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  - 30/11/2017

Just suppose that you figured out how to transform almost everything that you currently hate or are bored by into a joyful experience – how would that feel?

You can, all you need is drugs.

Seriously, drugs do the business: but the drug I’m talking about is dopamine - your body’s natural feelgood chemical.

Your amazing body floods with dopamine every time you complete a significant task or achieve something you consider to be important.

Unimportant things are sort of “Meh!”, whilst important ones are “Yeah!”. The key is the importance we attach to the things we do: if it’s important, we are rewarded with a rush of dopamine.

The secret – I believe – is to make it all a game, then get busy playing.

Since everything is a game, everything is fun.

And since I’ve chosen to play this game, it must be important to me, right?

When I’m teaching guitar, the game is to outwit the student’s blocking mechanism and make a commando raid on their preconceptions, freeing their imprisoned potential to make music. When that mission is accomplished I get a MASSIVE buzz of dopamine and I want to do it again.

If I’m working on a book, the game is to herd all my thoughts into an order that makes sense, then rummage around for the right words to express my thoughts, pulling them one-by-one from the ragbag of my mind.

And when I’m working in my property business, the game is to outwit my own fears and preconceptions, to go into battle with – and slay - the dragons that roam my psyche.

Am I working, or am I just playing?

To be honest, the borders blur and work becomes play: I haven’t done a day’s work since I learned this principle, and there are days when I resent sleep and the need to put away my toys for the night.

So here’s the deal: Go Fun Yourself.

Spend 17 minutes, today, re-framing the dull stuff into a game or two – then go play.

Game On!

 
 

Ripples...

The Thursday Thesis  - 23/11/2017

On Sunday I was invited up on stage, to talk to a room filled with current and potential property investors about my own little Adventure in property.

Why would I want to speak to a group when I didn’t have anything technical to share with them?

Why would I want to get up there and potentially make myself look daft? After all, I’m no expert in the property game after just one year in it.

The Ripple.

That’s what made me say “yes” to the invitation – the chance to reach more people and to drop a thought or word into the mind of someone else in this world, then watch the ripples spread outwards...

So I stood up and told them The Truth as I see it...

When I looked them in the eye and told them that their life was their choice, someone nodded.

When I told them that nobody was coming to the rescue, I heard some gasp.

And when I told them about my son, my reason for working harder than anyone else thinks is reasonable or sensible, a woman wiped a tear from her eye.

When I left the stage I was high-fived and hand-shaken by audience members, then I was asked to mentor a couple of the young men.

That’s a lot of ripples.

On Monday I received an email from an audience member thanking me for my inspirational words – informing me that he and his brother had been moved to action and change by my little talk, and that they had registered their business domain and formed a limited company that very day.

That’s what a ripple is – it’s when another human being “gets it” about themselves and moves into a state of power as a result of your input.

When I teach, I want to set off ripples in my students' minds: I want them to know that they can play guitar, that their naysayers are wrong, and that the only person who can make them give up is themself.

I live to create ripples, and - if possible - to make waves.

When you decide to believe in yourself - to change your destiny and to take action - that’s a ripple.
You see, we all send out positive or negative messages which, in turn, produce either positive or negative ripples.

We humans are always communicating something, be it good or bad.

Your mission is to drop a positive thought-pebble into someone else’s mind, today.

I know you will do it, and perhaps you just heard the “SPLONK!” of my own thought-pebble dropping into the still waters of your own mind...

Now go and make waves.
 
 

The Thursday Thesis  - 16/11/2017

People are strange creatures, and some are stranger than others – perhaps that’s where you and I fit in...

So here’s an interesting phenomenon with parallels in everyday life; see if it resonates with you, and if you know any crabs.

Take your kid crab fishing for a few hours...

Hopefully you’ll catch a load of crabs and drop them into your bucket, then you can watch them doing their thing.

Now, do you see that greenish one over there – the one trying to climb out of the bucket?

 Notice that he gets so far, then that other crab reaches up a claw and pulls him back down?

Yes, crabs in a bucket actually prevent one another from escaping from captivity. And here’s the thing – people do that, too. The people around us – and they’re usually the people who sincerely have our best interests at heart, because nobody else cares – try to hold us back, pull us back into the bucket. They want to protect us from danger and preserve the nice, safe status quo.

But if the status quo is making us unhappy...?

How is keeping us stuck in a place we don’t want to be in, a job we despise, a relationship that is toxic, ever going to help us?

Those grabbing claws are now another thing from which to escape, aren’t they?

Our best hope is to find an eccentric crab with a thick carapace who will allow us to climb on their back to assist our escape. Better still, find a crab who has already escaped from the bucket and who will give us an escape map and then pull us out of the bucket.

I found my helper crab in a book, after a helper crab named Norman, pointed a claw at it. Here’s the book: Think and Grow Rich, by Napoloeon Hill.

The book shops and libraries of this world are full of helper crabs - where will you find yours?

The Thursday Thesis  - 09/11/2017

When I plan my day (it is planned, no matter how random it looks – that’s my art-form) I always write my goals down, so I can give some kind of shape to the day ahead.

Then I ask myself the crucial question “How did I get all that done, today?”.

On the face of it that’s a daft question, because I haven’t done it yet. But on a deeper level it is gaming my mind’s biases and playing with language to engineer a better result.

First of all, I’m presupposing that I DID get things done.

Secondly, I’m presupposing that I got it ALL done.

Thirdly, I’m asking my brain to look back into an imagined future in which everything went right...

That retrospective into the future gives me a road map to achieve what I want to achieve, from a perspective of completion and success.

So, make a list and ask yourself “How did I get all that done, today?”

Let me know how this works for you, and please like and share the post.
 

The Thursday Thesis  - 02/11/2017

Remember that scene in Dirty Harry where Clint Eastwood’s character – Harry Callahan -  shoots the bank robbers and asks a wounded robber “...you've got to ask yourself one question: 'Do I feel lucky?'. Well, do ya, punk?”

It’s a great scene, and it’s a great question, too.

And yeah, I feel lucky – how about you?

I feel lucky because I won the lottery today, again.

I do it every day – and I don’t even buy a ticket.

My odds of winning the jackpot are around 1 in 45 million, but I beat the odds every single day without fail.

Lucky me, right?

Except that I didn’t win the lottery that you are thinking of. I’m mind-reading today, so I know that you are thinking of the lottery that pays out a piffling £20 million or so, aren’t you?

Wow, what would you do with all that money...?

You’d probably take time out to do the things you’ve always wanted to do: move house, go on holiday, fire your boss, spend more time with the kids, maybe even get a divorce!!

It’s tragic, isn’t it that money could give you that  power?

The power to choose to live how you liked, be with whomsoever you chose, to spend your time as you chose to.

The irony is that money does not exist. We live as slaves to a fictional system of exchange and money, a fiction that is sustained only as long as people choose to believe in it. The truth is that money is a myth – and that’s a fact.

Well, maybe the money myth is for another post, because today I’m feeling lucky, having won the lottery once again. I’m such a lucky bastard: every single day of my life I’ve beaten the odds and woken up: every single day has been a triumph of staggering proportions – and all I had to do was open my eyes and start the day.

Every day we are alive is against the odds: an everyday miracle; today is a long shot that came good.

Now this galloping optimism isn’t some kind of manic yammering of a deranged person – it’s just a rational analysis of the facts, as far as we understand them.

Here’s how I look at it: humans have been around for a long time. How long is disputed, with mainstream science proposing 7 million years, whilst there is evidence for us being around a great deal longer than that.

And here I am, today, not dead.

And let me tell you that not being dead is a Good Thing, by the way!

Anyway, I’m alive today, just one day out of the 365.25 days of the year, taken out of the 7 million-plus years of human history.

Do the math: 365 x 7,000,000 = 25,550,000,000

So the chances of me being alive on this unique day in human history is 1 in 25 Billion, with a B.

What a lucky bastard I am, and how lucky are you to have woken up on this day?

Think about it the next time you feel unlucky about some cosmically irrelevant little detail.

Ask yourself “Do I feel lucky?”

Well, do ya, punk?

Click here to see the clip of the scene.