Professionalism is a word embraced by many, but in all honesty demonstrated by far fewer individuals. Its Latin's origins come from the word profess which means, "to avow before." So the question is who are these individuals that believe themselves to be true professionals avowing before? Possibly the answer may be found within the word professional.

1. P - Positively proactive. Professionals demonstrate behaviors that are positive, proactive instead of negative, and reactive.
2. R - Respect. Through this ethic and value of respect, professionals are known and trusted within and without their respective organizations.
3. O - Opportunities to help others. Those who avow before understand they have a responsibility to help others whether it is to grow self- leadership skills or provide some expert advice.
4. F - Follow-up. No one likes to wait for un- returned phone calls or emails. Professionals make it a habit to follow-up on everything and accept responsibility when they fail to engage in that behavior.
5. E - Empathy. Professionals know how to be empathetic. This characteristic is a one of the signs of high emotional intelligence and a predictor for leadership success.
6. S - Self-confident. When individuals are self confident, they do not have to put others down at their own expense. These individuals have a high sense of balanced self-esteem and role awareness.
7. S - Sustainable. Professionals are truly sustainable in that they can continue forward when times become difficult. Their ethics and beliefs keep them focused.
8. I - Integrity. Integrity is putting your values into action; doing the right thing when no one else is looking without personal gain or benefit; and accepting a potential personal cost.
9. O - Optimize all interactions. This is critical because professionals do not negate the value of people. They look to see how one interaction can benefit someone else even before himself or herself.
10. N - Nimble. Being flexible and open to change allows these individuals to be quick on their feet and nimble to the opportunities that they encounter on a daily basis.
11. A - Awareness. Having a high level of awareness of themselves, the marketplace, the community and even the world helps these individuals continually stay on top of things.
12. L - Leadership. Last, but not least, professionals demonstrate exceptional leadership skills and even more importantly self-leadership skill. For if you cannot lead yourself, you cannot lead others.

Leadership Coaching Tip: Take a few moments to revisit this list and determine if there are any areas to be further developed. Remember the origins of the word professional - to avow before and are your actions in alignment with your beliefs?

Adapted with permission. Author: Leanne Hoagland-Smith, Advanced Systems

One of the greatest lessons in time management can be learned when you realize the difference between "spending time" and "investing time". The dictionary defines "spend" as: to use up, exhaust, consume. If you spend, you have no return. "Invest," on the other hand, is defined as: to spend with the expectation of some satisfaction, of obtaining an income or profit.

Contrary to many other areas, with time, many people spend far more than they invest. Most of us talk about wasting time, but spend inordinate amounts in frivolous activities that do little or nothing to propel us towards our life achievement. For some reason, we don't have the same attitude about time as we do with money, electricity, food, even something as insignificant as paper clips. Most of us are trained not to waste paper, to turn off the lights so that we don't waste electricity, both at work and at home. Yet we continue to treat our time ... precious moments of our lives, that once spent, can never be retrieved - as if we had an inexhaustible supply.

We have a funny relationship with time. We have a funny relationship with money. It's strange how we link the two of them. There is a saying that we hear all the time: "time is money". Time isn't money. In case you think that time is money, let me be the first to tell you that time is not money: time is time and money is money. They are very different. The problem is that we confuse them. The problem is also that we have a relationship with time and a relationship with money, and in many cases, they are backwards. If we saw someone with a stack of bills, throwing them down a sewer, we would believe he was crazy. Why? Because money is valuable, not that easy to come by, and you don't want to waste it. If you were to lose all of your money, all of your wealth was lost, you would be very upset, but tomorrow you could begin amassing it again. Money has this property of being infinite and plentiful.

You cannot compute how many trillions and trillions are out there. It adds interest while you count. For all practical purposes, it is limitless. For all intents, it is infinite.

Now let's take a look at time. It's very different. I suggest that time is very limited, very finite. The average life span is 74; let's give you 90. You can figure out how much time you have left. Take 90 and subtract your current age. Multiply that by 365; that's how many days. Multiply that by 24, which gives you the hours. Multiply that by 60, which gives you the minutes. Multiply that by 60 and that gives you the seconds. The number you have left is getting smaller with each passing second. It is finite. That number will come to zero, no matter how rich, powerful or famous you are.

Most people I know treat money with enormous respect. They budget, they read magazines, go to seminars, whatever. But, time? Did you ever hear someone say that he killed a couple of hours at the airport? That's worse than throwing money in the sewer! To kill time makes no sense! It's backwards! If, when you were born, you were given 5 million dollars. And that would be your allotment for this lifetime. You can't get any more. You would budget and carefully allot the money because that's all you could get. Time is that: you have a certain limited amount. It's time to start budgeting, to begin to use it wisely. Once it runs out, that's it!

If you are not where you want to be, or who you want to be, make different choices. You have the power to choose where you live, with whom you live, and how you live. You have the power to choose where you work, what you do, and the quality of your work. You choose your level of success or failure. You choose to spend or invest your time.

Copyright protected. All rights reserved. Arnold Rintzler, AWR Business Concepts

Here are some career mind-barriers found especially among new entrants to the workforce, from News From Kaplan, a fact sheet published by Simon & Schuster.

• Waiting to be discovered. Instead of making contacts, such people think they will be magically rewarded with fame and riches.
• Impostor belief. Some people feel they're not really qualified to do the kind of work their employers want them to do. They're afraid of being exposed as incompetent.
• I shouldn't get paid for what I do: It's easy for me. This belief usually crops up among people who are talented and love their work.
• Fear of failure. New workforce entrants often fear they won't be hired or will end up penniless.
• Fear of success. Some people are afraid of doing well because they can't imagine being recognized as an expert in their fields. They may even think that fame and fortune will hurt them in some way. They may think that family and friends will like them better if they stay "small."

© Copyright 2009 (ASTD)

"Time is free, but it's priceless. You can't own it, but you can use it. You can't keep it, but you can spend it. Once you've lost it you can never get it back."
~ Harvey Mackey

"Winning isn't everything, but wanting to win is."
~ Vincent Thomas ""Vince"" Lombardi

"Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm."
~ Winston Churchill

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