NEIL COWMEADOW - THE EXPERT GUITAR TEACHER IN TELFORD. GUITAR TEACHER AND AUTHOR. GUITAR LESSONS THAT WORK! DEDICATED TO TEACHING SINCE 1999 - ACCELERATED LEARNING TECHNIQUES: LEARN FASTER, PLAY BETTER, AND UNDERSTAND...

The Thursday Thesis  - 29/09/2016

“It’s what You’re NOT doing that matters...”

Are you too busy making a living to think about building a Life?
I know I was.

Years ago I was so busy holding down a job (an acronym for Just Over Broke, according to Brian Tracy), running a business, and teaching guitar that actually having a life sort-of got pushed to one side.

Like so many other people, I was so busy earning the money to pay for the things I wanted to do, that I didn’t have time to do the things I wanted to do.
How stupid is that?

I forgot that the purpose of my life is to have fun and be happy in what I do.
That was, and is, my Main Thing.
And, as Zig Ziglar put it, “The Main Thing is to keep The Main Thing the Main Thing”.

So, what’s your Main Thing, and what isn’t your Main Thing?

What is it that you are doing, right now, that isn’t your Main Thing but still soaks-up your time and resources?

Because that’s what stands between you and your Main Thing.

And since the things which matter more must never be at the mercy of the things which matter less, then today would be a good day to figure out what matters less, to you.

Once you identify that, the only sane course of action is to stop doing it.
The only choices left to make are how you stop doing it, and how soon.

That’s The Main Thing.
 
© Neil Cowmeadow 2016

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The mile-wide smile on Antonio’s face told me that he was genuinely delighted to scan my basket of fresh vegetables.
Working on the checkout at Tesco isn’t a glamorous job by most people’s standards, yet this guy just oozes happiness from a face that is deeply grooved and sculpted by the habit of laughter.

The saying goes "By the time you are forty, you have the body and face that you deserve".
Your face announces to the world who you have been.

Antonio’s smile is the happy and handsome side-effect of his habit of finding some small delight in anything, even scanning groceries.

How does this work?
Simple, the muscles and soft tissues of your face will adapt themselves to produce your most-used expressions with the least amount of effort, just like any other body-part adapts to routine tasks.

Now it’s a well known fact that smiling releases brain chemicals called endorphins - short for “endogenous morphines” – a natural painkiller which also lowers blood pressure and boosts your immune system.

The best thing is that any smile releases endorphins and sets in motion your hormone merry-go-round: even a forced smile. Regardless of the cause, your smile releases endorphins, and that makes you feel good, which makes you smile more, and so on.

It’s also been proven that frowning, or being around people who frown, produces the stress hormone cortisol – a contributory factor in obesity, high blood pressure, lowered immunity and insomnia.
Frown, and you release a whiff of cortisol into your system, lowering your sense of well-being and bringing you down, quietly slipping your hormone merry-go-round into reverse.

Did you notice that you can control the direction of spin?

Yes, whether you like it or not, you are already on one of the horses, and you have to ride it. But you do get to choose the direction in which the merry-go-round spins - it is always going to be your choice.

So, if you see somebody without a smile – give ‘em one of yours!
Smiles are free, and you can always make more of them.

They're also tax-free.
How big is your smile, right now?
 
© Neil Cowmeadow 2016

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The Thursday Thesis  - 15/09/2016

AKA: The Suzy Effect

“Really...?” The beautiful, elegant redhead blushed as I paid for my second-hand book in the charity shop.
“Yes, utterly!” I smiled, dropping my change into the collection box on the counter. “I’m very fantastic today, and thank you for asking. How fabulous are you?”
She smiled at me, unaccustomed to mud-spattered mountain bikers who grinned, toothily over the till at her.
She giggled and confessed that she was, in fact, “Fabulous, but obviously not as fantastic as you!”

It was, of course, my fault - I'd accidentally spilled some surplus fantasticness over her side of the counter.

It happens.

And, just in case you’re wondering, fantasticness is the secret and irrepressible love of life - that  relentless optimism we generate when we are sure that nobody is watching.

But, the most important thing there is to know about fantasticness is that it’s very hard to keep it under control, and it is dangerously contagious.
Once it leaks out of you, you’ll begin to infect everyone around you with it.
Fabulousity works the same way, but it's a little less fattening.

If I had answered her “How are you, today?” with the commonplace “Alright”, “Not too bad”, or “Ok, I suppose” what would have happened to her mood?

How about if I’d said I was “Struggling on”?

Well, my son - Alex - has a word for how that feels: “Meh!”

It’s a dull, flat-lined "so-what?" kind of a feeling.
Same old, same old.

So, how about being fantastic, instead?
How does that grab you?

How about being fabulous, just for a change?
Say it aloud, and grin like a maniac...
How does that feel?
Pretty cool, huh?

Now add an “intensive modifier” - a word that ratchets-up the force of another word and supercharges your message.
You could use utterly, very, remarkably, staggeringly or – my own personal favourite – scintillatingly, just to get yourself started.
I mean, how good would you feel telling the next person who asked how you were, that you were “utterly fabulous” and then thanking them for asking?
And how would they respond to you?
How would your partner, spouse or child respond to you being “scintillatingly marvellous” when you called home, just to say hello because you were thinking about them?
You’d be able to hear them smiling.
Then ask them how fantastic they are today - what are they going to say and feel?

One of my students – Let’s call her Suzy - always answers the “how are you” question with “Ooh... now that’s a great question, because today I’m exquisitely bijou, but the forecast is for outbreaks of unconditional chirpiness during the afternoon.
Thank you for asking, you're so kind. How fantastic are you today?”

She invariably serves up a free side-order of smiley-face with that answer, and usually finds that she’s talking to someone who feels strangely compelled to describe themselves as “brilliant”, yet who seems bewildered that they should suddenly feel so good.
By the way, bijou means “small and delicately worked... a trinket”. Did you notice how adding “exquisitely” just intensified and deepened that idea.
Now imagine meeting someone who also embodies those qualities.

It’s no wonder that everyone she meets seems to be either brilliant or fantastic. I believe that she leaves an invisible vapour-trail of fantasticness wherever she goes, even if that’s just buying a packet of Polos at the corner shop.
You see, you can't help but respond to The Suzy Effect.

So, I have a teeny-tiny-little, itty-bitty dare for you... really small, and completely free.
It involves you, your most dazzling smile, and a generous portion of fantasticness; all served warm and garnished with a smidgen of fabulousity.
I dare you to give an extravagant, ridiculously over-the-top answer the next time someone asks how you are.

Now, remember that you’ll only be pretending to be fantastic, fabulous, bejewelled or kaleidoscopic (or any number of those things), so it’s not lying or deluding yourself – you’re just pretending and having a little fun.

So, get out there and do the dare, and please let me know how it goes.

I double-dare you! 
 
© Neil Cowmeadow 2016

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Neil@cowtownguitars.net

The Thursday ThoughtCast  - 08/09/2016.

“The Best Testimonial – Ever!”

...And when James said “I can’t believe it, it’s too easy”, he told me exactly what was happening in his mind.

You and I both know that the words people use when they speak automatically broadcast their thoughts to us, so we listen closely.

James’ off-handed remark told me that he couldn’t square-up the evidence of his own hands, eyes and ears with the idea of difficulty he’d had in his mind for years.

The problem wasn’t the subject matter – even though James had been trying to understand the conventional explanations for over a decade.

No, the real problem was that James’ mind was being scrambled by the explanation – because it was TOO easy, and that made it wrong for him.

My simple teaching gadget snapped everything into pin-sharp focus and violated James’s mental rules of how things were supposed to be.

Instead of the problem of confusion, which he had grown up with and had come to expect, he had the new problem of clarity and concision.

What a great problem to have!

The real problem was the mismatch between what James now understood and what he thought was proper for him: his unconscious idea of what was normal.

You see, “Easy” is just easy - but “too easy” is weird... “too easy” is a problem.

That’s because when you say the word “too” it silently imposes pre-conceived limits and external standards on you.

“Too...” means there’s a problem, it means there’s something wrong... but you just don’t know what it is, yet.

You’re looking for the concealed down- side, aren’t you?

Can you imagine someone who is too nice, or too good for you...?

If they’re too nice, it stands to reason that they must be hiding something nasty, doesn’t it?

Words such as “too, enough, proper, and right” are normative language and it’s the silent enforcer of normality and standards– usually other people’s standards.

Normative language tells us what is acceptable and proper for us, and unless we are alert to its silent power, we are easily infected and influenced by other people’s ideas of what is proper for us.

Using words like “too, proper, and enough” can make good things feel wrong. They will even try to make you feel guilty for having too much fun, for being too happy, for earning too much money, or being too caring...

But tear out the “Too” from “Too easy” and all that’s left is plain-old easy.

That one little thing might change your life.

Let go of your expectation of difficulty and learn to expect easy, to welcome better, and to enjoy more...

And, please - don’t be like the frustrated guitar player who ended our first session together by giving me the Best Testimonial a teacher could ask for - EVER!

He thanked me for my time, but refused to study with me because, as he put it: “...You’re going to make it too easy and take away all of the challenges and difficulties from me.”

Wow!

You couldn’t make it up!

If only I could have got him on video saying that...
 

“Too easy, or just plain-old easy?
You decide.

© Neil Cowmeadow 2016
 
 
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The Thursday Thesis  - 01/09/2016

“Challenge is inevitable, defeat is optional”

I got excited about Steve’s long list of “problems”, but he wanted to give up on his dream.

He paused in his tale of woe, and said “You know, one day I’ll look back on this and laugh, but-“

“But why wait?” I cut in, “You don’t have any problems – you only have opportunities”.

Steve said that I’d completely missed the point: opportunities, indeed!

But what if you saw a problem as a gift, a challenge as a nudge, and a failure as a kindly whisper from a friend...

Everyone knows that a problem or twelve will show up when you’re doing something worth doing. But not everyone knows that it’s just life, checking whether you’re serious or not.
It’s not personal, and the Universe is not conspiring to stop you – honest!
I mean, come on - let’s have a sense of proportion, here - The Universe is way too big and too busy to be bothered with you and me: The Universe has better things to do.

So, what you do with your “Problem” is entirely up to you.
You can let it stop, stall or steer you.
You choose.

Henry Ford believed that a failure was really an opportunity to more intelligently begin again; and Thomas Edison believed that there were no failures, only feedback.

My old boss told me to “fail fast, learn fast, fail better.”

Each “Problem” was a chance to eliminate what didn’t work, and to replace it with something that might work better, he said. Sooner or later I’d run out of ways to fail - all I’d have to do was keep trying, keep working on it.

And what I once thought of as problems became opportunities, dressed in working clothes.

A “Problem” is simply feedback we don’t like: it’s the inconvenience of reality intruding into our plans.

Our “Problem” is trying to tell us something, to help us by flagging us down and pointing out that what we’re currently doing isn’t working, suggesting that we take a better route.

“Problems” are friendly - but unwelcome - signposts, pointing out that we’re going the wrong way and trying to nudge us toward where we want to go.

Our “Big Problem” is The Real World stamping its foot and letting us know that it isn’t going along with our current plan - so we’d better wake up and smell the coffee, damn it!

The road to success is littered with obstacles, challenges and tests to eliminate those who are not serious. But those challenges and problems are only temporary, unless we mistake them for life’s final decision, and accept that it’s all over.

Defeat is one of many options available to us, but it is not the only option.


What’s your biggest opportunity to more intelligently begin again, armed with better information?
 
 
© Neil Cowmeadow 2016
Please  Like and Share The Thursday Thesis with your friends, family, and anyone else.
I’d love to hear your comments, along with any ideas you’d care to hurl at me.
Neil@cowtownguitars.net