Listen to an Expert

"You should always listen to an expert when you have the chance."

These are wise words, but when I heard the father share this great advice with his son it filled me with a bit of fear.

Let me paint the scene.

I work for a drop-in craft store. This means people come in with their children or grandchildren or children they nanny for and spend some time in the store crafting together. This ranges from painting a birdhouse to sewing a finger puppet, from needle felting to wet soap felting.

On this day, the family that came in wanted to wet soap felt. That's great. A fun, sensory activity that takes a bit of time but not a lot of skill so it is good for a wide age range.

My level of soap felting: Observer.

Who was the expert the father was telling his son to listen to? Me.

With a smile to hide my inner wide-eyed, "Expert? Who me? Oh no, now what do I do?" response I shared my limited knowledge and tried to remember everything I had observed the one time I had seen someone else help someone with a wet soap felting project.

This experience brought to mind a conversation I had with one of our workshop teachers. He expressed a similar sentiment:

"How did I get to be the expert?"

In his case, it was through significant time spent needle felting. He now has knowledge and skill that most of us do not. And he can use the things he has learned through time and trial and error to help others make creations of their own.

My qualification was being hired. And I suppose it was, and is, also my willingness to figure things out. And when I don't know, or things don't go so well, to seek those with more knowledge than I have so I can gain additional knowledge.

What have I done since then?

• Watched a bunch of videos about soap felting
• Observed my bosses assist and teach a birthday party full of children wet soap felt
• Helped several more families with this project

Last week while working with my manager, she said, "You seem to be a wet soap felting magnet" when a mother and daughter decided that was the craft they wanted to do.

Apparently more people ask to wet soap felt when I'm around than when my manager works alone. Fascinating. It is true that I often recommend it now. As I've grown in my ability to teach and support those who are wet soap felting, I feel more excited to help them with this fun and useful project.

Something I'm learning is that we need to get comfortable on both ends - willing to listen to and proactively seek out experts to help us get better AND to be an expert and teach and help others. Maybe particularly when we don't actually feel like an expert.

Often we know more and are capable of more than we realize. And many times the best way to learn something is to teach it.