause on the endless to-do list to have the conversations that actually matter.

In aviation and healthcare, a strategic pause can save lives. In business? We skip right past it. But not here. We're taking that pause to dig into what it really means to be in L&D—the work we do, the work people think we do, and why half the organization assumes we're the ones "who do all those trainings everyone hates."

Katrina brings 26+ years training tens of thousands of learners and a recent book on making learning stick. Jill brings her experience as CEO/Founder of ThinkDev an organizational development consulting firm. Together, we're exploring everything from building real community in a virtual world to why we're all so bad at PowerPoint to what we actually do on "no real pants" days.

Expect thoughtful conversations that veer into delightful tangents. Expect us to talk about books, reflection, neurodiversity, imposter syndrome, and the ridiculous things people think we can fix in half a day. Expect laughter (it's literally in our KPIs).

This is for the L&D professionals, the CLOs, the trainers, the facilitators—the people who know that real learning happens in connection, not compliance modules. If you've ever had to explain what you do three times and still got it wrong, this podcast is for you.