Josh Padnick’s Blog

That’s what Seth Godin asks in his new book The Dip. It’s a question my sister got me thinking about not so much in relation to what I do, but about people in general.

And got me thinking it has. How many times do we engage a professional and really feel that this person is one of the TOP professionals in what they do? How inspired do we feel when we encounter such a person?

This idea got reinforced in the most unexpected of places recently. It takes a man to admit it, but someone recently gave me a gift to get a massage at Massage Envy. I was a bit trepidacious about it, but I figure I work hard, and it couldn’t be that bad, so maybe it’s okay to indulge.

Embarrassed as I am to admit it, I realize now I had some unconscious prejudices about a masseuse. I assumed that if they were highly ambitious they would have undertaken a more “clinically significant” field like becoming a nurse or doctor. I assumed that it wasn’t that hard to become a masseuse. I assumed the massage field was mostly for people who weren’t sure what they wanted to do, but thought they could make some money doing this.

I knew very little about the whole idea of massage so I found myself asking the masseuse a lot of questions. It quickly became apparent that she took an enormous amount of pride in her work. She worked out 5 days a week to stay in good shape since she felt it allowed her to have increased strength. She closely watched her diet and water intake to ensure she was always well-nourished and well-hydrated. She studied up on various schools of thought in massage. She explained that she felt all these things made her clients that much more likely to choose her.

I’ve encountered $300/hour attorneys who don’t take that kind of pride in their profession. It dawned on me that it kind of doesn’t really matter WHAT you do, but something truly magical happens when, for whatever it is that you do, you resolve to be the BEST at it.

It started making me sensitive to how much of the “I want to be the best” factor different people have at different jobs. If the masseuse was a 10, I rate most professionals I encounter a 6. They work, it pays the bills, they enjoy it, and then they go home and live their lives. I suppose there’s nothing wrong with that approach, but, well, that’s what will give you a 6. I think the 9’s and 10’s internalize their work so much that how good they are at it becomes a point of personal pride. Going physically home doesn’t always mean going mentally home.

I think “liking what you do” has an enormous amount to do with it. Even though my company provides numerous visual design services by employing some very talented visual designers, I myself HATE doing visual design (mostly because I’m so bad at it). If I endeavored to be the best visual designer around, I could only tolerate it for so long. But being the best, say ASP.net 2.0 programmer I know, would be very challenging, but an exciting challenge.

I guess in the end, it makes me think about what I want for myself. When people ask me what I do, when I ask myself about what I do, how do I feel about the quality of what I produce? How proud am I of my skill at my profession, vs complacent that I’m “doing pretty well”? It made me realize that for me personally, the desire to create the best company in our industry, to offer the best service, to offer the best value, to provide the best product, those are things that would make me feel great.

I’ll be honest. We’re not there yet. I personally am not there yet. But it’s a goal that’s starting to overtake my mindset…we’ll see what happens.