The essence of a professional

My brother and thought Afron often asks me what the word is when he sees me online. The word, as we call it is simply the prevailing dominant thought in our minds, almost like a word or concept of the day. So when he routinely asked what as the word. I simply told him professional. Of course he asked me to elaborate and a week and some days later I have decided to elaborate the best way I know how.

To be a professional can mean a great many of things.  In the world of radio jock Wendy Williams, professionals can be given. If you don’t know what it means to give a professional then you certainly won’t find out here, all I will say about that is think of superhead.  In the world of the civilized, if I can call this world and our interactions such, to be professional is to do something at a high enough level to be compensated for it.  Although the previous definition is a vague one to say the least it will have to do for the purpose of this scribing.

What motivated me to want to even think about professionalism? That is a fair question. No, it was not Lebron James storming off the court like a poor sport last week after the Orlando Magic sent him home after defeating Cleveland in game six of the eastern conference finals. What motivated me to even want to broach the subject of professionalism was noticing how those teams prepared to play against each other. From the scouting reports to the execution despite the fact that at this level of competition and this time of year the other team pretty much knows what you are running and how you are going to run it. Then my thoughts went to those NCAA commercials where they talk about most collegiate athletes go on to be pros in areas other than sports.

As those commercials came running through my head I began to ask myself; are us typical people who get up to go to work each morning professionals? Now there is the notion of professionalism which is pretty much the idea of given an honest day’s effort and being a team player on the job. There is some more than can be said about the essence of professionalism but I will stop there for some sake of brevity. After some thinking I came to the conclusion that the answer to this inquiry is generally a no.

I know that flatly saying no is a cynic’s approach to things but I have to say that professionalism is learned. Most people are able to be paid for something simply by portraying some level of talent or proficiency in a said area. For me that area is finance. For the typical American most of us dread getting up and going to work. Most of try to get away with doing as little as possible or shall I say just enough not to get fired (which in this economy is a lot more than what it used to be). Well let me be fair here, most of us do what is asked of us. However, very few of us will go beyond what is being asked of us in the work environment generally because we feel we are not being paid enough or we feel underappreciated for all the duties we thanklessly perform on a day to day basis.

How does one learn professionalism? Well for me as cliché as it sounds I learned from watching professionals go about their business.  I garnered the essence of being a professional from reading biographies of people I considered good at what they do. What I have learned being professional is putting in that extra effort in order to be better. It is not resting on one’s laurels. Great examples of being a professional include the likes of professional athletes. One example is hall of fame wide receiver Jerry Rice, often referred to as the greatest wide receiver to ever play the game of football. Despite these accolades, he was also known for being the hardest working person in the game. It was said that during his day his off season training regiment was one of the toughest there were. In fact many of people have attempted to work out with jerry rice only to find they didn’t have what it took to put their bodies through such rigorous train. The question remains. Did jerry have to put himself through all the training he did? The answer is no. however, Jerry Rice realized that his talent was enough or maybe he wouldn’t let it be enough and continued to improve his craft.

We all know the famous tale of Michael Jordan being cut from the varsity basketball team his freshman year and later coming to be one of the greatest if not the greatest basketball player to ever play the game of professional basketball. What a lot of people don’t know is the Michael used to work out after games which he would regularly play 40 or so minutes. That right there is what one would call a dogged determination. Shaq may have been called superman because of his size and strength but Jordan had what many would label as a will of steel that did not bend. Recent television sensationalism has led to many CEOs getting flack for what many consider excessive pay but many people don’t know is that most CEOs work seven days a week most times for many hours a day. Most people don’t realize that being a CEO is often so stressful that the average tenure for a chief executive officer is about two to three years. I am not saying that some of them are grossly overpaid but what I can say without any equivocation is that they work extremely hard. To take a less heralded example one can simply take a player like shane battier for the Houston Rockets. This guy is known as the consummate team player. He often defends the opposing teams best perimeter player and he does so by conducting massive amounts of scouting above and beyond what his coaches provide.

It seems in hour (spelled that way purposely) culture we prefer the quick, at the ready answers to questions and solutions to our problems. I am not here to pick on hip hop but there have been many people who have been a part of that movement that have given the art a bad name by trying to make it sound so easy. As if working hard is an old tired cliché. Often, even I espouse the virtue of “working smarter not harder.” However, I am of the notion one learns to work smarter by working harder. Over the pass few years it has become immensely popular to portray something as being entirely too easy. These days most rappers talk about how they don’t write their rhymes they just get in the studio with a beat and do their thing. I am not the one to  begrudge someone for having innate talent. However, I vehemently begrudge a culture that makes it sacrilege for someone to actually try their best at something. We have created monsters. It has gotten so bad that little boys no longer see fit to actually do nice things for or pursue the women they have feelings for. What have we called it, paying for ass or more affectionately known as tricking?

I once told my brother in thought that we as a people no longer have any pride in what we do to earn a living. Sadly enough, I can think back on that statement and say that I still whole-heartedly agree with those sentiments spoken so many years or so ago. I don't ask that people become Taylor like drones only that we find a way to be our best. As I sit back and think on all the opportunities that have passed me by do my own lack of professional ethic I can only hope that I find the courage to change my cowardice ways. Here is to having the gumption to challenge oneself to exceed even one’s own great expectations. In the spirit of John C. Maxwell may your talent alone never be enough.

Piece and blessings.