Professionalism is an antithesis of emotionalism.

In my '20s the main motivation for where and in what role I was choosing to work was the salary and the job title for my CV. Entering into my '30s was deeply transformative, including in what motivated me in my career life.

My primary ambition and motivation became all about earning reputation as a high level professional. I would still want to grow my net worth, off course. But above that I felt compelled to create somewhat of a professional self-identity for myself. To transcend from an aggressive and bold fake-it-till-you-make-it race up the corporate ladder, into an imperturbable pursuit of skill, experience, and recognition. And I had to start by asking what constitutes as professionalism.

Long story short, the answer's in the title. But I'll break it down a bit.

Definitions and observations

Professionalism is the conduct, aims, or qualities that characterise or mark a profession or a professional person. It's the combination of all the qualities that are connected with trained and skilled people.

"A professional" when speaking about a person is synonymous with: skilled, trained, competent, qualified, skilful, experienced and efficient. Also a professional is a person prepared for work by extended study or practice.

These are all things you can find throughout dictionaries. But these are merely the basic criteria by which you can qualify professionalism. I sought beyond the basics.

Since a professional is defined by skills acquired through study and practice, I looked into how we tend to describe a level of mastery. And we have a rich vocabulary for describing a relationship between a person and his/her mastery of a skill set: adept, apprentice, expert, master, craftsman, artisan, virtuoso, geek, prodigy...

I asked myself: how to become a high level professional not just at a narrow domain, but in the broad context of doing business with?

Moving on to the definition of emotionalism. It's a tendency to regard things emotionally. An undue indulgence in or display of emotion. Now, this is not in the spirit of vilifying emotions. It's about showing too much emotions, an excessive emotional character. If we consider the synonyms to the word "emotional", some of them will be undesired qualities in someone you'd be dealing business with: heated, hysterical, or nervous. Other synonyms can be either desired or undesired, depending only on their intensity, for example: passionate or sensitive.

"Nothing personal - it's just business" is as a reminder of the boundary between conducting a business and feeling some kind of way about it. Yes, it's a cliche line from Hollywood by a cold blooded villain who seeks personal gain without feeling bad for whomever might suffer as a consequence of it. But I also see it all too often that at work we take too much too personally too often. And it doesn't add to our professional image.

We tend to regard as more professional people who are collected, level headed and calm. And the opposite happens when we witness emotions taking over someone. This is universal across cultures. I am Polish who has been living in Asia for over a decade now. I travelled around, and I saw this everywhere I went.

When we witness an argument between people, and without insight to the matter, we automatically sympathise with the less emotional, calmer side of the conflict and assume his/her point of view first. A calmer person also appears more wise to us. This is actually rooted in our psychology.

The key concept is about control

The key to understanding the relationship between being emotional and being professional lays in the process of acquiring professional skills. It requires a practice, a training, and through it one achieves a mastery of something at a heightened level. It deals with discipline and regime. And it increases one's control over a process, tools, and quality of outcome.

Emotions, if kept unchecked, can easily throw us off. They can and will remove us from the driver's seat. Effectively, we cannot control much (if anything) if our emotions are controlling us, instead of the other way around.

As long as we can control our emotions, we can put them to use. We can even leverage them. Whether good or bad emotion, we can employ it as a fuel for motivation and action. But not if they've bested us.

Ask yourself this: how can you trust that I can control my work quality, if You see me unable to control my own emotions while at the job.

I am plenty capable of empathy, and I am not bad at reading people's emotions. I can be understanding. I can afford a personal level connection with a colleague. But I also like to keep separation between my personal life and work, for sanity.

I like to look at work as a service, where sacrifices have to be made in terms of what we feel like doing and what has to be done. In some way the business is brutal. It doesn't care. Nothing personal - just business. I like to work with people who understand this. I had to learn to understand it too, and it took me more than three decades.

It's also true that business is conducted between people, and soft skills are some of the most crucial ones for success in business. Being good with people requires understanding emotions well. But the point is not to be emotional, but to read and sometimes control emotions of other people. Ask any successful sales people. Any successful leader.

I teach my team a lot about control. I tell my managers that nobody can control a future outcome. Believing otherwise is futile. The number of variables is too great, so it's naive to believe that a person can control a future outcome and guarantee it.

Thier job is not to make sure that things go according to the plan, and goals are reached on time, because they've no power to guarantee it. Rather, their job is about always having a plan, keeping it up to date in an ever changing world, and work on increasing the probability of the plan succeeding on an ever-continuous basis.

Realistically, we'll sometimes succeed, and sometimes fail. We need to be continuously good at adapting, adjusting, and moving forward, so we are consistently better at succeeding. Regardless of fluctuation in luck and circumstances. So that I feel confident facing the unknown, knowing that together we stand a great deal of chance against the odds. This is an infinite game, not a finite one. And controlling emotions has everything to do with it.

That's my core idea of building a team of professionals. In a world where you cannot truly control anything but what's within yourself - your emotions and your thoughts.

To that end, I don't force a team into being a happy family. I encourage it, but otherwise it's not my business, really. As long as they can leave their personal conflicts behind once they check in for work, and remain accountable and professional in the face of handling the business, I don't care if they invite each others to cook-outs on the weekends, or unfriend and block each other on social media.

While at job, the duty is more important than feelings. This is in line with the servant leadership style - a battle tested and time proven leadership style which is widely taught in the US Army. More on this another time.

I'm merely revisiting the ancient knowledge

Remarkably, this entire key concept has been well known and studied since at least the antiquity. In the Western classical tradition this becomes a key matter in Stoicism. Equanimity is a state of psychological stability and composure which is undisturbed by experience of or exposure to emotions, pain, or other phenomena that may cause others to loose the balance of their mind. Equanimity is a central concept in Stoic ethics and psychology. The Greek Stoics use the word apatheia or ataraxia. whereas Roman Stoics used the Latin word aequanimitas (Latin: having an even mind; aequus even; animus mind/soul).

” To investigate and analyse, with understanding and logic, the principles we ought to live by. Not to display anger or other emotions. To be free of passion and yet full of love.” Marcus Aurelius

Marcus Aurelius's Meditations details a philosophy of service and duty, describing how to find and preserve equanimity in the midst of conflict by following nature as a source of guidance and inspiration.

"Stoicism is all about the change in perspective. As we become stoic, we start looking at things differently. Our emotions no longer interfere with the circumstances we come across." Marcus Aurelius

Stoics across the millennia spoke of emotions, and controlling them. From the antiquity into the modern times.

"To be stoic is not to be emotionless, but to remain unaffected by your emotions" James Pierce

"Stoicism is about the domestication of emotions, not their elimination" Nassim Nicholas Taleb

"Stoicism, understood properly, is a cure for a disease. The disease in question is the anxiety, grief, fear, and various other negative emotions that plague humans and prevent them from experiencing a joyful existence" William B. Irvine

"Keep your intention pure. Emotions will try to distract you. So keep going. That’s the cure." Maxime Lagacé

I have two copies of Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. I have the New Translation by Gregory Hays, thought by many to be the best version to read Meditations in English. I also have Rozmy?lania, a Polish Edition, because it's great to cross-reference multiple translations. Ryan Holiday from Daily Stoic dedicated an episode to "perhaps the most incredible book ever written" (and following are his words).

One of the most magnificent expressions of human greatness, human vulnerability, self-awareness, and self-reflection. This is a book written in 170 AD by the most powerful man in the world. And unlike essentially every other book ever written, this was a book never intended for publication. This was a book for the man's own edification. Mark Aurelius the Emperor of Ancient Rome is sitting down at night writing notes to himself about how to be a better person, how to think better, how to manage his temper, control his appetites, deal with the stresses, the inherent stresses of his position, and to thrive despite all this adversity and difficulty.

The list of people who have loved the book is incredible. Theodore Roosevelt takes Marcus Aurelius with him on his deadly "River of Doubt" expedition. Gen. James Mattis, former Secretary of Defence, four star General, carries Marcus Aurelius with him while he's on deployment. Wei Jiabao, the former Premier of PRC has read it over a hundred times. Beatrice Web, the inventor of collective bargaining, the social activist from the 1800s' she refers to Meditations as her manual of devotion, the list goes on.

If there is one source I can point you to for further study, it's Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. Stoicism is prominently relevant here, because if professionalism is an antithesis of emotionalism, then equanimity is its manifestation.