WHAT IS A PROFESSIONAL AND WHY IS THAT DISTINCTION AN ESSENTIAL ONE?

Written By Mark Shaffer

THE DIFFERENCE OF A PROFESSIONAL.

If you google “what is a professional,” you’ll will a wide range of answers— everything from “anyone with advanced training in a specific area” to a quite angry professor with an all too personal vendetta to “properly define what makes a professional unique among other careers.” I hope you kill your white whale, good doctor. Ha!

Here is the definition I have come to hold after reflection, conversations with many physicians and attorneys (the OG professions, it used to be only these two), and striving to serve professionals well in the coaching space.

A professional is someone who serves clients only after

1) being admitted to a professional guild

and 2) is continually overseen by the said professional guild’s standards and ethics.

This is the essential distinction between a professional and someone with any other occupation. To be clear, it is not merely specialized knowledge, it is someone who leverages specialized knowledge for the privilege to serve specific clientele according to agreed upon standards by a professional organization. So think in terms of being a professional doctor under the auspices of the American Medical Association, a dentist under the American Dental Association, or an attorney passing a state bar and practicing within the parameters set by the American Bar Association.

This distinction is an essential one because it makes two interconnected standards foundational to client care and professional integrity. The first standard is a gateway: entrance into and participation within the larger professional organization. The second standard is a pursuit: the standardized practice and ethical conduct of the individual professional’s career.

I FIRST LEARNED THIS BY GETTING MAD AT MATT.

I learned this distinction backpacking in Norway with my friend, Matt, and it changed the way I coach professionals forever. Namely, I only wanted to coach professionals because there is a unique ethos and effort that comes with these two standards— the gateway and the pursuit are both admirable and aided by ancient philosophy.

So, we got into a best friend’s quarrel over the definition of a professional because we were hangry and it was raining… it is always an uphill battle debating your friend who is an attorney (and a good one), but I always try. I maintained, incorrectly, that a professional was someone who had mastered a discipline and was paid in an advanced field. In my thinking, that was why you could be a pro-ball player or go pro at just about anything if you made your way to the top.

Matt maintained that many careers called “professional” were in fact not. They were simply careers, usually that made decent money that required unique skill. But they were not true professions. Matt told me that two things actually set professionals apart. The ones I just passed on to you: Standard of admittance and oversight.

Hie ideas were new to me, but sounded very attorney… you know, painstakingly correct. Ha! I kept arguing, but in truth I immediately found his definition compelling. I’m pretty sure I just held onto my definition because I wanted to make sure I was a pro at something after over a decade of graduate and doctoral work… but I digress.

After going around a bit, in circles physically and mentally (because I may have lost the trail during the debate), I realized I was wrong and Matt was right. To make matters worse, I was not going to be able to hide the fact that I knew he was right or argue against him any longer and win. I’d been watching him win arguments and cite obscure precedents since the eighth grade. He would cite a magazine like the Rolling Stone or GQ to back up his points…a born attorney. Everyone else was just an eight grader, Matt was Demosthenes on the beach practicing rhetoric with pebbles in his mouth. I knew our debate was over even though I hate losing.

I did not punch him in the face. But I wanted to.

So I changed my thinking.

Over time it turned out to be a good thing. I was not only able to forgive Matt for being absolutely right (the one thing brother-friends hate to admit), but I knew I wanted to coach true professionals. A working definition of professional began to shape the way I wanted to work with professional clients, and whom I wanted to work with.

But before any of that, just to be clear, here are a few examples of positions with training, but no professional delineation:

  • A pastor is not a professional: no universal standard of oversight, and the variance of denominations or non-denominations is laughable.

  • A businessman or entrepreneur is not a professional: no universal standard of oversight, but a board can seek to accomplish this in lieu of a professional guild and bar exam.

  • A professor who has mastery over an extremely complex discipline and its publications… is still not a professional because there is not a set-standard of admittance nor is their consistent oversight beyond individual university ecosystems.

In the case of the latter, I had to learn six dead languages and three modern languages just for the right to take my comprehensive exams. I kid you not. The year I was preparing for my comps, I heard a PhD student in Religion from the University of Iowa complain about having to learn German as “the foreign language requirement.”

I did not punch him in the face. But I wanted to.

Now, try to change my thinking:

The difference between our doctoral programs and their oversight was astounding… and not professional. And so Matt was right, a standard of admittance across the entire professional guild and oversight by that guild is the ticket.

True professionals are health experts (including mental health, counseling, and psychology), those who practice law, and I will from time to time stretch it to include entrepreneurs or business people— but only those who serve clients, patients, or consult for a living. The accountability to the people you serve is where I believe you need a philosophical edge and an internal fortitude beyond simply having a skill and getting paid for it.

Pros, in general, have a set of unique challenges. They need to serve others with excellence while balancing education loan repayment, running or being a partner of a business even though no one prepared them for it in professional school, working in hospital systems or firms while still developing their own code of ethics and standards of practice, balance intense work load and time commitments with a healthy body, mind, and spirit, be just as capable as a spouse or parent, all while serving clientele or patients as if none of these other things were weighing on you. It is a very hard, but very high calling to be a true professional. Nothing could be harder, nothing could be more rewarding.

THE MARK OF AN EXCELLENT PROFESSIONAL.

That day hiking with Matt in the Lofoten Islands, I realized I wanted to work with true professionals. That is to say, someone who needs to pass a high bar to practice their craft in the first place, and develop the personal integrity necessary to meet the oversight of the governing body. Someone through the gateway, and in pursuit of excellent care of other people.

Simply put, these were folks who could greatly benefit from ancient philosophy and I knew it. Even better, they had many people who needed their care and so their health and virtue mattered significantly. The potential for impact was huge, and I never looked back.

What enables a professional to fulfill these stringent requirements with excellence meant far more than memorizing a body of knowledge and passing a series of tests. That was simply the entrance gate, remember? A true professional needed to gain mastery of her personal conduct, communication, and deep understanding of the business side of client or patient care.

A true pro has to hold simultaneously proven best practices of client care and an almost miraculous level of adaptability to unique scenarios and contexts. Honestly this is what makes oversight so important to the professional trustworthiness, they are part of this balancing act of professional life (recall that list of unique challenges above) and in discussion with others within their field.

These are not just lofty ideals, these are daily aptitudes which can go hand in hand with a timeless definition of virtue:

Excellence is no accident. You are what you repeatedly do.

—Aristotle

I’ve lost many arguments while hiking with Matt. I like to think I’ve won a couple. Probably not. It’s why I keep going back to the wild places, where our vulnerabilities and shortcomings are exposed and we are forced to grow in the face of the mirror of the soul. And if the mirror of the soul isn’t working, attorney-best-friends will always tell you when you’re wrong. God love him.

If you are a professional who trained for years to pass the bar or boards, but no one taught you wisdom of connecting virtue and daily life. You can start your inner journey for free below.

Remember, you are what you repeatedly do.

Mark Shaffer

Philosopher Kings

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Mark Shaffer
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PLOTINUS’ ADVICE TO THE YOUNG PROFESSIONAL: