“Being a professional is doing the things you love to do — even on the days you don’t feel like doing it.” – Julius Erving
I am making some assumptions here.
- I am assuming you love delivering training.
- I am assuming you love making a difference in people’s lives.
- I am assuming you love teaching something that can save lives.
- I am assuming you love giving people tools, techniques and strategies they can apply in their day to day lives.
- I am assuming you believe training is at the least a career and possibly even a calling.
- I am assuming you see yourself as a professional.
- I am assuming like all of us you have good days and bad days.
- I am assuming you show up to teach some days when you are tired, have a headache or a sore back.
- I am assuming you teach material you have taught 100 or 1000 times before.
- I am assuming you teach some topics that are not necessarily your favorite.
- I am assuming some students or groups are more challenging than others.
- I am assuming some of you do not know who Dr. J is.
- I am assuming you believe yourself to be a professional (I know I said this twice).
Being a professional means giving your best every day, to every audience, to every student, for every topic. As a professional you do not whine and complain about how tired you are, how busy your schedule is, how sore your back is or any other issue that happens to be bothering you.
As a professional you show up and you perform. You perform at your best. It may be the 1000th time you have given that presentation but, for some or all of the people in the audience it is the first time they have heard it. It may be something you deliver without a lot of conscious thought because you have done it so often but, that may be the day you teach something that will save someones life, or save a career or a marriage or a friendship.
You are a professional.
What you do is important.
What you do matters.
What you do makes a difference.
Thank you for what you do. Please do it well, every day.
Take care.
Brian Willis
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