A Quote by David Halberstam

Being a professional means doing your job on the days you don't want to do it — © David Halberstam
Being a professional means doing your job on the days you don't want to do it
Being a professional is doing the things you love to do, on the days you don't feel like doing them.
First of all, as a professional, you can run around saying "artists, schmartists" as much as you want. But I'm a professional, so if somebody hires me for something, I'm going to bring my best to it. They've hired me, I'm professional, I show up on time, I do my job. That's what we're doing. So in that sense, it's always both things.
I've said numerous times the hardest job in America isn't being a professional athlete. It's not being a matador or having some job that puts your life at risk. The hardest job in America is being black, because it's the one thing you can't outrun.
There's a great quote by Julius Irving that went, 'Being a professional is doing the things you love to do, on the days you don't feel like doing them.'
If you want to feel secure, do what you already know how to do. If you want to be a true professional and continue to grow... Go to the cutting edge of your competency, which means a temporary loss of security. So whenever you don't quite know what you're doing, know you're growing.
There is freedom in being a writer and writing. It is fulfilling your function. I used to think freedom meant doing whatever you want. It means knowing who you are, what you are supposed to be doing on this earth, and then simply doing it.
When you're a professional you gotta do it [your job] when you don't feel like doing it.
When you become a professional, there is all this other stuff you have to do. That part is the job, capital J-O-B. They're very different things, but they're all part of the same career. Once you get onstage and you get to perform, that's your reward for doing your job.
The difference between and amateur and a professional.. a professional believes if a job is worth doing, it is worth doing well. An amateur believes if a job is worth doing, it very well may be worth doing badly.
Punishment for doing your job well is an unparalleled professional pressure.
You have to really swallow your pride and admit that you want to make a comeback. And that means that you weren't at your best and I feel like I stopped being who I needed to be. When I started making this record "Born Villain", I didn't want to be what I used to be but I certainly didn't want to be what I was at the time. I knew that I was supposed to be something better then what I was. I feel that I am close to being what I'm supposed to be and am enjoying what I'm doing here.
Being a Negro in America means trying to smile when you want to cry. It means trying to hold on to physical life amid psychological death. It means the pain of watching your children grow up with clouds of inferiority in their mental skies. It means having their legs off, and then being condemned for being a cripple.
Clearly people should meet an acceptable threshold of appropriateness! But I think that for many women in the public eye, it just seems that the burden is so heavy. We're doing a job that is not a celebrity job or an entertainment or fashion job.... In a professional setting, treat us as professionals.... And it takes a lot of time. I've often laughed with my male colleagues, like, "What did you do? You took a shower, you combed your hair, you put your clothes on. I couldn't do that."
During those days when you're exhausted and during those days when you're frustrated, during those days when you're being attacked by your own people for doing what you think is right, remember you're part of a progression that goes back a long time of ordinary people who are doing their best to make it a better world.
Playing on the PGA Tour and playing professional golf, I think it's what everyone has dreamed of doing - all the guys who are out here. I'm just happy to be able to call this a job, if you want to call it a job.
I love what I do and I'm super confident in it, but I also think of myself as humble in it. It's not better than what anyone else is doing, but I'm doing the best job of being exactly who I am, and doing what I want to do today. It feels so good to me that it doesn't really matter what it means to other people because that's more about them than me. I'm in a really great place with it.
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