Mindset
I was thinking about the idea of a license to practice a profession.
The essence of this concept is that a body representative of a profession has taken the time and effort to create standards of knowledge and ability required to practice.
Why do this?
Usually, it’s because we want the public for whom these professionals supply their services to know they can expect those who are licensed to be able to supply an adequate, consistent, and in some instances, safe service.
Usually licensed professionals also carry forms of liability insurance such that if they make a mistake, the client or customer may have proper recourse.
The general public, for whom these professional services exist, wishes to know what the licensed professional is capable of, and allowed to perform.
You shouldn’t be cutting out a tumor on someone’s kidney if you don’t have a license to practice medicine. What if you cut out the kidney instead?
You shouldn’t be representing someone in a court of law if you don’t have a license to practice law. What if you forgot to prepare your pleading documents for the court?
We probably don’t want the Captain of the plane we are on to be less than licensed to fly!
But one of the downsides to the concept of a license to practice, is it also sometimes becomes a status symbol. More than a license to practice, it becomes a license to look down upon others or to stand taller than most.
And it often constrains our ability to see beyond our scope, to find an alternative path or solution.
A license shouldn’t define you. It shouldn’t constrain you. What it should do is augment you.
What I mean by this is that a license to practice often defines those of us who choose this path, rather than simply providing you with the ability to use this special tool.
The more tools you accumulate, licensed or not, the more you become capable of exploring different paths toward solutions.
If you’re a doctor and you’ve explored other paths in nutrition and exercise, you can see other possibilities for your patients.
If you’re a physiotherapist who’s explored psychology, you can see the solution for your client’s pain might have more to do with how you help them define their solution than with the techniques you use.
If you’ve explored neuroscience as a performance coach, you might see where optimizing the neurological system might create better outcomes than adding more load to the bar.
I interviewed David Epstein on the LYM podcast several years ago and the through line of his book “Range” explores the value of being a generalist versus a specialist. He has explored multiple professional domains and it informs his writing and exploration of subject matter.
“Breadth of training predicts breadth of transfer. That is, the more contexts in which something is learned, the more the learner creates abstract models, and the less they rely on any particular example. Learners become better at applying their knowledge to a situation they’ve never seen before, which is the essence of creativity.”
― David Epstein, Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World
What I’m trying to say is the license opens a door, but how you explore the room beyond the door is what counts. Don’t make your license your constraint, allow it to be a springboard to exploration.
Instead of the license defining how you deliver your craft, and the expectations of your client, make the license serve a greater purpose. It allows you to explore your range knowing you have a central anchor of capacity you can lean on in darker times.
The letters and certificates on the wall mean nothing to the person you serve, what means something is how you serve them and how you help them solve their problems. Build your reputation and character on the foundation of your ability to be resourceful and prepared for anything.
Exploring your range is the essence of the journey of life.
