Be A “Pro”
I am now reading Steven Pressfield’s The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles. Pressfield identifies the enemy we all must face – resistance – and outlines a battle plan for defeating this internal foe to achieve great success. In my reading this week, Pressfield introduces this concept of being a pro, not an amateur.
“The amateur plays for fun. The professional plays for keeps.
To the amateur, the game is his avocation. To the pro, it’s his vocation.
The amateur plays part-time, the professional full-time.
The amateur is a weekend warrior. The professional is there seven days a week.”
To me, acting like a pro can be whittled down to three key things: excellence, removing personal feelings, and sheer relentlessness.
Excellence
To me, excellence is all about controlling the controllables. When you commit to performing with excellence, you leave very little room for failure because you are doing everything within your power and knowledge to be successful in that moment. Now, excellence doesn’t mean perfection. It does, however, mean consistent progress always. (I never have an expectation of perfection for myself or anyone else, for that matter.) I desire excellence for myself and I seek to achieve that in all aspects of my life. Controlling the controllables means something as simple as going to bed at an hour that will allow you to wake up feeling refreshed and ready to achieve more progress in your life. When you control that controllable, you are setting yourself up for the best performance you can achieve for yourself the next day.
Removing Personal Feelings
The reason you remove personal feelings is so that you can make hard work easier. There are things as a leader that are not comfortable – in the American culture and in general – and that’s why there is resistance in our lives. But when you approach business and leadership as a professional, your mindset should distinguish business from personal decisions, and as long as you approach every situation with love, the right answer is always the right answer. Anything other than the right answer is either a mixture of right and wrong, or it is the wrong answer. Remain stubborn about doing the right thing by removing your personal feelings from the situation. The right thing is going to be uncomfortable, and sometimes the right thing may even hurt people, even though that is never your intention. Your intention is to do the right thing consistently overtime, always. And that is exactly what a professional does.
Relentlessness
To be relentless means you live by a personal creed that prohibits you from ever giving up; you have no “quit” in you. The hawk is a perfect example of a pro exhibiting relentlessness in nature. The hawk eats only what he kills and is on the hunt continuously. It's only after he eats for the day that he will allow himself to sleep. The hawk will work long hours, patiently looking for his opportunity. He will strike with all his might; and if he fails, he will resume the hunt again. There is no acceptance of passing on a meal because it's too hard that day. If it’s foggy outside, he'll fly lower. There's no instinct in the hawk to allow resistance to win the day. He is so committed to his hunting pursuit that people consider the hawk the pro example of a hunter. Being a pro is his brand. Pros remove the instinct to quit by allowing themselves only one option: a job completed.
This relentless attitude and approach to life, when harnessed well, is a path to overcoming resistance and achieving success.
So, when you are hit in the face with adversity or resistance, and you feel yourself procrastinating or struggling to progress forward, just remember this pro mindset. Stay in excellence, remove those personal feelings, and be relentless.
Written by Schuyler Williamson
REALTOR. Leader. Veteran. Business Owner. Investor.
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God Bless!
~ Schuyler Williamson