It’s obvious that professionals must have the requisite knowledge and skills to perform their jobs, but there are other characteristics that distinguish them from amateurs, one of the most important of which is the willingness to make an extra effort.
A number of years ago I was in singer Anne Murray’s dressing room in Las Vegas just before her final performance of a three-week engagement. She was rehearsing her hit song Snowbird, a song she had sung thousands of times. Yet she felt something wasn’t quite right with the way she had sung it in her first show that night. So there she was, with her guitar player, Aidan Mason, rehearsing it just before taking the stage. It’s been reported that Al MacInnis (no relation ), for many years an All-Star defenceman in the National Hockey League, and who had one of the hardest shots in the history of the game, would shoot pucks at least 10,000 times during the summer.
Professionalism is a blend of knowledge, skill, hard work, and dedication. The hardest part about being a professional is not the successful execution of a single, difficult act, but rather the successful replication of it time and time again, day after day, week after week, month after month, in changing circumstances and often under the added pressure of unreasonable demands.
Professionals perform well even when they don’t feel like it, whereas amateurs often have difficulty achieving something even when they enthusiastically feel like it. Amateurs are always happy to accept “good enough.” But professionals know that good enough is the enemy of best. As someone once observed, “No one would have blamed Columbus for turning back, but no one would have remembered him either.”
Professionals keep their eyes on methods as well as on results. They’re not afraid to try new things or to try doing old things in new ways. They take the time to constantly hone their skills, whether that entails study, research, practice, or constant rehearsing.
Doing something well once doesn’t make someone a professional any more than a duffer making a hole-in-one makes him a professional golfer.