Being A Professional Dale Atkins at TEDxYouth EHS

I'm going to talk about professional. And that's word we hear all the time. We hear it, we see it, we read it. It's it's everywhere. We use it so often. wonder if we really even know what does it mean? And maybe more importantly, what does being professional mean to you? We can look in dictionary and generally we'd find three definitions. And the first is is professional pertains to profession. That kind of makes me scratch my head. But the second definition adds little bit more. Professional is someone who's paid for their occupation. Makes sense. And the third typical definition is professional is someone who's achieved high level of knowledge and skill. Okay. But when look out in the audience this evening and apply those definitions, think it applies to just about everybody. So why is it in community full of knowledgeable and skilled and and and paid workers that that label professional is given to so few people? Well, think it has to do likely with the value of the service that's delivered. So what differentiates professional say from technician? technician is very skilled and and savvy knowledgeable person. But the difference between the two, the professional delivers judgment. Yeah. That considered decision that valued judgment. In fact, the more uncertainties we face, the more important judgment becomes and more important the role of the professional. But professional, it's an odd word. mean, it's not just label or title. It also can be used to describe or mean attitudes, behaviors, and actions. Think about it for minute. If we combine those three, the the effect of those three has some pretty profound implications. And the reason is that attitudes drive behaviors. And behaviors drive actions. And then actions reinforce attitudes. And what those three things mean is what they're describing is literally us as individuals. So that tells me that being professional that can be applied by anyone and everyone. And think that's good thing. The process of being professional, it's not an event. Or maybe should have said that little more clearly. The whole way of becoming professional is not an event. It's process. It's journey. And it takes some real internal drive and motivation. But it's often sparked with interest and desire. That process for me started long ago when was able to become member of mountain rescue team when was in junior high school. And very early on realized and learned the value of being professional because in mountain rescue uncertainty just abounds and judgment is missionritical to what we do in mountain rescue. And over the years I've learned more about professionalism and what see is framework to being professional. And that framework, well, it it consists of four different aspects. And here's sort of the short version of my talk. But those four aspects to being professional are simply knowing, doing, helping, and learning. You might be thinking, well, wait minute, Dale. is that is that really something or is that just the world according to Dale? Well, it it actually is some real meat to this substance. Those first three, knowing doing and helping that was those were identified by psychologists and sociologists more than 25 years ago. But they missed the boat. It wasn't complete because being professional is process. So I've added learning to that because that keeps that process going. And the beauty of being professional, what I've learned is is sure it applies to me in in work, but it also applies at home, it applies in school, it applies in the mountains, and certainly at work. And my journey to that, as said, started with the mountain rescue. More than 50 years ago here in Evergreen, Alpine Rescue Team was formed. And you got to remember that far back, Evergreen was really small place. And they had real challenge to have enough members that could drop everything and just head off into the mountains to help people. And so within few years, the leadership realized that young people, teenagers could actually do that hard work of the of adults and plus we had time. So back in the day, we could become member of Alpine Rescue Team when we were 14. And some of us even got on little bit earlier. But what was really cool and think very unique feature of of Alpine was that we were not junior members. And yeah, and did join after color photography came out. I'll will point that out. But we were not junior members because once that we demonstrated that we could do the job, we were expected to do the job whenever needed. And that's really an important thing when you're young person. And certainly there's some limitations to that or some limiting factors. mean, I've got to admit when you're 14, 15year-old teenager boy really is. Yeah, size matters. we were not the biggest animal in the woods at 14, 15, or even some of us 13 or 12. we also we had to keep good grades so that we could be let out of school when we were called on missions. And I've got to admit that was one of the coolest things of being on Alpine in junior high in high school was when the message came over the PA. Attention all alpine rescue team members, please come to the office. we always thought we were so cool. didn't happen enough, but it was pretty cool. But most important, we had to keep our parents happy and and pleased with what we were doing because they're the ones that answered the phone in the middle of the night. They're the ones that had to wake us up and often drive us to some staging area at 4:00 in the morning. And it became really big deal when we could drive because we didn't have to rely as much on our parents. We didn't have to ride our bikes sometimes to get to missions and trainings and we didn't have to mooch ride. So we had that independence which we all know is great thing. But the key thing is that we were not treated as juniors. We were treated as equals because we worked really hard. and we worked right alongside those adults. By the time we were in high school, at least some of us were actually starting to lead or direct significant portions of search and rescues and even directing the entire operations. This is high schoolers doing this. And also being at that age, there were times when maybe the biggest thing is when my voice stopped changing because it was really hard to call up and order up helicopter when you call the military and you wake up captain or major in the middle of the night who's now grumpy and your voice starts cracking. Yeah, it just didn't go over very well. So, we learned very early on to be to speak with confidence and authority and an even tone to our voice. But we learned lot. Well, and I've got to say I'm still at it 40 years later enjoying it and joining all of my colleagues on the team and learning lot. So with that, bring challenge to you guys and think of in everything that you're doing or will do that you do it within this framework or this context of being professional. And remember those four aspects of being professional. First one, professional. Being professional is knowing. And mean learn everything that you can and as much as you can. And you need to know more than just having an awareness. You need to understand and take that knowledge and apply it. Start doing something with it. Because when you're doing something with it, you're practicing. And that's where you develop skills. And when you take knowledge and you combine it with skill, you're going to start to realize that there's many options, many solutions to solving problems. That third aspect of being professional is helping. And we've heard that term given in several different ways tonight. giving, helping, being there for people, helping professionals help people because remember said at that highest level what the professional offers is judgment. Yeah. And mountain rescue that judgment comes with lot of hard work. No doubt about it. But that helping is where you make difference and professionals make difference in people's lives. And the last is to make commitment to learning. Make commitment to lifong learning because learning keeps you you current. Keeps your skills and knowledge current and up to date. But more importantly, learning, let me back up. more importantly is because yesterday's knowledge and skills aren't always going to be good enough to solve tomorrow's problems. So everything that you do, be professional in what you do. It's going to make you better. And being professional is going to probably help you make your community better place, too. Thank you.