The Tutor Podcast

Most of us carry with us everywhere one of the most corrosive, divisive, wasteful and narcissistic forms of evil currently affecting modern society. Wherever you go, you have an electronic tag and listening device with you stealing your focus, time, energy and attention. Neil reminds us of how much better things could be if we cut the cord to the mobile phone. KEY TAKEAWAYS Despite laws to the contrary, people are addicted to their phones and still drive while using them. Social media is corrosive with little hits of positive dopamine which are not set in reality. The unity of the family is being eroded by the mobile phone. Give yourself, and others, time away from your mobile phone. The world will not collapse without your connection to it. BEST MOMENTS‘I had several near misses recently with distracted pedestrians. They’re wandering around in a dream world, they’ve got their earbuds in, watching videos or texting, not looking where they’re going..’‘It takes you away from real life. The face-to-face communication you engage with other people should matter more to you than your online audience.’‘I’m not saying the phone isn’t useful as a tool. What I am saying is that it’s a bloody problem when it becomes the dominant presence in somebody’s life.’‘Are you hooked on your phone? What’s it doing for you really?’ VALUABLE RESOURCESThe Tutor Podcastwww.Neilcowmeadow.com ABOUT THE HOSTNeil Cowmeadow is a maverick peripatetic guitar teacher from Telford with over 19 years’ experience in the business of helping people. Learn how to start, grow and love your business with Neil’s invaluable advice and tips without the buzzwords and BS! CONTACT [email protected]

Neil explains the need to test any new idea, method, acquisition or project to confirm its efficiency within your setup and to consistently keep abreast of your measurables. KEY TAKEAWAYS Change is the one true constant. Testing can help you eliminate less effective methods and replace them with more favourable ones. You cannot manage what you don’t measure. BEST MOMENTS ‘Looking at life in general I think that everything that you’re currently doing is only a trial. It’s an extended test of a behaviour.’ ‘Write a plan so you can catch up on your weak points, so you can reinforce and maximise your strengths.’ ‘Test everything! Have a bash at it and see how this testing mindset works for you.’ VALUABLE RESOURCES The Tutor Podcast www.Neilcowmeadow.com ABOUT THE HOST Neil Cowmeadow is a maverick peripatetic guitar teacher from Telford with over 19 years’ experience in the business of helping people. Learn how to start, grow and love your business with Neil’s invaluable advice and tips without the buzzwords and BS! CONTACT METHOD [email protected]

Neil reveals his secret to ensuring the productive use of your time and resources every day. Before you settle in, however, grab yourself a pen and paper, because this is the equipment you will need to achieve a daily, focused, worthwhile effort in the running of your business. KEY TAKEAWAYS Every day needs a plan. A plan is nothing unless it is written down. If you follow a written plan you are less likely to be distracted. Prioritise your tasks in order of necessity if you think time is a problem. BEST MOMENTS‘As your attention is drawn onto the latest problem, crisis or bright shiny thing the chances of you achieving what you set out to do at the start of the day are massively diminished.’ ‘I’m a fan of paper because paper doesn’t crash. How many times have you lost data on your phone or tablet or some other device that’s just gone upside down and doesn’t work anymore.’‘It’s so much easier to get a list down on paper the night before so you literally just step into tomorrow.’ VALUABLE RESOURCESThe Tutor Podcastwww.Neilcowmeadow.com CONTACT [email protected] ABOUT THE HOSTNeil Cowmeadow is a maverick peripatetic guitar teacher from Telford with over 19 years’ experience in the business of helping people. Learn how to start, grow and love your business with Neil’s invaluable advice and tips without the buzzwords and BS!

Neil’s favourite acronym, False Evidence Appearing Real, fear is the focus of this episode. With two very different students fifty years apart in age suffering the same problem, Neil focuses on this very common and familiar block to progress with two different strategies to overcome the problem. KEY TAKEAWAYS You may need differing strategies for different students. By using the student’s personal interests and philosophies to communicate you can overcome their doubts more effectively. Be ready when you overcome fear for others to be envious. The nature of fear changes from person to person. BEST MOMENTS‘It’s fear of getting it wrong, fear of making a mistake and, ultimately, fear of even trying.’‘Figuring out who she is, I'm going to try to use her world view. The crystal pendant that she wears suggests to me very strongly that she’s what I call ‘spiritually interested.’‘The masses are invariably too afraid to take a shot at it. All they want to do is stay in their little comfort zones and as you and I both know, that’s where dreams go to die.’ ‘All we did was take what was there, the feeling in his stomach that he assumed was fear, gave him a different suggestion that worked a little bit better.’ VALUABLE RESOURCESThe Tutor Podcastwww.Neilcowmeadow.com ABOUT THE HOSTNeil Cowmeadow is a maverick peripatetic guitar teacher from Telford with over 19 years’ experience in the business of helping people. Learn how to start, grow and love your business with Neil’s invaluable advice and tips without the buzzwords and BS! CONTACT [email protected]

Neil shares with you the RUSH model. RUSH stands for Ruthless, Unflinching, Self Honesty. This is his core philosophy for building a robust self-image and attitude towards any useful and worthwhile project, task or opportunity. KEY TAKEAWAYS Exercise an unflinching and dispassionate attitude towards oneself to attain a rational viewpoint of your position. Stay steady and forthright when meeting problems of your psyche. No one else can do this for you. Tell the truth to yourself and avoid self-delusion. BEST MOMENTS ‘Expect pain. Expect grief and expect to suffer. Be ruthless.’ ‘Get to know that shadow. Get to know that inner enemy so well then you can dance with that dark power and you can harness it and let it drive you away from your own dark side.’ ‘Nice doesn’t work on its own. Nice is an empty velvet glove, utterly limp and impotent without the iron fist that is its necessary counterpart.’ ‘Truth is simple. Truth is lazy. Truth is efficient. Truth is effective. Truth is eternal, it resists the assaults of time and the slander of fools.’ VALUABLE RESOURCES The Tutor Podcast www.Neilcowmeadow.com ABOUT THE HOST Neil Cowmeadow is a maverick peripatetic guitar teacher from Telford with over 19 years’ experience in the business of helping people. Learn how to start, grow and love your business with Neil’s invaluable advice and tips without the buzzwords and BS! CONTACT METHOD [email protected]

It may not be a completely good idea to forget, obfuscate or deny our failings on our journey to being an expert in our field. Although it seems like a good idea to only present the positive, Neil explains the advantages of being open and honest about our past failures and mistakes in the content of our teaching. KEY TAKEAWAYS Honesty builds a bridge between you and your students. Students will be more confident and hopeful to see you have overcome your past difficulties as they are currently. You will be making it clear that they are not the problem. Difficulties should be expected and overcome. BEST MOMENTS ‘If he told them that he hadn’t always been an expert they might somehow assume that he wasn’t an expert after all.’ ‘To my tiny and thoroughly addled mind, it makes absolute sense to share with my own students the sad, twisted story of my own appalling lack of talent, my own frustration and utter bewilderment.’ ‘Every day I remorselessly manipulate…er..sorry..influence them so that they can get out of their own way and get more of what they want in music and in life.’ VALUABLE RESOURCES The Tutor Podcast www.Neilcowmeadow.com ABOUT THE HOST Neil Cowmeadow is a maverick peripatetic guitar teacher from Telford with over 19 years’ experience in the business of helping people. Learn how to start, grow and love your business with Neil’s invaluable advice and tips without the buzzwords and BS! CONTACT METHOD [email protected]

How is it possible that in so many tutor’s experiences a student claims to forget everything they have learned as soon as they leave the teaching room? Neil shares his theories on this puzzling phenomena of instantly vanishing memory. KEY THEORIES Maybe the lesson hasn’t been embedded properly by the tutor. The student may be resistant to learning for their own reasons. There could be a conflict in the student’s beliefs and how they visualise themselves. Your teaching room and yourself have secret magical powers that imbue the student with knowledge which is then mystically removed when they leave. BEST MOMENTS ‘It’s possible that I've not made the ideas stick enough, that I haven’t put it in a form that is inescapable for them.’ ‘Students frequently tell you that they understand something when they don’t because they don’t want to look stupid. We need always to make them feel safe and know that if they don’t understand something it’s not because they’re stupid, it’s because they don’t understand it yet.’ ‘When they go home they start to argue with themselves about what they did and begin to dismiss it.’ ‘The language used will massively affect the perception of the experience that’s being coded and understood via that language.’ VALUABLE RESOURCES The Tutor Podcast www.Neilcowmeadow.com ABOUT THE HOST Neil Cowmeadow is a maverick peripatetic guitar teacher from Telford with over 19 years’ experience in the business of helping people. Learn how to start, grow and love your business with Neil’s invaluable advice and tips without the buzzwords and BS! CONTACT METHOD [email protected]

In light of the recent Ed Sheeran’s recent success in court defending himself against a spurious copyright claim, Neil takes a look at Intellectual Property and Copyright in the UK and how it applies to tutoring in terms of teaching tools and materials. KEY TAKEAWAYS Tutors get to add their flavour and slant to the materials they teach. These materials are a tangible asset to you and your business, your Intellectual Property. Copyright is an automatic legal basis that says that if you create it, it belongs to you. It is a good idea to put ‘Copyright of’ and your name and the year on all the materials that you produce for your teaching. Marking yourself as creator solidifies your image as an expert. BEST MOMENTS ‘Unless you’re content to just play through standard texts and, in my opinion, go through the motions you’ll doubtless be creating your own teaching materials; examples, explanations, diagrams, exercises, stories, music and so on.’ ‘Let’s say you write an explanation of a concept in your own words. And, hey presto, that particular form of words is yours and yours alone.’ ‘If they do (nick your stuff) you’ll have records and timestamps all over the metadata of anything that you’ve created on a computer.’ VALUABLE RESOURCES The Tutor Podcast www.Neilcowmeadow.com ABOUT THE HOST Neil Cowmeadow is a maverick peripatetic guitar teacher from Telford with over 19 years’ experience in the business of helping people. Learn how to start, grow and love your business with Neil’s invaluable advice and tips without the buzzwords and BS! CONTACT METHOD [email protected]

Neil shares his evil genius with you in this episode explaining how, when you overturn your student’s expectations, difficulties and complexities so extensively that they sit there open-mouthed, it really makes your tutoring job worthwhile. KEY TAKEAWAYS Simplify. Simplify. Simplify. Peel away the complexity and present the core of an idea. Resistance exists when there is no clarity. BEST MOMENTS ‘Sometimes the things that are the most stripped back and simplified have the greatest impact and help the students to move past the limits that they thought they had.’ ‘I’ve actually been called an evil genius twice today by two students whilst sharing with them, in separate lessons, a simple idea that really allowed them to dominate the fretboard and produce cool-sounding improvised guitar solos.’ ‘They had incontrovertible proof that it was simple and doable. Oooh, evil me!’ VALUABLE RESOURCES The Tutor Podcast www.Neilcowmeadow.com ABOUT THE HOST Neil Cowmeadow is a maverick peripatetic guitar teacher from Telford with over 19 years’ experience in the business of helping people. Learn how to start, grow and love your business with Neil’s invaluable advice and tips without the buzzwords and BS! CONTACT METHOD [email protected]

Neil addresses the myth of getting rich quickly and explains the reality of getting rich slowly. He’s done the latter himself so he’s here to explain to you how. KEY TAKEAWAYS From today you could decide to become wealthy, whatever that means to you. Write down your target, think medium to long term, and remind yourself daily. Discipline and dedicate your efforts to achieving this, keeping up your effort and avoiding distractions. Shut out the doubters. Invest in yourself and educate yourself in the ways of money and finance. BEST MOMENTS ‘That really leaves us with getting rich slowly. Sounds sort of meh, doesn’t it? But here’s the thing, it’s possible.’ ‘Can you open your mind to possibility?’ ‘Invest any savings you may have in low-risk, high return tax efficient schemes to increase your tax flow.’ VALUABLE RESOURCES The Tutor Podcast www.Neilcowmeadow.com ABOUT THE HOST Neil Cowmeadow is a maverick peripatetic guitar teacher from Telford with over 19 years’ experience in the business of helping people. Learn how to start, grow and love your business with Neil’s invaluable advice and tips without the buzzwords and BS! CONTACT METHOD [email protected]

The people in your network, your friends, your family, your students and anyone who positively knows you, can not only be a social support but a business one too. Neil explains how people you know can recruit students for you with a little incentive. KEY TAKEAWAYS You can turn your friends into recruiters by providing your network with a reward for finding you students or allowing them to offer free lessons or other incentives on your behalf. You can use cash rewards, competition inclusion, free lessons, free merch, or anything else that has value for them. Word-of-mouth marketing is the very best kind of marketing there is. Make sure you capitalise on it. BEST MOMENTS ‘The idea is just to make your network enthusiastic recruiters for you.’ ‘I offer any recruiting student an incentive, either cash or free lesson time.’ ‘If you don’t like the idea of having too many students then don’t use this idea!’ VALUABLE RESOURCES The Tutor Podcast www.Neilcowmeadow.com ABOUT THE HOST Neil Cowmeadow is a maverick peripatetic guitar teacher from Telford with over 19 years’ experience in the business of helping people. Learn how to start, grow and love your business with Neil’s invaluable advice and tips without the buzzwords and BS! CONTACT METHOD [email protected]

Neil explains The Benefit Trap, the mistaken belief that you have to accept any idea that has any kind of benefit to it despite the amount it offers or its compatibility with your current methods. He urges you to raise the bar when you consider a method and think carefully if any idea is worth including in your tutoring tool kit. KEY TAKEAWAYS A technique that has some benefit may not have enough to justify using it. Consider what other tutors are doing and decide if what they are doing is helping them in their progress and if not, look for other methods that work for you. Challenge, enthral, disrupt and inspire your students by introducing them to all the ideas, methods, tricks, styles and shortcuts you have access to as a tutor. BEST MOMENTS ‘The Thinking Book is a safe place where I let my pen ramble through and around, in and out of whatever it is I’m interested in at that time, a huge journal on steroids if you like.’ ‘I share every single hack, cheat, shortcut, under-handed mind-bending reimagining of music that I possibly can with them and I stretch them. I have them playing what they wouldn’t normally listen to.’ ‘It’s got to be fun for them. It’s got to make it the high point of their week. It’s got to be something they cherish and they look forward to every single week of their busy lives.’ VALUABLE RESOURCES The Tutor Podcast www.Neilcowmeadow.com ABOUT THE HOSTNeil Cowmeadow is a maverick peripatetic guitar teacher from Telford with over 19 years’ experience in the business of helping people. Learn how to start, grow and love your business with Neil’s invaluable advice and tips without the buzzwords and BS! CONTACT [email protected]

Neil expands on the concept of ‘The Work’ and how, rather than being a source of angst and torture, it can be the main source of fun and joy in your life. KEY TAKEAWAYS Neil is compelled to teach. It is his reason. Tutoring is an opportunity to spend time with people you love. The job is to help people to shine a light in their darkness. BEST MOMENTS ‘If someone else’s idea of a bad night is sitting in front of someone listening to them mangle a fairly simple piece of music that’s their opinion. I love it because I know I can get them to do it better.’ ‘Every day I’m hanging out with people I love. I’ve become very loyal to my tribe.’ ‘I want to honour the guitar. I want to share its beauty, its finesse, its brilliance, its intelligence and its history with as many people as I possibly can.’ VALUABLE RESOURCES The Tutor Podcast www.Neilcowmeadow.com ABOUT THE HOST Neil Cowmeadow is a maverick peripatetic guitar teacher from Telford with over 19 years’ experience in the business of helping people. Learn how to start, grow and love your business with Neil’s invaluable advice and tips without the buzzwords and BS! CONTACT [email protected]

What is the difference between tutors that are struggling to make ends meet and always working, ever popular, always booked tutors? Neil identifies the ‘special sauce’ that turns clients into raving fans whereas someone with the same technical skills can struggle to make a living. KEY TAKEAWAYS You are the selling point of your business. You are the unique offering. All your skills and experiences are not reproducible by anyone else. You can gather all the technical skills in the world but they are useless if you cannot communicate them. BEST MOMENTS ‘The difference is you. When you boil it all down what you deliver to your clients, your students are you.’ ‘You can be a very highly qualified specialist in your field, that isn’t going to count for very much for a tutor unless you can communicate that to your students.’ ‘Why would anyone in their right mind not be ‘all-in’ in this game?’ ‘Be absurdly optimistic, ridiculously generous, brilliantly clever, hysterically funny and deeply groovy.’ VALUABLE RESOURCES The Tutor Podcast www.Neilcowmeadow.com ABOUT THE HOST Neil Cowmeadow is a maverick peripatetic guitar teacher from Telford with over 19 years’ experience in the business of helping people. Learn how to start, grow and love your business with Neil’s invaluable advice and tips without the buzzwords and BS! CONTACT METHOD [email protected]

Neil has come to realise there are 2 kinds of work. The first is bookkeeping, routine admin, scheduling lessons, lesson plans etc, the everyday routine work that is so regular that it does not require 100% focus. The second kind is ‘deep’ work, the most challenging, energising, absorbing and ‘time-distorting’ work. KEY TAKEAWAYS Deep work is characterised by a total focus on just the work at hand. Eliminate distractions. Deep work also requires solitude unless it involves collaboration. Schedule blocks of time for the activity, be it hours, days, weeks or months. Monitor your deep work. Choose a measurable result that can be easily tracked. BEST MOMENTS ‘This shallow work can be done pretty much while handling everything else, the phone ringing, the emails coming and going, the odd flash of seductive on-screen entertainment with lurid headlines and click-bait pictures.’ ‘Elimination of distractions! That means turn your phone off and put it somewhere else. Turn off your screen notifications. Get away from all those alluring non-subscription entertainment products like Reddit, YouTube, Twitter and so on.’ ‘Your deep work could be very different to mine and that’s totally cool. It just has to be the most important and demanding thing for you.’ ‘I’ve always said that all my problems come with hair on top. These days we are all expected to respond to emails, text messages, DM’s and PM’s and phone calls and the like in a very short time.’ VALUABLE RESOURCES The Tutor Podcast www.Neilcowmeadow.com ABOUT THE HOST Neil Cowmeadow is a maverick peripatetic guitar teacher from Telford with over 19 years’ experience in the business of helping people. Learn how to start, grow and love your business with Neil’s invaluable advice and tips without the buzzwords and BS! CONTACT METHOD [email protected]

Neil explains the meaning and regular usage of his IDGAF muscle. As an entrepreneur and someone making things happen for yourself, you have to be willing to go against the grain of mainstream thinking. Listen in to find out what the ‘F’ stands for. No prizes though. KEY TAKEAWAYS 80% to 90% of people really dislike what they do for a living. Do not give a …. for what the world thinks. Use your IDGAF muscle to detach yourself from the ghastly groupthink. Remove yourself from the company of people whose actions and ideas hinder you. BEST MOMENTS ‘If you look around anywhere you will see that depression is now a massive problem.’ ‘It’s a basic human drive to try to fit in. We are tribal animals and ostracism and isolation from the tribe would have been life-threatening back in the day.’ ‘Are they helping or hurting you, the people around you? Are they improving your chance of success and happiness or diminishing it?’ ‘Maybe you just want to break your old patterns and your habits.’ VALUABLE RESOURCES The Tutor Podcast www.Neilcowmeadow.com ABOUT THE HOST Neil Cowmeadow is a maverick peripatetic guitar teacher from Telford with over 19 years’ experience in the business of helping people. Learn how to start, grow and love your business with Neil’s invaluable advice and tips without the buzzwords and BS! CONTACT METHOD [email protected]

Neil introduces a few techniques to build rapport and increase the effectiveness of teaching to any student. If used well, they can be used to improve communication and ease, increasing your chances of making good progress with even a difficult client. KEY TAKEAWAYS The more like us we perceive a person to be the more we like them. The Neurolinguistic Programming Techniques of matching and mirroring can be employed to achieve this result. Matching is the replication of another’s body language and movements in order to gain rapport. However, be careful to not adopt this approach too early in case they think you are mocking them. Mirroring is a technique similar to matching, but using a direct reflective technique to create a mirror image of their movements. Match their language patterns. This can often happen naturally, as with the copying of accents or inflexions of speech, but also mimic the level of vocabulary. BEST MOMENTS ‘We are more able to influence them. As teachers, that’s what we do. This is why old sales manuals used to suggest that salespeople should be able to speak enthusiastically about almost anything the customer says.’ ‘As adults, we retain these unconscious ‘fitting in’ skills and we use them most with people we know and like.’ ‘Another language cue is the propensity to use colourful language. So if someone drops an F-bomb every sentence and you feel it’s appropriate, you drop one.’ ‘Take a look at their posture. Do they stand tall and straight or are they stooped over? If they’re sitting down, how do they sit?’ VALUABLE RESOURCES The Tutor Podcast www.Neilcowmeadow.com ABOUT THE HOST Neil Cowmeadow is a maverick peripatetic guitar teacher from Telford with over 19 years’ experience in the business of helping people. Learn how to start, grow and love your business with Neil’s invaluable advice and tips without the buzzwords and BS! CONTACT METHOD [email protected]

There is the fear of failure and the fear of success. Neil examines both of these fears and how they can leave us stuck with his own story of encouraging success, how we jump through hoops to fool ourselves that doing nothing is a good strategy, and how we can fight the urge to take an apparently ‘safe’ route and defeat the fear. KEY TAKEAWAYS The actual task, goal or dream is in itself not scary, but the prospect of failure, ridicule and loss is. Fear of succeeding can be fear of responsibility and change. Doing nothing seems like a safe action, but is an active choice to cease to be in control. Write things down. This will help you process your ideas. Avoid distractions and examine your fears, the real possible disasters, and then all the benefits of trying and taking action, all the possible successes. When you look at the reasons for staying still and doing nothing, you will realise that most of them are ridiculous. BEST MOMENTS ‘Maybe we are afraid that if we fail, people will laugh at us and think we are a bit crazy.’ ‘Do you really want to be safe in your current position? I don’t think so. Inaction is actually an active strategy, you are choosing to do nothing.’ ‘Think of all the benefits and the upsides of trying and then succeeding and write them down.’ ‘Whether it’s fear of failure or fear of success, fear is the enemy. Action is the qkey.’ VALUABLE RESOURCES The Tutor Podcast www.Neilcowmeadow.com ABOUT THE HOST Neil Cowmeadow is a maverick peripatetic guitar teacher from Telford with over 19 years’ experience in the business of helping people. Learn how to start, grow and love your business with Neil’s invaluable advice and tips without the buzzwords and BS! CONTACT METHOD [email protected]

Neil has been producing The Tutor Podcast for five full years, every Monday, every week, without fail through pandemics, and economic crises, as well as running three successful businesses. In this episode, he shares why, and what he has learned from the experience. KEY TAKEAWAYS Nearly everyone struggles with self-doubt and a fear of failure. People feel guilty about success and money. Educate yourself, invest in yourself. Spend money on training and learning. Creating the podcast has encouraged Neil’s hunger for information. BEST MOMENTS ‘I’ve learned that nothing’s wrong with me, apart from an irrational desire to help other people define their own way to their own kind of success.’ ‘The next thing I’ve learned is money and finance are still topics that need to be taught to kids.’ ‘To really understand something, the best thing you can do is teach it to someone else.’ ‘I no longer believe in writer's block.’ VALUABLE RESOURCES The Tutor Podcast www.Neilcowmeadow.com ABOUT THE HOST Neil Cowmeadow is a maverick peripatetic guitar teacher from Telford with over 19 years’ experience in the business of helping people. Learn how to start, grow and love your business with Neil’s invaluable advice and tips without the buzzwords and BS! CONTACT METHOD [email protected]

What are the motivations of successful coaches and teachers? What drives those people that keep plugging away at the job and never seem to lose enthusiasm or energy? Neil is one of those people and has been teaching guitar since 1999 and is still loving it. He reveals his reasons for never losing his love for his chosen career. KEY TAKEAWAYS Neil has an addictive personality and wants to turn it towards all aspects of his life and has found it is not about your achievement but the nature of your goals. It is not about the endpoint, it is the process that provides the drive. Hitting a goal can cause a depressive period due to the sudden drop in dopamine produced by the body. BEST MOMENTS ‘I’m sort of curious about why I still can’t wait to get in the teaching room every day to welcome my students, tune them up and start having fun.’ ‘The sort of friction that you have to overcome stimulates the chemicals in your body that push you forward.’ ‘So no endpoints for me. Milestones on the way but what I’m really looking to do is to play forever in a whole raft of endless games.’ VALUABLE RESOURCES The Tutor Podcast www.Neilcowmeadow.com ABOUT THE HOST Neil Cowmeadow is a maverick peripatetic guitar teacher from Telford with over 19 years’ experience in the business of helping people. Learn how to start, grow and love your business with Neil’s invaluable advice and tips without the buzzwords and BS! CONTACT METHOD [email protected]

Change is the only constant in human life. Teaching is about changing students for the better and so tutors know more than most why change is so hard, and how and why we resist change. Neil explains how to break down that natural resistance and how to identify and remove a students limiting beliefs about themselves and what they are capable of. KEY TAKEAWAYS Talent generally is irrelevant in guitar teaching, secondary to skill and technique. Students will often provide reasons as to why they find it difficult to learn, progress or transform that are simply not true. Teachability is inverse in proportion to experience. It is up to you to deprogram your students of their limiting beliefs and bolster them with a new, dynamic and successful vision of themselves with the skills you teach them. BEST MOMENTS ‘Round about all that stuff there is also my little belief that talent is mostly irrelevant as what I teach every single day simulates the idea of talent so closely.’ ‘When you really listen to what students tell you they will tell you exactly how they see themselves.’ ‘I figure out how they think and how they look at it, and then I go in and royally mess it up for them. I’ll mess up their programming so much they can’t get it back.’ ‘People are funny things. They want to find a way to change and get what they always wanted, but then they find a way to beat it away from themselves.’ VALUABLE RESOURCES The Tutor Podcast www.Neilcowmeadow.com ABOUT THE HOST Neil Cowmeadow is a maverick peripatetic guitar teacher from Telford with over 19 years’ experience in the business of helping people. Learn how to start, grow and love your business with Neil’s invaluable advice and tips without the buzzwords and BS! CONTACT METHOD [email protected]

The one thing that can bring your plans to further your tutoring business to a crashing halt is illness. No one can avoid this eventuality completely, but looking after your health and fitness is one of the highest considerations for anyone looking to mitigate the risks of debilitation. You need a healthy body for a healthy mind, and Neil is here with his tips on how to keep ahead and energised so you can concentrate fully on your business. KEY TAKEAWAYS Unless you have an independent source of income or truly comprehensive health insurance you are at risk of loss if you find yourself unable to work. How healthy are you? Nearly half of the population of the UK regularly take prescription drugs. Avoid highly processed foods such as ready meals and snack foods. A low carbohydrate diet works for weight control and avoidance of type 2 diabetes. Try not to eat too much sugar in foods like sugary drinks and sweets. Don’t trust additives and artificial fats and sweeteners. Exercise and its plethora of options is beneficial. Find something you enjoy to supplement a good diet. BEST MOMENTS ‘You’re in trouble if you get sick. This was my wake up call when I had a big cycling accident in Spain and lost the tip of nine of my fingers and realised that if I couldn’t teach guitar I was in deep trouble.’ ‘Nobody is coming to the rescue. That means it’s on you. We have to take responsibility for our own health so that we can keep doing what we do.’ ‘There’s a lot of dubious stuff on the government dietary website. So my suggestion is you just eat fresh unprocessed foods.’ VALUABLE RESOURCES The Tutor Podcast www.Neilcowmeadow.com ABOUT THE HOST Neil Cowmeadow is a maverick peripatetic guitar teacher from Telford with over 19 years’ experience in the business of helping people. Learn how to start, grow and love your business with Neil’s invaluable advice and tips without the buzzwords and BS! CONTACT METHOD [email protected]

Continuing with his examination of blind spots in business and life, Neil is here with a cautionary tale of an intervention by a friend to alter his trajectory when distracted and entranced by a bright shiny penny. KEY TAKEAWAYS This story is about the value of getting someone else’s eyes on your blind spots, as well as the seductive power of bright shiny pennies, those alluring distractions that catch your eye and lure you away from your true mission. When faced with the possibility of losing his guitar coaching business, Neil invested in training and learning about property investment. That’s when a new member of Neils’ Blind Spot Council (go back and listen to episode 255 if you haven’t already) offered some timely and sage insight. BEST MOMENTS ‘At that point, I realised I was just one accident or one illness away from being skint and in trouble if I was forced to stop teaching guitar which I had never really thought of before.’ ‘At a small table in the middle of the room sat my new mentor, Derek.’ ‘I think that anything that takes you away from the work you love, your teaching business, is not going to be worth it because you’ll end up resenting it for taking you away from your true love.’ VALUABLE RESOURCES The Tutor Podcast www.Neilcowmeadow.com ABOUT THE HOST Neil Cowmeadow is a maverick peripatetic guitar teacher from Telford with over 19 years’ experience in the business of helping people. Learn how to start, grow and love your business with Neil’s invaluable advice and tips without the buzzwords and BS! CONTACT METHOD [email protected]

In this episode, Neil is going to take a look at your blind spots in business. These are all the things you constantly miss, action incorrectly or are unaware of. The only problem is, you cannot see your blind spots so your only option is to call for an extra pair of eyes! KEY TAKEAWAYS Usually, our blind spots are completely obvious to the people around us. The outsiders’ view is vital. If you are not as influential, successful, healthy and wealthy as you want to be, you have to admit you don’t know everything. Put together a group of people, preferably with knowledge of you and your business, to take a look at what you do and how you operate to see if those extra eyes spot anything you have been missing. BEST MOMENTS ‘What are your blind spots? Well, chances are you don’t know, because you’re blind to them! The clues in the name.’ ‘Ask them the vital question, what am I missing? Ask them for their opinions. Don’t ask them for feedback as that can get a bit cringey in my opinion.’ ‘My imaginary fiends gave me answers that were every bit as useful to me as real world counsellors.’ VALUABLE RESOURCES The Tutor Podcast www.Neilcowmeadow.com ABOUT THE HOST Neil Cowmeadow is a maverick peripatetic guitar teacher from Telford with over 19 years’ experience in the business of helping people. Learn how to start, grow and love your business with Neil’s invaluable advice and tips without the buzzwords and BS! CONTACT METHOD [email protected]

In this episode, Neil deals with other people. Musicians are always looking for more information, more music to play, more riffs, more chords, more tunes, and more songs. There are a few problems that are encountered within a student’s constant search for knowledge and Neil has some sage advice on how to turn what looks like a potential difficulty into an advantage. KEY TAKEAWAYS Being able to play the piano does not qualify you as a guitar teacher even if you play the instrument. Technical knowledge is key. Books and magazines often provide inaccurate or out of date information. Online material can be great but unless you know the difference between the quality and rubbish it can be a lottery. As a tutor you will often be competing with other sources for prevalence. Embrace this. Other sources may bring you knowledge and if they are inadequate they will be exposed over time. You can collaborate with the other source if you can find a teacher that will do so or embellish the students extra learning with your own techniques. But don’t get huffy! BEST MOMENTS ‘I don’t think this is deliberate. I think this is genuinely well meaning people demonstrating that they have really poor technique and an unusual interpretation of reality.’ ‘It’s not unusual for a student to show up for a lesson with me having got the point last session then utterly confused themselves by watching a ton of contradictory youtube videos.’ ‘If little Jonny absolutely loves his other teacher, no matter how bad their teacher may be, if you slag that other teacher off you’re going to be the bad guy.’ VALUABLE RESOURCES The Tutor Podcast www.Neilcowmeadow.com ABOUT THE HOST Neil Cowmeadow is a maverick peripatetic guitar teacher from Telford with over 19 years’ experience in the business of helping people. Learn how to start, grow and love your business with Neil’s invaluable advice and tips without the buzzwords and BS! CONTACT METHOD [email protected]

Mobile phones are divisive in that they offer us organisational convenience while simultaneously invading our private time and information. Neil gives his opinion on this constant helpful interloper into our existence and what we can do to fight its more unhelpful influences. KEY TAKEAWAYS The dichotomy is that we run our lives via mobile phone tech but also suspect that it tracks your every move and that calls and messages are recorded and analysed by people that don’t have our best interests at heart. It is prudent to bear in mind when handling your sensitive data that mobile phones allow unscrupulous tech companies to track and data scrape your private information. Phones constantly interrupt you with demands for attention. They can be a corrupting influence on your time management, relationships and safety. Turn your phone off when tutoring. To do otherwise suggests a lack of care and respect for your student. BEST MOMENTS ‘I’m by no means a Luddite, by no means a tech-fearing tinfoil hat-wearing conspiracy theorist. Like you, I use my mobile phone most days.’ ‘Frankly, I think it’s a mistake and I think we’d be wise to manage our relationship with the phone very, very carefully.’ ‘Turn the phone off. What a radical idea that is! That’s actually too hard for most people to do!’ VALUABLE RESOURCES The Tutor Podcast www.Neilcowmeadow.com ABOUT THE HOST Neil Cowmeadow is a maverick peripatetic guitar teacher from Telford with over 19 years’ experience in the business of helping people. Learn how to start, grow and love your business with Neil’s invaluable advice and tips without the buzzwords and BS! CONTACT METHOD [email protected]

Neil explains the theory of Content Teaching and Principle Teaching, and the difference and advantages of the two compared or combined. KEY TAKEAWAYS Principal teachers teach why. Content teachers teach by fact, writing and method. The ‘why’ without the ‘how’ and the ‘what’ is as pointless as the ‘what’ without the ‘why’. The only solution is to be both kinds and present both. BEST MOMENTS ‘(Content Teaching is) Good old fashioned monkey-see, monkey-do rote learning. It’s extremely limited in scope and the pathways to developing the player and the student.’ ‘(Principle Teaching) For me this is the dry, abstract, theory side of music. It’s the way music was rammed down our throats in school when I didn’t take it as an option even though I love music.’ ‘We’ve got to be both. Good teaching is an elegant and dynamic dance between those two extremes.’ VALUABLE RESOURCES The Tutor Podcast www.Neilcowmeadow.com ABOUT THE HOST Neil Cowmeadow is a maverick peripatetic guitar teacher from Telford with over 19 years’ experience in the business of helping people. Learn how to start, grow and love your business with Neil’s invaluable advice and tips without the buzzwords and BS! CONTACT METHOD [email protected]

New Year is looming. What does that mean to you? Are you hoping for change? Well, Neil is here to remind you that nothing is going to change unless you do. KEY TAKEAWAYS Whatever it is you’re going to do, try not to start with a New Year's resolution. The vast majority of those are broken, and you want to make permanent positive change. The biggest failure point of New Year’s resolutions is the indefinite nature of goal setting. They are too vague. Set clear measurable markers and surround yourself with people who will hold you to account, support you and help you along your way. BEST MOMENTS ‘Because change is fairly a one-shot and then done affair. More often it’s a process of constant reinforcement of the desired behaviour and the monitoring of results.’ ‘For many people, there’s no process. They’ll set the goal without any awareness of what they actually need to do to get there.’ ‘For me, if something isn’t written down it doesn’t exist. That’s why business transactions are conducted on paper.’ VALUABLE RESOURCES The Tutor Podcast www.Neilcowmeadow.com ABOUT THE HOST Neil Cowmeadow is a maverick peripatetic guitar teacher from Telford with over 19 years’ experience in the business of helping people. Learn how to start, grow and love your business with Neil’s invaluable advice and tips without the buzzwords and BS! CONTACT METHOD [email protected]

Treat yourself! Get yourself a time travel device for Christmas. The single most valuable asset you have is time. You can always make more money and more friends but you can never make or buy more time. Time to plan! KEY TAKEAWAYS Just do it now! Take a few days off to think and plan. Execute the plan and measure the results. Your life will change! You will change because the planning, vision and diligence needed to execute the plan will alter your character and your focus. Take a look 15 years into your future and see if you like what you see. BEST MOMENTS ‘From the second you came into the world the clock began to tick and later on it seems to tick faster and the days get shorter and then the clock starts to chime! Isn’t that a cheery thought?’ ‘People like that seem to glide through life, overcome challenges and they’ve got a certain energy and charisma. They command respect.’ ‘Write it all down. Be precise and specific. Now you’ve got a long-range vision of a possible future you’ve designed for yourself to live in.’ VALUABLE RESOURCES The Tutor Podcast www.Neilcowmeadow.com ABOUT THE HOST Neil Cowmeadow is a maverick peripatetic guitar teacher from Telford with over 19 years’ experience in the business of helping people. Learn how to start, grow and love your business with Neil’s invaluable advice and tips without the buzzwords and BS! CONTACT METHOD [email protected]

Neil calls his teaching environment ‘The Vortex’ where he loses track of time, days disappear in what seems minutes and he never gets thirsty or hungry. Neil explains the theory behind this altered state of perception. KEY TAKEAWAYS People are happiest when they are in a state of ‘flow’ defined as a state of concentration and complete absorption with the situation or activity at hand. It is an optimal state of intrinsic motivation where it becomes its own reward. BEST MOMENTS ‘With this total intensity you’d maybe expect there’d be some kind of stress but it’s the exact opposite.’ ‘It’s a loss almost of the self into the activity. Musicians often describe this as being in the zone, in the pocket or in the groove.’ ‘For the vast majority of almost everyone else out there, you’ll sound like a bloody nut job when you talk about what work feels like for you.’ VALUABLE RESOURCES The Tutor Podcast www.Neilcowmeadow.com ABOUT THE HOST Neil Cowmeadow is a maverick peripatetic guitar teacher from Telford with over 19 years’ experience in the business of helping people. Learn how to start, grow and love your business with Neil’s invaluable advice and tips without the buzzwords and BS! CONTACT METHOD [email protected]

One of the aspects of tutoring students is having to manage the young ones’ parents as well. Part of being a parent can be to be nosey and interfering, but Neil has some ways to make the natural parental concern and control less intrusive. KEY TAKEAWAYS All parents are going to be different but they all have one thing in common, they are all doing the best they can for their children. Giving the parents a direct line of sight allows them to stay out of view of their child but keep an eye on you as a tutor. There cannot be anything hidden or concealed. Encourage mum or dad to address their questions to you at the end of the session or in a separate communication. BEST MOMENTS ‘I provide them with a nice comfy seat in the hallway or a hard wooden folding seat in the teaching room, for those that absolutely must sit in on juniors lessons.’ ‘Experience tells me that not many kids want their parents to watch them while they make mistakes.’ ‘Helicopter mums hovering on the kids’ shoulder can just stifle them. I’ve seen it over and over again.’ VALUABLE RESOURCES The Tutor Podcast www.Neilcowmeadow.com ABOUT THE HOST Neil Cowmeadow is a maverick peripatetic guitar teacher from Telford with over 19 years’ experience in the business of helping people. Learn how to start, grow and love your business with Neil’s invaluable advice and tips without the buzzwords and BS! CONTACT METHOD [email protected]

As Neil sees it, the vast majority of people are lost. They’re caught up in the make believe world of state controlled news that leaves them terrified, dissatisfied, fearful and powerless, lost in the media circus of petty celebrity, tabloid news and social media. With so much attention given by the vast majority to the trivial and the inane, how many of us can claim to actually be paying attention to our own lives? KEY TAKEAWAYS If your eyes are not on your own life, goals and future, then your present probably isn’t how you’d like it to be. Pay attention. Keep an eye on your own business, your own health and your own relationships. Ask yourself how much you’re earning and how you can earn more. BEST MOMENTS ‘As I wander through the world I am absolutely fascinated by the people I see and I’m struck by the distractedness of their lives, by the things they actually squander their attention on.’ ‘Ask yourself, how did I do today? Was I exceptional? Did I serve my tribe? Was there anything today I could have done better?’ ‘Eliminate as much TV, YouTube and social media as you can. This will liberate vast swathes of time and energy that you can use to improve your life, your business, your health and your fortune.’ VALUABLE RESOURCES The Tutor Podcast www.Neilcowmeadow.com ABOUT THE HOST Neil Cowmeadow is a maverick peripatetic guitar teacher from Telford with over 19 years’ experience in the business of helping people. Learn how to start, grow and love your business with Neil’s invaluable advice and tips without the buzzwords and BS! CONTACT METHOD [email protected]

Neil diligently battles through his fly to bring you this episode on diligence! As he defines it, it’s the ongoing execution of right action in the pursuit of worthy goals. Describing how to stay around the straight and narrow, Neil explains the advantages of being diligent about timescale and your attention and to be sure that what you are aiming for is worth your efforts. KEY TAKEAWAYS A lot of us are good beginners, and lousy finishers. Nothing beats the excitement of a new project. Worthy goals have to have value and be worth the effort. They should also be a vehicle for your own self expression, else you’ll reach a goal that means nothing to you. Set the time aside and never let anything take the spot. If we increase the frequency of our tasks it becomes more efficient. BEST MOMENTS‘Before anything else, I must confess, I’m actually pretty crap at this. I love the excitement of new stuff and I don’t much care for the mundane, routine things in life.’ ‘The trick is to keep taking the next step. You’ll know soon enough if you’re on the right path as each step reveals the next.’‘I know what my goals are. I’ve identified the goals that are worthy of my time and my effort. The teaching is to spread the love affair with the guitar. That’s worth my time.’ VALUABLE RESOURCESThe Tutor Podcastwww.Neilcowmeadow.com ABOUT THE HOSTNeil Cowmeadow is a maverick peripatetic guitar teacher from Telford with over 19 years’ experience in the business of helping people. Learn how to start, grow and love your business with Neil’s invaluable advice and tips without the buzzwords and BS! CONTACT [email protected]

We all have one. Yeah, you do! It’s the stupid idiot part of us that keeps on doing stupid things even when we know for sure it isn’t going to help us move forward, stay in shape, maintain our relationships and do better business and make more money. Neil is going to help you kick out that inner moron. KEY TAKEAWAYS The little inner voice that tells you deserve a Mars bar because you’ve been to the gym. Wrong. Refocus on what works. Never let your inner moron run you. Just stop, pause, take a breath, and take the choice that truly benefits you. BEST MOMENTS‘Your reward for going to the gym is to be a little fitter, a little bit stronger and a little bit better than you were.’‘This where the rubber meets the road and you either battle your inner moron or you surrender to it.’‘It will lie to you. It will bully and flatter you. It will coerce, control and manipulate you but you cannot let it win.’ VALUABLE RESOURCESThe Tutor Podcastwww.Neilcowmeadow.com ABOUT THE HOSTNeil Cowmeadow is a maverick peripatetic guitar teacher from Telford with over 19 years’ experience in the business of helping people. Learn how to start, grow and love your business with Neil’s invaluable advice and tips without the buzzwords and BS! CONTACT [email protected]

When trying to challenge students' ideas of their own identity, or even one's own, there are 3 parts to this easily applied psychological method to make your efforts flow much more easily. KEY TAKEAWAYS Absolutely ; find what the student believes is absolutely true for them. For example ‘I’m tone deaf’ or ‘I have no rhythm’. Always ; find something the student believes they are good at, but haven’t always been good at. Use this to identify change and improvement. For example ‘I used to be bad at guitar playing, but I’m much better now.’ Sometimes ; find one moment where they have been good at what they think they are bad at, and remove the absolute nature of their belief. BEST MOMENTS‘Today a mature student told me that they used to sing all the time when they were little, but stopped when they were seven after the school music teacher told them that their voice was awful’ ‘Those beliefs are actually temporary over the long term. They’re changeable. I think our job as teachers is to change the buggers.’ ‘I have taken their identity of being capable and able from one context and grafted it into the guitar lesson.’ VALUABLE RESOURCESThe Tutor Podcastwww.Neilcowmeadow.com ABOUT THE HOSTNeil Cowmeadow is a maverick peripatetic guitar teacher from Telford with over 19 years’ experience in the business of helping people. Learn how to start, grow and love your business with Neil’s invaluable advice and tips without the buzzwords and BS! CONTACT [email protected]

These are the two elements that being a successful teacher really hinges on, but which has the greatest affect on the student, imparting skills and knowledge or the ability to change their belief systems? KEY TAKEAWAYS Your communication skills are your ability to present, demonstrate and explain practical skills in a way the student can understand. Ultimately the imparting of skills will lead nowhere unless you can change the students belief in themselves. Belief drives everything. A negative belief will prevent the student from using any of the skills you could impart to them. Unless they believe themselves to be a musician, they will not play. BEST MOMENTS ‘Since I’m a guitar teacher I’ll spend lots of time building the students foundational skills and their technical base using the music they love, moving from a very simplified, paired down version and adding layers of complexity and nuance as we go.’ ‘People will stay true to who they believe themselves to be, for better or for worse.’ ‘Without changing their beliefs, you and I are going to struggle to help them to get what they want because what they want to do most is confirm their beliefs.’ VALUABLE RESOURCES The Tutor Podcast www.Neilcowmeadow.com ABOUT THE HOST Neil Cowmeadow is a maverick peripatetic guitar teacher from Telford with over 19 years’ experience in the business of helping people. Learn how to start, grow and love your business with Neil’s invaluable advice and tips without the buzzwords and BS! CONTACT METHOD [email protected]

Pacing and Leading is a concept within Neuro Linguistic Programming, or NLP, which is applied linguistics and psychology to alter or set patterns of human behaviour. Pacing and Leading is a great way to gain rapport and trust with students and allows you to take an unmotivated, stressed out student and move them to a more positive position. Neil tells you how. KEY TAKEAWAYS Pacing is where you move yourself into the same state that the student is in. Connect with them as they currently are to gain rapport. You may need to observe closely adopting posture, breathing, movement and language. When you are matched you can then move yourself into a more positive state. If you make small subtle changes and see if they follow, you can influence them into a more positive position. This method allows not only learning but can give the normally challenged student a positive experience that they will want to repeat. BEST MOMENTS ‘You can think of it as falling into step alongside someone, a friend perhaps, while you’re walking down the road. It just makes everything easier if you’re walking in step.’ ‘When I’ve got a depressed or a sad student I’ll move into their world and then bring them back into mine so they are uplifted and empowered and capable of learning.’ ‘As with any skill, use this for the benefit of your students and your clients’ VALUABLE RESOURCES The Tutor Podcast www.Neilcowmeadow.com ABOUT THE HOST Neil Cowmeadow is a maverick peripatetic guitar teacher from Telford with over 19 years’ experience in the business of helping people. Learn how to start, grow and love your business with Neil’s invaluable advice and tips without the buzzwords and BS! CONTACT METHOD [email protected]

In this episode Neil leads you through how to identify the right price to charge for your tutoring sessions and what factors to consider and ignore when reaching your decision. Pricing matters, but maybe not in the way you think. KEY TAKEAWAYS It is not greedy to charge as much as people are willing to pay for what you do, its just sensible. People don’t pay just for your actions but for your knowledge and experience. If you reduce your price too much, people will assume you are of low quality and avoid you. Discounts often result in difficulty when the rate reverts to normal. It may result in constant price renegotiation. BEST MOMENTS ‘If you’re charging £20 an hour and people would gladly pay £30 for what you do, doesn’t it make sense to give them the opportunity to give you that higher rate?’ ‘A big part of your fee will be due to trust. Trust that the customer has in you.’ ‘If your customer demographic is affluent, you should charge what they expect.’ ‘Having delivered all my technical stuff they still want to come and spend time with me.’ VALUABLE RESOURCES The Tutor Podcast www.Neilcowmeadow.com ABOUT THE HOST Neil Cowmeadow is a maverick peripatetic guitar teacher from Telford with over 19 years’ experience in the business of helping people. Learn how to start, grow and love your business with Neil’s invaluable advice and tips without the buzzwords and BS! CONTACT METHOD [email protected]

Many people think they are not creative, devoid of inspiration or don’t have the required skill or natural makeup to even improvise. Neil disagrees and believes that all of us are creative to a greater or lesser extent and it is a skill that must be practiced to be developed. He explains how he encourages and teaches his students to move beyond their own narrow definitions of themselves. KEY TAKEAWAYS Everyone is creative at whatever age and whatever background. There is a natural drive in every human that seeks expression. Give your students a safe place to express and just allow it to happen. Don’t judge it or allow your students to judge themselves. Give them technique and then encourage them to disrupt it to create something new. Creativity is often discouraged by mainstream education so it is up to individual tutors to fan that creative spark back into life. BEST MOMENTS ‘You don’t learn much from what you already know and what you’ve proved to work, that’s a done deal. It’s when you make errors, when you try stuff out, that’s when you create something new.’ ‘Make them curious. Get them to ask the correct questions of themselves.’ ‘There is no place for creativity in a great deal of the mainstream education system because that’s all about passing exams. It’s about compliance and conformity.’ VALUABLE RESOURCES The Tutor Podcast www.Neilcowmeadow.com ABOUT THE HOST Neil Cowmeadow is a maverick peripatetic guitar teacher from Telford with over 19 years’ experience in the business of helping people. Learn how to start, grow and love your business with Neil’s invaluable advice and tips without the buzzwords and BS! CONTACT METHOD [email protected]

Neil explains ‘The Great Escape’ or ‘The Great Retreat’ as a preventative measure for those who get swamped, overwhelmed or over absorbed in their business or work. Here is Neil’s method of getting back to the big picture, the long view, and strategic planning if you get caught up in the nitty-gritty, everyday grind of your business.KEY TAKEAWAYS We tend to miss small details, trends and shifts in the marketplace, miss openings and opportunities. Make regular time for your strategic planning. Take more than one day out from the business to properly consider it from a distance and see what you may have been missing. Disconnect from the daily tasks of the business to take real time to consider its direction and forward planning. BEST MOMENTS‘We can end up neglecting the long view and this is absolutely normal because we’re working ‘in the business’, we’re not working ‘on the business.’’‘I need to disconnect from the day to day running of the business. So I deliberately don’t do email. I also don't phone, I leave it at home.’ ‘The big thing is to be away from my teaching work completely. And that means no scheduling, no admin, no taking calls..nothing.’VALUABLE RESOURCESThe Tutor Podcastwww.Neilcowmeadow.comABOUT THE HOSTNeil Cowmeadow is a maverick peripatetic guitar teacher from Telford with over 19 years’ experience in the business of helping people. Learn how to start, grow and love your business with Neil’s invaluable advice and tips without the buzzwords and BS!CONTACT [email protected]

A ‘brand’ is a product, service, business or even person that is easily identified and widely known. But what is it that makes a brand and how do you become one? Neil takes a look at how you can get started on the road to being well known for the services that you offer.KEY TAKEAWAYS A brand is not simply a logo or a slogan. These are all just signifiers, signposts for the potential customer to follow. A strong and unified idea of what the business or product is about is the brand. If you can provoke an emotional response people will behave irrationally when purchasing products and services, allowing you to charge more. You need to be known for something positive and then make every one aware of it in exactly the same way. Be consistent in what you offer, be the same person, if possible even in dress and behaviour. BEST MOMENTS‘The brand isn’t the logo. That’s just a signifier. It’s a distinctive symbol designed to capture attention.’‘It’s the widely held belief that the particular business or product is actually doing something special, perhaps even magical.’‘To me ‘rock god’, ‘guitar hero’, I mean, how’s that for elevation of an ordinary person to a very high status? How’s that for pushing that high perceived value?’‘Where I am, everybody knows Neil Cowmeadow because there are big banners on the fence outside of my house, with the stupid name on it! Cowmeadow! Its just daft, everybody knows Neil the guitar guy.’ VALUABLE RESOURCESThe Tutor Podcastwww.Neilcowmeadow.comABOUT THE HOSTNeil Cowmeadow is a maverick peripatetic guitar teacher from Telford with over 19 years’ experience in the business of helping people. Learn how to start, grow and love your business with Neil’s invaluable advice and tips without the buzzwords and BS!CONTACT [email protected]

If you are in business for yourself your are in a significant minority with currently only 13.7% of working people self employed, the lowest since 2011. There is a lot of peer pressure to get a job and be miserable. However, Neil urges you to carry on with your own business and keep your time and happiness under your own control.KEY TAKEAWAYS Avoid the ‘loser speak’ because that’s what you are going to hear a lot of and you are going to hear it from the majority of the people around you. Don’t take career advice from unhappy, unfulfilled, underpaid people. Some people will resent you in your freedom and success. BEST MOMENTS‘If you’re busy, they’ll tell you not to work so hard. They’ll tell you that you need to chill out. And I hate that term.’‘Because we’ve chosen to leave the safety of the herd, break rank and separate ourselves from who we used to be, believe me, it changes you.’‘Nobody else can live our life for us.’VALUABLE RESOURCESThe Tutor Podcastwww.Neilcowmeadow.comABOUT THE HOSTNeil Cowmeadow is a maverick peripatetic guitar teacher from Telford with over 19 years’ experience in the business of helping people. Learn how to start, grow and love your business with Neil’s invaluable advice and tips without the buzzwords and BS!CONTACT [email protected]

If you are listening in the UK this episode may trigger some of your British reticence. This ones all about negotiation and selling, so steel yourself to have the nerve to ask for what you are worth. Neil explains how good sales is actually providing a service that people really want and negotiation is just the pathway to it. KEY TAKEAWAYS Sales is often seen as a shameful occupation dedicated to persuading people to buy things we don’t need in Britain. Negotiation is often perceived as adversarial and unpleasant. It is actually about leading the customer to the correct decision so they can get what they want while satisfying your requirements as a seller. Understand that the customer is trading something of lower value for them for something of higher value. Once the intention to buy has been agreed upon then negotiation is just the details of the means of delivery. BEST MOMENTS ‘We don’t big ourselves up. We don’t stand with our heads held high and proud. It’s really not the British way, is it? But if there’s one thing that we’re brilliant at here in Britain, it’s misunderstanding the ideas of sales and to a certain extent negotiation.’ ‘Then enable them to exchange something that’s of low value to them, money, for something that is of enormous value for them ; understanding, technical skill, accelerated learning and time compression.’ ‘I’m offering them, for an amount of money, a pathway to become who they most want to be.’ ‘If you sell properly, ethically and effectively you’ll probably have a lot less negotiation to do when you present your prospective student or client to the solution they’ve always wanted.’ VALUABLE RESOURCES The Tutor Podcast www.Neilcowmeadow.com ABOUT THE HOST Neil Cowmeadow is a maverick peripatetic guitar teacher from Telford with over 19 years’ experience in the business of helping people. Learn how to start, grow and love your business with Neil’s invaluable advice and tips without the buzzwords and BS! CONTACT METHOD [email protected]

Neil talks about wealth, what it is and what it ain’t. Different people have different concepts of what it is to be wealthy, so what do they mean when we talk about wealth? KEY TAKEAWAYS Money is just a small component of the whole ‘wealth ecosystem’. Friends and people you love are part of a rich experience of the world. Time is your most precious and your most finite resource. BEST MOMENTS ‘Money is important. You can’t ignore it.’ ‘I believe if you have just one pound more than you need, you are actually pretty wealthy.’ ‘I think it's primarily a three way balancing act and every single one of us will have to find their own unique balance point.’ VALUABLE RESOURCES The Tutor Podcast www.Neilcowmeadow.com ABOUT THE HOST Neil Cowmeadow is a maverick peripatetic guitar teacher from Telford with over 19 years’ experience in the business of helping people. Learn how to start, grow and love your business with Neil’s invaluable advice and tips without the buzzwords and BS! CONTACT METHOD [email protected]

The easiest person to lie to is you. We tell ourselves reassuring stories of how great we are and how we are productive and doing our best while binge watching the latest Netflix drama. Neil gives his tips on how to avoid long bouts of indolence and denial and keep asking the right questions of yourself. KEY TAKEAWAYS We can all distort reality to reassure ourselves we are progressing. It is not easy to be real about how things are, constantly. Ask yourself some serious questions. How am I doing in my business? Really? REALLY? Where am I going with things as they currently are? What’s your trajectory? Is it profitable? Is it sustainable? What are the opportunities I have not noticed? What are my risks and pitfalls? And what is the cost of action and inaction? BEST MOMENTS ‘Where we can happily delude ourselves that everything’s peachy or everything is crap. That we’re right or that we’re wrong, that things are going up or down, or any other point on the continuum.’ ‘As I’m writing this and then recording it I’m also running these questions back and forth in my own mind.’ ‘I’ll try new things. If they work better than what I was currently doing then I’ll implement that as a policy. Test. Test.Test.’ VALUABLE RESOURCES The Tutor Podcast www.Neilcowmeadow.com ABOUT THE HOST Neil Cowmeadow is a maverick peripatetic guitar teacher from Telford with over 19 years’ experience in the business of helping people. Learn how to start, grow and love your business with Neil’s invaluable advice and tips without the buzzwords and BS! CONTACT METHOD [email protected]

As a guitar tutor patience is not only a virtue but a necessity. After being asked by his students how he never loses his temper, Neil shares his tips on managing your emotions in this episode. KEY TAKEAWAYS Recognise that you are having an emotional reaction and identify it. If you can’t recognise it, you can’t manage it. What you call the emotion will affect your response to the emotion you’re experiencing. Rename it and interpret it positively. Pause and reach for your next technique to overcome the situation. BEST MOMENTS ‘Just like you, I have to manage frustration and impatience because if it gets out of control I might respond badly.’ ‘Emotions never rest, they’re always moving this way, that way,’ ‘I think this is why I’ve become such a fan of Neurolinguistic Programming, applied psychology, behaviour and linguistics and some of the techniques of hypnosis.’ VALUABLE RESOURCES The Tutor Podcast www.Neilcowmeadow.com ABOUT THE HOST Neil Cowmeadow is a maverick peripatetic guitar teacher from Telford with over 19 years’ experience in the business of helping people. Learn how to start, grow and love your business with Neil’s invaluable advice and tips without the buzzwords and BS! CONTACT METHOD [email protected]

One of the really interesting things you get to do when you are exposed to lots of people socially or via business is choose between the plethora of opportunities that come your way if you listen and connect with people. The possibilities are endless for business, pleasure or helping people if you keep your ears open and see the collaborations possible between those in your community. KEY TAKEAWAYS Problems, puzzles and challenges can be solved if you listen carefully. People share their challenges and you can ask yourself, is there opportunity for me, them, or how can I help? If you cannot help them yourself, ask yourself, who do I know that can help? Think ; be useful. By helping people you will find opportunities to come to you. BEST MOMENTS ‘Where is the way to make things better? How do I make things better?’ ‘I wound up believing that life is like walking through a field strewn with diamonds.’ ‘As tutors we have a network of contacts, students, parents, and all their associates, so who can we help? All we have to do is listen and be prepared to play. Maybe we can join the dots that they can’t see.’ VALUABLE RESOURCES The Tutor Podcast www.Neilcowmeadow.com ABOUT THE HOST Neil Cowmeadow is a maverick peripatetic guitar teacher from Telford with over 19 years’ experience in the business of helping people. Learn how to start, grow and love your business with Neil’s invaluable advice and tips without the buzzwords and BS! CONTACT METHOD [email protected]

Teaching, coaching and mentoring people is about change. We are constantly shaping and changing their minds. Neil shares how he helps his students grow by bypassing their habitual psychological defences to teach new habits and techniques. KEY TAKEAWAYS The teaching process is fairly consistent, it's about shaping and changing people's minds for the better. The students' sense of identity will embody all sorts of beliefs including morals, self worth and level of talent. It is the teachers job to slip past these defences and re-teach the students an idea of their limits. Pre held misconceptions of, for example, coming from a musical family and believing they must follow suit, perhaps ideas of their lack of talent or they have been playing for years, making little progress, and believe the task impossible. Having students read an affirmative statement that is the opposite of their preconceived idea of their shortcomings. BEST MOMENTS ‘Before a student or a client can effectively absorb and use the information we are trying to put across to them the mind has to be ready to receive it.’ ‘Where the mind goes the body follows.’ ‘That will massively affect the outcome because the student, the client, is gonna try and make those words come true.’ VALUABLE RESOURCES The Tutor Podcast www.Neilcowmeadow.com ABOUT THE HOST Neil Cowmeadow is a maverick peripatetic guitar teacher from Telford with over 19 years’ experience in the business of helping people. Learn how to start, grow and love your business with Neil’s invaluable advice and tips without the buzzwords and BS! CONTACT METHOD [email protected]

In this episode Neil talks about how working in the occupation you love and gaining energy from is difficult to relinquish. In fact, should we really retire at all if we gain so much impetus from a job that we love? KEY TAKEAWAYS We are all at our best when we are useful to other people. The work itself is the reward if you enjoy your job. Why give that up? Don’t let society, or anyone else, talk you into doing less than your best work and especially not into giving it all up. BEST MOMENTS ‘Now that he’s retiring he doesn’t feel useful anymore and it's eating him up inside. I totally get it.’ ‘Is retirement a good thing? Let's suppose that after years of work, challenge and growth, achieved mastery of your craft, you’re at the top of your game and it's still tremendously fun for you. Why would anyone want to stop when you’ve finally got it down like that?’ ‘Given that the vast majority of people hate their jobs, and they’re not having much fun, why would anybody in their right mind take tips like that from unhappy people?’ VALUABLE RESOURCES The Tutor Podcast www.Neilcowmeadow.com ABOUT THE HOST Neil Cowmeadow is a maverick peripatetic guitar teacher from Telford with over 19 years’ experience in the business of helping people. Learn how to start, grow and love your business with Neil’s invaluable advice and tips without the buzzwords and BS! CONTACT METHOD [email protected]

Following on from the last episode of the importance of alternative income streams to support you doing the job you love, Neil explains the options available to you with the BEEP model, your four choices when deciding on the types of extra business you want to adopt. KEY TAKEAWAYS Business/commercial activity (with or without your active involvement.) Earn it through an extra job or tuition fees. Equity. Own assets that increase in value which can be extracted. Passive Investment including dividends or managed property rental income. BEST MOMENTS ‘A single income stream is a big problem. It’s vulnerable, it’s not safe, it’s not secure.’ ‘If you want more money you’ve got to work more hours and you don’t actually set the hourly rate. It’s difficult to negotiate a good increase in your salary or arrange yourself a good bonus.’ ‘Passive 'really for me means hands-off. This income you really don’t have to physically work for.’ VALUABLE RESOURCES The Tutor Podcast www.Neilcowmeadow.com ABOUT THE HOST Neil Cowmeadow is a maverick peripatetic guitar teacher from Telford with over 19 years’ experience in the business of helping people. Learn how to start, grow and love your business with Neil’s invaluable advice and tips without the buzzwords and BS! CONTACT METHOD [email protected]