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Become an IDOL 98: Creativity for Instructional Designers with Amanda Nguyen, LXD

#adayinthelifeofaninstructionaldesigner #become an idol podcast #becomeanidol #becomeaninstructionaldesigner #design #designidentity #designspecialist become an idol canva May 06, 2024
Become an IDOL Podcast Ep 98 cover image with Dr. Robin Sargent's photo and the guests photo, Amanda Nguyen..

Guest: Amanda Nguyen

In this episode of the Become an IDOL podcast, Dr. Robin Sargent interviews Amanda Nguyen. She shares her journey and advice on creativity in instructional design. 

Tune in to hear:

  • Amanda's experience working as a learning experience designer at Canva and how she utilized their platform for educational purposes.
  • Her creative process and workflow, including how she draws inspiration from other designers and industries to spark new ideas.
  • Her unconventional path to becoming an instructional designer, including how she "bootlegged" her way into her first role through perseverance and taking chances.

Listen to this episode below: 

Subscribe to Become an IDOL Podcast: Apple Podcast | Spotify | Google Podcast 

Connect with Amanda on LinkedIn

Are you looking for a no-nonsense formula for creating engaging courses and training? Check out my new book, The Do It Messy Approach: A Step-by-Step Guide for Instructional Designers and Online Learners (IDOLs) on Amazon.


Enjoy the Episode Transcript below:
   

Dr. Robin Sargent 

Welcome to Become an IDOL. I'm Dr. Robin Sargent, owner of IDOL courses. This is the place where newbies come to learn, and veterans share their knowledge

 

Dr. Robin Sargent 

I have here with me today, Amanda Nguyen, and she is the owner of Amanda LXD, and the founder of The Learning Jam. But Amanda, there is so much more to you and who you are and your background. So you we will you please do a better job of introducing yourself.

 

Amanda Nguyen 

Oh, hello, Robin and hello IDOL courses listeners or IDOL listeners. I am Amanda Nguyen. That is how you pronounce my last name. And I have been in the learning and organizational development space for over 12 years now. And I recently left Canva as a learning experience designer and learning experience design craft coach. And so now I'm just on a journey to focus on sharing my life's work and my LXD craft to other budding learning designers and learning enthusiasts. Yes, that's where I am today and who, where I'm at.

 

Dr. Robin Sargent 

And I have just admired your work from afar for such a long time. If you guys want to go check it out, amandalxd.com, this is as simple of a web address that you can go get to and you'll see. Oh, doughnuts, and the personality that exudes from every single thing that you do. And you've worked for some of those big companies, and of course, IDOL loves Canva, I love Canva. And so, I mean, we have to mention before we get into our main topic today, which is creativity, because you are one of the most creative people in the space that I've seen. I want to talk a little bit about just like, tell us about working for Canva. Just for my own...

 

Amanda Nguyen 

Of course. Yeah, it was amazing. Literally, it truly was, it was probably some of the best years that I've ever had in my career. It's exactly, Canva is exactly how you envision it externally, from like a marketing standpoint, from others looking in. And inside Canva there's even more magic, like I'm not just saying that because I used to work there. And you know, leaving was a very hard decision for me because I needed to do something for me. But the team, being able to work with such high performing people, high performing teams filled with so much diverse perspective and experiences really allows you to create quality experiences and solutions, like it truly drives you. So, but they're all about having fun as well, and great supportive leaders. And I've done probably some of my best work there as well. And to be able to also coach other, you know, learning designers in the team to share my craft and to help shape and mold the direction of how learning experiences are designed in Canva was very rewarding for me. So it was frickin amazing. I loved it. Like it was fun, fun, fun, but lots of hard, hard, hard work. So you can only imagine working in high performing teams and a high performing organization, the quality of work that's pumped out it's quite intensely fun. It's you know, your tech companies. Yeah, they're all like that. And it's the beauty of it all. I do love fast pace. So it's suited me well. Yeah.

 

Dr. Robin Sargent 

And you had to build all of your learning experience designs in Canva.

 

Amanda Nguyen 

So, when I first started.. So funny story, my tech stack is quite vast. I love all my tools and using the right tools to craft certain things. When I first started Canva, typically, I would always use the Adobe Creative Cloud Suite and all of my other tools. I wasn't allowed to use the Adobe Creative Cloud Suite. So I had all my tools. No. So none of that, it was stripped away from me. So what that made me do was really challenge myself in how I can use Canva to still create beautiful learning experiences for their target audience. And it was great. I spent nearly two years there breaking Canva back and forth working with the tech team, working with my team, but really showcasing how we could really utilize Canva for educational purposes. And it was a great you know, we were really customer zero for the education space inside the learning team, which was fantastic. So we were able to yeah, learn how to create learning experiences in Canva alone. It was really fun.

 

Dr. Robin Sargent 

I bet just narrowing down your tools to one forced you to get even more creative in the solution you came up with.

 

Amanda Nguyen 

Yeah, absolutely. Like from you know designing interactive guides, microsites through to animations, explain the videos, talking here presentations like I really stretched my limit and my capacity and also my team's limit, to really see how we could really create a bespoke learning, design and experience without using the templates that Canva has already created. So, it was hard at first, but then afterwards, I'm like, oh yeah, you can just hack your way around  Canva. Like, that's the beauty of the tool itself. It's so intuitive. It's fun, simple and easy to use. And, yeah, why not? Like I'm all about being an efficient designer? Yeah.

 

Dr. Robin Sargent 

Yeah. So, speaking of creativity, I think that's really what I want to focus on today and I want to talk about some of the things that you do to be creative, or what your processes because yeah, my favorite aspect when people ask me like, What do you love about instructional design or learning and development? It's always that you get to be half researcher, and half artists. And of course part of being creative is my favorite thing. And so thought to create a person, I'd love for you to share just how you do it, and what you focus on and give it to us.

 

Amanda Nguyen 

Yeah, of course, I think sometimes when a lot of people see my work, they see the end product and the end result of the beauty, but I actually spend exactly what you say, half research, learning design, and then I go and focus on the development and the prototyping. So my workflow is, I would dedicate a lot of time to do the learning design, the discovery, understanding who my intended audience is, in ways that I could engage with them with quality solutions and experiences or work through with the stakeholder to figure out, you know, what kind of options are available to us. And then we'll start testing. So then I would rapid prototype, that's my kind of jam and style. I would make sure that I would just rough mock up some ideas to just get my ideas going, but co-create that with my stakeholders. And then from there, I'll bring it to life with the right tool. But in terms of helping me spark my creativity, to think about the tools, I draw a lot of inspiration from Pinterest, because it's easy, it's quick, it's all there for you. I love Pinterest, other beautiful UI websites such as awards.com, Behance, Dribbble. I really like to just cherry pick and create like a little mood board for me with the style and look and feel. I love to look at designs and pull them apart. So I might pick certain elements and sections of that design, pull that out and move it into my mood board to really help me map out what I'm trying to create. But that's usually my workflow, I just like to draw inspiration, before I start to develop anything at all. And if I were to develop anything, it'll be a prototype first to just test with not just my stakeholders, but with the users. So the learners as well to see if it's hitting the right marks. And then I'll lay on all the flesh, you know, it's like building a house, you got to make sure you plan and build that foundation first before you start layering on all the beautiful furnishings and whatnot. But that's that's naturally my workflow, I just take my time. I love dedicating time to just let my mind wander, play around with the palette, play around the perimeter. So I really like to understand what the perimeter is, in terms of the branding, the tools that we need to use, the parameters around accessibility, how can our audience interact and engage with the right, the colors, the fonts, like everything in between, like, I really make sure I understand the parameters. Because if not natural Amanda would go here goes vomit, unicorn, doughnuts and rainbows on a page because I love that if that's my passion. But that probably doesn't really fly or doesn't really connect with my target audience. So I always take my time to understand the parameters. And that's how you can be quite innovative and also creative. When you understand the parameters. you can work within that and start thinking about ways of how to navigate that as well. Yeah.

Dr. Robin Sargent 

I always kind of liken it to when you're creating a party, it's a lot easier to decorate and set up your party when you have a theme and the same kind of thing. Yes, creativity, right. Like when you have parameters, you have a theme, just all your research that you've done. It's why yes, creative within that theme.

 

Amanda Nguyen 

Ah, I can tell you as a scrappy designer that I was before years and years and years and years ago, I used to do it the opposite way and it kicked me up the butt so many times because I didn't plan. I was like yeah, designing new shiny tools, development and I'll go and be like vomit on the page. Yeah. Fireworks, sparks everything and then I'll present it and then people be like what is this? And I'm like, it's literally Amanda's vomit with no planning. So, plan first learning design. It's so important. But then I guess, with people looking at the learning design component, you can sit there and spend a lot of time with your content, of course, and really understanding the key goals of your learners. But then if you didn't pick the right tool, or the right visual design, approach, and storytelling technique, and all the really juicy parts to create your output, you can have the best content and blueprint in the world, but you have a crappy order, it's not going to go really well. But vice versa, you can have the most beautiful looking product and result. But if the innards in the structure in the planning and design and the content is not hitting the mark, your learners aren't going to attain the goal, the mindset, the skills or behavior that you're trying to go for, as well. So it's having that fine balance of yeah, that's, I hope I'm articulating that correctly with my brain.

 

Dr. Robin Sargent 

And for me, I have to eat my vegetables to get to the dessert. And for me, vegetables are you got to do the research and the design and the testing. And then yes, dessert which for me and sounds like for you is developing and getting creative and actually bringing it to life.

 

Amanda Nguyen 

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah.

 

Dr. Robin Sargent 

Okay, so I want to know more about you mentioned prototypes. And so all of our listeners are people who are brand new instructional designers or they've never been one before. And so people get the idea of prototype gets a little fuzzy, I think for those people. And so will you just clarify what do you mean by prototype? Like, yeah, specific? Like, how much are you showing?

 

Amanda Nguyen 

Great question. Yeah, yeah, so for me, a prototype can be three different levels. So when you're working with your stakeholders, and let's say you're planning the learning design side of things, getting content structure, whatever your goals are with that, you can then move into a mock up, which is a static and flat visual, just to give your stakeholders a little taste tester, because remember, us as learning development professionals, we're the expert in the learning design. However, sometimes with our stakeholders, they don't have a background in learning, or subject matter experts don't have a background in learning. And so if we give them a document, or storyboard or learning design blueprint, they'll be like, wow, what is this and understand there's so many boxes, so much text, and there's so many like learning objectives and outcomes and success measures, like what is this. So what I like to do is I then create a mock up, which is a static visual. So my stakeholders and SMEs can get a taste tester of what the end product can potentially look like. But I also mark that this is just for you to get a taste test that it's not the final products. Second components of that is, as I start creating a prototype, which is moving that content and all the innards into a structure that is usable, just so the the stakeholders and SMEs can then navigate around it. It could be a 32 second video of a two minute video that I'm designing. So I would design the layout, and then maybe 10, like an intro, and then like 10 or 15 seconds of the animation or the explainer video, and then I send it to the stakeholder, okay, here's the first prototype walkthrough, this is what it looks like. Or if it's an interactive guide, I will set up like the layout with some of the buttons and just give them a taste test of what their product could look like. And I can also test it within my learners against similar concepts. If it's an eLearning module, I would just give them a rough like layout, apply their branding, just so they can just feel it, it's like that, what's that tangibleness that they can look and feel. So they're the client, that's what a prototype is, for me, it's not the complete build. And sometimes a lot of developers they'd like to break it down to like a beta and alpha build, which is another term for like, smaller build not too much buttons, just basic looking scratch surface and then this may be a week later, you can start tinkering away you can do the Alpha prototype, which is a bit more beefy, a bit more media and maybe one example of a complex interaction and then you test with your user audience and then you can go to the complete build afterwards. So iteratively build what I find is the more that I work on projects with various assets or even one big asset, I like to co-design, co-create and get as much feedback as I can from my stakeholders. You have to iterate, like you cannot, I found that if you designed from learning design part straight to the development and then give people to feedback. Sometimes you missed the mark, they might have not been brought on the journey to understand, okay, wait, why is this already nearly complete? I haven't been brought on, I haven't even tested the product yet. Like, we haven't gauged that or test that with the users yet. Like, how do you know that this is actually got to work? So, co-design, co-create, get feedback, be iterative, best approach? That's how I do it.

 

Dr. Robin Sargent 

Yeah. And so you've gone too into like some of your creativity about where you go, and you get ideas from, but I imagine that some of that is more than just looking at other like just other things online, right? What are some other ways to go and find your inspiration?

 

Amanda Nguyen 

So, I actually was talking to this about my coaches, because she was like, to me, man, uh, where do you get inspiration? How do you learn design, and I'm like, if I'm being really, really honest, I take zero inspiration for our industry. And I go completely, I only go to design conferences, marketing conferences, and product conferences to really help me understand the design thinking process for me to really understand how can I really focus on usability, accessibility, and also, really touching on that human connection with the learning experience that I'm creating for someone like really touching on, okay, this is going to help me on my career. Oh, okay, this is gonna help me perform better in my job. Oh, this is going to help me do this more efficiently and faster. Like really putting the intended audience, the target audience at the center of the design. So human centered design approach. So I draw all of the inspiration from other practitioners and also other amazing designers that I follow. So if you follow me on Instagram, all the people that I follow are just designers. I only follow designers, or creative architects. I love the way that they build and design usability of homes. And I like to place that context into when I'm developing and designing a learning experience as well or learning solution. It's all the touch points. It's how can I make sure that I not just create a one off thing. A learning experience to me has a cadence, it has multiple touch points. It's not just for your target audience. It's their support system. So it's their leaders, it's their peers, it's the organization. So how do you as a learning designer, create those support touch points so that they actually attain their goal. So it's a lot and that's something that I'm very, very passionate about. I know sometimes, it might just look like I design pretty things. But it's intentional design. Like there's so much that goes behind that design and the way that it's launched into the business and integrated and embedded. I would love if I could share any advice to new instructional designers, learning designers, or anyone who's interested in this space. start understanding the design thinking process that will help you understand how you can solve problems better than instead of going straight to solution mode, or becoming an order taker, as part of your role in an organization. Really understand that there is more to learning than just an eLearning. And if it is an eLearning understand that it is an awareness builder. How do you actually actively provide your audience with key touch points to help them shift their behavior,  shift their mindset, actually performing the role? Like what what are the key metrics there like? What are you supporting their lead to help support them? What are you supporting their team members and their peers in that group to help support them? Like it all.. It's like, our brain is like an onion, there's so many layers of learning, you can't just provide someone with an eLearning that's just one layer of an onion. There's 10 layers underneath, how are you going to help them tapping those layers of learning so that they can actually go, Oh, I understand. I can do this more confidently. I can do this more efficiently and perform better. So get inspiration, draw inspiration from other industries, take things out of context, which is outside of your learning field, and put it back into context. That's how I've learned and bootlegged my whole career. Truly, yeah, I'm an ex-graffiti artist as well. So, I think that's why I love colors. Like I love colors, and I understand color psychology. I understand what really helps people bring that spring to them. I played with so much colors my whole life, and I love art, and I pride myself in where that creativity comes from, as well as I love colors.

 

Dr. Robin Sargent 

Okay, I think that's a great segue. And I didn't ask at the beginning. I want to ask you now. You say that your career has been bootlegged. Which I want to know how did you become... How'd you get into this field? How did you come...

 

Amanda Nguyen 

Oh my god, oh, if I rewind time in Amanda's world, I want to let everyone know that it was never sunshine, rainbows and lollipops. Like sometimes I pinch myself with the amount of love that I get on LinkedIn, it was never like that at all. Like when I first started in my career, I was at university and everyone else around me had their parents and had you know, their uncles and aunts already working in corporate. I came from like a low social economical backgrounds. Like, my parents were working in warehouses. I didn't grow up wealthy or rich or privileged enough to get those opportunities. So I tried my hardest to go and put myself out there to get an internship. And I got rejected, even for free work, I got rejected, and I didn't even get an opportunity to free work. So I tried it. And I was working retail was trying to do so many things at once. And finally, I got an opportunity at a fashion recruitment agency, just on the phones, like getting my foot into recruitment, because I knew that recruitment will help me get into human resources. And that was what I studied in uni. So I was like, Yeah, I'm gonna be an HR manager. But then I wanted to be an accountant. And then I wanted to be, oh, my god, all sorts of things. And I failed. Accounting was really funny. Those fun, funny, funny times. So from there, I stayed there for six months, and it was unpaid. And I learned and I tried to learn everything as I could to just get that letter of recommendation. And then I finally got another job, which was, again, a six month contract in a recruitment agency. And I'm like, I really want to get into HR like, I need I want it. It's my dream. Is it my dream? I don't really know at that time. And then so I finally after that, I finally got an HR job. And the first, I think the first week, I was stuck in meetings with the advisor. I was a coordinator. And I was helping her scribe performance discussions, and she was firing people. And they she was, and I was like, traumatized. I was like, Oh, my god, is this going to be my life? Is it going be my life, for the rest of my life? Am I just gonna be, oh, my gosh, in these difficult conversations, people are crying in front of me. And I'm like, here, just take my small set, like, what do I do? He's like, why are you firing me? I have a family. And I'm like, is this what HR people do? I'm sure it's not just that, back then it was, but now it's different. This was 12 years ago is everyone. So I didn't know. And then my whole life just was like, okay, where do I go now. And then I sat next to a learning and development consultant. And she blew my mind. I got exposed to leadership development, onboarding, all of the great nooks and crannies working within a learning and development team. And from there, I just started working and learning development for the next few years. And I then went on a sabbatical because I burnt out. And that sabbatical led me to explore and tap back into my creative side. I did a lot of like commissions, like during my time as an intern and stuff, just doing murals and artworks and stuff like that on the side, because that's where my love was just playing with colors, even through high school to now. And yeah, that nine month sabbatical made me think about how do I blend my passion for design, art, colors, everything like that into learning development, because I thought I needed to change my career into the design space and become like a UI designer or UX designer, but it wasn't my heart wasn't really there. I love organizational workplace learning. It's been my bread and butter for so long. So I was like, what opportunities are there for me? So I'm like, oh, design, learning development. And I started like Googling and I found instructional design. Oh, yeah. I forgot that existed and eLearning development. So now I want to show you what I did for my first job interview. So I had I had a role opening that came up on the ether. And I was like, oh, that sounds interesting. I want to apply. They required me to provide a sample of work. I had no sample of work. This is where I bootlegged my way into the career guys. I had no sample. I had nothing but just my brain and a laptop. And they're like we need an example. And so I'm like, okay. So, I downloaded a free trial of Storyline. Never use Storyline in my life, by the way, opens it and then I'm I was thinking about okay, if I'm in learning development in this organization, what is a common eLearning module that they'd like to see? And I'm like bullying, harassment, makes sense to me. So I designed a random bullying and harassment game on an island. And you could just acknowledge it just playing around with the tool and like, I have one day to do this. So I just sat down, learned the tool, roughly in a day, sent them a prototype and like, the content that I use, and I'm like here you go. I did the interview. Obviously, they hired me because of my personality, because I'm amazing. But and then they gave me the job. And then I was beside myself like, oh my gosh, I literally bootlegged my way into this career. Like I have no idea, because I was facilitating in as a generalist LNOD person or learning development person. I was facilitating, I was designing workshops, I was running orientation, doing leadership programs and stuff. Like I didn't really sit down to do eLearning development. Like we had a dedicated person team, and I wanted to learn it, but my focus was elsewhere. And so yeah, from there, I was focusing on instructional design. Looking for learning experience design roles. And learning experience design for me was a new area, I didn't know that you could actually deeply apply human centered design, design thinking and design practices into learning. I thought it was just the traditional ADDIE methodology. That's all I knew. And again, bootlegged that. Googled instructional design methodologies, and I found out it was ADDIE, like cool, I'll just use that because I don't know anything else. But there was an opportunity for me in 20- I think it was like 2016 Niels Floor. He is a learning experience, design pioneer, right. I saved up my money. And he was launching his first masterclass in LXD, this was in 2016. And I was like, I'm going to go, I need to learn about this learning LXD whatever it is, I'm curious. Yes. And so I flew over to the Netherlands, with my own money that I saved and I caught a train to Nijmegen, which is like a bit south of New Amsterdam. And I just met him, random people from around the world, experiencing his first ever masterclass, to become a learning experience designer and learning about the LXD craft and it blew my mind. It blew my mind that you are able to apply so many disciplines, from various pockets, merge it together, create your own toolkit and toolbox and just deliver learning experiences. I think sometimes we need to, not need to, it's actually okay to cherry pick. For me that is and this is how I operate. I love to draw inspiration from others, but then mush in a way that makes sense for me, so that I could deliver quality work for the organization that I'm working for. You can sit there and label, so many methodologies, label practices and stuff like that. But if you're not really delivering quality learning solutions, or experiences to your target audience, and really understanding them, and understanding how you can provide a solution that delivers value to the organization, so they can pivot forward. It doesn't matter how many learning theories and all that techniques and learning styles, you know, like, none of that's like it to me. It's semantics like you can go in as long as he understands who your target audience is, the tools that you have, asses the parameters, you can bootleg your way. I'm sorry, to all those amazing academies and schools and education out there. I love y'all. But if I can do it, you can too. Yeah. I'm just going like that.

 

Dr. Robin Sargent 

I run a school.

 

Amanda Nguyen 

So, yeah, going so rogue, I'm so sorry. But it's all I'm saying is that when you're passionate about something, if you are passionate about becoming an instructional designer, if you're passionate about becoming a learning through design, head of learning who whatever it is, keep that, hold that passion, hold that compass and just make actions and steps towards because that's exactly what I did for 12 years of my career. Like I started as an intern, I literally started interning. I tried my hardest because I knew like Amanda, you need an internship. I didn't care that other people around me had easy tickets in, into working at their parents company or, you know, getting a hands up from the uncle and aunt because they already are the head of learning or head of HR. I didn't get that opportunity. But I was really passionate about what I wanted to achieve. I connected with people and also on LinkedIn. Guys, I've been on LinkedIn for 10 years. And I remember trying to connect with HR advisors and HR coordinators and anyone in the HR space and I got rejected, I got obliterated. They were like, who are you? Do I know you and I got rejected so much. But that didn't stop me from keep on going. Like, it didn't stop me. Like I always think back of oh my gosh, like just the awkwardness of trying to reach out to someone to have like a 5-10 minute catch up, just so I could learn about their career and they completely rejected me. Like, imagine that but so that's why now when people reach out to me, I will always give them the time. Anyone like I know some people might be listening in and they have reached out to me before. I might not respond to you tomorrow but I might respond to you two weeks later, but I always make the time to respond to you because I know how hard it is to get given an opportunity or be seen that you're worthy to get an opportunity and know that you are worthy, it's just not the right organization for you. They're missing out on you. I'm telling you, you are so worthy of achieving things. And if it's a no from someone or rejection from organization, stuff them, they're not worthy of your time. You know, like, flip it around like you can. I've went through so many interviews so many. Yeah, y'all can do it. I am telling you, it is not impossible. Just put your mind to it. Yeah. Easier said than done. But it's all achievable.

 

Dr. Robin Sargent 

Yeah. And so for those who don't want to scrape and scratch and dig, and you know, wander around for nine months figuring out on your own, then you can go to school.

 

Amanda Nguyen 

Yeah, that's exactly it. Yeah, go join IDOL courses, duh. If I knew, honestly, but I didn't have that y'all weren't around. So I had to bootleg my way around. But perfect segue. Amazing, Robin. But I think that's the beauty of these amazing, like courses and cohorts and bootkit. Like everything that's existing right now is that you have an opportunity, you get to choose what works for you in what kind of goals you want to achieve. If you want to go and complete a tertiary education, that's going to be two, three or four years. Go for it. If that is your heart and your calling. You genuinely want to learn that side of things. Oh my gosh, yes, go for it. Like I'm not saying don't go for it, like go for it is just not for me personally as Amanda, not for me. But if you want to do a short course or a long course that's available online, go for it as well. Nurture your brain, in your soul with things that will help you achieve the goals that you want. And you know that that's like you will know what works for you or not. Yeah, follow your own path. Design your own path in your journey.

 

Dr. Robin Sargent 

I mean, you've been giving lots of good advice. So...

 

Amanda Nguyen

I hope so.

 

Dr. Robin Sargent 

So what's your final advice for those that want to become an IDOL?

 

Amanda Nguyen 

Oh, if you want to  Become an IDOL, what would that look like for you and advice?

 

Dr. Robin Sargent 

Maybe about mindset?

 

Amanda Nguyen 

Perfect. It's my favorite topic, growth, mindset. Every challenge, every obstacle, everything that you're feeling, everything that comes fly your way, think about how you can take courageous action and move into that learning zone or that growth zone. So you can transform in..and the hardest thing is taking that first step, whatever it may be. Becoming an IDOL, if you want to become an artist or designer, whatever you like, whatever you like in life. And when you have that gut feeling where it's your like anxious about it, it's a sign that oh, if you take that first step, and that courageous action is just gonna release these amazing feelings because you did on your own. So you can, you definitely can. Know that you're worthy, you know that you're ready, you've got this and just go out there create stuff. You only live once, why not give it a crack? It's fine.

 

Dr. Robin Sargent 

I love it. And so I think we've talked a little bit but I mean, just to wrap up, where are the places that you want to send people to find you and connect with you?

 

Amanda Nguyen 

Oh, yeah. Find me on LinkedIn. I'm not going to bite. Ask me questions, I'll be more than happy to answer them. And if I'm rambling on too much, today, it's actually 12 in the morning right now so my brains like wow. So definitely ask me any questions or if you need clarity on anything reach out and find me on www.amandalxd.com. Or on my Instagram at wwww.instagram.com/amanda.lxd.com. I offer coaching and mentoring services in LXD at the moment so this is new. I haven't actually announced that on LinkedIn yet. So Robin, and amazing podcast crew you guys can hear at first, I am ready to upload and share my life's work. You know, I've been in the space for so long now. And I'm just ready to help uplift and share my ways of working and if that inspires you to build your toolkit. Hell yeah, I'm all for that. Build your own toolkit. That's, that's my advice. Don't get so sucked into all the shiny tools and stuff like that out there. You can create your own toolkit and do what works for you.

 

Dr. Robin Sargent 

That's beautiful. And I just feel like those people that come and work with you are going to be so blessed just being around you and what you've gone through these years, and especially your attitude around the whole thing. So thank you so much, Amanda for being here with me, for being on Become an IDOL podcast. It was an absolute pleasure.

 

Amanda Nguyen 

Oh, thank you so much Robin. Pleasure. Absolute pleasure.

 

Dr. Robin Sargent 

Thank you so much for listening. You can find the show notes for this episode at idolcourses.com. If you liked this podcast and you want to become an instructional designer, and online learning developer, join me in the IDOL courses Academy where you'll learn to build all the assets you need to land your first instructional design job, early access to this podcast, tutorials for how to use the eLearning authoring tools, templates for everything course building and paid instructional design experience opportunities. Go to idolcourses.com/ academy and enroll or get on the waitlist. Now get out there and build transcendent courses.


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