Nick Dunlap made golfing history in January 2024 when he won The American Express PGA Tour. He is the first amateur to win a PGA Tour event in 33 years. The prize money for the event is £1.5m. However, because he is an amateur golfer (Dunlap is a university student), he doesn’t get to win any of the money.
In a 2019 episode of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, Jerry Seinfeld takes his friend and guest, fellow comedian Mario Joyner to the barber. Jerry insists that Mario’s beard needs trimming. Leaving aside the strain that this might put on any relationship (if your friend’s hirsute style troubles you would you book them into a hairdresser, and if you did would they still be your friend?), the sincerity of Seinfeld’s horror at Joyner’s unfettered beard is clearly authentic.
Post barber, situation resolved (though the difference seems marginal), Seinfeld points out that he thinks it is much better, and that there are some things that need to be carried out by professionals. And this takes the pair into a familiar (to regular viewers of the show), rant about how comedy is only the business of professionals, and amateurs telling jokes fills them with horror.
But doing something because you love it, the original definition of amateur (from the latin amare – to love), requires a passion for the subject that could transcend simply doing something for money, clearly evidenced in Dunlap’s golfing victory.
Most bloggers will be doing it for the love of getting their point of view out there. I don’t get paid for this blog – it doesn’t mean that I don’t consider myself a professional blogger, and care about every word, every semi colon, and the cadence of each sentence.
The scientist and heiress Miriam Rothschild spent years compiling a four volume catalogue of fleas, published in the 1950s. She had come under accusations in a field almost exclusively populated by men, of being a dilettante. She instead used the term amateur with pride. According to Natalie Livingstone, the author of Women of Rothschild, it was Miriam’s “expert amateurism that allowed her to follow her broad interests, work across subdisciplines, imbue her work with her love of literature and philosophy, and avoid the increasing specialism she observed taking place”. Miriam was a huge success in her field, she served as the first woman trustee at the Natural History Museum and was awarded an honorary doctorate of science by Oxford University and was a visiting professor at the Royal Free Hospital. Read between the lines and her amateur status allowed her to break the glass wall of men dominated institutions, and the freedom to explore her own judgement for the benefit of science.
What does being a professional mean? In the world of sport, being a professional means getting paid for what you do. Is that the only criteria? Or is there a level of professionalism that requires more than just a salary? My first job was selling shoes in Dolcis in Brent Cross. I don’t think the lavish salary (for a 14 year old, (with double time for bank holidays and a bonus for selling Scotchguard)), made me a professional.
My colleague Rob Meldrum, head of creative futures at EMX, spoke recently to his team about a collective ambition to make “the best work of our lives”.
This ambition, together with the expertise and persistence, are what characterises professionalism. And it is what I’d want from a barber / hairdresser. What any client would want I think. And what keeps me loving my job.
What can we learn from Ronnie the Rocket about winning?
March 4th, 2024Ronnie O’Sullivan is unlike other legendary sports people in a number of ways.
First of all, he’s got huge longevity: he is the only snooker player to have won the world championship as both the youngest, and now the oldest player.
Secondly, at the same time as being on top of the modern game, in some ways he is traditional. He won’t switch chalks. Most snooker players use the TAOM chalk which apparently reduces friction better. Ronnie has stuck with the old Triangle chalk. It certainly doesn’t seem to be holding him back from being both one of the most successful and the most entertaining players.
Thirdly, he says frequently that he does not care about winning at all costs. Although his rivals talk about him as a legend, he must annoy them. He often talks about the fact that he really doesn’t care about winning, only about playing well.
And yet time and again, he wins.
Fourthly, when he plays badly, which he acknowledges that he does reasonably frequently, his competitor seems to drop their game too. Ronnie will then apologise for “dragging the other player down to his level”. Ronnie then recovers his game and beats the opponent. It is like a weird version of the “Tiger Woods effect” whereby the presence of a superstar in a tournament has statistically been shown to diminish the performance of the other contenders. Weird because in the Tiger Wood instance this was because he was playing so well. Not, to quote Ronnie, “dragging the other player down to my level”.
In January 2024 Ronnie won his 8th Masters Final and the World Grand Prix. But he told his public that its not winning that matters to him as much as playing well.
In an interview with ITV Sport on January 17th 2024, Ronnie said this:
“Its nice winning tournaments, you know, but the biggest worry for me is that I’m not really comfortable, or I don’t feel that I’m playing with confidence – to do with cueing and stuff like that. I know I’ve won tournaments but I’m still not really happy with my game, which is more important that winning tournaments to me…… it’s been surprising, I don’t know where it (winning) has come from. Maybe cos its not the most important thing for me. The most important thing is I want to play well. I’d rather play well and get beaten than play badly and win.”
Now clearly Ronnie likes to win (as he has stated before). No champion is averse to winning. But caring about how you do it as well as what the outcome can indeed drive more longevity and better job satisfaction in the long run.
Winning at any price can drive short term benefits in our sector, but winning at the wrong price may mean under resourcing an account, failing to have anything other than a transactional relationship and can be harmful for the work and the outcomes for clients and businesses.
Teams suffer under a pressure to win at any price. We are all human and usually we are motivated by doing our best work. Compromise might be pragmatic, but if it is the only option time and again, then its not the most motivating way to win.
A boss once told me, “don’t worry about winning the pitch and double guessing what you think people want to hear. Focus on what we think is right and showing up as our best version of the ourselves”. It was inspiring, it took the pressure off, it made me want to win even more (and in fact we did win.)
Winning matters, but so too does being your best self at work, doing beautiful work and delivering true breakthroughs. Putting the latter first, may help you come first more often.
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