You choose to be a professional when you set yourself apart not just by the work you do but by the way you carry yourself, manage the interactions with your clients. And it is not about just producing the best work out there, but choosing to do so within scope and budget, on time. This is different from just producing the best work; and people like working with professionals more than with artists precisely because of that.
When you choose to be an artist, it is different; you take ownership of the work and also almost always the full risks. Because you need to work in the shadows for a really long time, waiting to find the audience that resonates with you, and hoping to be ‘found’ some day. Perhaps within your lifetime, perhaps not.
For the professional, the work done is more valuable because it is with the client. But for the artist, the association with the artist itself should be what makes it more valuable. So when we deliver our work in our workplaces, we need to appreciate and understand – are we being the professional, or are we being an artist?