A couple of weeks ago I was enjoying a coffee with a good friend of mine. His daughter is a professional sportswoman, who since turning professional has been experiencing some challenges with her game and has been a little disappointed with her performances. As an amateur, she was highly ranked in her field of expertise, however, since turning professional, the ranking has dropped somewhat and 
her performances have been less consistent. This got me thinking about other professional sportspeople in the world, along with successful business people and successful actors, and how these people were able to make the transition from ‘amateur’ status, to professional, and continue to perform at a high level, and in many cases, lift their performance to world class level. What made the difference? These people were operating in a very highly specialised field of endeavour, they each possessed immense talent, and yet, some managed to achieve a level of sustained success that others only dream of. Whilst many focussed on execution of technique, of ‘doing the do’, of being an outstanding technician, others recognised that execution of technique is not enough – knowing why they are executing the technique is the difference that makes the difference. And so this lead me to contemplate why clearly identifying the why is so important in any endeavour, and how the why can be the difference between being an average performer in any field, and a world class performer.