|| Professional to Professionalism ||

"The key to quality and efficiency in your profession is your professionalism." It's a journey of an individual in his or her profession. Today education is very important in our lives and more than that how well we execute knowledge from our education. The education system have so many options for us to select. It is up to us how well we select and implement in our life. In this universe and in this world with major changes in science, there is an equal revolution in education. To survive, to earn efficiently and work efficiently you need to be at least a graduate professional. Earlier parents were having more kids but there were fewer schools, also educational facilities were not much in demand hence there was not much demand for being professional. Many artists make lovely paintings, they add so many beautiful colors of life but we love the painting which is outstanding where the color combination is good, concept and presentation, and what message you get out of the painting is good. In the same way after being professional in any profession how you present yourself, what quality of work you do and how hard-working are you, and how much passion you have that shows your professionalism.

Earlier people who were hard-working and had qualities of being different they were noticed and appreciated like Arjuna for his Dhanur Vidhya or Birbal in Akbar times for his intelligence. They also received education from gurus but in different ways. Though Arjuna was extraordinary and intelligent and had excellent skills in what he does but for his success with his education, he had to learn lessons of life from Lord Krishna. Even Lord Krishna did all his Kridaa's when it was needed. Birbal one of the intelligent person in Akbar's time had to prove his intelligence by narrating stories or by an explanation of what thought he presented in front of the king Akbar. But today if corporate or our superior demands for our presentation in our profession we get worried or panic or sometimes we don't even enjoy it. I always believe that what we learn in our life through our education we should use it in the best possible way. Arjuna did for Dharma, Birbal did for his people to understand in Kingdom and we should do it to make our own world better.

We get into a profession according to our inner quality and potential not by seeing and competing with others. If we select according to what we desire then you enjoy and do the best out of it. In the process even if you get something which you never thought of but if you really do hard work and use your best potential then you start enjoying it. Story of Gunjan Saxena who desired to be an Air Force Pilot. She worked hard, fought for it, and now enjoying what she did and here one more example, Me who never knew anything about my profession of Audiology and Speech Therapy, took it as a challenge, did hard work, and used my best potential to be one of the ten Audiologist of the world to plan Advocacy for Hearing Health Care. So, it is up to us how we make efforts to move from our profession to our professionalism.

QUALITY is the best business plan. Today we have so many doctors but we prefer to go to the doctor who understands your pain, similarly you talk about any profession we prefer to go or like to approach who understands you or where you feel comfortable talking. I still remember as a child I admired our family doctor who used to always welcome us with his smile and he used to give treatment in a way that your pain goes away in magical form. I always looked at him as my role model and I also wanted to learn to relieve people in pain in the same magical way as him. Our doctor used to charge very reasonably and his clinic used to be always flooded with patients. He will treat each and every patient poor or rich in the same magical manner with his kindness and being humble. Today, especially youngsters they study the best education, they spend so much money on education but they want to compensate for all that money fast not thinking much. We get so many professionals who come to ask for work, though they don't have experience still they first ask for money. If they start working with this mindset then though they will earn money, it will be for the short term because to earn long term in business or profession you need to put your quality of hard work first then money flows automatically. It is said that "The deepest secret is that life is not a process of discovery, but a process of creation. You are not discovering yourself, but creating yourself anew. Seek therefore, not to find out Who You Are, but seek to determine Who You Want To Be."

In work, if you don't have discipline in yourself or you don't be in the system then it piles up like how you don't do your homework on time and you get firing from your teacher. So the first quality of professionalism is to do work on time and with the system. In whichever profession you are, you need to learn the best quality of it from other professionals. Today I can fit hearing aids to 50 kids in a day as per their individual requirement with efficiency, only because I spent time in understanding the technology and learned from the researchers who make these digital hearing aids. By fitting proper hearing aids to deaf kids they can hear efficiently and also by adding the best rehabilitation services with teamwork can change the life of so many kids. Hence, being professional with learning at each and every step and working with the team gives you the best results of your professionalism. Don't forget, "The greatest discovery of all time is that a person can chnage his future by merely changing his attitude."

I really admire once a sentence narrated by one of the best professional artists in the voice industry that, you need to be a master who creates masters if you want to be the best in your profession. I used to go to his voice classes to deliver lectures on voice maintenance. He was approached by my other senior professional as well like me. He used to tell them that I like her because she understands other person's difficulty, makes them feel comfortable, and explains them in a very simple manner according to their intelligence. This compliment was learning for me to be better at maintaining my professionalism. Statistics show that we have 360 million people in the world, out of that only 6.3% population is hearing impaired and out of this only 10% population gets hearing treatment inaccurate way. There is a huge work for professionals. I think it's the same way in each and every profession. We all have so much work to do then why not we put our best in our profession rather than comparing or competing with each other. Our talent will take us to high position in our career, but behaviour will help us to maintain the high position in hearts of others.. 

A mother who feeds the baby never compromise in the quality of her warmth. Parents who feed their own child never compromise in the quality of giving nutrition to the child. Today parents and we as an individual don't compromise in getting quality of education from best school and colleges or from any other institute. We don't like to compromise in the quality of food that we eat for our survival then why do we compromise in the quality of working in our profession,??? Just think about it. Leaders become great not beacuse of their power but, because of their ability to empower others.

A journey of being professional to have professionalism needs hard work, dedication, passion, honesty, and warmth of understanding others. With having the quality of using the best potential, you may not earn more money but will have self-discipline, understanding the depth of work, courage, ready to take challenges, being humble, and satisfaction in what you do. Success doesn't just come and find you, you have to go out and get it. As an individual, all we need is, good quality of food to eat, fresh air to breathe, and need clean water to drink. In the same way, we need professionals in different fields to work with their best professionalism (the best quality and efficiency) to make this world more beautiful.