#389： What It Means to Be a Quiet Professional
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Summary
Rob Shaw is the founder and president of Mountain Tactical Institute, a company that trains individuals who are working in the mountains, like backcountry skiers, mountain guides, and hunters who are in mountainous regions. He argues that the world needs more quiet professionals, people whose only focus is to get the job done well. In this episode, we discuss the idea of a quiet professional, and Rob walks us through the traits and attributes one must develop to embody this ideal.
Transcript
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Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast. We live in a time
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of hype and self-aggrandizement. My guest today argues that what the world needs more of are
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quiet professionals, people whose only focus is to get the job done well. His name is Rob Shaw and he's
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the founder and president of Mountain Tactical Institute. We had Rob on the podcast last year
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to discuss his physical fitness philosophy. Today on the show, I talked to Rob about his
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philosophy towards work and life that he's laid out in a series of essays on his site about what
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it means to be a quiet professional. We begin by unpacking the foundational definition of a quiet
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professional. And then Rob walks us through the traits and attributes he thinks one must develop
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to embody this ideal. Rob's ideas are refreshingly understated in a culture that puts a premium on
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a bombast. After the show's over, check out the show notes at aom.is slash quiet professional.
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So we had you on a while back ago to talk about your company, Mountain Athlete, Tactical
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Athlete. We talked more about physical training programming, how you train individuals who are
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working in the mountains, like backcountry skiers, hunters who are out there in the mountains. You
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also train LEOs, military guys who are going to be in mountainous regions. But today I'd like to get a
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little more philosophical because you have this article on your site, Mountain Athlete, called
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Being the Quiet Professional, Quiet Professionalism. And throughout the, I guess this year, you've been
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kind of fleshing that idea out more. And in that article, you wrote that you've been thinking about
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this idea of the quiet professional for years and you've been chewing on it. Why has it been something
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You know, I think the idea or that term quiet professional kind of comes from the military special
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forces communities, specifically, you know, in the army special forces, green berets and those types
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of folks. And years ago, the first tactical athlete programming course I taught was down in
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Tampa Bay and McGill Air Force Base and some special forces guys down there and from, from different
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services. And one was a green beret and a real good friend of mine. He's a master sergeant and retired as
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a master sergeant and a sergeant major. And we and him just kind of started talking about this idea
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of a quiet professional and some of the ideals. And for whatever reason, that just kind of caught
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my attention as I started to examine that idea in my own life and my own professionalism. And it just
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kind of built and grew from there to the point where I just had to start writing it down, some of my
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thoughts and putting some framework to it. So we're going to get into some of these specific traits,
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but how would you describe a quiet professional? Like maybe this would be best, like who are some
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examples of quiet professionals? You mentioned some special forces guys, but any other examples
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from your own life? Like what sort of encapsulates what you're thinking about or your ideal quiet
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professional is? You see these quiet professionals. One thing about it is that the idea of being a
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quiet professional is really an internal idea. It's the idea is you kind of set your own expectations
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and you, you try to grow internally to those and, and now outward expectations or accolades or
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anything. Getting beyond that is part of what, part of the journey to, to become a quiet professional.
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And there's no real job title or profession or education level that determines it. I've met quiet
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professionals, you know, who check me out at the grocery store, who, you know, come and do my plumbing,
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you know, who, you know, work on my accounting, who are attorneys. It's just a, really an approach
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to life and to their, to their craft, which is their, their work, just kind of a mission first
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service first, just doing, doing the job in a craftsman like manner that kind of, you can just
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sense it from them. They, they have a certain solace about them, you know, and a sense of peace.
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They're not perfect, but you can kind of see that they, they know what the good questions are and
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they're working on those answers with the real, you know, sometimes the hard thing is finding out what the,
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what's the real question. And they, they kind of know what it is and they're, and they're working
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on the solution. So I can't really point to any specific examples where I'd be uncomfortable doing
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it because it would be embarrassed maybe. But, but there's no, even though that the term kind of
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comes from this tactical special forces community, in my mind, anybody, any profession or any walk of
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life can be a quiet professional. So, I mean, when I hear that phrase, I think of someone who's like,
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yeah, you said that they just, they do the work, they do it well, and they don't try to make a big
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deal about it. Like they just let the results speak for themselves and they don't go out of their way
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to say, Hey, look at this great thing that I did. They just, they do it and then they, that's it.
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Yeah. You know what? The bigger idea is that all work can be turned into a craft and quiet
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professionals are craftsmen or crafts women. And the craft itself is the idea of a craft when it comes to
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work. There's this kind of stage you go through where you kind of always chase some perfection,
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knowing you're never going to get it, but just enjoying the journey along the way and keep on
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aspiring for that. And that when you make that transition in your occupation or whatever,
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it kind of blossoms and can become really something that's really enriching and fulfilling for you.
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One of the things I kind of point out is that, you know, quiet professionals really
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ideally put their mission first and they're kind of dedicated to service.
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And you would think on the outside that this is something that is, you know, altruistic and
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certainly it is. We are not self-absorbed and kind of focus on serving others. But there's also an
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incredible liberating element to it. It takes a lot of energy to be self-absorbed and selfish
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and it can wear you out. I think that's one of the reasons these self-absorbed people are never
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very happy. It just takes too much energy. But if you're kind of focused on service and mission
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first, not only are you hopefully serving other people, but it is in its own quiet way
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liberating. Your choices are, you know, the, what you're going to do. The first question is
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what's going to benefit the unit or the mission or the people in my life. And generally when you have
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choices, the answer to that question is pretty clear and then you just do it and it kind of cleans
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something up and that mental clarity is, is really valuable and liberating.
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No. Yeah. I love that idea of how constraints can actually make us more free. And I love that
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section where you highlight, you know, one of the traits of a, of a quiet professionals. They have a
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mission. They know what the mission is and they make all their choices based around that mission.
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And now if you are embedded in a unit, combat unit, a military unit, or your law enforcement
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officer, like you have this mission sort of imposed on you from the outside, right? You know what the
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mission is. What if you're not in that position? Like, what if you're just a regular guy, a civilian
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working a nine to five, how do you, how do you think they can figure out what their mission is?
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So they can kind of tap into that quiet professional ethos.
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I don't know that that's a complicated question. You know, a teacher certainly has, you know, their
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job tasks are fairly, you know, direct, but even I think that the trouble comes in where
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issues come up, you know, is it worth it? Am I getting accolades? Am I getting paid enough?
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Is, or do people appreciate my, my job or appreciate the work I'm doing? So again, it really doesn't
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matter what the actual job task is or what the work is. It's the, your approach to it that makes you a
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quiet professional. And again, in, in every, in my, in my own experience, when I, when I see people
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who are like this, you know, there's, believe me, there's plenty of army special forces guys who
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aren't quiet professionals, right? And there's, and there's plenty of, you know, people who,
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you know, just work in everyday lives who are kind of rare ideals to aspire to. The way you frame
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that question implies that you have to have a service-based, you know, altruistic mission to
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be a, or a job description to be a quiet professional. And I, I'm not too sure I agree
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with that. I don't like to limit it to certain professions for sure. At least in my mind, I
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don't. Right. I mean, every job you have, you're, you're in a sense, you're providing a service,
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right? You're doing something to help another human being. So like, I guess what you're, what
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you're saying here is a quiet professional does the work well for the sake of doing the work
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well, because that's just what you were supposed to do and not for any sort of monetary gain or,
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you know, getting a pat on the back. One of the examples I use in, in one of the essays in
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road is my own grandmother who came to live with us when I was in elementary school. And she had been
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a maid in casinos in Reno, Nevada. And I was helping her one summer morning or had to help her
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make beds in the house. And I was not interested in this. I was maybe 11, 12 years old, or maybe a
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little younger. And I wanted to grab my fishing pole and go down the park and do some fishing.
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And we were making a bed and, you know, I said, okay, it's good enough. You know, let's,
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you know, let's go on to the next one so I can get out of here. And she said, no, it's not.
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And she said, I'm a professional. And by God, that bed was, you know, corners folded. If you can
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make a bed and do it in a way that's a work of art, she did it. And no one was watching her.
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None of us would have known the difference, but that example is always, I've always thought of
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that, the dignity that she brought to her work, even when she wasn't working, it was still, you
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know, something she was known for and that she took pride in. And there's a certain dignity that
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quiet professionals bring to the work, regardless of the situation, you know, regardless of the
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compensation, regardless of who's looking, it's that, that bigger idea that is so beautiful.
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No. Yeah. I love that. And one of the other ideas that you traits, you think that a quiet
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professional should have this idea that they're, they're a grinder. What does, what does that mean?
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I think we all like kind of, you know, that you're going to rise and grind and hustle and
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whatever, but how do you, but, but I feel like when people talk about grinding, it's often in that
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like unquiet professional way, you know, it's like boasting here I am working so hard. Look at me
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There's an idea to the idea of being a grinder that great leaps forward, you know, are few
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inflating and progress comes, you know, a series of steps of, you know, kind of constant small
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improvement, which, which takes awareness and reflection and, and just grinding. In my mind,
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I've kind of thought about being a grinder and being this type of person who's kind of a hard
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worker in kind of three steps, just kind of based on my own own experience and people I've
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known in my life. And the first is that there's this expectation that you're a hard worker and
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it's generally put on you by your parents or by organization you're in. And so others kind
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of say, you know, if you want to do this, you know, you should be a hard worker. And that
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expectation of others is why you work so hard. And then there's this next step where there's
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some pride that comes in and instead of others focusing the expectation on, on you, you kind
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of do it yourself because now you're known as a hard worker and you take pride in that. And so you,
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you work really hard to kind of keep that reputation up, but it's still not about really the,
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the work. And the final one is this idea where you, you kind of work hard.
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You don't really work hard. You just end up seeing what you're doing as a craft and you put
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in the details and the hours and the hard work, not because it's expected, not because it's out
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of pride, because you want to be known as a hard worker, but because you see your work as this
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incredible gift. And you're always trying to, like I said before, kind of reach this idea of
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perfection and whatever you're doing. And you know, you're never going to get there,
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but along the way, the learning is unending. It's always teaching you in that, that journey
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of that learning and that frustration and humility and, and you know, I guess failure and moving on
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from that, all that journey is kind of part of what pushes you along and keeps you, you know,
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kind of at the, at the grindstone. So when I say grinder, I mean, in an adoring way, I'm kind of one
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of those grinder guys who really doesn't have a lot of talent, but just kept, kept at it. And I
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admire other people who are kind of like that, but even, even the most successful people I've known
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are, you know, when you take away the gloss and stuff, generally, I mean, there's a little bit of
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talent and a lot of hard work and, and the successful people who are happy do it for the
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craft of it. You can be successful and work hard and still not be happy, but if you're able to turn
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what you do into a craft and understand that craft, craftsmanship element of it, then you can
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be happy doing it. I mean, is that getting to that point? Does that take time? Like, is, is it
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something that you, you have to go through those steps? Like you'll do something because there's an
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expectation and then you do it because you get accolades and then eventually you just do it for
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the, for the love of the craft, for the sake of the craft. Yeah. All of the, all the, the entire journey to,
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I think being a quiet professional is like two steps forward and one step back
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because you fail, you know, along the way, you know, you don't always put mission first, you know,
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you, you know, you, you can be selfish and, you know, be lazy sometimes or, or whatever. It takes
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time. Yeah. I think that the, you know, it's, it is this kind of journey, not only within the work,
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within you as a, as an individual. And, and one of the things that I mentioned is the idea of the
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difference between experience and wisdom. It's on your path to becoming wise and becoming wise
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takes work and failure. Yeah. It takes time. At least it does for me or it has for me. I'm still,
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you know, I'm 49 going on 50 and I still have a lot of work to do. Well, this idea of wisdom and
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experience, you have another essay about this, kind of one of the traits of a quiet professionals,
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you know, we want wisdom and we often gain that from experience, but you can have experiences,
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right. And not gaining any wisdom. Cause I know lots of people who have had lots of terrible,
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you know, self-inflicted, terrible experience, but they don't, they're none the wiser for it.
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So in your experience and in working with special operators and in the line of the type of men you
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work with, how do you see, like, is there like a process that people use to learn, ensure those
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experiences, those mistakes are you, you learn from them? You know, you get experienced by accident,
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no matter what, you know, just living gives you experience. And, you know, we've all met people
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in their seventies or seniors who are just bitter and angry. And I don't think they, they obviously have
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lots of experience. They've lived for, you know, seven or eight decades, but I want to say their
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why is how can you, you know, go through all of that and still not kind of identify what's important.
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Everybody has experienced, but wisdom takes work. And, and in my own life, I guess, and kind of
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watching others, I've identified some of the steps, you know, kind of the to-do list along the way,
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you know, the first one is to, to learn from your mistakes and to really learn from your mistakes.
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I mean, this takes some reflection, some really clear eyed self-examination, acknowledgement and
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owning it, looking at your responsibility as a mistake and maybe even some penance. And then
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to act on a committed commitment to not make that mistake or something similar moving forward.
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Like you said, you know, people keep making the same mistakes, forgiveness, others first, but really
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I think you need to learn to forgive yourself and understand you messed up, acknowledge it, own it,
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and then move on and not continually beat yourself up about that. That takes wisdom for me personally.
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This idea of, you know, embracing death as I get older, you know, my knees hurt in the morning and
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I don't recover as fast and I got little tweaks and all these things are just signals to nature to me
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that, you know, my, my, you know, my time on this earth is limited. I'm not going to live forever.
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And that can be a beautiful tool to help you understand that you only have so much time and
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to live in the present, which is one of the most difficult things that we all can learn to do or try
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to aspire to. Being tolerant, the older I've got, the less righteous I become and the more when things
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come up, I take a step back and see the world in shades of gray and say, it depends a lot rather
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than this is right or this is wrong. And I think that is a part of this idea to, of my, my own internal
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growing tolerance. The most wise people that I've met are also the most tolerant. They, you know,
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cultural change, they, they're resilient, they're adaptable. They understand what's important.
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And the minor differences, especially between people just aren't that important. They're the
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most tolerant. Another is to detach from expectations. In other words, at some point in
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your life, you, you'll hopefully learn that what other people expect or what maybe the society expects
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or, or whatever may not align with who you are. And once you're able to give that up, there's a
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sense of liberty to that. And maybe a grounding sense that makes you more wise. You've probably
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heard this before, you know, in your, in your twenties, you're worried about what people think
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about you. And then in your thirties, you're like, Oh, I don't care what people think about me. And
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then in your forties, you kind of realized they were never thinking about you the whole time. Right.
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I think that's part of this idea of detaching yourself from expectations of others and kind of
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identifying who you are and living your life accordingly at the way you want to live it.
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And then finally, just to be humble, understand that you're not owed anything,
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not special, life's not fair. The universe is huge and time is infinite. And we are really,
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really insignificant. And when you kind of realize it, that you're just not that damn important,
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you're, I think, able to let some of this angst and stuff kind of go and find some solace and again,
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kind of live more into present and identify what's important. Understand that just, just like all these
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things, I kind of find to be elements of what it means to be a quiet professional. There's,
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there's always two steps forward or one step back. I mean, the entire process is a journey and it's not
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like you just wake up one day as a quiet professional. You make a lot of mistakes and
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learn a lot of, a lot of stuff along the way. It's just all part of this bigger journey.
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or domain. And now back to the show. I want to go back to this idea of being wise means you're not
00:22:02.360
self-righteous. The problem, what I've seen is there's a lot of leaders, once they're put in
00:22:07.460
position of leadership, wouldn't call them, let's not say a lot of people who are put in positions
00:22:11.500
of leadership, doesn't necessarily mean you're a leader, even if you're a position of leadership,
00:22:15.080
they become self-righteous and self-important. What do you think, what is it about being in position
00:22:20.520
of authority that makes people like that? You know, the, just some really simple elements of
00:22:28.120
that type of position that maybe cater to some of our worst instincts. The first is
00:22:34.280
a leadership position, no matter what the level implies that you're somehow above the people below
00:22:39.220
you, that there's something special about you. And so that kind of caters to maybe some of our
00:22:43.580
worst instincts. And as part of that, it comes with this idea that, you know, you're smarter than
00:22:48.620
others. And with the idea that you're smarter than others, then the way you see the world is right
00:22:55.240
and the way others see the world is wrong. You know, leadership is tough. Leaders do have to make
00:23:00.140
decisions. And at some point they, those, you know, the people or the situations affected can see those
00:23:07.940
as black and white. You know, that the idea of being self-righteous, certainly I've fallen into that
00:23:11.980
and just, you know, the work that I've done and over the course of my life. And now I, I have
00:23:17.240
hopefully gotten to the point because I can feel that willing up inside me, Brett, right? I can feel
00:23:21.980
this, you know, kind of, well, you know, uh, when, when I feel it coming on and, and, uh, most of the
00:23:27.780
time, not all the time, but most of the time now, I, I kind of know what that feels like. And I'm able
00:23:33.360
to step back and say, Whoa, you know, every time you've, you followed through on this feeling,
00:23:38.800
it hasn't worked out well. So, uh, maybe it's time to take a step back and, uh, and, uh, to take a
00:23:46.080
dose of humility and open your eyes a little bit. Yeah. I think, uh, it takes, uh, a special person
00:23:52.620
to get into a leadership position. You know, maybe the best example from history is Marcus Aurelius
00:23:58.420
and, you know, his meditations. And as you read about, you know, the emperor of Rome, who is,
00:24:04.140
you know, by far, you know, the most powerful person in the world, you know, he, he wrote in
00:24:09.240
his diary, don't let it go to your head. Right. All the time. And so that is, uh, so I think again,
00:24:15.660
there's just elements of leadership that kind of catered or leadership position that kind of can
00:24:20.280
cater to our worst instincts. And it takes a wise person to see that and not let it happen to him or
00:24:26.500
her. And what do you do to like, when you feel right, like, okay, I'm becoming really self-important
00:24:32.820
here. Mountain athlete is the greatest fitness program ever. And all others are terrible,
00:24:38.680
right? When you get into that mode and you're thinking black and white, what do you do to pull
00:24:41.840
yourself back and inject a bit of humility? Do you have like any specific tactics you use or
00:24:46.900
practices? Oh boy. You know, that's a great question. Um, I think first I may, yeah, just
00:24:53.680
getting to the point where I can feel that coming on has been a huge step for me. Uh, so I feel it
00:24:59.900
coming. If you don't feel it coming and are able to detach from your emotions, then it's hard to,
00:25:06.880
to stop it. So that's, that's the first thing. And I don't know. And I think that what's caused me to
00:25:13.000
be able to feel it coming is just learning from my mistakes when I've acted on, on that self-righteousness
00:25:18.200
and seeing how it's worked out. It hasn't worked out well. So I've reflected and taken a step back and
00:25:24.680
clear eyed examination of kind of what happened and how I got myself that position and, and worked
00:25:30.360
to try not to let that happen again. Uh, one of the things that kind of comes up with that is
00:25:35.720
generally in my experience, when that kind of thing comes up, there's generally some kind of
00:25:40.100
conflict with, with somebody else. And one of the, one of the things I kind of learned that's really
00:25:47.200
helped me a couple of things, especially in conflict with other people is the ability to say
00:25:53.500
and embrace, you may be right. Just be able to say that instead of saying you're wrong or whatever,
00:26:00.180
but be able to say, you may be right. Let me think about that. So that's one thing.
00:26:05.420
One key that I have is that, and then the other time that sense comes up is where maybe somebody is,
00:26:13.300
you're competing with in some way or another person or organization, and they have some success
00:26:19.540
and it gets you upset for whatever reason. It took me a long time to be able to say
00:26:25.340
for, you know, my competitors, good for them, good for you, good for them. But just being able to say
00:26:33.500
that, Oh my God, just being able to say good for them has been able to help me turn away from
00:26:41.420
the outside to what I can control, which is my own performance, my own attitude and has really
00:26:48.920
just been really liberating. So I guess those are first is recognizing it, being able to say you may
00:26:54.260
be right, not only say it, but then take a step back and see it from that person's side or that
00:27:00.460
organization's side. And then, you know, when someone you don't like or you're competing with or
00:27:05.220
whatever has success, being able to say good for them, those, those three things are really
00:27:10.200
helped me with that. One of the other traits you talk about that a quiet professional has,
00:27:14.360
and this, maybe this kind of goes along with the idea of a grinder is that they're able to do
00:27:18.720
those, you know, keep doing those mundane tasks that are necessary for success. And in, you know,
00:27:26.640
your personal life, it could just be as simple as just like general hygiene, right? Or exercise
00:27:31.280
or doing the laundry or whatever. And then you can think those are really mundane. You just want to
00:27:35.600
not do it. How does a professional, a quiet professional ensure that he keeps doing those
00:27:41.020
mundane work a day things that he knows are necessary for that sort of baseline success?
00:27:47.200
One of the things that most of us learn when we have some type of failure is when you, you,
00:27:52.240
you take a step back and you look at why you failed. Most of the time you'll find a failure in
00:28:00.320
the fundamentals. Quiet professionals that I've known, whether it be athletes or mountain guides
00:28:06.960
or soldiers, their fundamentals are really solid. I was just going to read about a story about
00:28:12.300
an experiment that was conducted on performance. It was done on some singers. All the singers had to,
00:28:20.040
you know, they had to go through an initial set of fundamental notes before they sang the piece
00:28:23.760
they were going to do. And the researchers put some gadgets on the singers that can measure their
00:28:29.380
intensity and brainwave and stress when they completed these, this set of fundamental practice
00:28:37.040
notes before they sang their piece. And then they took that data and separated the good singers from
00:28:43.740
the, just the average singers. And the really good singers had a lot of stress when they, they
00:28:48.840
practiced those fundamental notes. They put a lot of effort into it. They were really concerned about
00:28:54.580
how well they did and they really were checking their performance. And the, the singers,
00:28:59.380
who, who weren't at a higher level, didn't pay as much, nearly as much attention to that
00:29:04.760
fundamental work. And that's really, I think, key to this idea of, you know, always going through the
00:29:12.800
fundamentals and the daily habits and, you know, those daily mundane tasks who are hidden in the
00:29:19.620
background, but are really the foundation for higher level performance. So that's, I think,
00:29:25.340
for a quiet professional, it's, it's an acknowledgement of the role that, that fundamental
00:29:29.780
work plays in higher level performance. So you talk about how quiet professionals are
00:29:35.380
willing, willingly embrace making those hard decisions because we're all going to face them
00:29:41.040
no matter what sort of line of work we're in. We're going to face them in our family life.
00:29:44.820
Uh, what's your approach to making those, you know, gut, gut decisions, do or die decisions?
00:29:53.420
Yeah. Um, I kind of just in, uh, my life kind of reflecting back and the people I've known,
00:29:58.500
there's some tools that we've kind of developed when it's, when we come to making really hard
00:30:02.540
decisions and, and hard decisions generally kind of pit our head versus our heart, right? Our head
00:30:08.480
tells us to do one thing and our heart tells us to do another. And, and we get in this infinite
00:30:12.740
loop of back and forth of going around and around without being able to, to kind of identify which
00:30:18.780
way to go. One of the first things that I kind of point to as a tool that people can use is if you
00:30:23.720
know what you're doing right now is wrong, stop doing it. Even if you don't know what comes next,
00:30:29.740
because if you're in the wrong profession or in the wrong relationship and you continue
00:30:34.320
along that route, knowing it's wrong, you know, maybe you're looking for the next thing to do.
00:30:38.880
You sometimes don't have the space to find that next thing by stopping, stopping what you're
00:30:44.620
doing. If you know, if you don't know what's going to come next, it'll force you to, to head
00:30:49.760
down that path to find, to find out what, what is right for you. I've met lots of people who
00:30:54.560
kind of get in this rut where they know things are bad, but it's not bad enough to quit.
00:31:00.540
And they can stay in this rut miserable for years and years and years. This tool of, if you know,
00:31:05.620
stop doing it is a real tool to kind of break you out of that rut. Another thing is that kind of
00:31:12.620
goes along this way is not making a decision is a decision. If you're in the wrong profession and
00:31:17.360
you're in your twenties or thirties or, and you know, it's wrong, you know, but you don't know
00:31:22.360
what you want to do next or you're scared or whatever. And pretty soon you're 35, it's more
00:31:27.840
difficult to some of those opportunities you had when you're younger are gone now. And so not making
00:31:33.820
decision, cut out some of those opportunities and choices you had before. So it's kind of like you
00:31:38.240
are making the decision, you're limiting your choices. What I've kind of learned in my own life
00:31:42.240
is that deciding against integrity, whether it be the integrity of who you are, who you want to be
00:31:48.480
and doing something opposite of that, or the easier one is just the idea of moral integrity always comes
00:31:54.400
with a painful cost. You always have to pay the piper when you decide against integrity of some way.
00:32:00.040
I understand that when I say that it's not, I don't mean to be preachy. I kind of adopt the
00:32:05.040
Aristotle approach to, you know, becoming a person of integrity, which is you're never going to be
00:32:10.480
perfect, but the more decisions you make that kind of align with who you, who you think you are or
00:32:17.880
with moral integrity, the easier it becomes. And the more down that road you go, which is best.
00:32:24.160
Next one is that I've, I've, I've kind of learned that if integrity isn't an issue and it comes down to
00:32:29.760
deciding between your head and your heart, always go with your heart. I've met lots of people who
00:32:35.380
have gone with their head and regretted it, but I've never met somebody who's gone with their heart
00:32:39.860
and have. And sometimes going with your heart, you know, is maybe not the best decision, practical
00:32:46.140
decision, but I think that it's generally the best decision for you. And then finally, I like the idea
00:32:53.340
of not artificially limiting your, your options or your choices. I found that happens a lot with the
00:32:59.140
people who, for some reason I become, I've done a lot of life coaching in my work on the side, I guess.
00:33:05.100
And, and a lot of people think, oh, it's just this choice or this choice. But if you take some time and
00:33:09.780
explore different options, you have a lot more choices or get some more information, taking that time to get
00:33:15.620
that information in a deliberate way really can make your decision much more clear. And then finally, I kind of
00:33:21.880
created a happiness, happiness formula that I've kind of observed and kind of experienced my own
00:33:26.220
life. And I've, I think three things will make you happy. And one is doing work you love. Two is being
00:33:32.380
with the, living around the people you love. Three is living in a place you love. And if you can get
00:33:37.620
two out of those three, you're, you're doing really good. And if you get three out of three, you'd hit the
00:33:41.300
jackpot. So another part of being a quite professional or just being a professional in general is that
00:33:46.240
you're, you're never satisfied with where you're at. This is kind of going to the idea. You do things for the
00:33:51.760
sake of the craft and you're always strive, striving for perfection. You're never going to get there,
00:33:56.340
but you strive for it. You know, there's a lot, there's a lot of stuff out there about self
00:34:00.580
improvement and professional development. What do you think is different from, what do you think,
00:34:07.580
what do you think makes the way of quite professional goes after self improvement and professional
00:34:12.760
development different from say, how most people think about it?
00:34:16.680
Maybe it's in the attention that word self improvement or that, that those two words,
00:34:24.840
the first word is self. And maybe the quiet professional would say, you know, improve mission
00:34:31.160
performance or serve people better instead of self improvement. And then taking that attention
00:34:38.340
off him or herself and kind of working in these other areas has a, a similar, maybe a similar effect,
00:34:47.960
but maybe a more authentic, genuine and lasting impact on a person's life and, and wisdom as they,
00:34:55.020
they move forward. That, that would be the, maybe perhaps the, the one difference is just that
00:35:01.620
idea of self improvement in a way can obscure things or muddy stuff up in terms of what is really
00:35:09.840
important down the road in the long run. So you're, it sounds like you're, you're striving
00:35:14.000
after like selfless self improvement. Like you're improving yourself at, for the, the sake of a larger
00:35:19.260
purpose. Yeah. Thanks for helping me out there. I was struggling. Yeah. You're right. Yeah. That idea
00:35:25.060
of kind of selfless self improvement. Yeah. This idea of, instead of how can I improve personally,
00:35:30.660
how can I make the mission first or make the team first and do more towards that? And those,
00:35:37.020
that difference of attention can make all the difference in, in the person's life.
00:35:43.640
Yeah. And I, I noticed in my own experience, whenever I've been trying to get myself better
00:35:48.800
for a larger purpose beyond myself, I actually get like, I actually improve more than if I were
00:35:55.860
just doing it for myself. That makes sense. Right. Like I think back to like my football days,
00:36:00.300
right. I wasn't, I, I put in all the effort in the gym and stayed long after practice longer,
00:36:06.040
not for me, because like I wanted the team to do well. And I've done that in my own professional
00:36:10.680
life. It's like, whenever I focus on how can I help, you know, my audience better, I don't know.
00:36:16.160
I, I, I improve more. And when I'm not thinking about myself.
00:36:20.340
Yeah. That's, that's been my experience in my life too, is when I focused on in, in my work,
00:36:27.240
you know, focused on improving the programming and my coaching and my writing for the sake of
00:36:36.140
doing a better job at our mission. And my experience has been the same that I've learned
00:36:42.480
more about myself doing that. The path has been more clear. That's one of the, the,
00:36:49.180
there's an interesting element to this bigger idea of aspiring to be a quiet professional is,
00:36:55.380
like you'd said before, when you kind of embrace these ideas over the course of whatever your career
00:37:00.680
is, uh, brace them more and more life gets, and your work just gets simpler. It gets more clear.
00:37:08.660
And that, that clarity is liberating. And in like, instead of me first, you know, mission first,
00:37:18.480
instead of self-improvement, team improvement, those, you know, that difference in perspective
00:37:24.740
can really, I think, clear things up and, and have a more lasting and enriching effect for the,
00:37:31.960
the individual and the organization down the road.
00:37:34.660
So there's this phrase you see, I've seen it on the back, like on morale patches on,
00:37:42.240
you know, sort of tactical vests and bags. And it's this idea of embracing the suck.
00:37:47.640
What is, what does that mean? And why, why should a quiet professional embrace the suck?
00:37:53.440
There's an element of, you know, it's France and wisdom that, that comes along with that.
00:37:57.540
I think when you see those morale patches, there's this macho element to it.
00:38:00.760
It's part of my list for what it means to be quite professional too, but I don't mean it to be,
00:38:05.620
you know, embrace the suck because, you know, you can suffer.
00:38:10.760
In my own experience, it's this idea that everything is hard, just life's hard. And,
00:38:16.840
and when you get to a certain age, you kind of, and things are going along well, you're like,
00:38:22.180
this isn't natural. And when you're, when you're younger, when the hard stuff comes,
00:38:27.780
you get all upset about it and disappointed and life's not fair. But at least me now, when,
00:38:34.100
when things are going along too swimmingly, I get a little suspicious. I'm like, I know the suck is
00:38:41.340
coming. I know the hard part is coming. And then when it gets here, I kind of embrace it. It's like,
00:38:47.700
it's like an old friend who's returned and said, okay, now things feel normal. You know, now,
00:38:53.340
you know, with humility and humor, I can laugh at it and say, okay, what took you so long to get
00:38:59.200
here? I'm just going to keep grinding along. I don't let it, you know, get to me. So that's,
00:39:04.920
that's this bigger idea. It, in the gyms, when we're doing long grinds with my athletes, I'll say,
00:39:11.880
hey, you know, don't let your head beat you. Don't make it harder than it is. And I think that's
00:39:16.680
something that we can do. We kind of fight the suck, you know, just by embracing it and kind of
00:39:22.240
weaponed along, you know, as, as a companion along through the journey, this kind of ornery
00:39:27.000
companion, but still a companion can make all the difference in how you perform and, and your
00:39:32.580
attitude, which affects how you perform certainly helps with your wisdom, your growth on your path
00:39:38.920
to be more wise and humility. And a big part of that is, is having some humor about it, being able
00:39:45.780
to laugh about yourself and laugh at yourself and laugh your situation. There's a one quiet
00:39:50.620
professional here who's a mountain professional mountain guide. And he's a, he's a guy. A lot
00:39:57.240
of the mountain guides are pretty incredible athletes. He's not one of them. He's a pretty
00:40:02.640
average athlete, but boy, he's just has a great attitude and he's a really a grinding worker.
00:40:09.260
And, you know, he's on the cusp of becoming the international certified mountain guide, which
00:40:13.260
is in that world, a huge deal. And, you know, from where he started, I mean, a few years ago,
00:40:19.200
he started skiing, he was working towards a ski mountaineering pin. And I mean, he was a terrible
00:40:23.960
skier, but now, I mean, he's, he's guiding in the back country, you know, for the Tetons. I mean,
00:40:30.120
it's huge. And, but anyway, in the gym, you know, I'll, they'll be doing something and I'll, I'll make
00:40:35.680
it harder, you know, and everybody else moans. And he's like, yeah, that can make all the difference
00:40:41.820
that, that idea. So I guess from my perspective, it's not this macho thing that, you know, I can
00:40:47.140
suffer more than anybody else. It's that you kind of know it's coming and you're suspicious when it's
00:40:51.520
not there. And, and when it does come, you kind of welcome it and embrace it. And as a, as a companion,
00:40:56.880
you know, as part of the journey that we all are on and, and, you know, and just work through it.
00:41:02.820
And one of the things that I kind of personally live with is I, I'm kind of a pessimist. And I
00:41:08.980
heard this one time that, uh, the good thing about being a pessimist is either right or pleasantly
00:41:13.420
surprised. And I kind of like that sometimes as I, as I think about things I've gone through.
00:41:19.400
Yeah. Another element of being a quiet professional you talk about is this idea of,
00:41:22.600
of gratitude. Why, why do you think it's important for quiet professionals to develop gratitude? How does
00:41:28.420
that help them, you know, develop that craftsman mentality that there should be striving for?
00:41:36.460
No, there's, I'm still developing my, my thoughts on, on gratitude, but a couple of things really
00:41:42.340
come to mind when I think about how gratitude can, can help us on this journey. The first is that
00:41:49.440
when things are not going well, being able to take a step back and identify and think and acknowledge
00:41:57.380
of things that are good can really help put the situation in perspective and can help, help, help
00:42:07.280
the person, you know, come to some peace or give them a sense of solace. And so that what gratitude
00:42:13.640
can do is it can give you perspective. And most things are never as bad as our mind makes them out to
00:42:20.520
be. The second thing that gratitude can do is when you're, when you purposely take the time
00:42:30.240
to identify those great things in your life, it can really help you live in the present.
00:42:38.900
And I think that is so important and such a challenge for everybody. I think it has been for all
00:42:44.500
time to, to be able to live in the present and enjoy that and be enthusiastic and understand
00:42:51.300
how beautiful and incredible life is and the wonderful people you have in your life and,
00:42:56.400
you know, and how blessed you are to have, you know, your job or your occupation and doing something
00:43:01.140
you love or live in the place you love. So it can, again, just kind of give you this idea or it can
00:43:06.500
really help you to live in the present. So when we talk about gratitude, you know,
00:43:12.480
most of the time to hear about gratitude is something you're supposed to, you know,
00:43:17.100
you're supposed to do almost in a negative way. But as I think about it and experience it,
00:43:22.160
it's really being grateful is another gift to myself. It helps me be more peaceful. It helps
00:43:29.180
put things in perspective and it helps me live in the present.
00:43:33.200
Well, Rob, this has been a great conversation. Where can people go to learn more about your
00:43:36.640
quiet professional idea that you're fleshing out here?
00:43:39.440
Yeah, we, like you said, you know, the essay and kind of the original essay and the breakouts that
00:43:46.680
go deeper into the individual elements just at our website at mtntactical.com and where you can
00:43:52.700
probably search just what does it mean to be a quiet professional and it'll probably come up on
00:43:56.380
Google. Awesome. Rob Shaw, thank you so much for your time. It's been a pleasure.
00:44:01.680
My guest today was Rob Shaw. He's the founder and president of Mountain Tactical Institute. You can
00:44:05.420
check out what they do over there at Mountain Tactical at mtntactical.com and make sure to
00:44:10.440
check out his essays, what it means to be a quiet professional. Just look for Google. What does
00:44:14.360
it mean to be a quiet professional? Then have a link to all the different attributes we talked about
00:44:17.660
and he fleshes them out even more. Also check out our show notes at aom.is slash quiet professional
00:44:22.400
where you can find links to resources where you can delve deeper into this topic.
00:44:25.400
Well, that wraps up another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast. For more manly tips and advice,
00:44:38.120
make sure to check out the Art of Manliness website at artofmanliness.com. And if you enjoy
00:44:41.460
the podcast, if you've gotten something out of it, I'd appreciate it if you take one minute to give
00:44:44.760
this review on iTunes or Stitcher. It helps out a lot. And if you've done that already, thank you.
00:44:48.380
Please consider telling a friend or a family member about the show if you think they'd get something
00:44:52.360
out of it. As always, thank you for your continued support. And until next time,
00:44:55.500
this is Brett McKay telling you to stay family.