The Thursday Thesis - 30/08/2018
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Episode 113 - 8 Hours a Day... The Thursday Thesis - 23/08/2018 For as long as I can remember I’ve been interested in sleep. Sleep fascinates me. More accurately I’ve been interested in doing without sleep for most of my adult life. As a kid I tried to stay awake all night - night after night – in the hope that I’d be able somehow to forget to sleep once I’d established the habit. I reasoned that if I could eliminate sleep from my routine I’d have more time to read and learn, then I’d eventually know everything and life would be better. It’s funny what you believe as a kid, isn’t it? But, to a certain extent I still have the idea in my tiny, pea-sized brain, and I still have a load of unanswered questions about sleep:
Today I’m just going to stick to question 11 – “Who says we should sleep for 8 hours a day?” Well, first of all, my mum did. But I wasn’t going to take it at face value, so for years I experimented with sleep patterns of varying lengths whilst I worked shifts at a busy casino in Birmingham. Some days I’d get a long eight hour-ish sleep, and sometimes I’d only sleep 3 or 4 hours between 14 hour double shifts, bookended by my 20 miles there, twenty miles back cycle ride into the city. Ever since then I’ve slept only 5 hours a night, and I’m not alone in this – several of my friends are short-sleepers, too. Medicine would probably tell us to try to get 8 hours... Why 8 Hours? It seems to have evolved since the 17th century, when street-lamps were installed in Paris, Amsterdam, and London. With the coming of streetlights, being abroad at night became less dangerous, and mentions of the traditional/natural two-phase sleep pattern began to fade from contemporary literature and documents. Humans were – until that time – accustomed to a two-part, or “biphasic” sleep pattern, with a “First Sleep” of around four hours, a period of two or three hours of wakefulness, then a “Second Sleep” lasting another four hours or so. This appears to be the natural way we sleep, according to psychiatrist Thomas Wehr. Wehr observed a group of volunteers subjected to 14 hours per day of darkness. Within a few weeks, the group adopted the two-sleep routine without any prior knowledge of it, suggesting that this pattern is a biological norm when artificial light is absent. But that’s still eight hours of sleep every day, which seems to be a lot. Eight hours kip is a third of my life, and I’ve got better things to do with my time than have strange dreams, snore and suspend breathing for long periods of time before violently sucking in air like a man surfacing from a deep lake. So now I sleep between 3 and 4 hours a night, but take one or two naps of 8-10 minutes each during the day, multiple-sleep pattern is known as “polyphasic sleep”. This means that my total time spent sleeping every day is only 4.5 hours per day, saving me 3.5 hours per day compared to the monophasic 8-hour model. So, 7 days a week I have an extra 3.5 hours of awake time: that’s 24.5 hours more awake time, every week – an eight-day week! Is this good? Maybe... I get a lot done, but there are downsides, too: society isn’t geared-up for oddballs with unconventional sleeping habits, and no sane woman is going to put up with my crazy nocturnal habits. Now, if I could just eliminate the residual sleep I do need, I’d have time to think up a solution to that problem... It’s just a thought, but everything begins with a single thought... © Neil Cowmeadow 2018
Please Like and Share The Thursday Thesis with your friends, family, your cat, unicorn and anyone else. I’d love to hear your comments, along with any ideas you’d care to hurl at me. info@NeilCowmeadow.com Episode 112 - Losing My Religion
The Thursday Thesis - 06/08/2018 You - like me, and like pretty much everyone else around us - grew up in the shadow of Science and Mathematics , the so-called “Queen of the Sciences”. To keep it simple, I’ll lump Mathematics and Science together and call them “Science”. Science was drummed into us in school and was generally considered to be a very good thing indeed. Our science teachers were – at least to me – the keepers of The Knowledge – handing down morsels of erudition from the high table of the great minds: Newton, Einstein, Rutherford, Darwin, and the rest of that rabble. In the absence of evidence for other people’s gods, science became my god – because it made everything understandable with its Laws and Universal Constants. Then there was this thing called The Scientific Method – this is the route by which ideas are suggested, tested, reviewed and proven. It goes something like this: let’s say that I have a brilliant idea (stop giggling, because it could happen) a spark of genius so dazzling that it will change the world forever. I cobble together an experiment that proves my idea to be an absolute belter and I write a properly formatted scientific paper and send it off to other scientists for “peer review”: this is their chance to poke holes in my idea and prove me wrong. This is a good thing: giving other people the chance to disprove my idea, or “falsify” it is Science’s way to eliminate the unworthy. In Science, nobody gets a pass and every new theory has to stand up to scrutiny. Now, just to add a bit of intrigue, I’ll mention that theft is common within the peer-review process and there are plenty of well-documented cases of intellectual theft in the history of Science. This is not just a modern problem where vast amounts of money, job security and fame are at stake. In fact, Newton seems to have been a particularly good thief – and, as President of The Royal Society at the time - he could behave more-or-less as he pleased and knobble anyone who stood in his way. “Why are you banging on about peer-review?” you ask impatiently. Well, here’s the thing: Scientists are reviewing new theories and ideas from the standpoint of Science, and there are jobs, money and prestige at stake. Now, if I show up with my brilliant idea and change everything, then the Scientists reviewing my work are suddenly out of work. That’s where my faith in Science faltered and fell: the gatekeepers appear to be more interested in protecting their positions, incomes and the status quo than expanding the range of human understanding. Real scientists follow the observable facts – the data – rather than dismiss the data because Science says that the data is wrong. And God forbid that any data breaks Science’s Laws makes it through peer-review: these strange phenomena are called “anomalous” and conveniently parked out at the fringes of mainstream Science, rather than dragged into the centre. Anomalous data are a challenge to what we think we know, a red flag that there’s a hole in the theory or that the Laws of Science are not really laws but entrenched ideas that demand to be updated. That’s how Science – if it is to be worthy of the name – should be done: fact should determine theory, rather than the theory determining the permissible facts. The current darling of Science, Quantum Theory, is busily attempting ever more tortuous ways of explaining everything in terms of itself, instead of holding its hands up and saying “buggered if we know” when confronted with the apparent paradoxes of what we understand as the real Universe. Science has no clue at all about remote action at a distance, which defies the Law that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, and is at a loss to explain the observer effect, where the mere presence of a human being will affect the outcome of an experiment - depending on the human’s intention for the experiment. Then there are the well-documented cases of remote viewing, precognition, the power of meditation to control machines – not to mention all those inventions that have been confiscated and disappeared from the public records. And there’s Dark Energy and Dark matter, where “Dark” means “we can’t find it or explain it, but we think or know it’s there or should be there. And please, please, please don’t get me started on medicine that hasn’t been able to do a thing for a person’s chronic pain for thirty-plus years, but I can turn off that pain in a few minutes. And then there is the problem of Universal Constants... The problem with Universal Constants (like “Big G”, or G – the gravitational force - and C, the speed of light on a vacuum) is that they change. Science has fixed the speed of light problem by creating a circular reference, rather than facing up to the fact that it ain’t a constant at all. In short, Science is lying to itself and to you and I about the speed of light – and if it’s lying about that, getting caught in that might lead you to ask what else it’s fibbing about. You see, Science doesn’t know everything – not by a long chalk – but it pretends to. Things that happen but which break the Laws of Science are too often shut-down in peer review or dismissed as anomalous data. That’s why I don’t believe in Science any more: it is a useful tool, as far as it goes, but it doesn’t cover everything. And it’s a dangerous situation where a single point of view dominates the discourse and intellectual fascism rules. Science lays claim to absolute knowledge, when all it really has is a rag-bag of contingent theories that don’t always meet the challenges presented by observations of reality. Science is no longer my religion and my faith, but is - at best - a rabble of dubious dogma fit to be debunked by a long, cold examination of the evidence. Science is a self-reinforcing belief system – a fundamentalist religious sect, able only to see with its own eyes, narrowing its perspective day by day. Belief – certainty, often without evidence – is static, ossified, and immovable. Logic and reason cannot assail it, because belief is irrational and not subject to examination. And belief is the barrier to understanding. Belief is the full-stop that ends thought. And everything begins with a single thought... © Neil Cowmeadow 2018 Please Like and Share The Thursday Thesis with your friends, family, your cat, unicorn and anyone else. I’d love to hear your comments, along with any ideas you’d care to hurl at me. info@NeilCowmeadow.com The Thursday Thesis - 09/08/2018 Say the words “I am” and your entire nervous system stands to attention. Tell me what you do and I’ll likely drift off to sleep... It’s a funny thing, but when you think of those two statements the chances are that you’ll conflate them down to being the same thing – even though they are chalk and cheese to anyone interested in making changes to their lives and behaviours. Here’s why they are different: “I do” is an activity statement, whilst “I am” is an identity statement. Whenever we say that we do something we are just talking about an activity, a behaviour pattern: it’s just something we do. For example, when someone tells me that they play guitar, they are telling me what they do. This is different to when someone tells me that they are a guitarist: in this case they are telling me that playing guitar is a vital part of who they consider themselves to be. The same goes for a person who repeatedly puts lighted cigarettes in their mouth but wants my help to stop doing it. The subject who tells me that she “...is a smoker” or says “I am addicted to cigarettes...” has made smoking a part of who she believes herself to be. Making a change to her identity will be challenging and painful (for her) because it places her sense of self under threat: we all fight like demons to preserve our sense of self and what is right and proper for us. Contrast this with the same person who says “...I smoke 20 cigarettes every day” or “...I have a smoke at break-time when I am at work”. This person is recognising – probably below the level of her conscious awareness – that smoking is just something she does. In this case smoking is not part of her identity, so change will be easier to implement and maintain because it conveys no threat to her sense of self. So what? Here’s the cool part: if you consciously make the things you want part of your identity, they will feel much easier to accept into your life and to integrate with other aspects of who you feel yourself to be. Likewise, changing your unwanted behaviours can be made easier by de-coupling them from your sense of self. Both of these routes are driven by language patterns and your sense of identity; simply changing the words nudges your behaviour either towards what you want or away from what you don’t want, and this is one of the reasons why daily journaling, affirmations and goal-setting are so effective. The daily re-statement of desired outcomes, statements made in terms of our identity, realigns our sense of who we are and what is right and proper for us. In essence, we believe the lies we tell ourselves about who we are and how the world is. Try this for yourself, right now: say out loud “I am a singer”, and just notice how that feels, deep down inside... Now say “I do sing, from time to time” and notice how that feels, deep down inside of yourself. There’s a big difference between how those two statements make you feel. Unless you are already a singer, the “I am a singer” statement will probably feel bigger, more significant and more uncomfortable that the “I do sing...” statement. After all, singing is just something you do, isn’t it. This is why we resist the thing we want, rather than integrate it into our identity and do it more whilst having more fun along the way. And here’s a little sidebar to stir into the mix: some people will add a situational qualification to their behaviour and constrain it to a place or time when it is acceptable – for example, singing might only be OK when we are in the shower, driving the car, or when nobody else is at home. So what do you say about yourself, and what does that say about you? I used to say (jokingly) that I was a good guy who did bad things – just to even things out. The problem is that my tiny, pea-sized brain doesn’t have a sense of humour and interpreted the joke as a mission statement, with disastrous and life-changing consequences. D’oh! Now I remind myself that I’m a good man who does good things. And it’s getting better. Everything begins with a single thought...
© Neil Cowmeadow 2018 Please Like and Share The Thursday Thesis with your friends, family, your cat, unicorn and anyone else. I’d love to hear your comments, along with any ideas you’d care to hurl at me. info@NeilCowmeadow.com The Thursday Thesis - 02/08/2018
Episode 109 - No, Yes But, Yes And...
The Thursday Thesis - 26/07/2018 All I suggested was that we should go out for a coffee, so how did we end up here – flying a hang-glider over the snow-capped mountains, in search of owls? It must have been something I said, or she said, or both... Yes, I was on yet another course – learning more interesting “stuff” to add to the rag-bag of other people’s brilliance and the random churning of pig-headedness that pass for my mind – and now that what I learned there has been stirred into the melange and fermented... I was told to ask my play-buddy out on a first date, and we were instructed by the course leader, Claire, to answer each other with the word “No...” and then our reasons why not. It didn’t go well: within a few minutes of “no” after “no” I was done. My usual state of boundless, puppy-dog energy was flagging and my self esteem was down around my ankles. We traded places and revenge was mine! Frustration reigned and we were both battered by rejection. Claire gleefully pointed out that hearing someone say “no” to us and our opportunities – especially the incredible prospect of going out on a date with me (she didn’t actually say that a date with me was a great opportunity, but I knew that’s what she meant) – would quickly shut us down and train us to not bother asking again. Life’s like that: if you keep saying “no” to doing good stuff and life will stop offering you the chance to play. It got a little better in the next game, when we were invited to play the scenario again, but answer “yes, but...” and give a conditional response. This was simply annoying. “Would you like to meet up for coffee and to talk for a while?” She asked. “Yes, but only if we can meet at a place that serves real Italian coffee.” I said. “Yes, but Italian coffee makes me woozy, so how about Costa, on New Market Street?” “Yes, but Costa is a big chain and it’s totally un-authentic” I countered “Can we go somewhere with a more personal vibe?” Grrr – frustrating! Every opportunity was accepted, then modified or a condition attached. My play-buddy was annoyed by my evasiveness. We swapped sides and she immediately began to get on my nerves. I felt like I was trying to nail a blancmange to the ceiling: no matter what I suggested, she always dodged and added a condition. Claire stepped in before the violence began, suggesting that we try to get a date one more time, but always answer each other with “Yes, and...” and to see what happened. “Would you like to meet up for coffee and have a chat?” I asked. “Yes, and perhaps a Panini for lunch, too?” “Yes, and then we’d probably need – just for research purposes, you understand – a nice pastry or a very, very small dessert to polish it off. What do you think?” “Yes, and then perhaps we could take a walk by the river and enjoy the late afternoon sunshine?” “Yes, and if we’re having fun we could watch the sunset and listen to the owls waking up: I love owls” “Yes, and...” I don’t remember exactly how we ended up flying a hang-glider or where the snow-capped mountains were, but we laughed and egged one another on to make the hypothetical date exhilarating and exciting. That’s what happens when we say “Yes, and...” our brains get all creative and stuff, they begin to play and invent, to sniff out opportunities and possibilities. So, are you having a fabulous day? Answer “Yes, and..” and see where it takes you – you might be pleasantly flabbergasted. © Neil Cowmeadow 2018 Please Like and Share The Thursday Thesis with your friends, family, your cat, unicorn and anyone else. I’d love to hear your comments, along with any ideas you’d care to hurl at me. info@NeilCowmeadow.com Episode 108 - Your Inner Thermostat The Thursday Thesis - 19/07/2018 Deep, deep down inside of you and I there is a something resembling a thermostat. It’s just like the thermostat which governs your hot water, central heating or air conditioning. It’s the thermostat which governs us: I call it an “Innerstat”. Now, a household thermostat is a device which responds to changes in temperature (thermo) and produces a response from an attached system – say, a heater or fan unit – to restore and stabilise (static) the temperature to a pre-determined value. Thermostats are marvellous domestic gadgets, taking care of the tedious business of maintaining a stable temperature at whatever comfort level we dial-in: that’s what they are for. But our Innerstats – our internal “thermostats” - are perhaps not such a great idea. They are trying to keep us the same as we are: to resist change and challenge. This means that we will have our innerstats set for comfortable levels of health, wealth, confidence, performance, intimacy – pretty much every aspect of how we behave. And that’s the problem: every time we act in a way which is outside of the acceptable limits of our Innerstat, our Innerstat will initiate a response to restore us to our default, pre-set value or level of performance. This is a double-edged sword So, if we receive a bonus or an unexpected windfall that moves us outside of our acceptable level of wealth or income, the chances are that we’ll immediately figure out ways to be rid of the money. Maybe we’ll splash out on a new car, jewellery, a bigger home – it doesn’t matter, really. We probably won’t even notice the peculiar compulsion to blow the money: it just seems that the money “burns a hole in your pocket”. That compulsion is our instinctive response to something which is badly out of whack: it’s a drive to stay the same, to operate within our comfort zone and stay true to our concept of who we are. Out Innerstats are setting us up to sabotage ourselves, just so we can stay true to our own opinions of ourselves. How mad is that? If we don’t manage our Innerstats, they will manage us: and they’ll do it all without us even noticing what’s going on, just below the threshold of our attention. Whether you are operating above or below your default values for anything, the outcome will be behaviour designed to restore what you think is right and proper for you. If what you have is “too good”, you may begin to sabotage your situation in order to restore normality: if what you have “isn’t good enough”, you’ll probably begin to scramble frantically to restore order and your idea of what is acceptable. Putting on too much weight and wanting to start dieting or working-out is an obvious example of this phenomenon. We can manage our Innerstats, but it takes a little time to determine their initial settings and a little more time to make repeated adjustments to those settings. Money is a good example of how this works. Let’s say that you earn £25,000 per year and begin to look for another job. Research indicates that you’ll tend to apply only for the jobs whose salary is around 10% of your current salary, and that you’ll be deterred from applying for positions whose salary is outside of that range, even if you are a good fit for the job with the big salary increase. Small changes of around +/- 10% are not significant enough to trigger our Innerstats and initiate sabotage or scrambling behaviours. If our sub-10% change is positive, that’s very good news, because the new higher value will become our new normal, over time. It’s just like edging your heating’s thermostat up half a degree at regular intervals. The easiest way to edge up your Innerstats’ settings is by deliberately thinking of what you want, and making those thoughts your new “normal”, or default, settings. You see, our brains have a lot of trouble distinguishing between imagination and reality (there’s no such thing as reality, by the way), and this is a loophole that we can exploit in order to manipulate ourselves. Is it wrong to manipulate ourselves? Absolutely not – and best of all, it’s ridiculously easy. Just write down what you want – in detail – on a card that you carry in your wallet or purse, and place it so that it is visible every time you pay for something. So, if you want to raise your income from £25k to £40k, write “I earn and deseve £40,000 per year, after tax”; for your other desires, write a similar statement of fact, in the present tense. Then, read the statements on your card out aloud at least twice a day. When I'm teaching guitar or working with coaching clients and mentees, we spend time re-calibrating their Innerstats for playing guitar, business success and positive mindset, because it's obvious that a negatively maladjusted Innerstat will slow progress and sabotage success. I think you’ll agree that it’s perfectly legit to manipulate ourselves in pursuit of a worthy goal, such as a better life or higher income, deeper relationships, etc. And we would probably also agree that it’s dead wrong to manipulate someone else to conform to your will, in opposition to their own best interests. So, get busy manipulating and influencing you Innerstats to re-calibrate what you’ll settle for and have in your life. Happy Knob-twiddling! © Neil Cowmeadow 2018
Please Like and Share The Thursday Thesis with your friends, family, your cat, unicorn and anyone else. I’d love to hear your comments, along with any ideas you’d care to hurl at me. info@NeilCowmeadow.com Episode 107 - Want, Should and Gonna
The Thursday Thesis - 12/07/2018 “Michael, what do you want?” As a coach, that’s my killer question, and it really is the killer question in life, isn’t it? As our session continued, my question morphed into several, subtler variations, aiming to pick out what Michael was serious about, what was just a fantasy, and which of his answers were just other people’s plans for him. You see, we all have wants and wishes, but the chances are that we won’t end up with the things we want. Why is that? There are three levels of desire, as far as I can tell:
Those three levels of desire are based on the words we use to describe what we want. I’d go as far as saying that the elusively obvious truth is that our words are cues to what really matters, as well as dead-giveaway cues to our relative levels of desire, motivation and certainty. A wish or a want is a nice-to-have-it sort of desire: we’d like to write a Christmas number one record or wish we could win the lottery, but... That “want” is a wishy-washy kind of desire – it simply isn’t strong enough to compel us to take massive, determined and focused action over time. A “want” won’t cook the rice, as the old saying goes. And as for wishes – don’t waste your time wishing for anything. Write that wish off as a pleasant daydream with precisely zero chance of it ever coming true, because that’s what a wish is. Wanting and wishing will have you coming up empty every time, because there’s no action to back them up. And action is the key. Getting off your arse and doing something about your own life and how you want to live it will move you – imperceptibly at first – in the direction of your dreams and desires. But to inspire yourself to take action you have to focus and intensify that simple want and that nebulous wish into a desire. Our personal energy is like sunshine: unfocused, we can warm a wide area of the earth. Only when we are able to gather and concentrate that energy – like sunshine through a magnifying lens – can we begin to make massive progress. Our warming sunlight can become a blazing dot of searing heat, but we need the lens to do it. So, what is the lens for personal power and achievement? I’ll tell you in a little while, after we deal with the red-herrings of all the goals we “should” and “ought to” go for. “Red-herrings?” you say. Yes, a red-herring: a false or misleading idea or thing; a device of deception. Our should and oughta goals are not really our goals: they are somebody else’s goals, or our idea of what would be acceptable to somebody else. Whether it’s a societal expectation or the desire to match-up to another person’s expectations, those outcomes are almost always expressed as “should” or “oughta”. We might achieve those goals, but we’ll invariably find that to be a hollow achievement. Think of the executive climbing the corporate ladder for decades, finally making it to the boardroom or the CEO position, only to realise that the ladder they fought so hard to climb was not leaning against anything that they, themselves, actually gave a hoot about? Here’s another thing to consider about should and oughtas – especially if you are running a team or a relationship: if someone is pushed or coerced into complying with your wishes, then you may get your project over the line or hit your target. But – and it’s a big but – expect resistance from the team or your partner along the way: there will be pushback and passive resistance any time you are forcing the issue or compelling someone to do something they are not comfortable with or aligned with. Pressed people will get even, sooner or later. So it’s safe to say that the things we should and oughta do are being verbally flagged for our attention by the words we use. Once you perceive those cues you can set about doing something that matters to you, rather than chasing someone else’s bus. Pay attention to the words... Finally there are our highest, most puissant desires – out Gottas and our Musts. These are the ones that count, and the ones that have a chance of actually happening. The moment we decide that it’s GOTTA happen, that we absolutely MUST get it done – no matter what it takes - we are much more likely to commit ourselves to taking action and making things happen. Our moments of decision are the moments in which everything changes: the change begins as a change of state, a change of heart or a change of mind, and from that moment we are never the same again. Once your attention is focused on the goal you Must have, the you’ve Gotta do, then you begin to navigate the world based upon that goal, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy of success. But this will not be easy. Goal oriented people are not like anyone else, they are changelings, and they will not be controlled or subdued, they are a tribe apart, a primal force of relentless energy - all eyes on the prize, all attention focused. So here’s the thing: what do you want? How you talk about it, especially to yourself, will be an accurate predictor of whether or not you will get what you want - that's why your words are the lens that focuses your attention. Just like a magnifying glass gathering sunshine into a pinprick of ubearable heat, the right words can gather your attention and focus your energy into a tiny dot of unstoppable power. Pay close attention to your words, they may be trying to tell you something. © Neil Cowmeadow 2018 Please Like and Share The Thursday Thesis with your friends, family, your cat, unicorn and anyone else. I’d love to hear your comments, along with any ideas you’d care to hurl at me. info@NeilCowmeadow.com The Thursday Thesis - 5/07/2018 “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” I’m writing this on the 4th of July, the traditional - but erroneous – date on which the United States of America celebrates its declaration of Independence from British rule. Now, it’s a little-known fact that the embryonic United States actually declared themselves independent from Britain – not on the 4th of July – but on the 2nd of July 1776. Why the delay? Paperwork. Yep, it took two whole days for the Second Continental Congress to sign-off the Declaration of Independence, as drafted by Thomas Jefferson and the “Committee of Five”. That two-day delay is the reason America shuts down for a holiday on the 4th of July, rather than the 2nd. An American friend told me “...that piece of paper changed everything”, and she was right – except that she wasn’t. The piece of paper changed nothing – all the heavy lifting work was done by the words on that piece of paper. With only words, the drafting committee changed the World. Putting their beliefs and intentions down on paper transformed ideas into concrete principles and gave the thoughts of the committee members a sort of eternal life. Words change stuff. The right words change things for the better - the wrong words... American scholar Noam Chomsky theorises that communication has two levels: the Deep Structure is the meaning to be conveyed, whilst the Surface Structure is the form of words used to convey the Deep Structure. Think about that for a moment. Think about the deep, broad, unbounded and unfathomable bond, the innate emotional connection between a parent and child or between lifelong partners. Love is too small a word for it, yet Love is the universal shorthand for it - in all of its stark simplicity and its infinite, baffling complexity. Words change everything, especially the words we say about ourselves: they are the way we tell The World who we are, and – more importantly – we tell ourselves who we are. The words “I do” change who we are in society if spoken in a marriage ceremony. And the words “I am” change who we are in our own world. Whatever you say about yourself, you will conform to it, because it is well known that we become what we think about most of the time. Tell yourself you can’t do something, and you’re probably right. But tell yourself you won’t quit until you’ve done it, and that’s a whole new ball game. “So...” I hear you mutter, “...what’s this go to do with Independence Day?” I’m glad you asked: it’s got everything to do with Independence Day. Without the words on paper which told America what she was and what she believed in, which gave her an identity, America would have remained a resentful colony of England. And what’s this got to do with you and me on the 4th of July? Everything. Today and every day, we – like America - can declare our own state of independence, using our own words, not the dogma and helplessness of the zealots and the doomsayers, or the indifference of dullards. What words would you like to speak, write, sing, sign or dance about yourself? With our very words we summon our own realities You and I are conjurors incanting “Abracadabra!” © Neil Cowmeadow 2018 Please Like and Share The Thursday Thesis with your friends, family, your cat, unicorn and anyone else. I’d love to hear your comments, along with any ideas you’d care to hurl at me. info@NeilCowmeadow.com Episode 105 - Reality Check
The Thursday Thesis - 28/06/2018 “If only they’d said...” You know how it goes, don’t you? Your gut has been telling you for ages that something isn’t right, and it’s finally reached the point where somebody mentions the “elephant in the room”, the great-big problem that everybody knows about, deep down, but nobody wants to talk about. For weeks, months – perhaps even for years – the great grey pachyderm is skirted around, ignored and pretended out of mind. The problem is that reality has a habit of poking its nose in where we’d really rather it didn’t. When that happens, the secret’s out and the bad news is travelling faster than the speed of light. But, often, when the bad news hits you, it’s usually a relief. For one thing, there’ll be no more elephant-dodging, no hoping that somebody else will blink first in the game of looking-through-the-elephant that you’ve been skilfully engaged in for all that time. There’s no more stand-off with the truth. When the faecal matter finally hits the rotary air circulator, the mess is made and you can start cleaning up. If only they’d said something earlier... Former General Electric CEO, Jack Welch, is famous for asking his staff “What’s the reality here?” It’s a great question – it doesn’t presuppose that everything is awesome, and it doesn’t assume that everything is wrong, either. It just asks for an objective assessment of the situation, just the facts. Getting a handle on the reality of any situation is always, always better than trying to react to non-facts, half-truths and pretending. The sooner you get the facts, the sooner you can take appropriate action and create better outcomes. There may be uncomfortable moments. There may be difficult conversations. And yes, there may even be tears. But wouldn’t you rather have those difficult talks sooner, have the uncomfortable moments, and perhaps shed the tears, than to spend your time waiting in dread for them to arrive – spending your present time inhabiting a future you hope will never come? Ask the question, “What’s the reality here?” If your counterpart feels safe enough you might be lucky enough to find out what’s going on – and together you can deal with reality, before it becomes a crisis. And it applies to us, too – as individuals – when we are trying to get clear about our own lives. If we apply The Reality Principle to ourselves, we open ourselves up to being more objective, to square-up and meet situations that are not the way we planned them, long before we are about to be flattened by a rapidly-approaching deadline. If we can get the facts, we may still have time enough to fix things. Now, wouldn’t that be a relief? © Neil Cowmeadow 2018 Please Like and Share The Thursday Thesis with your friends, family, your cat, unicorn and anyone else. I’d love to hear your comments, along with any ideas you’d care to hurl at me. info@NeilCowmeadow.com Episode 104 - Resistance is Futile
The Thursday Thesis - 21/06/2018 And then the alien bellowed “Resistance is futile, earthling!” I used to love those old black and white sci-fi B-movies – the ones with titles like The Day The Earth Stood Still, Plan 9 from Outer Space, and the wonderful Invaders From Mars – when they cropped up on the BBC, late at night. Resistance may be futile in the face of Gort, the inscrutable giant robot in The Day the Earth Stood Still, but what I’m thinking about today is a different kind of resistance: not a fictional alien threat arriving from outer space, but a real and thoroughly human kind of Resistance. Call it Fear, call it procrastination, call it what you will – whatever stops you from beginning that one thing you’ve always said you’d do some day – that’s Resisatance. Perhaps the author Stephen Pressfield put it best in his book The War of Art: “Resistance is experienced as fear; the degree of fear equates to the strength of Resistance. Therefore the more fear we feel about a specific enterprise, the more certain we can be that that enterprise is important to us and to the growth of our soul. That's why we feel so much Resistance. If it meant nothing to us, there'd be no Resistance.” A man could catch religion from reading a thing like that... “Fear is good... fear is an indicator. Fear tells us what we have to do...The more scared we are of a work or calling, the more sure we can be that we have to do it.” The thing that matters most to us, you and I, is the thing we are least likely to do. It’s absurd and messed-up, but it’s the truth, nonetheless. Why do we fear to do the thing that matters most to us? Because it matters to us. Does it matter to anyone else, your mum and dad, your old schoolteacher, the lady in the corner shop? No, of course not! Most of these people are utterly indifferent to what you do: come to think of it, most of the people on the planet don’t care at all about what you are doing. If you knew how little time other people spent thinking about you and your stuff, you’d be disappointed: most of them don’t think of you at all you’re not around. Seriously. The Universe doesn’t give a toss about you – so what are you afraid of? The Universe is way too busy to notice anything we are likely to do, create, build, or invent – it’s just too big, too busy and too dark to know we even exist. All that Resistance comes from inside of you and inside of me; but here’s the thing about Resistance: it’s useful. Resistance can guide us and point us in the direction we already know we want to go. When we feel the fear and the repulsive force that stirs in us when we contemplate the big thing that matters to us, I believe it’s a strong indicator of the direction we must go. If the thing scares us – we must go towards it. We must go resolutely towards it and brave the pushback and fear that is Resistance. Our degree of fear will ratchet up as the significance and importance of the task rises – as it becomes more personally significant to us. Resistance is our Pole Star – the True North of our lives. Let’s see where our compass points and set our course towards the dark black heart of Resistance, through the badlands, deserts and jungles where the bandits, dragons and wraiths lie in wait for us... What scares you most? Ask yourself; What would you dare to do, if failure was impossible? What would you dare to do, if your ultimate success was assured? What is the biggest, most audacious thing you can imagine doing? That’s what you should do. Link to: The War of Art © Neil Cowmeadow 2018 Please Like and Share The Thursday Thesis with your friends, family, your cat, unicorn and anyone else. I’d love to hear your comments, along with any ideas you’d care to hurl at me. info@NeilCowmeadow.com Episode 103 - What's In The Box? The Thursday Thesis - 13/06/2018 Of all the things a state’s education system has to be good at, top of the list has to be imposing conformity, suppressing new ideas and discouraging critical thinking. No wonder Tony Blair was a big fan of Education. But when you impose conformity and suppress new ideas, you inevitably kill imagination and murder Play. And when The Right Way to do something is dogmatically enforced, and when non-compliance is punished, children shut themselves down to avoid negative consequences. That’s what school does to kids. An American study found that 98% of pre-schoolers described themselves as highly creative – that’s exactly what we’d expect if we watched a bunch of kids for any length of time: they have no limits on their play or their imaginations. But put the little ‘uns into the sausage machine of school and watch their creativity die down, down, down...until there is little more than a faint glow. Then, when the US school system finally released the researchers’ cohort, the percentage describing themself as highly creative had plummeted to a miserable 5%. This is not good. But what’s worse is that the majority of the now-uncreative kids had a paper trail of documents, reports and exam certificates that proved – categorically and absolutely – that they were not creative. Armed with such undeniable evidence and a negative belief about themselves they will probably shy away from anything related to creativity. I see a lot of this legacy of education in my work. Time after time, guitar students and coaching clients tell me that they are not the creative type; they tell me they’ve never written or created anything since they were kids. Obviously, I’m not going to accept that! So, here’s my favourite game to get playfulness and creativity back on the menu – it’s called “What’s in the Box?” and it came from Patricia Ryan Madson, of Stanford University. I ask my student to close their eyes, then I tell them that I am handing them a box with a lid on it. “There is always something in the box” I tell them. “Now, open the box and tell me what’s inside” Usually the student is reluctant to say anything about what’s in the box, but a little encouragement can work wonders. “A cat” they say, or perhaps “a wrought-iron bathtub”, “a pair of scuba flippers”. What they “find “ in the box is then made the subject of a song, lyric, story or poem. And they simply created it out of thin air – not bad for an uncreative person! As soon as the box is opened, the student has something to work with – a seed of an idea. “Tell me more” I’ll say. “What colour is it?” I’ll ask, if they are having trouble getting started. “Where did it come from, and what is the secret it is hiding?” Together we play with the contents of the box, we toss the ideas back and forth until the student is capable of looking after it - all by themselves – when they begin to be creative again. I’ve lost count of the number of students who have discovered that there is always something in the box, that they were actually highly creative and could enjoy playing this imagination game, and who could cheerfully ask themselves “What’s in the Box?” So tell me - what’s in the box, right now? © Neil Cowmeadow 2018 Please Like and Share The Thursday Thesis with your friends, family, your cat, your unicorn and anyone else you care about. I’d love to hear your comments, along with any ideas you’d care to hurl at me. info@NeilCowmeadow.com The Thursday Thesis - 07/06/2018 He looked at me - unblinking, glaring and fierce. I began to speak, or – more accurately – I tried to assemble a few succinct words into what I hoped would be a devastating rebuttal to his awkward question. In the end I settled for “Errrrmmm....” “Well” he said, “how dare you?” I had no answer, and he knew it. So he continued, determined to nail-down my fault. “Are you telling me that nearly twenty years on, you still haven’t written the book to help other people with the same problem?” “Well, I’ve written most of it up, already, but it isn’t perfect...” “No buts” he cut in, growling. “Finish it and get it out there”. “How many people could you have helped if you’d got out of your own way and just got your system out there?” I said nowt. “And how many more people could you have reached, if you’d only had the balls to finish?” I was shtum. Clearly on a roll, he pointed at me, calmly and flatly and asked again “How dare you deprive The World of your insights, deny it your ability to explain what you’ve discovered? It’s outrageous – how dare you?” Sessions with my mentor, Mark, were often full-on, but today he was more steamed than I’d seen him before, so I asked why he was so het-up. “Which book was it that changed your life – the one you read that made the penny drop and changed everything for you?” he asked. “Think and Grow Rich”, I answered immediately, “by Napoleon Hill. My old boss, Norman told me to read it; that would be nearly thirty years ago.” “A classic – that was the book that changed it all for me, too.” Mark said. “Now imagine that Hill had never published it... Imagine never beginning to understand that you could change yourself and your life: what would life be like for you, now, without that one book?” “Jeez... I can’t imagine it... bleak, I suppose. I’d probably still be drinking far too much, stuck in a shit job I don’t enjoy and just feeling hopeless and miserable. Bleak – bleak and hopeless.” Just thinking about that trajectory was horrible: I could feel my shoulders sagging and my head sinking. “Can you imagine Hill keeping it to himself, never getting it out there for fear of being judged or making a mistake? Think of the millions of people over the last eighty-odd years who’ve read that book and it’s changed their lives. Now stop whining and get your life-changing shit out there!” I looked up, and Mark was close to tears; anger, frustration, and passion lit up his face. He shook his head, and leaned a little further across the table. “It’s your personal moral duty to get your work out there. Just get it done and get it out there. Accept that it’s never going to be perfect and that some people will hate you. Man-up: grow a set of balls and stop fannying around. It’s wrong for you to hold something back if another person could benefit from what you know: it’s wrong, selfish and cowardly.” I figured that he’d got it out of his system at this point, but there was more to come. “It’s bloody immoral to deprive someone of what they need, it’s like watching someone starve instead of sharing your food and shelter with them. And you’d only not save them because you were worried about the opinion of someone you’re never going to meet, over a smudge of ink on a page? That’s pathetic - I thought you were better than that, I really did. Enough said - next item?” And that was that. We simply moved to the next thing on my list of burning issues that I wanted Mark’s input on, but I knew something had shifted, something in me – something that needed to be tamed and dealt with. I published, finally. Nobody died and the police didn’t come looking for me. Some people even read my little book and loved it, and some of those people actually wrote reviews and said it had helped them. Why do we resist doing the very thing that matters most to us? Because it matters to us, of course! If it were trivial and immaterial we’d just do it. Over the years I’ve come to understand that the thing which I’m most attracted to and which acquires greatest meaning for me is inevitably what frightens me most to do. We all know that to be true: in every aspect of life, the significant things are hardest to do. But they are hard only because they matter to us. The thing, in itself, is often simple – but still we resist. I don’t know what it is, but I know there will be something in your life that you’ve always wanted to do, but somehow have never quite got around to either starting or finishing. The half-written book, the love affair that withered for lack of commitment, the business you dreamed of starting. I don’t know what it is, but there is something there, isn’t there? That’s the thing to pay attention to - navigate by it. That persistent thought, constant as Polaris, will guide you. Set your course by it and steer your boat by it. It will never leave you, and you have a choice: do the thing you fear, or regret not doing it - every single day of your life. As for me, I have another book to write. I’m ashamed to say that I wrote the first draft twelve years ago, and it’s still here, waiting. So, today I’ll start over on it, much like I’ve done countless times before, but this time feels terrifyingly different – it feels like a moral duty. Thanks Mark. © Neil Cowmeadow 2018
Please Like and Share The Thursday Thesis with your friends, family, your cat, unicorn and anyone else. I’d love to hear your comments, along with any ideas you’d care to hurl at me. info@NeilCowmeadow.com Episode 101 - That First Date... The Thursday Thesis - 31/05/2018 As first dates go, this was a stinker – the food was divine, the service immaculate, and my date was... well, beautiful, graceful and vivacious. So she was not the problem, but there was something going terribly wrong. “Aha!” I got it, I knew what it was. Her friends had shown up, uninvited and en masse. Our cosy little table-for-two, tucked away in a tastefully lit corner of a carefully chosen Italian restaurant, was being overwhelmed by their incessant chatter. I didn’t invite them to join us, but they came anyway, the bastards! She reached across to pick up her phone once again, did the screen-swipe thing and stared at me. I raised my eyebrow – a silent question... That was the last time I saw her phone that night. Come to think of it, that was the last time I saw her, too. It seems she didn’t like the message I’d sent to her across the table, via satellite: it read “Look at me. Talk with me. Put away your phone and let’s be human with each other, please.” She texted to say that it wasn't going to work, but that wasn't exactly any kind of news to me. “No biggie...plenty more fish...” I reasoned. Look around you: you see it everywhere – people together, but estranged. From the couple at dinner to the family at play, phones intrude and headphones exclude. How stupid have we become? When you’re with someone, really be with that person; give them your undivided attention and show them some Love. Don’t put the things that matter most at the mercy of the things that matter least: don’t make your kids, your wife, your date or your friends play second fiddle to a Tweet, Facebook update, text message or anything else. Be with them. Be with them completely, and pay attention. Leave your phone in your bag when you are at dinner with your date, partner or spouse. Leave it in the car when you’re with your kids. Believe me, nothing that is more important than the person you are with will come through your phone in the moments you are disconnected from it. Be with them. Your antisocial media will still be there in all its self-indulgent glory when the special time is over and you’re back on the hamster wheel again. Failing to honour the real, face-to-face skin-and-bone people is tragic and it is immoral. Taking a slice of time from someone’s life to be with them and then offering them only the fag-end of what’s left after you’ve “kept up to date” with everything else is a bloody insult to them. Don’t do it. Be with them. Look around you and you’ll see masses of people, hooked up to – and hooked on – their phones. Notice how often they (we) check for new messages – even at inappropriate times? We’re like a bunch of crackheads in need of a score every thirty seconds – it’s pathetic and it’s tragic. Ask yourself, honestly, do you own the phone or does it own you? Now do yourself a big one - write this down: Leave your phone in the car, put it in your bag, silence it completely. If you have balls of steel you could even turn it off – if you think you’ll be able to cope with the anxiety that you will feel should you dare to do such a thing. Put your headphones away and grow up! © Neil Cowmeadow 2018
The Thursday Thesis - 24/05/2018 “One HUNDRED blog posts! How cool is that?” I gushed as I drove Alex to school last Thursday morning.I'd jammed my moonface into "Smug" mode and It wasn't getting any better... The Urchin wasn’t impressed: he never is these days. This week his affectation is being “utterly indifferent” to all suggestions and ideas that don’t involve him spending his entire weekend playing games online with school-friends. The joys of parenthood... “So, Dad” he asked, “why do you write your blog – what’s it actually for?” I paused, and said “It’s a good question, when you stop to think about it: why does anyone write, especially when there is no expectation of reward?” “So...?” he said. “Firstly, Alex, I write for you. I hope that you’ll read my ramblings and “get it” – that you’ll have access to some of the things I’ve found useful, and have that access at a younger age than I did.” “And secondly, I write for myself because I love the process of writing - the great distillation and clarification that I get when I write about things. When you think on paper you can handle bigger, more important things, I think.” “But deep down, right at the bottom of everything I do – teaching, writing, landlording, coaching, mentoring, blogging and podcasting – I really just want to help people – anyone, anywhere – to see themselves as better than they have been told they are. I hope that, in some small way, my words will resonate with another person - I suppose I'm trying to send out a ripple into the World.: I may never know that person, but if just one idea in just post helps just one person to raise themselves up and have a better life in some way, then it will have been worth my time and energy writing a hundred posts.” Isn’t that what life is all about, too? I ask you, please, to DO something - right now - to lift someone else up. I don’t care how small or big a thing you do, just do it. A smile, a hug, or a kiss; a kind word or a thoughtful act: do something. To you, it might only be a smile you give away: but that smile might just change a tiny something in another person’s life. It’s only a ripple, but it’s a start. © Neil Cowmeadow 2018 Please Like and Share The Thursday Thesis with your friends, family, your cat, unicorn and anyone else. I’d love to hear your comments, along with any ideas you’d care to hurl at me. Neil@cowtownguitars.net The Thursday Thesis - 17/05/2018 I could have kicked myself. Come to think of it, I felt so stupid at that moment that it would have been a better idea to hire someone to kick me instead. There had been a dim recognition, somewhere in the deeper recesses of the old grey matter, that I’d soon bepublishing the 100th post of this blog – The Thursday Thesis: I knew I’d been posting once a week for almost two years, I just wasn’t sure about how many posts I’d made. My inner troublemaker was playing up again, telling me how awesome I was to have been so consistent and got something out every single week. He also said I should have a celebration to mark the event, and to be proud of myself for yada, yada,yada... But I had a problem – I didn’t know how many posts I had actually made. I’d always posted by date, rather than by episode or post number, and I had no easy way to accurately track the number of posts. Bum! It takes a lot of work to re-name all the posts in a blog and add an episode number, then to re-name the original document file in the archive. It’s also intensely dull, unless you can transmogrify the process into a game and make it fun for yourself – perhaps by thinking of the process as “capturing and branding” the wayward episodes. Life’s like that, too. So, here’s the thing I want to share: start out as you mean to proceed. When you begin something, be it health, relationship, financial, or whatever – begin with a vision of how things will look when they are done. I hadn’t started the blog that way: I just thought it might be fun to share some of the things I wish I’d learned a lot sooner. So I didn’t think of how many posts I might make, about the milestones and celebrations I’d miss out on if I didn’t keep score, or how to refer to previous episodes. It was an embarrassing planning failure, frankly. Next week I’ll post the 100th episode on this blog, so I am going to celebrate the milestone. Celebrating is something we could all do a lot more of – especially me. When I was awarded a First I didn’t want to go through the rigmarole of attending a graduation ceremony – I think that I was secretly afraid of being rumbled as the imposter I knew myself to be. Fortunately, my then-girlfriend was a lot smarter than me and persuaded me to collect my degree in person. Without her intervention I would have missed a memorable day and more or less dismissed my achievement, so I’m grateful for her wisdom. But we all do it, don’t we? We all seem to dismiss our achievements; it’s a British thing, I reckon. There’s a daft idea that anyone who celebrates their achievements is arrogant, big-headed and probably not very nice. It’s totally wrong-headed, of course, but it’s very common. One friend of mine has gone from not running at all to running 10km, solo, in less than six months: not too shabby for a woman in her sixties, is it? But she’ll have none of it: none of your fancy-pants celebrations, no “well done” messages, and no recognition of her achievements in her own mind. Personally, I’m impressed by people who set themselves a target, plan their trajectory, and launch. Oddly, their actually hitting the target is not the main thing for me – it’s the intention and the action that matter most, in my opinion. The medals, certificates, and T-shirts are just markers of what has been achieved. In themselves they are mere trash, worthless clutter – but they are concrete evidence of what happened before race day and before exam day. If we examine each fresh new day we can find something to celebrate, every single day of our lives. Embracing our own achievements can release a spurt of dopamine (your brain’s feel-good chemical) into your system, setting-up the anticipation of more and greater rewards. What’s your celebration going to be about, today? What awesome thing was it that you did? How awesome are you, today? Write it down... Do it more... © Neil Cowmeadow 2018 Please Like and Share The Thursday Thesis with your friends, family, your cat, unicorn and anyone else. I’d love to hear your comments, along with any ideas you’d care to hurl at me. Neil@cowtownguitars.net The Thursday Thesis - 10/05/2018 Sometimes, not very often, you see something you can’t explain; something that stops you in your tracks and makes you go “Huh?!” I’ve seen a lot of that sort of thing over the years, and some of it I could make sense of; well, most of it anyway. Some things, though, are just so damned odd and bizarre that reason cannot reconcile the observation with any explanation. That’s magic, or else it’s something that looks like magic to me. I saw a great deal of magic last weekend, when I spent two days in London, improving my hypnosis and NLP skills. The trainers were TV hypnotist and change expert Paul McKenna and “The Godfather of NLP” - Dr Richard Bandler. I stood, slack-jawed and incredulous, unable to debunk what I both saw and experienced. Today is Thursday, and I’m still processing what I saw at the event and assessing its ramifications: this could take a little time... I’m working on it. For now, I’ll just remind myself of - and share with you - a few truths that were demonstrated most forcefully and seemingly magically. Print them out and read them every day, once as you rise, and once again as you retire.
© Neil Cowmeadow 2018 Please Like and Share The Thursday Thesis with your friends, family, your cat, unicorn and anyone else. I’d love to hear your comments, along with any ideas you’d care to hurl at me. Neil@cowtownguitars.net Why Your Haters Hate You... The Thursday Thesis - 03/05/18 A little while ago I posted a short Facebook Live video into a large-ish group aimed at guitar players. The clip was a simple explanation of the biomechanics behind one aspect of playing the guitar. I was clear, unambiguous, and put my points across logically and sensibly. That was when the hate began. Oh my word – I had no idea that demonstrating reality meant that I enjoyed giving same-sex oral pleasure! At least, that’s what one hater said, in not so many words. Other “keyboard-warriors” piled-in to demonstrate their ten cents’ worth of ignorance and intolerance, clearly angry that I should question their beliefs and their gods – their blessed Clapton, Vaughan, Hendrix and the rest of ‘em... Then I got it: they weren’t talking about me at all – they were telling me about themselves. It was beautiful – rather than consider the facts and my reasoning, the haters attacked and proclaimed their own positions. I’d never seen it so clearly before: haters don’t hate You, they hate how you make them feel; and that’s a big difference. At the time it was a radical idea, but now it seems obvious. Whenever you or I step outside of what other people think and believe to be right, we risk the opprobrium of those other people. You see, when we suggest a different way of seeing things, a different opinion, or ideas which conflict with the groupthink, we provoke a defensive response from the group. The group tightens and “circles the wagons” to defend itself from the perceived danger of being outdone, bested, proved wrong or foolish. Very often, internal divisions within the group are set aside to defend the common interest against the outsider, the blasphemer, the heretic. Such is life. It’s never comfortable being different: ask anyone who has challenged the status quo, a governing elite, the prevailing wisdom of “experts” and the conventions of academics about the backlash and ostracism. That’s how power and influence are exercised. Some people just hate you, and you are going to have to deal with that fact if you are to be of any consequence in the world, because the only way you are not going to upset someone is to be so insignificant and inoffensive that you might as well have never lived at all. Getting your first hater is a marker, if you will, of significance: somebody, somewhere was so influenced by what you did, said, wrote, sang, painted, danced to or drove that they took time out from their lives to comment on your life. How cool is that? The hater gave more attention to hating you than they did to pursuing their own life! So, get over one simple thing: whatever you do in life somebody, somewhere is not going to like it. You’ll probably never meet that person, and they don’t know you well enough to hate you for who you are. They are strangers who didn’t like how you made them feel when their prejudices came under pressure from your ideas. That’s all a hater is – a faceless person who feels bad because you made them uncomfortable – lashing out at someone who dared to think differently. It’s dangerous and stupid to shut ourselves down and censor our thinking or beliefs because it upsets someone we’ve never met. Remember that the ultimate rational position is to please at least ourselves. Remind ourselves that other people’s opinions of us are inconstant and beyond our control, so remembering to please at least ourselves is the only logical course to follow. Some people will hate you for saying “X”, others will revile you for uttering “Y”, and then there are those fanatics who go berserk when you dare to impugn their sacred “Z”... Look, whatever you do in this life of yours, you’re going to upset someone, somewhere. Deal with that fact and crack-on with living your own life. The bottom-line is that haters always hate someone, and today might be your turn; so, take the hate – when it comes - as a compliment and a testament to your significance, then wave at them with one finger and carry on with making a difference in The World. © Neil Cowmeadow 2018
Please Like and Share The Thursday Thesis with your friends and family – maybe they’ll “get it”, too; maybe you’ll send out a ripple into someone else’s life. Would that be a good thing? I’d love to hear your comments, along with any ideas you’d care to hurl at me. Neil@cowtownguitars.net You’re So Weird!
The Thursday Thesis - 26/04/18 Nina was not a happy camper – not by a long stretch. The plan I’d persuaded her to test was working beautifully, and people were noticing... Nina had been very down and depressed for a few years, so I invited her to experiment with being positive, optimistic, and unconditionally happy - just for a change. The test was supposed to last for a few weeks – just to see if she liked being deliberately happy better than being depressed. Now, it wasn’t that Nina had a problem with depression – she was very good at it, as a matter of fact – but it wasn’t making her happy or fulfilled. No surprise there, then. Anyway, she agreed to play my “stupid mind-game” and, six weeks into the programme, she was having a lot more fun, laughing more and thoroughly getting under the skin of her downbeat, unhappy co-workers. In fact, she’d been so happy that the misery-guts crew were convinced she’d either fallen in love or found God. Either way, it wasn’t going down well with the glumsters that she’d dare to flounce into work and actually enjoy her day. Such effrontery! They asked her to stop being so damned happy, because she was getting them down! They asked what was wrong with her. They said it wasn’t normal for someone to be that happy! Then it happened – someone called her “weird”. Now, Nina’s a shy sort of woman who likes to keep a low profile, so the W bomb rattled her mightily. All I could do was grin at her story. “You are weird” I said, “That’s what I like about you”. She threw me one of those looks that somehow manage to convey disbelief, fury and bewilderment all at the same time. “How can it ever be good to be weird?” She asked. “Because weird is such a fabulous word, and such a fabulous thing to be”, I said. I pulled down my Oxford Dictionary of English and flapped around a bit until I found the definition of weird. Here’s what it said: “WEIRD: adj. 1, Suggesting something supernatural, unearthly. Informal: very strange, bizarre. 2, archaic, chiefly Scottish: a person’s destiny. ORIGIN: Old English wyrd “destiny” of Germanic origin. The adjective (late Middle English) originally meant “having the power to control destiny”, and was used especially in the Weird Sisters, originally referring to The Fates...” Nina considered that definition for a moment, and I could see the understanding turning the corners of her mouth upwards. She “got it” - why I believe that the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me is “You are so weird!” It even beats that precious and tender moment when my then-girlfriend said I was the oddest person she’d ever met. I understand that many people would be insulted if they were called weird – but I revel in it. Why would I choose to be pleased to be weird? Because the word itself denotes other-worldliness, the supernatural and the mysterious: what’s not to like about that? I also love the connotation of being able to control my own destiny. As for Nina, she’s happy to be weird, and her colleagues still think she’s weird to be happy. Which side of the fence are you on, and how wonderfully weird are you going to be today? I’m off to dree my own weird and be annoyingly chirpy. Happy Thursday, you weirdo! he Thursday Thesis - 19/04/2018 Why Being Filthy Rich might be a Bad Thing We’d all like to be “filthy rich”, wouldn’t we? It stands to reason that to be rolling in readies would be a good thing, doesn’t it? I’m sure we’d all benefit from having a few million more in the bank. So why aren’t we? Could it be tied up with how we talk and think about money? There’s a lot of research out there that suggests there’s no shortage of money, so where is it? It’s in the hands of those rich bastards – the Filthy Rich, of course! But what if you suddenly became Filthy Rich – how could it ever be a bad thing? Let’s take the phrase apart, starting with Filthy. Do you want to be filthy? Notice how that word sounds when you isolate it, sort of dirty, grimy and unpleasant? Now let’s look at the other part of the phrase: Rich. First of all, Rich is a comparative word used to contrast abundance with lack. And, of course, Rich is also a political term, often used by those who don’t have money to attack those who do, usually with the intention of “redistributing” (a euphemism for stealing) some of that money. Forced redistribution (theft under menace – or mugging, as it is known in street terms) is immoral and counterproductive because it removes the incentive to produce or excel whilst simultaneously reinforcing the “right” to a free ride. Fair tax is one thing – and remember that you have a legal duty to pay only the minimum amount of tax due in law – but penalising the successful because they’ve worked, invested, saved in order to improve their lot under their own steam? That’s truly immoral. But here’s the thing – “rich” people get rich by providing “poor” people (also known as customers) with a product or service that the customers value more than they value their money. So a fair exchange is struck, and the money passes from one person to another. No duress, no coercion: it’s an exchange of perceived value, that’s all. It’s not political. But, depending on the political climate in which your ideas were formed, it is possible that your idea of wealth has been distorted and loaded with negative images of money and of the people who have money – for example, the Filthy Rich, the Stinking Rich, Dirty Money, Filthy Lucre... you know the type of thing, don’t you? Now if your images and descriptions of people with money are semantically loaded with negatives, then you won’t want to be that kind of person. In fact you’ll probably aim to be the opposite of that kind of person, and since the opposite of Rich is Poor, you may well be unconsciously aiming to be poor. If your attitudes and beliefs carry the idea that there’s something wrong, filthy or immoral about being wealthy, you will likely remain poor. Furthermore, if you ever get to your mental threshold of acceptable wealth, you’ll find a way to get rid of the uncomfortably large sum of money that feels wrong for you to have. That’s why so many lottery winners are skint again in next to no time after their big wins. Having money simply makes you more of who you are, for better or worse. If you are a fool when you have a little money, you’ll probably still be a fool when you have lots of money – but the effects of your foolishness will be amplified by the leverage of your new-found (and probably fleeting) wealth. Similarly, if you are a caring and generous person when you have a little money, your capacity to care and be generous will be amplified by the leverage of wealth. The money itself is neutral – it doesn’t care: money is neither good nor bad. As a kid I was told that rich people were greedy and selfish, and I believed it. Who actually said that sort of thing? People who had no money, of course! But I’ve met many very wealthy and successful people over the years, and I’ve completely changed my mind, because the richer and more successful people are, the more positive, generous and caring they are. They became wealthy and successful because of those traits, and the money amplified what was already there. Perhaps today would be a good day to examine your beliefs about wealth, the way you think about money and the people who have a lot more money than you. What do you reckon? © Neil Cowmeadow 2018
Please Like and Share The Thursday Thesis with your friends, family, your llama, unicorn and anyone else. I’d love to hear your comments, along with any ideas you’d care to hurl at me. Neil@cowtownguitars.net “By the end of Today...”
The Thursday Thesis - 12/4/2018 I am writing this post to one person in particular - a friend – to remind them of a conversation we had about staying positive and becoming buoyant whilst navigating the seas of negativity. It all began with a little book. One little book and a single word. The word was – and still is - “Today”. My little book and that one word have made a big difference in my life: perhaps you will try them too. It is widely known that goals and ambitions are vital to achievement and happiness, and I’ve written about goals before on the blog, though I’ve mostly discussed long-term goals. So, what about short-term goals? I have set daily goals for business and work for decades, and I recommend them for anyone. The problem with business and work goals was that I didn’t set any personal daily goals or remind myself of some important parts of my life. Dumb. I’d blundered along doing work-stuff with a sense of purpose and a timeline to get things done, but other things fell apart from neglect and error that I should have known better than to fall into. Dumb. But a few years ago I was listening to Peter Thomson - a very charismatic speaker and trainer - describing what he did every morning, before he did anything else at all. I adopted the practise the very same day, reasoning that a few minutes in the morning and a couple more, last thing at night, couldn’t do any harm and might just do a little good. They are the most important minutes of the day. Every day – whilst the coffee machine warms up - I open my little book and write my daily journal entry. I don’t write much, just four things I want to be true by the end of the day, and a list of what I have to be grateful for, and what I want to have, in order to be grateful for that, too. I pick up my very best fountain pen and begin with the date and these words: “By the end of Today, I will it to be true that...” I then list three or four things that I must have in my life, like this: “By the end of Today, I will it to be true that:
My list is almost always the same these days, but it has evolved over the years. The second half of the morning journal is the list of what you have to be grateful for, or want to have and be grateful for. So my journal reads like this “Today I am grateful for life, Alex (my son), health, home, food, friends, love, honesty, courage, helping people, confidence, wealth, ambition, drive, patience, clarity, energy, strength, grit, laughter, optimism, choices, wisdom; my big heart and healing gifts” I’m particularly proud of the Big Heart thing, because it was my great friend Krish’s description of me, whilst Jason - a Shaman and friend – described my teaching skills as “Healing Gifts”. Now I’ll confess to feeling like a fraud when I started journaling, and I almost quit after a few days because I didn’t feel any different. But I stuck with it, and I’m so glad that I did. After several weeks it started to feel natural to write positive things about myself every day, and to remind myself of what I would do in the day ahead to be a better man and to hold myself to account. Unsurprisingly, the days began to pass with more vitality, self-care, and fun. That’s what Peter shared, and it’s what I do every day, and what I want you to do - from today onwards – for the rest of your life. And now we come to the end of the day journal: it takes around two minutes – so don’t skip it. Before sleep, just reflect on the day, and write:
Then add the good stuff from your day, perhaps something like this:
DO this every day, and you will inevitably begin to feel curiously uplifted as you recognise and record the many positive facets your life already has, and begin to attract more good things to you. Constantly reminding yourself of what you want, value and are grateful for is crucial to success and happiness. This daily routine primes your Reticular Activating System* to seek out what you want more of and what is important to you. This is the difference between taking aim at a target and randomly firing in all directions! Start your own journal today, and see where it takes you. Keep it positive and believe in yourself. To you, my friend, I say this: you are enough, and you are not broken. *see the previous blog post 08/03/2018, The RAS. © Neil Cowmeadow 2018 Please Like and Share The Thursday Thesis with your friends, family, your pet squirrel, monkfish, unicorn and anyone else. I’d love to hear your comments, along with any ideas you’d care to hurl at me. Neil@cowtownguitars.net The Thursday Thesis 5/4/2018 My friend Simon mentioned them in passing, and his words caught my ear. “...and that’s The Spirit Bead” he said “Oooh!” I responded – “I love that...The Spirit Bead...yes, very good. Beautiful.” Leaping from the Middle East to the Prairies of North America with a single bound, Simon linked the parallel practices of Moslem rugmakers in Persia to the Nations of the Dakota Sioux, Blackfoot, and many more tribes of North America. We had been talking about perfectionism’s long shadow, during an interview for my upcoming podcast, and Simon explained to me how traditional Persian rug-makers always include a tiny flaw in every rug: these deliberate errors are called “Persian Flaws”. Their belief is that only Allah can create perfection, and that to create a flawless rug or carpet is an offence against Him. Fascinating. Native American jewellery makers also included deliberate errors in their works, in honour of the Spirit World, and as an acceptance that man is imperfect. You can still see the practice today, in the Heishii beadwork made by the Navajo and Kewa Pueblo people. In both Moslem and Native American traditions, everything is made with an error included in it. Since only Allah and the Great Spirit can create perfection, the deliberate inclusion of an error reminds us that everyone is imperfect and flawed in some way. Call it a Spirit Bead or a Persian Flaw, the eye is drawn to the flaw. Whilst the great majority of the rug, or necklace is perfect - but there’s just that one little thing that bugs us and fascinates us... What’s your Persian Flaw, your Spirit Bead? Who cares what we call it – it’s our Spirit Bead that we are best known for, isn’t it? We most often remember the flawed and imperfect people because they are unusual, unexpected and strange enough to capture attention. As a guitarist, I am drawn to the imperfections present in older recordings – before digital editing made it possible to edit such things out. That’s where the “soul” is in music. In the tiny hesitations and rushes that move the player outside of perfect timing there is the musical magic of what we call “swing”. I truly believe that the dullness of playing dead on the beat is the origin of the modern slang “deadbeat”. Spare me the pristine perfection of some modern music, please. I remember when the Pure Trance music producer, Rich Mowatt - aka Solarstone - asked me to include additional pick and string noise in a guitar overdub/solo. There’s a man who “gets it”! My ears listen for the sonic Spirit Beads... And, as I said, we seek out the Spirit Bead in the people we meet. I’m not perfect, not by a long road, and I count my blessings that I am not. Perfect would be so dull! Perfect means that there’ no room to improve, no cracks to fix and no leaks to plug. Perfect means that we are irredeemably “done”. Nothing left to learn or do: I’m done. Can you imagine how depressing that would be? How dull it would be to know everything, to be perfect at everything? Where’s the growth? Where’s the failure to rise up again from? Where’s the falling-down and the bloody knee? If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years it’s this: enjoy being yourself and enjoy your imperfections, because if you were to subtract your imperfections there’d be sod-all left except for the amorphous grey eternity of perfection. Yuk. I’m thoroughly imperfect, and – damn it all – I’m proud of it. So, to give The Finger to a world which worships perfection, I’d like to propose a toast to imperfection. Here’s to being gloriously glitch, fabulously flawed and delightfully defective; here’s to our Spirit Beads, our Persian Flaws, because they are all that stand between us and the eternal sterility of perfection. Now go and be Gloriously Imperfect: go and show off your Spirit Bead. © Neil Cowmeadow 2018
Please Like and Share The Thursday Thesis with your friends, family, your cat, unicorn and anyone else. I’d love to hear your comments, along with any ideas you’d care to hurl at me. Neil@cowtownguitars.net The Thursday Thesis - 29/03/2018 In the course of the last 18 years teaching people to play guitar and make music, I’ve become familiar (not in the biblical sense, you understand) with an exotic beast: The Unicorn of Cleverness. Such is the beauty and power of The Unicorn of Cleverness that both students and myself have been lured off the path of simplicity and elegance by this scintillating creature. Whenever The Unicorn of Cleverness puts in its appearance...“Ooh, look – a Unicorn!” we cry, with glee. But here’s the thing, the moment a Unicorn prances into our heads, then “POOF!” rational thought goes down the pub for a swift loosener and a bag of scratchings: and it’s all downhill from there. And we are always looking for Unicorns, you know. At this point I’d like to go on record as stating that I have nothing against Unicorns per se. I’d go so far as to say that one of my best friends is a Unicorn, but “she’s not the Unicorn you’re looking for”, as Obi Won would have put it. But Unicorns are really intellectual vermin: an infestation of the psyche. Here’s the problem: when we are learning something new, exploring a new idea, we can too often presume the presence of some esoteric or special quality one needs to advance into competence – that’s our Unicorn. Our lack of skill and understanding makes us fill in the blanks with The Unicorn of Cleverness And nowhere is this more prevalent than in “The Arts” – music, literature, painting and the like – the domains of talent and inspiration. And Unicorns. It’s all bollocks, of course. The Unicorn we’ve been lured into believing in is nothing more than a swaybacked old mare with a carrot stuck on her forehead, hyped and puffed-up beyond recognition. I posit thus: there is no such thing as special talent or inspiration - everything is learned, and everything is trainable. Ever see a baby, newborn and screaming, reach for a paintbrush? Me neither. So much for the “born artist”, the “innate gift” and the “talented genius”. Everything is learned, and everything is learnable. So, logically, I have a problem with the presumption of Talent and the pretensions of The Arts with a capital “A”. Some practitioners of The Arts would have you believe in their special gifts and their uncommon inspirations – their Unicorns of Cleverness, which are available to you at a knock-down price, of course. In lieu of understanding that technical skill, willingness to fail, and airtight self-confidence, we fall in love with the toxic myth of Talent: better known as The Unicorn of Cleverness. Many of my students have spent decades believing in Unicorns, and will fight like tigers to prevent anyone taking that belief away. I ‘m a teacher. I slay Unicorns © Neil Cowmeadow 2018
Please Like and Share The Thursday Thesis with your friends, family, your Unicorn and anyone else. I’d love to hear your comments, along with any ideas you’d care to hurl at me. Neil@cowtownguitars.net The Thursday Thesis - 22/3/2018 The Joy of Biting Off More Than You Can Chew I’ve done it again. To the people who know me personally it will come as no surprise to hear that I’m in over my head, yet again. It’s a familiar pattern – commit to something without knowing how to do it, then working like mad to be just good enough to get by, and then working even harder to get good at it, then harder still to become outstanding, and then keep learning. Some people say it’s stupid – but it works for me. This week I’m writing and recording the first six episodes of a podcast designed to share what I’ve learned about the business of tutoring in nearly twenty years of my guitar teaching business. I have 171 episode topics on my list, so this should be a long-term thing – if I cover one topic per weekly episode it will take me over three years to clear my basic list... Why would I do that? Chewing muscles. That’s what I’ll grow by doing the podcast: strong and powerful chewing muscles – the ability to handle a challenge. Comfort bores me, and I have to have a new bone to chew every so often. However big your chewing muscles are, there’s room for more. Find your challenge or obstacle and start with a nibble, then a small bite, then a chomp... Sink your teeth into it; then chew like billy-oh! I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling peckish. Gnash, gnash! © Neil Cowmeadow 2018
Please Like and Share The Thursday Thesis with your friends, family, and the people you want to enrage. I’d love to hear your comments, along with any ideas you’d care to hurl at me. Neil@cowtownguitars.net The Thursday Thesis - 15/03/2018 Last week I invited you to look at the way that everything boils down to One Good Reason. Logically, this week I’d ask you to consider having a thousand Good Reasons. I’m not being contrary or wilfully difficult – though I am very good at that, too. No, what I’m talking about is having your One Good Reason, and setting it atop a thousand smaller Good Reasons – usually called goals - that mark out your path, way-mark your journey, provide reminders and spurs to compel you to act in pursuit of that ultimate One Good Reason. How does that sound? You see, here’s what I’ve learned about goals: they are powerful and compelling when they are the right reasons; and they are “meh!” when they are not important to us. The more goals - reasons to act - you have, and the more powerful they are, the more likely you are to take action to capture that goal. Makes sense doesn’t it? So why do so many people not have a goal: and even fewer have definite multiple goals? Beyond the vaguest of half-arsed wishes, like “I want to be happy”, very few people have goals at all. And let’s face it, if your wishy-washy wish is to “be happy”, how are you going to get there, and how will you know when you’ve achieved that? What if you had 1000 definite, written-down goals for your life? And what if every one of those 1000 goals led you along an inevitable path to your One Good Reason? How would that feel? Imagine yourself, every day, taking action designed to bring your own dreams to life – how would you feel about the day ahead of you? Imagine having a plan for your own life; a plan that transported you toward becoming the sort of person you’d most like to meet? Tragically, most people spend more time planning their summer holidays than they ever do planning their lives. And most people spend more time planning their wedding than they do planning their married life. So there’s a game for us to play this week, all about figuring out what we want and how it supports our One Good Reason – the one thing that gives us fire in the belly, makes us glow and makes us GO! Grab yourself a notebook and pen, because research indicates that writing by hand causes us to re-process information and learn more deeply. Got it? Great. Here we go, then. Make a list of everything you want. It doesn’t matter if what you want is material, spiritual, financial, animal, mineral or vegetable! Don’t edit yourself or judge whether you’re right to want what you want. There is no good or bad, there is only what you want. Keep going until you have at least 100 things on your list, and keep the list open so you can add anything else that presents itself as we play the rest of the game. Now, look down the list again and add a tag to each line, indicating which area of your life each goal fits into. The tags I use are
Let’s suppose that your goal was to finish writing the first draft of your book, telling the story of a childhood incident. At the top of column 1 you’d write “When I complete my first draft, I will enjoy...” and list all of the good things that will happen when you achieve your goal. At the top of column 2 you’d write “When I complete my first draft, I will not suffer...” and list all of the bad things that completing your goal will prevent. At the top of column 3, write “If I fail to complete my first draft, I will be unable to enjoy...” and start listing all the positive things which may never happen if you fail to achieve your goal. And At the top of column 4 write “If I don’t complete my first draft, I will be forced to accept...” and list all the negative outcomes that could happen if you do not achieve your goal. When you spend time doing this, you’ll have over a thousand good reasons to capture your goals. Only column 1 is built on the anticipated pleasure of your positive outcomes, whilst columns 2, 3 and 4 are based on the fear of negative consequences. Fear and pain will get you moving much more effectively than anticipation of pleasure. That’s what makes this goal-setting routine so powerful: it’s more than a list of what you want – it’s a list of the horrors you’ll have to endure if you don’t get what you want. Powerful stuff. © Neil Cowmeadow 2018
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