In this article, I compare the “burning” process used by the steel drum, a.k.a. “pan,” builders of Trinidad to build their beautiful, happy-sounding instruments, to that of people going through the heat of adversity in life. It’s a necessary part of the building process for both pan and people. It’s actually good for you.

Burning

After a pan builder has completed the first four major steps to building a Pan: Stretching, Mapping, Grooving, and Cutting, they subject the pan to a rapid heating and a cooling process known as “burning the pan.”   

Traditional pan builders place their drums face down onto the coals of a fire until the drum’s metal becomes very hot, at which point they quickly cool the drum down with cold water. The rapid heating and cooling of the drum hardens or “tempers” the metal, helping the notes on the pan to hold their shape and retain their pitch.

Why Adversity is Good for You

As the old saying goes, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”

Obstacles, setbacks, and challenges (the heat of adversity) are inevitable in life. You can’t escape adversity – but you can learn from it and become stronger in the process.

The act of working to find solutions to life’s challenges, whether you succeed or fail, “tempers” you as you gain experience and self-confidence. These qualities build your resilience when confronted with future challenges.

The Heat of Adversity

Last year, the company where I had worked for almost twenty-five years was sold to a much larger company. Then I was laid off. 

Talk about the “heat of adversity!”

To be totally honest, it’s been stressful for Sandy and me, as are all major life changes. But I can also say that I’ve learned a lot about myself over this past year, and as a result, I’ve grown as a person.

After a lot of soul searching, I decided not to look for a job with another company, but instead, to do something that I have literally wanted to do for most of my adult life – to start my own business.

This led to the birth of Creative Pandemonium!

Temper Your Pan

Why am I telling you this?

Because I don’t know if I would have had the courage to start a risky, new business venture if I hadn’t overcome past adversity: divorce, bankruptcy, and some major health issues.

My past adversity has “tempered” me and made me more resilient. Those experiences have given me the strength and confidence to take on a major new venture because I’ve gotten through major adversity in the past, and I know that I can do it again.

The adversity of the COVID-19 pandemic has literally affected every single person on the planet. We all share that same adversity and the huge impact it has had on lives, families, economies, and cultures. It has permanently changed the way that we live our lives now and in the future.

But we will get through it. The experience has “tempered us” and made us stronger and more resilient going forward.

Adversity is a part of life. The experiences gained from going through the heat of adversity “tempers” you, making you more resilient, stronger, and better equipped to deal with future challenges.

No wrong notes,

Mike

I hope that this post has inspired, motivated, or educated you in some small way. If so, please consider joining the Creative Pandemonium community. It’s free – click “Join the Band!“

The post The Heat of Adversity appeared first on Living in Tune.

To build a happy life, make your plan a priority and cut away the excess.

I’ve learned as much about life from playing the steel drum instrument, a.k.a. “pan,” as I have from studying the teachings of my many personal growth mentors. That’s why, in my writing, I use the steel drum instrument as a metaphor for life.

In my post, “Inside-Out Personal Growth,” I asked you to commit to “stretch” as a person through intentional, personal growth. Next, in my post, “Map Out Your Plan,” I explained how to map out your life plan. Finally, in my post, “Commit to Your Life Plan,” I discussed how “grooving your notes” requires you to make a full commitment to your life plan.

Now it’s time to make your plan a priority and cut away the distractions.

Cut Away the Excess

The next step to building a steel pan is to cut away the excess, unneeded portion of the barrel’s skirt (the shell), leaving only enough length to act as a sound resonating chamber for the instrument. The length of the chamber varies depending upon the type of pan being built.

Higher pitched steel drum instruments, such as the tenor pan, produce shorter sound waves, while lower-pitched instruments, such as the bass pans, produce longer soundwaves. Therefore, tenor pans require a short resonating chamber (around 7-8″ of the skirt), while bass pans require a long resonating chamber (the full length of the original barrel’s skirt).

Make Your Plan a Priority

You’ve given your life plan a lot of thought. But even if you are the most organized person in the world, you only have 24 hours a day and a limited amount of energy and resources. That’s why it is important to use your limited time, energy, and resources wisely.

One way to do this is to identify and cut away those excess activities in your life that distract you from the pursuit of your goals.

I’m not suggesting that you give up all activities that you do for enjoyment – far from it. These activities should be prioritized, taking into account the other major areas of your life. Then schedule your time, energy, and resources accordingly.

Let’s be honest – you already know where the “excess” is in your life. Activities that eat up valuable time, energy, and money.

Like my hobby that got out of control.

Wrong Priorities

While working on my website Creative Pandemonium, I realized that I was falling further and further behind on my plan. When I thought about it, I realized that I was spending far too much time and energy on one of my favorite hobbies – cooking.

Over the past ten+ years, I’ve come to LOVE cooking. I like watching cooking shows, studying recipes, meal planning, grocery shopping, food prep, and of course, the actual cooking and eating part! Clean up – not so much…

Cooking, was distracting me from making my plan a priority.

Whenever an email showed up from one of the many cooking websites to which I subscribe, I couldn’t resist opening it up to check out the latest cooking tips and recipes. That would get my mind thinking about new recipes that I wanted to try out, which then led me to add items to the grocery store app, etc., etc. etc.

Cutting Away the Excess

Though my hobby is fun, it isn’t my true passion. I don’t want to run out and buy a food truck or open a restaurant. I enjoy cooking as a hobby – not as my work, which means that I have to treat it as a hobby.

Though, I didn’t go “cold turkey,” (pun intended).

I limited the days that I allowed myself to play in the kitchen.

I now cook dinner one night during the workweek, and one or two meals during the weekends. The rest of the week, Sandy and I stick to eating quick, simple meals – with far less cleanup! Occasionally, we go out to eat or order delivery.

As a result, I have recouped at least five productive hours a week, which I now invest in my true passion – Creative Pandemonium. I can get a lot done in five hours, and over the course of a year, it adds up to over 250 hours!

I made my life plan a priority.

Identify and cut away those excess activities in your life that distract you from your life plan. You don’t have to give them up completely. Make sure that you prioritize them, taking into account the other major areas of your life. Then schedule your time, energy, and resources accordingly.

No wrong notes,

Mike

I hope that this post has inspired, motivated, or educated you in some small way. If so, please consider joining the Creative Pandemonium community. It’s free – click on this link: Join the Band!

The post Make Your Plan a Priority appeared first on Living in Tune.

The steel drum, a.k.a. “pan,” is the world’s happiest sounding instrument. Which is why, in previous articles, I’ve used the pan as a metaphor for how to build a happy life:

In my post, “Inside-Out Personal Growth,” I asked you to commit to “stretch” as a person through intentional, personal growth.

Next, in my post, “Map Out Your Plan,” I explained how to map out your life plan.

In this post, I discuss why “grooving your notes” is a necessary step to committing to your life plan.

Groove Your Notes

The art of pan building can teach us something about commitment.

After builders have hammered (“stretched”) a barrelhead down into a bowl-like shape and then traced (“mapped”) the notes onto the face of the bowl, it’s time to “groove.”

The grooving process involves using a small hammer to flatten the metal down in the areas between the marked notes, causing the notes themselves to take on a “bubble-like” shape. The builders then use a hammer and nail punch to create small indentations, known as “grooves,” around each note.

The grooves’ purpose is to help the notes hold their shape and isolate each note’s vibrations from those of the other notes on the pan. Grooves minimize “bleed over” and protect the integrity of each note’s pitch by reducing sound distortion.

So, what does this have to do with commitment?

Imagine that you are a pan builder. You’ve spent a lot of time and energy hammering the barrelhead down into a bowl-like shape in preparation to add the notes. Then, using a pencil and various sized, oval-shaped stencils, you painstakingly trace notes onto the face of the bowl.

At this point, you can still make major changes. You can change the notes’ size or even reposition them in a different order and pattern. Just erase what you had previously traced, decide what you want to change, and then retrace the notes onto the bowl.

But grooving, the next step in the building process, requires you to make a total commitment to your building plan. Once you begin hammering grooves around each of the stenciled notes, there is no going back. All you can do is move forward or start your building process all over again.

Commit to Your Life Plan

When putting together your life plan, you have plenty of opportunities to make adjustments to your plan. You can add to it, delete items, or totally scrap it and start over. But there is a point where you will have to commit to your life plan. That point is when you begin to “groove” your notes.

Upon graduation from college with a bachelor’s degree in business and a major in accounting, I had a decision to make. What did I want to do with my new degree? Where did I want to work? What kind of work?

Obviously, I had studied business and accounting, so I knew that my career choice would utilize my new skills somehow. But that still left me with a broad range of opportunities. There were a lot of different directions that I could have gone. Private or public sector? Industry type? Accounting position or something in operations?

An FBI recruiter told me that they were looking for accounting majors to work on white-collar crime cases. Did I want to become an FBI agent?

After much deliberation, I chose to accept a job offer as an auditor for Deloitte, Haskins and Sells “DH&S,” a “Big 8” accounting firm. DH&S was a public accounting firm with many Fortune 500 companies as clients. Working for one of the Big 8 firms was prestigious – it would help me build credibility for my personal brand.

I was now committed to becoming a certified public accountant, “CPA.”

My decision to work for DH&S was the point where I made a total commitment to my life plan. I was going “all in” with accounting – I was “grooving” my notes.

Move Forward – Commit

During the life planning process, it’s okay to make adjustments or even change your mind and start over. That’s the purpose of planning – to figure out exactly what it is you want in life.

But there is a point where you will have to commit to your life plan. Once you go “all in” and begin to “groove your notes,” your efforts going forward will be much more focused and effective.

Move forward with your life plan. Start grooving your notes – commit.

No wrong notes,

Mike

I hope that this post has inspired, motivated, or educated you in some small way. If so, please consider joining the Creative Pandemonium community. It’s free – click on this link, “Join the Band!”

The post Commit to Your Life Plan appeared first on Living in Tune.

Map out your Plan – Know the Why, Who, What, When, Where, and How.

Map Out Your Plan

What does a homebuilder, chef, and steel drum instrument, a.k.a., “pan” builder have in common?

They all have a plan.

Homebuilders use a blueprint to build a house. They don’t just go out to the job site and start hammering – they create a plan before they begin work.

Chefs use tried and true recipes to prepare delicious meals. They may vary the spices or switch up some of the ingredients now and then, but they still create a plan (base recipe) before cooking.

Builders of steel drum instruments use a set of custom-made, oval and circle-shaped stencils of various sizes to trace the notes onto the face of a stretched barrelhead. I call this process “mapping” the notes. The stenciled notes provide the builder with a “map” (plan) to follow during the building process.

To build a happy life, you need a plan. Just like a homebuilder’s blueprint, a chef’s recipe, or a pan builder’s map, you need a well thought out foundation from which to start building. But there are three things to keep in mind while putting your plan together.

1. Write it Down

Keeping it all in your head might sound easier, but in reality, it isn’t, especially if your plan has any real meat to it. You won’t be able to remember all the moving parts without referring to a written document. It’s worth the time and effort to write your plan down.

Writing it down also helps you clarify your thinking, identify your priorities, be much more efficient, and hold yourself accountable. It’s hard to argue with a written document.

2. Take Your Time, but Keep It Simple

Quality planning takes time. It takes thought. So be patient with yourself. Don’t rush through it, but don’t overthink it either.

My experience has been that you will burn out on the planning process itself if you overthink your plan during the early planning stages. Besides, you won’t have all of the answers at first, so permit yourself to sketch out each step of your plan in one or two sentences at most. Bullet points are even better.

You can and should add more specifics later in the process, but only after you have mapped out an outline of your entire plan, reviewed it, and made adjustments as necessary for any obvious weaknesses and/or omissions.

3.Plan for All Areas of Your Life

Make sure that you plan for all areas of your life. There is no such thing as a separate “work-life” and “personal life.” There is only one You. And since each area of your life impacts your life’s other areas, you need to create a comprehensive plan.

As a writer about building a happy life, I use the happiest sounding instrument in the world – the steel drum “pan” – as a metaphor for life and happiness. As explained in my post, “The Notes of Your Life,” the steel drum represents You, and the individual notes on the pan represent the significant areas of your life.

Here are the notes on my pan:

• Spirit (spiritual health)
• Mind (emotional health)
• Body (physical health)
• Learning
• Relationships
• Work
• Wealth & Abundance
• Play

You may have different notes than I, and that’s fine. What’s important is to incorporate them all into your plan.

All Plans Come Down to This

Once you have determined what you want to build (see “See the Possibilities“), and you’ve stretched your barrelhead (see “Inside-out Personal Growth“), you are ready to create your plan.

There are many planning tools in the world, some of which are very complex and expensive, with lots of steps and accountability features. I’ve tried a few of these methods over the years, in both my professional and personal life. Still, I keep coming back to an inexpensive, straightforward method, which I outline below.

Answer the following questions for each note on your pan:

Why?         You might be tempted to skip this question – don’t. If you can’t clearly answer Why you are doing each of the Whats in your plan, then maybe you need to rethink the What – is it even necessary?

Who?         List yourself and anyone else who will be helping you.

What?        Describe in a few words exactly What you are going to do.

When?       This is very important! Give yourself a realistic deadline. For each “What,” assign a date by which you will have completed it. If it’s a large task, break it down into smaller tasks, assigning a deadline for completing each subtask. Otherwise, you know you’ll procrastinate. (Yes… I’m talking to You!)

Where?      Location isn’t always a factor, but it does apply in some cases. If so, list Where each task will take place.

How?         This is where many people tend to start writing a novel. It’s easy to do. Don’t spell out in great detail every step and sub-step of your plan. As noted above, provide a few keywords, phrases, or bullet points for each How. Specifics can be added later.

There’s No Such Thing as the Perfect Plan

When you have completed the above process for each of the significant areas of your life, pat yourself on the back. You’ve just completed a major step towards achieving your dreams.

Put it aside for a couple of days and then return to it with a fresh mind. Go back through it slowly, looking for obvious errors, weak logic, redundancy, etc. Fix the problems and add in more detail where needed.

Keep in mind – you will never have the “perfect plan.” And if you let it, the planning process will go on and on. So, do the best job you can with the information and resources you have and then move on to implementation.

Periodically Review Your Plan

I suggest reviewing your plan once a month. If needed, you can look at it more often, but don’t obsess over it – remember, it’s just a tool.

I also suggest doing a major, annual update to your plan.

My annual update occurs the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day. I review my previous year’s plan and ask myself four questions:

• What worked?
• What didn’t work?
• Why didn’t it work?
• How can I do it better this year?

I look at my life from a new perspective. After all, I’m a year older and wiser – I’ve gained new insights that can be applied to my plan for the coming year.

Now for some tough love…

Let’s be honest – if you don’t take the time to map out your plan for each of the notes in your life, your dreams will probably remain just that – dreams. The act of writing down your plan provides you with clarity and focus, and it’s also a strong indicator of your level of commitment to “get ‘er done,” as Larry the Cable Guy would say.

If you won’t take the time to write your plan down, how committed are you really?

No wrong notes,

Mike

I hope that you have received something of value from this post. If so, check out “The Heat of Adversity.“

Please consider signing up to be a part of the Creative Pandemonium community. There is no cost to join. All you have to do is click on this link: Join the Band.

The post Map Out Your Plan appeared first on Living in Tune.

The Old Pan Man

Do you have an Inside-Out Personal Growth Plan? It’s an important step towards building a happy life.

This advice came from my mentor, a Trinidadian man affectionately known to his friends as the “Old Pan Man.” The Old Pan Man has spent his entire life using a short-handled sledgehammer to transform discarded, 55-gallon oil barrels into steel drum instruments, a.k.a. “pan.”

But, he didn’t say it exactly that way… What he said was:

“To build a happy life, you’ve gotta be willing to stretch.”

The “build a happy life” part is pretty clear, but the rest of his advice needs an explanation. You see, the first step in his pan building process is to “stretch” the steel barrelhead, by using a hammer, down into a bowl-like shape.

So, how does this apply to “build a happy life?”

The answer is that the Old Pan Man told me that I need to be willing to stretch. I need to embrace personal growth.

I love to watch the Old Pan Man stretch a barrel head. He begins by hammering in the barrel’s center, working his way outwards in concentric circles towards the barrel’s rim. It requires a lot of effort. But the metal stretches as he continues to hammer, becoming thinner, making it flexible and easier to work. Then he repeats the process until the bowl reaches the desired depth. When he is done, the expanded surface area allows more notes to be placed on the future steel drum instrument’s playing area.

Inside-Out Personal Growth Plan

Intentional personal growth starts on the inside and works its way out. Personal growth begins with a choice – an internal decision – to learn new skills, be exposed to new ideas, and to gain knowledge and experience.

All of these and more will expand your perception and understanding of the world around you, and lead to a more fulfilling and happy life.

But this can be overwhelming or even scary for many people. After all, we are really talking about the dreaded “C” word – Change. Change is something many people try to avoid. But if you truly want to build a happy life, you’ve gotta be willing to stretch. And that means opening your mind to new possibilities.

Intentional personal growth requires a lot of effort, especially at first. But after a while, your mind will become more flexible, and easier with which to work, (adaptable to change). Stretching will expand your “surface area,” enabling you to add more notes to your life, (knowledge, skills, experience, relationships, etc).

My personal experience

I dropped out of college after one and a half years. The reason? I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life. I certainly didn’t have a plan, let alone an Inside-Out Personal Growth Plan. All I knew was that I was unhappy. However, I did figure one thing out while in college – I had no business signing up as an engineering major!

I ended up working as a fast food restaurant manager for many years. While I did learn a lot about how to run a business, manage people, and interact with customers, I still wasn’t happy with my life.

After a lot of soul searching, I decided to go back to college as an accounting major. I set a goal to graduate and made a commitment to myself to do my absolute best in every class. And I did.

It wasn’t easy, especially at first. And it certainly wasn’t always fun. But when I scored a high grade on a test, and when I completed class after class, it was fulfilling. I truly earned that college degree – and it changed my life forever. It “stretched” me as a person.

It began on the inside and worked its way out. First, I chose to go back to college. I made the commitment to do the absolute best that I could do. I set the goal to graduate.

Then as I worked my way through the classes it made me more “flexible and easier with which to work”. My way of thinking and perceiving the world around me expanded. It “added new notes” to my life, new knowledge, skills, and experience. I gained a sense of self-confidence that was lacking before.

How to Do It

There are many ways that you can achieve Inside-Out Personal Growth. Going to college is only one of many options, (one of the most expensive options), out there. But there are many, many free and inexpensive ways to begin your Inside-Out Personal Growth strategy.

Pick up a library book, watch a documentary on NetFlix, go online to watch a TED Talks video, meet new people, travel to somewhere you’ve never been before. These last two strategies are limited due to the pandemic – but hopefully, it will be over soon).

You can also check out one of the many online educational platforms. I’ve taken some great classes on LinkedIn’s Lynda.com, Udemy, MasterClass, and through my college’s online continuing education program. Most colleges offer online continuing education programs in which anyone can enroll. More platforms are coming online every day as a result of the pandemic.

The most important step is simply to make an intentional choice to stretch. Be willing to learn new skills, be exposed to new ideas, gain knowledge and experience. If you do, it will expand your perception and understanding of the world around you, and lead to a more fulfilling and happy life.

No wrong notes,

Mike

I hope that you received something of value from this post. If so, check out the next article: “Map Out Your Plan.”

Please consider joining the Creative Pandemonium community. It’s free to join – just click on Join the Band!

The post Inside-Out Personal Growth appeared first on Living in Tune.