Yeah, you can disagree with someone and still be cool - that's a thing!
Disagree with someone on the right and he is likely to think you obtuse, wrong, foolish, a dope. Disagree with someone on the left, and he is more likely to think you selfish, a sell-out, insensitive, possibly evil.
Who is a professional? A professional is someone who has a combination of competence, confidence and belief. A water diviner is a professional. A traditional midwife is a professional. A traditional bone setter is a professional. These are professionals all over the world. You find them in any inaccessible village around the world.
To have a liberal temperament is a kind of psychological boon, To be able to understand that someone you disagree with is not just a terrible creature but somebody with whom you disagree.
The one thing about professional sport is it's all about results, and at the end of the day, if someone is employing you and you're not scoring runs or you're not taking wickets, they ain't going to carry on doing it, and there's no any other way of saying that; that's unfortunately the ruthless business of professional sport.
I disagree with a lot of things, but hey, what a person does is between them and their maker. I can disagree with somebody, and I can still be friends with them.
I assumed a business like a film studio would behave like a business and still want to protect its own interests, still do the best it could to get as many people paying for as many of their movies as possible. I realized this is not actually a business about business: it's a business of egos and dominance.
As an amateur, you may envy the professional, wishing you could combine business with pleasure into a kind of full-time hobby, using professional equipment and facilities. However, the professional knows that much of the hidden advantage of being amateur is the freedom you have to shoot what and when you like.
You can disagree with another person's opinions. You can disagree with their doctrines. You can't disagree with their experience.
A true friend is someone you can disagree with and still remain friends. For if not, they weren't true friends in the first place.
I am a professional squash player, and I recently played badly - but as well as I could - in a professional squash tournament. A professional squash player might sound like someone who is in a food-tasting group, but it is a racquet sport.
I think that it's a mistake to assume that because you're taking a position from somebody else who you might disagree with - or you know you disagree with on some things - to assume that you disagree with on everything and to not look at each policy on its own merits.
In the United States Senate, one of the things I observed in the early days - and it's still used - and that is that you take someone's argument and then you misrepresent it and misstate and disagree with it. And it's very effective. I've done it myself a number of times. But eventually, eventually people catch on.
Patience is a part of boxing. After I had missed out on the Olympic gold medal in 1984, a lot of people tried to talk me into turning professional quickly to make money. They told me that the next Olympics in Seoul would be boycotted again, that I was wasting my life, blah blah. But I still had unfinished business. I wanted the gold medal, and I got it in ?88. Only then was I ready to turn professional.
The best way to do business with a liar is confront them with the truth. Tell them that you do business as a partner. If your lying customer still can't see the light, tell him that you may not be the best choice for business, and that you think you have someone that can serve him better. Then, refer him to the competitor that you hate the most.
Even though professional soccer has become more about business and less about the game itself, I still believe football is a party for the legs that play it and for the eyes that watch it.