Tuning Slide #5.24- Professional or Procrastination

Weekly Reflections on Life and Music

The difference between an amateur and a professional is in their habits. An amateur has amateur habits. A professional has professional habits. We can never free ourselves from habit. But we can replace bad habits with good ones.
— Steven Pressfield

Little did I realize when I set up my schedule of posts for these months that I would need to hear what I am writing about today. I originally planned this post as another reminder of what the differences are between “amateur” and “professional.” It is not, as I have said before, about getting paid versus not, it is about attitude, perspective, and mindset. It’s in the things like these from Jeff Goins at Medium:

✓ 1. Amateurs wait for clarity. Pros take action.
You have to know what you are before you can figure out what you want to do.
✓ 2. Amateurs want to arrive. Pros want to get better.
You have to become a student long before you get to be a master
✓ 3. Amateurs practice as much as they have to. Pros never stop.
You have to practice even, maybe especially, when it hurts.
✓ 4. Amateurs leap for their dreams. Pros build a bridge.
You have to build a bridge, not take a leap. It’s the daily practice. The amateur is concerned with the big break, whereas the pro is more focused on delaying immediate gratification in exchange for long-term success.

All well and good. Over these last five to six years I have made many changes and improvements. I have learned to take action, to strive for ongoing practice, to build bridges through that practice toward where I am going. It has been an exciting and fulfilling journey. I have finally accepted that being a professional musician is not just about making a living and having a career in music. It is living in those things in all of one’s life. That is how I grew and improved in my careers as a pastor and counselor. It is where I am still going in my life as a musician.

But it is not a straight line of constant improvement. In the past, when I reached certain points of “being stalled” or “plateaued” I just kept moving. The answers usually came. "Don’t stop" may be the best advice at those moments. More is coming.

Well, today I am writing to remind myself of all this in ways far beyond just my music. I noticed this especially when I reviewed the following from behavioral psychology writer Mayo Oshin (link):

▪ 1. Amateurs wait to feel inspired. Professionals stick to a schedule.
Professionals don’t let their feelings dictate their actions. They intentionally create and stick to a schedule come rain or shine.

▪ 2. Amateurs focus on goals. Professionals focus on habits.
Amateurs struggle with ‘resistance’ and procrastination because of their intense focus on the end result. Professionals treat success like a marathon and not a sprint. They focus on developing the habits that will naturally help them to achieve their goals as a by-product.

▪ 3. Amateurs strive to achieve. Professionals strive to improve.
The professional understands that achievement is simply an indication of how much they’ve improved. They are focused on continuous growth and seek to find new ways to improve themselves.

▪ 4. Amateurs stall after failure. Professionals grow after failure.
Amateurs try to avoid failure at all costs. They fear criticism and worry too much about what people would think if they failed. Professionals treat failure and criticism like a scientist—discarding the irrelevant information and using the relevant feedback to become better at what they do.

[Mumble] How did I know that I would be where I am today when I set up this schedule back six weeks ago? [Mumble] There must be some outside force that plans these just to keep me from getting too comfortable. [Grumble] I guess I need to live what I suggest. [Grumble one last time.]

Over the past month or so, I hit one of my walls in much of what I am doing.
~~ My trumpet practice routine got sidetracked by minor surgery. In my frustration, I have struggled with getting centered again.
~~ My workout routine got shifted by travel, though I have managed to keep my weight-loss goal steady, though at a plateau.
~~ My writing of this blog and two other projects started to become a chore, so I would just put it off. Part of this is because I am in a different setting than usual and haven’t gone to “The Office”, i.e. the coffee shops where I do most of my writing. I even thought of putting The Tuning Slide on hiatus for a few weeks. [Horrors!]

It reminds me of the saying I used here several years ago:

◆ How you do anything is how you do everything.

Over these weeks something (it) has shown up in anything and everything.

Okay, it is procrastination.

I need to name it- and the first step is to know that I am procrastinating and I need to do something about it. I need to remind myself that this isn’t an either-or choice. I am by nature one who likes to be inspired, to set goals, to achieve, and to avoid failure. Because I will bring that into my “pro” attitude, I remind myself that:

⁃ Professionals get inspired because of following schedules.
⁃ Professionals have goals as well as habits (which help them reach their goals).
⁃ Professionals achieve because they improve.
⁃ Professionals do get stalled, but they keep moving.

I go back to Mayo Oshin’s post. She gives a two-part answer to becoming (and staying) “pro”:

◆ Thou shalt commit to a schedule.
A schedule is simply a pre-commitment to consistently put in your ‘reps’ and hours in your craft. Just like any new habit, your willpower and ability to delay gratification will also affect your consistency levels.
◆ Thou shalt believe that thou art ‘Pro.’
This is why it’s so important to shift your identity. You have the power right now to believe that you’re a professional. [But] To say that you believe you’re a pro isn’t enough because actions speak louder than words. Prove to yourself that you’re really a pro and do the things that a pro would do every day.

Having been found guilty of procrastination and inspired by these directions, three final questions that I need to answer from Oshin’s article.

• Am I committed to being a professional in any area of my life?
• Is there anything holding me back from going pro?
• What can I do to create the schedule and identity of a pro?

Take some time this week to look at those questions for yourself. I will, and then continue this next week. Be honest, rigorously honest, with yourself. It always helps to do that since we are good at keeping the truth from ourselves, though we usually know it’s BS.

You can never be true to others, if you keep on lying to yourself.
― Gift Gugu Mona

Tuning Slide 4.28- On Being a Student

Weekly Reflections on Life and Music

You are always a student, never a master. You have to keep moving forward.
— Conrad Hall

Yes, I missed last week’s post. As has been said by a number of people including both John Lennon and myself, “Life is what happens when you are making plans to do other things.” I had a month of that from mid-December to mid-January. I had planned ahead and had a number of posts ready to publish, but I just couldn’t get to that one last one for last week. I will talk more about that next week. But for this week, it’s about being a student.

We are all students of something. Some of us are deeply involved as students in school, studying, reading, going to class. Some of us have left that regimen far behind. All of us are students of what we like and are interested in. Obvious statement, I realize. But it can be so easy to forget until we hit something difficult or hit one of those plateaus where it feels more like we are moving backward than getting better.

Things music students need to learn

Let me start with a slightly tongue-in-cheek list that speaks much truth. There are ten on the original list, but here are the five that I really liked

(Five of the )Top Ten Things You’ll Never Understand About a Musician (which means these are things we need to learn about ourselves):
✓ Music isn’t a dream. It’s a way of life.
✓ Just because you haven’t heard of us doesn’t mean we aren’t successful.
✓ Don’t hate us because we do something we love.
✓ Listening to music means something very different to us.
✓ You can take a musician out of music but you can’t take the music out of a musician.
(https://www.talkbass.com/threads/top-10-things-youll-never-understand-about-a-musician.1381134/)

We do need to get a little more serious about being a student in general.

(https://flypaper.soundfly.com/hustle/how-to-be-a-student/)

Society restricts the formal construct of a “student” to mean a person enrolled in some sort of academic program. It is an identity you take on when you’re in school and abandon once you graduate. But the world continues to change at a rapid clip, requiring us to learn new things constantly — this situation requires us to expand the definition of what it means to be a student.

A student is anyone who wants to create new neural pathways by exposing themselves to new information and experiences. You become a student when you feel the desire to do something you can’t and start taking actions to turn that around. To be a student, you have to be a combination of a researcher, a craftsperson, an artist, a manager, and a writer.

He goes on to expand on each of those from his point of view.

◆ Researcher

The path to learning complex skills is nonlinear and ambiguous. The most effective compass to help you navigate this ambiguity is your curiosity. It’s hard to figure out where to go next, but an effective way to determine the right direction is to come up with hypotheses and test them.

◆ Craftsperson

Being good at something means your output consistently exudes a sense of quality and attention to detail. How you get there is by showing up every day and practicing the fundamentals. This can be difficult, particularly if you have a chaotic mind with a short attention span like I do.
The problem is compounded if you consider that the rewards of working on your craft only become obvious months after you’ve put in the effort. This decoupling of effort and reward makes it hard to create powerful feedback loops to keep you coming back. But your success as a craftsperson depends on your ability to show up even if you don’t feel like it.

◆ Artist

Craft is important, but it is only the foundation. Once you have the craft nailed down, you have to figure out what to do with it. “Artistry” is the ability to point your craft in a direction — to expand your audience’s minds by showing them new possibilities, to provide warmth and comfort by letting them know that they’re not alone, or even create a whole new response that we haven’t yet discovered.
You can be the kind of artist that cuts through the bullshit and surfaces fundamental truths about the human experience. Or you can be the kind that creates perfect experiences of escapism. It depends on your personal motivations — what led you to embark on this journey in the first place?

◆ Manager

Good managers don’t just allocate resources and impose schedules. They create conditions in which awesome work can happen. The best manager I’ve worked with describes himself as a “shit umbrella.” Managing is as much about creating positive feedback loops and support systems as it is about staying on schedule and tracking progress.
The trick is to not overdo it. It can be very tempting to draft long project plans and get very granular with scheduling tasks. The first step is to acknowledge that no plan will be followed exactly as intended. The second step is to try and identify all the ways in which things won’t work out. The third step is to create mechanisms that pull you back on track if you ever go off the rails.

◆ Writer

If you don’t take a moment to pause and reflect on where you’re going and what you’re doing, you run the risk of running in circles. Writing is a great way to formalize new knowledge as you acquire it, and also create resources that can help others who are on their own journeys. Writing can be incredibly difficult if you aim for a finished piece on your first attempt. You can make it easier for yourself by working in different levels of fidelity. The first draft should be an outburst. Just sit there and pour out everything that’s in your mind without any regard for sense or structure. That way, you have a collection of ideas you can start curating. In subsequent drafts, you can refine and arrange these ideas in a way that ensures impact.

Next week I will dig a little into each of these areas and look at applying some of them to what we all do as musicians. Until then… think about your goals and directions and how you are a student of what you want to be doing.

Live as if you were to die tomorrow.
Learn as if you were to live forever. — Gandhi

3.51- Beyond Luck

Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.
— Helen Keller

Character:
1. the aggregate of features and traits that form the individual nature of some person or thing.
2. moral or ethical quality:
3. qualities of honesty, courage, or the like; integrity:
4. reputation
5. an account of the qualities or peculiarities of a person or thing.
6. a person, especially with reference to behavior or personality:

How does an individual develop “good character?” What difference does it make? How might that impact my music and my musicianship?

As I am writing this, I have some sore muscles and joints. I worked out earlier today and, while didn’t push too hard, I did have to make some effort to get in all the reps on the third set of a couple exercises. As I understand it, muscle has to be broken down a little and then rebuilt. That’s what exercise is all about. (It is probably more technical than that but that’s all I need to know.)

That usually means that when I do my workout I have to exert some energy. It would do a tiny bit of good if I just moved my muscles with no added resistance or weight, but it wouldn’t build much endurance or strength. I could also just sit and watch a TV show about exercise or read a book about it, but unless I put some pressure on the muscle, it won’t grow.

As musicians we know the truth of that. There was a time when playing for 10 minutes would tire me out- physical (lips) and mental (inability to stay focused). Today I practiced for a total of 80 minutes in two separate sessions- a daily routine of about 30 minutes and practicing for upcoming concerts for about 50 minutes. Yes, my lips were tired at the end, but it’s a far cry from getting exhausted after 10 minutes in mid-staff!

Character- who we are as a person- is the same. That’s what Helen Keller meant when she said that only through trial and suffering can character be built. It is also where we get inspired and can move toward success. We have to stretch; we have to move beyond our comfort zones; we have to be challenged. Otherwise we won’t know what we are capable of or what we stand for.

The kind of person I become is built on our past experiences- easy and difficult. It is those qualities- reputation, honesty, and courage, for example, that we also bring to our musicianship. I am sure there have been mean and dishonest musicians. There are musicians who easily ignore others who they feel less talented than they are. And, yes, they can be very successful. But they can be so difficult to deal with that they can face all kinds of other problems.

Another of the lessons from the Trumpet Workshop is that:
• The music is #1;
• Other musicians are #2;
• The audience is #3; and
• I am #4.
None of the first three are there for my benefit alone. Sure, I can definitely get something out of it, but it is the music that gets it started. Then I need the others to help me to what I want to do with the music in mind. Why? So the audience can be entertained, moved, excited, or uplifted. If I can be part of something that does that, I will be more than pleased.

I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have.
— Thomas Jefferson

It isn’t luck. It isn’t even just talent. Sure we have to be in the right place at the right time and we have to be able to do what we want to do. But let’s be honest, the way to “overnight” success is years of hard work.

Three Years On

Facebook's memories algorithm picked up on a three-year old post on Thursday. I posted on my move into what I called my Third Career. I have now been "semi-retired" for these three years. I went from full-time to part-time in December 2013. I had spent some time getting ready for it including some personal coaching. I did reading and writing, talked to our financial advisor, and did a lot of meditating on it. My wife had already retired and was enjoying it. I was a little apprehensive, needless to say, but I knew it was right. I just wondered what Career Three was going to look like.

Well, it took about two years for the whole thing to settle down into something that resembles "order out of chaos." Here are some of the reflections as I begin the fourth year:

• Last winter was the first time I thought of myself as a "snowbird" with two places to live- and not just going on vacation to Alabama in the winter.
• Music has been at the top of my list- and for the past 18 months, half of the time since the move, I have been taking great advantage of the time available to really improve my trumpet playing- and develop the Tuning Slide blog.
• This year the writing has really fallen into place- a big part of Career Three. I didn't do as much on my memoir as I had expected. Instead I got sidetracked into following my dad at the end of World War II on another blog series and then turning the Tuning Slide into a book and finally publishing my Christmas stories on Amazon.
• Photography has not been as much in evidence as I expected it to be. I am connected with a snowbird photo club in Alabama and am looking forward to doing more with that this coming winter.
• Travel has been fun. We have had to make a number of family trips to the east coast. In that we have made connections with some old friends that we haven't seen in years- and done some fun sightseeing. When you are not constrained by having to get back to go to work, you can take your time and be mindful.
• And the ability to just spend time with my wife doing whatever we want to do- or don't want to do- has been great. There have been great hours together in the car, for example, listening to books, podcasts, music, NPR, etc. and talking about them and just about anything.

The other day one of my co-workers was getting ready to retire. My comment to her- If your retirement is even half as great as mine has been- you will love it.

Year four is starting.

• I have two major writing projects I want to tackle.
• I really want to do some musical composing.
• I have a couple videos in mind to produce.
• I am looking forward to becoming an even more accomplished trumpet player.
• Sightseeing, visiting and traveling will continue.
• Life is good!

The Tuning Slide: In Everything You Do

Weekly Reflections on Life and Music

In one of our discussions at the trumpet workshop it was pointed out that many of us would not be making a living as a musician. As much as we love playing trumpet, that will not be our “day job.” In the different bands I play in a majority of the members are not professional musicians. Health care and computers have both been a major part of the community’s economic base. As a result there are many different health care professionals and computer engineers in the groups. Sure, there are also a sizable number of band and music teachers as well as some who make their living performing music.

As we thought about this we were reminded of something that we should not forget.

    Things you learn playing the trumpet will make you a better… surgeon, teacher, worker, friend, spouse, etc.  

We all have various skills and personalities. What we discover in playing music- the discipline, the ability to work with others- are also essential to our vocations. What music teaches us is very much what is essential in our lives.

It’s also a two way street: If you have developed into a good (fill in the blank), you can become a good musician. It takes the same commitment, discipline, and work. The things you learn in life or career will make you a better trumpet player.

This brought to mind a comment a friend made to me back in July. He was talking about some of the wisdom he has been given by others and quoted this tidbit. It boggled my mind and twisted my life like very few things do:

    The way you do anything is the way you do everything.

Looking it up on Google I found that there are a number of apparent “sources” for it. In any case, it is one of those statements that is so profound as to shift one’s world view.

    •    Do you find shortcuts at work in order to get done faster, although not necessarily more effectively? That may very well be how you do a lot of other things?
    •    Do you treat people with condescension and not really care about them? Chances are that’s how you treat your family and friends as well as strangers.
    •    Are you careless in how you take care of things you own? Are you taking care of even important things in the same way?
    •    Are you satisfied with “good enough” in projects you work on? Maybe “good enough” is all that you will ever be able to achieve.

This is not meant as a judgement but an observation. If we don’t pay attention to how we do some things, chances are we may find it hard to pay attention to other things. This has to do with style and habit as much as with a conscious attempt on our part. It has to do with what we want to get out of our day-to-day lives and how much we put into it. It does not mean suddenly becoming a Type-A workaholic. It does not mean that we change our entire way of doing things. Some of us are more intuitive and introverted while others of us are far more cautious about making sure we plan well. Some of us would die if our entire day was closely scheduled while others would die if it wasn’t. It is rather about how we utilize who we are, our personalities, skills, etc. in order to reach our goals.

Two weeks ago I was talking with this friend again and told him about how he had thrown me into a mental wrestling match. He agreed that the same had happened to him. It was then I realized that his statement along with the discussion at camp had been at work for me in this past year. For over 18 months I have been working on what it means to be retired. Yes, I am still working part-time, but I have been wandering around being retired. That has given me to be able to develop what I have called my “third-career.” While I did expand my music into a nearly full-time avocation, I knew there was more to it.

Then a year ago, the events that started this Tuning Slide blog and threw me into a completely new way of working on my music. Within a few months I went from a person who worked on whatever needed working on to a systematic trumpet player. After nine months of increased practice at a 7 out of 10 day pattern I made it to the daily practice level. Since mid-April, for example, I have missed two days of playing my trumpet- both long travel days. My trumpet playing is probably the best it’s ever been.

But the real surprise I realized two weeks ago, after a year of a whole new regimen of music practice, discipline, and growth, a number of things came together in June and July. It was a true “A-Ha” moment as it all made sense. Some of my retirement questions seemed to disappear and I found the direction I have been waiting for. In other words the way I was doing music in new ways, was the way I was now doing some new things with my retirement.

The way you do anything, is the way you do everything. It can go from the music to other things- or from other things to the music. In reality it is not an either-or idea. It is a both-and action. It doesn’t even have to be conscious. When you discover a new path, a new idea, a new discipline, a new reason for getting out of bed in the morning- that will interact with everything you have been doing.

How then do we do that? How do we work at making sure we are doing our “everything” the right way to be healthy and helpful to us? How can we aim at living a life that is consistent, starting with our musicianship?

• First is passion. What excites you? What are you willing to take extra time to accomplish?

• Second is focus. Are you ready to bear down and discover what living out that passion means? Are you honest with yourself about what that will mean- what sacrifices you will have to make, what changes you will have to work on- in order to be successful?

• Third is action. If what you say you are passionate about doesn’t move you to do, can you really say it is a passion? This takes dedication and determination. It takes a commitment to do- not just talk.

Make your list. Begin to think about some goals. Look at ways you can enhance and grow from your previous experiences and efforts.

Now, how does this apply to the every day things that you do- simple things like how you follow through with promises, how you treat your family and friends, your simple actions? Do these fall in line with what you have written- or do they show that you need to do some changing in order to get where you are going?

It takes that kind of commitment. In the Twelve-Step recovery programs there is an often used question based on  a phrase from the Alcoholics Anonymous Big Book:

If you have decided you want what we have and are willing to go to any lengths to get it….

If you have decided you want to move into the area of your passion- or even just to be better at being who you are as a person, are you willing to go to whatever lengths are needed to get there?

Don’t worry. We don’t have to do it overnight.

So get out that horn and keep working.

The way you do your music is the way you do everything.

After a Holiday

This Celtic Daily Prayer felt just right for the day after a holiday. We take holidays to unclutter and simplify. Then we go back to making things difficult.

Lord, help me now to unclutter my life,
to organize myself in the direction of simplicity.
Lord, teach me to listen to my heart;
teach me to welcome change, instead of fearing it.
Lord, I give You these stirrings inside me,
I give you my discontent,
I give you my restlessness,
I give you my doubt,
I give you my despair,
I give you all the longings I hold inside.
Help me to listen to these signs of change, of growth;
to listen seriously and follow where they lead
through the breathtaking empty space of an open door.

Source: unknown

It's About Time

According to new earlier in the week a car was the best selling vehicle in the United State last month. It's about time. The trucks and SUVs and other variations on our gas-guzzling addiction are being challenged. GM is cutting it's truck production.

Gas is at or above $4.00/gallon in most of the United States. We are outraged. Somebody is ripping us off. Or perhaps we are about to realize that it is our own addiction to oil that has ripped us off for so many years. We have insisted on cheap gas and have been given it by, among other things, government subsidies. CNN has listed what gas costs in some other places in the world in US dollars.

Netherlands Amsterdam $6.48
Norway Oslo $6.27
Italy Milan $5.96
Denmark Copenhagen $5.93
Belgium Brussels $5.91
Sweden Stockholm $5.80
United Kingdom London $5.79
Germany Frankfurt $5.57
France Paris $5.54
Portugal Lisbon $5.35
Hungary Budapest $4.94
Luxembourg $4.82
Croatia Zagreb $4.81
Ireland Dublin $4.78
Switzerland Geneva $4.74
Spain Madrid $4.55
Japan Tokyo $4.24
Czech Republic Prague $4.19
Romania Bucharest $4.09
Andorra $4.08

One of our automakers has promised to subsidize the price of gas for buyers of some of its gas guzzlers. Why not promise that to those who buy a hybrid? That's like subsidizing the price of cocaine on the streets so more people will buy it. This idea comes from something Tom Friedman had in his column on 5/28:

I can’t say it better than my friend Tim Shriver, the chairman of Special Olympics, did in a Memorial Day essay in The Washington Post: “So Dodge wants to sell you a car you don’t really want to buy, that is not fuel-efficient, will further damage our environment, and will further subsidize oil states, some of which are on the other side of the wars we’re currently fighting. ... The planet be damned, the troops be forgotten, the economy be ignored: buy a Dodge.”
--NYT

Today some analysts commented on the big jump in oil prices that it must be an investment "bubble" say like the dot com bubble.

Aah, just hold on then. The bubble will burst and gas will be back down where it belongs so we can drive like we like to and think we have a right to. In spite of how much I love to drive and travel, I hope not. Even though I have already had to cancel what was an exciting dream trip for my birthday because of rising prices, I believe it is better for us to be where we are than where we used to be.

It is forcing me- and I am sure others- to reevaluate our national and personal lifestyle. It raises important questions for our future. I for one have very few answers. More fuel-efficient cars more readily available is an obvious short-term answer. Beyond that the technological answers are somewhere in development pipelines or in the visions of dreamers.

Until then, like the addicts that we are, we are going to have to go through withdrawal. Take the steps we need to gain control over our addictive behavior. Then look for our own personal answers. Good luck. We will need it.