When we look at the term it carries many meanings, first thoughts we can think corporate, sporting, any knowledgeable or wise person. The dictionary term means as a noun: “a person engaged or qualified in a profession.” and as an adjective: “relating to or belonging to a profession.” or “engaged in a specified activity as one’s main paid occupation rather than as an amateur.”
The Sporting Professional
So we observe sporting first, we have these athletes that spend enormous amounts of time training, whether at the gym, swimming, track, weights etc all for an event. The event can be a once off type like the Olympics or could be every week like club football. If they don’t keep training or they miss a few sessions they can start to fall behind, they have a harder time to achieve good results.
They can also often end up not training as hard as a younger and fitter athlete who then out performs them.
The Office Professional
In the office or corporate environment, how is it we keep training? Do we keep training? Once we get the job do we just neutralise and wait for retirement? We should be constantly seeking ways to better develop and train in our professions in the office. Just like a Personal Trainer for an athlete we should have mentors, and good selection of mentors. We should set our goals, just like a track athlete sets a goal time they want to achieve.
Where do you want to go next? Can your current workplace offer that opportunity to you? Do you have the skills and knowledge to go there, or do you need more training and practice to get you there?
What is Success?
I have read a number of books and most ‘successful’ business people all state they commit a percentage of their paycheck to training and development. You should look for memberships for professionals in your industry people who you can meet and grow from their experiences. Nobody wants to “reinvent the wheel”, but too often we all end up repeating the mistakes of those before us. This can be because we aren’t harnessing the power of training and learning from others.
Whether your employer pays or supports you developing you should want to for your own benefit. For some eventually repeating the same job for 30 years gets repetitive and boring, we want some change which is why they say we have a mid-life crisis. We realise we need change and for some it can be very big and others it can just be they want a sports car or similar.
Looking at a road map has become a thing of the past, even looking at a globe. Often we are too focused on ground-level daily issues not obtaining a higher-level of thinking. Establishing the next destination in our life, we need to look at a map. Listening to a GPS or similar won’t give us the same overview, you need to know where it is you want to go. GPS might tell you to take U-Turn after U-Turn it’s still developing the technology.
When you look back in earlier civilisation often men would go out, they would be in the wild for a period of time to ‘re-calibrate’ then return with new idea, insight.
Do you Re-Calibrate?
When was the last time you ‘re-calibrated’? You last worked out your next destination? We travel the world to see all the wonders, our own lives have wonders too. Many destinations, careers, lifestyles, yet we often can look at others and think their ‘wasting their life’; but really they could have seen many destinations and have a greater wider knowledge. As long as they are happy. Nothing stops you from waking up in the morning deciding to quit your job sell everything and travel to Europe, or deciding you don’t like your career anymore and want a change.
However, walk through a retirement village sometime, ask one of them if there was something they wished they had done. Too often we leave it to this point when it’s too late to pack a bag and back pack across Europe, or go and work in an Orphanage in China. They are still contempt cos they have no choice but they don’t know what they are missing out on.
Are you missing out?
Maybe that’s your philosophy, “what you don’t know never hurts” but is it really true? Did you miss out on sights, smells, impacting others? I think often we get so focused on obtaining objects and things for what outcome? We know our way blindfolded around our office we know everyone’s name and each year we get a slight pay rise. Many people travel in retirement they enjoy the sights and sounds; often we view back packers in a different light but have you actually stopped and spoken with one? They have met amazing people, tasted many cuisines from around the world, they have experienced many of the amazing landscapes. Are they happy?
If life ended tomorrow for them; would they be frustrated they never owned a new car or lived in a mansion?
What good is money with nobody to enjoy it with? Too often I see men busy focused on providing for the family, and gets to 65 years old ready to retire and wife has left him, kids don’t have a relationship. Why? He was doing all those extra shifts and earning more and more money to provide for them, it was for them he sacrificed everything. His wife had mentioned many times she wanted him to be home more, spend time with the family. But I have to go into work and do this thing.
Nobody is happy, as men often we need to be grounded; Often we need someone to clip us over the head and pull us back into line.