Monday, April 04, 2011

Going Professional: It's all in the Mindset

There's a point at which you go from being an amateur wannabe to professional, no matter what career you are in. This is not the moment when you start to get paid. It may come long before that happens or long after.

The point you become professional is a mindset switch. The difference is in how you see yourself in your profession or hobby.

For instance, I became a professional after my second speech. The first was amateur in that I didn't see the power of speaking when I was invited. The second one, which came as a referral from the first (the story is on this web site) meant that people really wanted to hear what I had to say. I had inadvertently created an aura of expertise that led to many speaking engagements, some at conferences, some at associations, without any marketing whatsoever.

In high school and college I was an amateur writer even though I worked on the school newspapers. It was not what I did and I didn't necessarily see a future in it. However, when I started to cover night meetings for the Fullerton Daily News Tribune, I became a professional, not just in money but in mindset.

I was an amateur accountant most of my life and never considered that I might make money at it. Then I was offered the job of controller at the newspaper where I worked. The first week on that job I was still an amateur but in the process of doing my first set of financials my mindset became professional. I knew deep down what I was doing now and that made all the difference.

There are many amateur business owners out there, people who never allowed themselves to believe they could actually create a thriving business. They dabble in it but don't take the actions that make all the difference. This includes the writer working full time while trying to write a novel, the consultant with a part time job because the consulting doesn't pay the bills, and the unemployed executive who coaches until the right job comes along.

When you move from hoping the business will work to actively making it work, you go from amateur to professional, no matter how much money you are making.