There’s no shortage of information these days. Free, cheap or pricey – take your pick. You can learn how to do anything.

Like… a lampshade.

How hard can it be, right? ALL the information is out there: YouTube videos that take you through every step, see you move through any snags without a glitch. Just sit down and get to work.

And so I did. Tried to make a lampshade.

I had all the materials I needed, more information than I could handle, time to muck about and a willingness to see it through (or so I thought).

You know exactly what happened, don’t you?

I’ve had a few goes at this lampshade. At one point I simply started from scratch with new materials. The fabric wouldn’t stick to the styrene like store-bought ones do, my lampshade was sad, with frayed edges poking out of the glue. By the time I got to my third try, the end result had improved somewhat, but there were still things I just couldn’t seem to get right.

I knew it could be better, much better, but didn’t know how to get there on my own. And I was… tired of the failures and ready to move on to another creative project.

Then last month I saw a lampshade workshop advertised close to where I live in Melbourne. So, I signed up.

In 90 minutes I had a lampshade that looked like it should. No bits of fabric bubbling or edges sticking out, it was ready to take a place of pride in a corner of my house. I’m not saying it looks like it’s lifted from Vogue Living, but it looks like it should and finally something of which I feel proud.

Plus, the things that kept me stuck with average lampshades…

…using special double sided tape rather than glue
…how to use it without sticking to everything within arms reach!
…and how to prevent the fabric bubbling on the frame.

I learned a way to deal with them.

Of course, I could have gone and bought a lampshade instead, but that’s not the point. The point was that making lampshades was a skill I wanted to have. One I was ready to put time and energy in.

And I did, but it wasn’t enough.

The missing link was someone being there to:
➢ See exactly what was going wrong and at what point
➢ Offer a solution in the moment I needed it
➢ Point to looming problems I wasn’t anticipating and offer solutions to those.

Once I got all this, I felt confident to complete the dodgy half-finished efforts gathering dust in my workroom. And start planning the next one.

Maybe you’re not after making lampshades, but if you’re faffing around with something, is it time to stop and seek out some specialist advice or guidance? And if it’s leadership things you’re hitting snags with, I know just the person 😉

It could be a specific thing that trips you up each time (like difficult conversations, assertiveness or something else entirely) or it could be that you want to have a clear strategy for your leadership growth, so you know where you’re going and how to get there.

You don’t have to figure that out on your own (and often, it can feel impossible), you can work it all out with a lampshade expert by your side.

I mean leadership expert 😊