The Spark, the Fuel, and the Oxygen

We know that combustion requires three things: fuel, oxygen, and ignition. The absence of any one of these means that your campfire won’t burn or your car engine won’t run.

Professional success is no different. You need three elements, or you will never catch fire. These three elements are subject matter expertise, natural talent (Giftedness), and clients. And just as your car needs clean gas of sufficient octane, pure air, and a good spark, your success depends on the quality each of the three professional elements.

Professional education tends to focus mostly on one of the elements, namely subject matter expertise. Credentials are earned entirely or almost entirely by successfully regurgitating difficult subject matter. If you can demonstrate that your brain is brim full of legal information or medical knowledge or physics formulae, you’re deemed good to go. They give you a certificate and turn you loose on the public, leaving you to figure out the “how to” and the “who” as you go.

Legal knowledge in the absence of the savvy to apply it effectively is useless, as would be medical knowledge without an ability to observe and analyze the presenting health problem. You can memorize the entire body of engineering lore yet be completely incapable of getting a log bridge across a stream. Subject matter expertise in the raw is of little value.

But of course, “know how” alone won’t get you the whole way, either. The professions are the professions because you “profess” knowledge which you need to solve the problems of your clients. And in terms of protecting the public, we do need to test subject matter expertise as the best gauge we have of ensuring competence.

Clients are analogous to oxygen. They provide the opportunity for you to apply your knowledge and your skills. Thus, the better your choice of client, the brighter you will burn and the more you will shine. Some professions, such as teaching and family medicine don’t give you much choice in client selection, and it’s up to you to make each one ideal – not always easy. But for most of us, focusing on the clients who most need and want our unique Giftings is the surest way to practice with joy and satisfaction, and to burnish our reputations. And the better our reputations, the better the clients we will attract.