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  - 29/03/2018
 
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
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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

• D – Dosh, financially related.
• H – health and fitness.
• S – spirituality, if you have it.
• V- vocational and work.
• F – family.
• C – contribution to society, giving something back.
• M – mental development and learning.
• G – games and fun.

Once you’ve done that, pick out the most important item for each of the tags and write each item at the top of its own new, clean page and divide each page into four numbered columns.

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.

20180308 Gimme a Reason...

The Thursday Thesis  - 8/03/2018

In life, everything boils down to One Good Reason.

Sounds simplistic, doesn’t it?

“Surely you can’t be suggesting that life is just about one thing?” I hear you say.

That’s exactly what I am suggesting, and don’t call me “surely”.

Yes – life is really all about one thing.

Find that one thing and give it capital letters, make it your One Thing and pay attention to it every single day.

“All well and good,” I hear you say, “but how do you know what your One Thing is, smartarse?”
I thought you’d never ask!

Simply ask yourself a few questions, pay attention to your own answers, and ask yourself what lies behind those answers.

It sounds pretty simple, but when I’m coaching and mentoring people it’s rare to find a client who has given their One Thing much thought. Even businesses that have been successful and want to develop can be fuzzy about their One Thing.

So, grab a cup of coffee, a pen and some nice paper or a notebook. Divide the paper into five columns and get settled – you’re about to discover your One Thing...

We’ll start with this simple question:What do I want?

Write “I Want” at the top of the left column and immediately start writing your answers down underneath it, one item per line. Don’t edit yourself, just write it all down without worrying about whether you are right to want something or not.

Keep writing until you have filled a couple of pages, because you’re aiming for a hundred or more answers.

Take a sip of your now-cold coffee and write “Why do I Want It” at the top of the second column.

Once you’ve done that, go down your list of things you want, line by line, and answer the question: “Why do I want that?” writing your answers down in column 2 as you go.

This will give you your Why behind your What: a superficial understanding of why you want what you want. For example, if you wanted to start your own business, your Why might be that you can escape your day-job.

Still with me?

Good, because here’s where it gets interesting – where the gold comes.

At the top of the third column write “Why do I want it?”, and repeat the previous step. Now you’re peeling back another layer, finding the Why behind the Why behind the What.

So your “I want to start my own business so that I can escape from my day-job” will be followed by the reason why escaping your day-job is a good thing. “I want to start my own business so that I can escape from my day-job, because that job is going nowhere.”

Now do the exact same thing in column four, with exactly the same question: “Why do I want it?”

This will get you deeper into your motivation - the Why behind the Why behind the Why behind the What. This is what’s really driving your wants and needs: this is the really powerful force behind you. At this deep level, some of your answers might make you uncomfortable, but they will also alert you to problems in your behaviours and motivations.

Around about now you will begin to see that certain things you thought you wanted are not so important after all, and you can discard them.

You might begin to notice that what you thought you wanted is only a vehicle to take you to some other destination: a marker for your deeper purpose, so to speak. Your “I want to start my own business so that I can escape from my day-job, because that job is going nowhere and I want to be in control of what I do every day.”

Now repeat the same thing for column five, and be really fearless about this one, because there may be tears...

“I want to start my own business so that I can escape from my day-job, because that job is going nowhere, I want to be in control of what I do every day and I want to express myself through my work”.

Add as many more columns and sheets of paper as you want. Just keep asking “Why?” until you hit your deepest Why – and you’ll know it when you hit it. This is the moment when your One Thing will snap into focus with a suddenness and force that will shake you.

Instantly, you’ll know it.

And it will feel so obvious and natural to you that you will wonder why you never really saw it before.

Write it down.

Look at it.

Admire it.

That’s your One Thing.

Now get busy doing it.

 
© Neil Cowmeadow 2018
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