Are You Your Job Title?

Titles mean little.  When you meet a professional in a casual context, a simple "doctor", "lawyer", "mechanic" suffices.  It seems to explain who they are at once.  Someone in sales, management or consulting doesn't get the same benefit.  Both parties though are liable for describing their life project.  One just has to think about it harder than the other.

For example, doctor A may seek to maximize the number of patients seen to improve income potential and doctor B may seek to maximize the number of patient seen to improve the health of the community.  Both have the same potential end result; increase in income as well as an improvement in community health, but their reasons are remarkably different and provide a much better insight into their psychosocial persona.  

Bottomline: I doubt professionals with definitive titles put as much thought into their life project as people with generic job titles.  With accountablity comes transparency of one's passions, ideas and thought processes.  That can be scary and the fear only goes away if others open up in the same way.  I've certainly pored over it quite a bit myself and while its still being tweaked, my own personal life project is to find the happy medium.