The Thursday Thesis - 14/12/2017 I can almost hear you yawn when I say the word “system”, which is odd because systems are your mind’s natural way to streamline everyday life, taking repetitive events and movements from being reactions to random events through to effortless unconscious processing of known sequences. The most common example of this process for most people is learning to drive. First time behind the wheel and there’s a terrifying amount to take in: your instructor, the pedals, seat adjustment, mirrors, lights, gearshift, handbrake, ignition... and that’s before you even begin to move and encounter the world outside of the car! So, at first you are incredibly lumpy – you grind the gears, stall, lurch and bumble around at low speed; all of the time on the edge of your seat and desperate not to hit anything. In the early sessions your brain is dealing with every operation on a conscious level because everything is new and there’s no system to handle that amount of data. But, over time, your performance of the same actions in precisely the same way causes something wonderful to happen: your brain changes to improve your performance. Yes, your big ol’ brain is always changing – it actually re-shapes itself to optimise the way it processes data – we call it neuroplasticity. Ian Robertson, a neuroscientist, describes the brain as a “trembling web” in his book Mind Sculpture (link below), and it’s this mutability that is the reason people can often recover from injury or damage to the brain. So, the more you do something, the more your brain assigns and connects nerve cells to perform the activity better: what you do, regularly, sculpts your brain into an elegant and efficient system which is custom-made just for you, by you. Here’s how it works: When something is new to us, we process the data in our working memory – the short term electrical part of our three-stage memory system. Storage here lasts only a few seconds, unless there is an unusually strong associated emotional component, as in cases of trauma. With ongoing repetition of the action, our brain passes the increasingly-familiar action across to the chemical part of our memory system, conserving the scarce and precious working memory for more immediate and potentially life-threatening occurrences. Keep on doing that same thing in the same way, and something truly magical happens: your brain “grooves-in” neural pathways to enable a physical memory track to be formed, allowing rapid recall and performance of the task that was once so clumsy. If you’ve been driving for a years, you probably don’t even think about it anymore. That’s because the act of driving has been encoded into the physical structure of your brain: in a very real sense, driving has become a part of who you are. What a system! As a guitar teacher, this is exactly the approach I take with my students. I know that when a player performs the same technique with precisely the same finger and hand movements, every single time, they will encode the technique more deeply and more quickly than if they use a variety of finger movements. Without that clarity and focus of consistent repetition, there is no system for the player, so every piece of music is processed de novo, and the player struggles with a shifting and random action. Consistency forms habits, and habits are your brain’s default operating system. Change your habits, and you will change your brain: change your brain, and you will change your life. . © Neil Cowmeadow 2017
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The Thursday Thesis 7/12/2017
Faster is Easier... When I discovered barefoot running a few years ago I read a wonderful book called “Born to Run: The Hidden Tribe, the Ultra-Runners, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen” by Christopher MacDougal (there’s a link to it at the bottom of The Thesis) The book caused me to throw out my expensive bouncy “running shoes” and - by using what nature had given me - I was able to reclaim running, just for fun. Before barefoot, I could pound out a half mile and my knees would start to hurt from the stomp, stomp, stomp of my feet on the road. That was a real problem, and I’d never really understood why – after all, I’d bought Nike’s finest, tried the best of Adidas, Asics, New Balance and all the rest. None of them really helped, so I came to the conclusion that I was the problem. I reasoned that all those billions of dollars of running shoe research, the stability devices, airbags, were doing their best to protect me, so I was obviously defective: I was the problem. But the problem wasn’t me – it was my conventional running shoes. That piece of the puzzle slipped into place with a click one night as I ran with my loony-tune running buddy. It was dark in the gorge as we ran beside the river. Somewhere off to the right an owl screeched , sending echoes into the inky sky. Then something else caught my ear. It wasn’t the steady thump-thump-thump of my buddy’s shoes on the tarmac that I heard – it was the silence of my own footfalls. According to the Apache natives of the USA “The best runners leave no tracks”, and I’d like to add to that “...and make no sound”. And it was all in the book: the injuries, the shoes, and the silence. The author’s coach told him not to worry about speed, that would take care of itself – no coach I ever met told a trainee that! But the coach wasn’t kidding. His approach was radical - revolutionary, even. He advised runners first to make it easy, because if that was all they got, it wasn’t so bad. Then he said “now make it smoooooooooth.......” Of course, if it’s easy and you are smooth, you will be fast – won’t you? But when it’s easy and smooth your feet seem to caress the ground beneath them, reach out to touch it, and ease into contact with it, making almost no sound. That’s our evolutionary advantage taking over: easy, smooth....fast... It’s the same with my guitar students – easy...smooth...fast... That’s mastery writ large: easy...smooth...fast... So I teach them to lighten-up and make it easy, then I invite them to make it smooth and elegant, then to notice how much more quickly they can play. Easy, smooth, fast. Works every time. Happy Thursday! Neil Book link: http://amzn.to/2AWWssP
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! © Neil Cowmeadow 2017
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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. © Neil Cowmeadow 2017
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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? © Neil Cowmeadow 2017
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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. © Neil Cowmeadow 2017
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The Thursday Thesis - 26/10/2017
“Filthy weather” she said, shaking her umbrella and wiping her feet with a barely-subdued stamp. I think that was the moment when I knew she didn’t get it. You see, some folks get it, and some folks don’t get it: she didn’t get it, not by a long way. So it was raining and windy outside – so what! Inside it is warm and cosy and – well – safe. Screw safe, baby – let’s get out in the rain and make a splash. Let’s put on our wellies and stomp two-footed in the puddles – we’re not made of sugar, darling, so let’s get wet! Any wonder I’m single? Thought not. But I do love rain, wind, snow, fog, sunshine and clouds: what’s not to like? At least if I can feel, see and hear the weather, and taste the sea-spray in the wind I know I’m still alive. But it’s really all about attitude – as someone once said “There’s no such thing as bad weather, only inappropriate clothing”. Now, if your attitude is like clothing, there’s no such thing as bad weather, is there? Unless you’re a teenager (permanent hoodie variety) it’s no big deal to change clothes to suit the weather; we do it all the time. Similarly, a flexible attitude can let you enjoy whatever life (the weather of life, if you like) throws at you. Gale force winds can buffet you, snow might enswirl you, and rain can micturate upon you, but within your appropriate attire all is well. It’s raining again, so pull on the cagoule of optimism, the galoshes of good cheer and go for a stomp in the very finest puddle you can find. Stay flexible, remember that you can’t change the weather, only your clothes. Splosh... Splosh... © Neil Cowmeadow 2017 Like and Share The Thursday Thesis with your friends, family, and your cat. I’d love to hear your comments, along with any ideas you’d care to hurl at me. Neil@cowtownguitars.net
The Thursday Thesis - 19/10/2017
“You make it look effortless...” my new student said. “If you knew how easy this is, you’d never be impressed by anything I ever did”, I declared. That’s my stock answer to the “you make it look effortless...” moment; then I add “I don’t make it look effortless, I simply show you how easy it is”. If I had a pound for every time I’ve heard that phrase... But the guitar – especially the electric guitar – does not demand high levels of physical effort; rather, it thrives upon a light, deft touch and minimal force. And here’s the truth about playing the guitar, and almost any other musical instrument: it is effortless when done right. Life’s like that, too... © Neil Cowmeadow 2017 Like and Share The Thursday Thesis with your friends, family, and your cat. I’d love to hear your comments, along with any ideas you’d care to hurl at me. Neil@cowtownguitars.net
The Thursday Thesis - 12/10/2017 There are three types of people: The first type of people are those who drive the bus – the action-takers and leaders. These folks decide to take control of their lives, grab the steering wheel and get that bus pointed in the direction it has to go. Then they show up every day and make sure that the bus is sticking to the designated route. After all, buses don’t just go for a random drive once in a while – they have a route and a timetable. The second type of person is the passengers on the bus – the followers. These folks ride along with the people who are driving, paying the bus-fare and admiring the scenery, content to go wherever they are taken by the people who are driving and deciding on the destination. And the third type of people is under the bus – the great majority of folks who never have a plan, have zero direction, and are flopped on the sofa eating junk food whilst vegging-out on brain-numbing TV and the manufactured hyper-reality of “celebrity culture”. Psychology tells us that one of the secrets of happiness is a sense of control, a feeling of being able to direct our own lives. The more autonomy and control we have, the better we tend to feel. Consumer society spoon-feeds us the happy-meal solutions to our manufactured needs, then instantly implants the next need to be pursued: all with instant gratification and almost no effort or thought. That’s why the people who are in pursuit of their magnificent dreams and ambitions tend to be the happiest – they are driving their bus. Whilst others look on and marvel at how hard they drive, how diligently they turn the steering-wheel and how long their working hours are, the bus-drivers of destiny ring the bell and drop the clutch. Do something, today, to take the wheel of your own bus: make a plan, read a book, turn off the media claptrap and figure out where you want your bus to go. If the bus you are on is not already heading in that direction, you’d better start thinking about changing buses or having a word with the driver about changing routes. And if you realise that you are under the bus, then today might just be the beginning of a different life. You choose, one way or another: even if you do nothing, that’s still a choice. Ding-Ding! © Neil Cowmeadow 2017
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The Thursday Thesis - 5/10/2017 I love a good Goal, and - as far as I am concerned – the bigger the better. If it’s a goal you can hang a number on, make it a big number; if it’s a Goal with a date or deadline, make it a real deadline with real consequences. I like the idea of pledging a slug of cash to an organisation you dislike – the only way they don’t get your money is if you beat the deadline you set for yourself. But there are two big problems with having a big Goal. Firstly the big Goal itself. It’s an outcome, a snapshot of the future, distant, remote, and not actionable today. You can’t build a business or write a book, craft a fit body or build a relationship with your life partner in a day. All too often, nothing happens today... The second problem with that Big Goal is its pervasiveness and its hugeness. Certainly, clever people keep their Big Goals in their minds by regularly reminding themselves of what the Goal is and how it looks, feels and sound. But it’s a Big Goal, and it can too easily terrify and overwhelm you, instead of inspire you: I see this all the time with students and coaching clients. So here’s the solution to being overwhelmed by your own Big Goals: just do something, every day, which moves you in the direction of your goals. Simple, isn’t it? That means paying attention to the activities – the PROCESS that produces PROGRESS – every single day. Instead of rocking back on your heels and staring awestruck at your Big Goal, take one tiny step forward towards it. In my book Elephant Sandwiches I shared the simplest, daily tick-box system that I invented to get my own chronic procrastinator arse into gear. The basic idea is that your Big Goals are your Elephants, and that Elephants are indigestible if eaten whole. But slice them up very thin and eat a slice every day, and they are delicious. So the Elephant Sandwich is the breakfast of champions. Get into the Process that produces Progress, every day. Do something. Write 500 words, walk for 10 minutes, make the time. Do Something, today, that brings your future toward you. If it’s a thin enough slice, you can eat it, and tomorrow you’ll be hungry for another. Get started and do something. Today. © Neil Cowmeadow 2017
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The Thursday Thesis - 28/09/2017 A guy goes to see a psychotherapist about his problems. The man is in his fifties, married, with three grown-up children: he is also a multi-millionaire. Though he’s very successful and highly respected by his peers, he’s not well-liked: he’s miserable, bitter and unhappy. The lady therapist steeples her fingers as she waits for her client to gather his thoughts. “I’m so tired” he says. “Everything I’ve ever done, I’ve had to do for myself – and I’m so tired of it. Nobody is there for me, I have to do everything – same as I always have...”. And so it goes for the next hour as the man complains and bemoans his life. Finally he falls silent, and the therapist leans forward a little, softly whispering. “Who changed your nappies?” She asks. Silence. “Who gave you the breast when you were hungry and helpless?” Silence “Who cared for you when you were sick?” Silence. The questions continue, and the silence booms. “Who drives you safely home in your limo?” Silence “Who cleans your offices and bathrooms?” Silence. “Who drew the pictures that you stuck on the refrigerator?” Silence “And who kisses you goodnight and prays for you?” The man sobs, eyes closed as the truth breaks over him like a tidal wave. Nobody makes it on their own. Whatever you or I do, however much we achieve and whatever we aspire to, we cannot do it alone. Close your eyes and take a moment to be thankful for the multitude of reasons to be grateful that are present in your life – because they are there. Take just one thing and thank the person who did it for you, a phone call, a card, a visit – let them know that you noticed them, noticed what they did, and that you appreciate it. Notice it, and give thanks for it – because nobody ever does it alone. So here’s me, to you: you make the writing worthwhile, and I am in awe of you.For your comments, your shares, and for reading the blog, I thank You. © Neil Cowmeadow 2017
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The Thursday Thesis - 21/09/2017 Malcolm Gladwell devoted a chapter of his book “Outliers” to the idea that it takes around 10,000 hours of practice to achieve Mastery in a field. The book sold well and made Gladwell a ton of money, simultaneously propelling him to the status of credible pundit and positioning the journalist as an expert on learning. But here’s the thing: the 10,000 hour rule was Gladwell’s invention, and it didn’t reflect the essence of the research that he referred to – a 1993 study at the University of Colorado. So when Gladwell declared 'Researchers have settled on what they believe is the magic number for true expertise: 10,000 hours', the chief of the research team, Anders Ericsson, was royally pissed-off. “Gladwell cited our research on expert musicians as a stimulus for his provocative generalisation to a magical number", Ericsson said, then wrote a rebuttal paper entitled “The Danger of Delegating Education to Journalists”. Nice one, Anders. Gladwell’s snappy 10,000 hour “Rule” didn’t take much notice of the real conclusions of the researchers: significant variation of time taken to acquire skills, a variety of practice methodologies, and the apparent non-existence of anything that could be identified as “natural talent”. I get it. I’ve been teaching guitar for 18 years, and I don’t believe in talent, either. There are a pile of books out there discussing Talent with a capital T, but I believe in acquiring the necessary skill – and that means learning from someone else, testing the skill by doing it badly at first, then refining it and making it automatic by consistent repetition. This is exactly like tying your shoelaces or learning to drive a car or ride a bicycle. When was the last time you had to think about tying your laces? So the 10,000 hour fallacy entered the canon of conventional wisdom, along with a load of other unhelpful “wisdom”. If you want to know more about how nonsense like this infects people you’ll find plenty in the blog archive and in my book 9 Weird Things Guitarists Do. You see, I have a problem or six with conventional wisdom, and I have a problem with Gladwell’s assertion of certainty in areas where he is not a practitioner. The 10,000 Hour Rule is a journalist’s opinion, rather than the conclusions of the guys who did the work. And, tragically, the 10,000 hour fallacy deters people from pursuing their dreams because it sets up a high barrier to entry to a new activity – such as learning to play the guitar or any other musical instrument. As my friend and former student, Tom Boddison observed in a recent email questioning Gladwell’s opinion, “10,000 hours is a bloody long time!” And what about Mastery – did you notice that the idea of an observable standard snook in on the coat-tails of the 10,000 Hour Rule? There’s a presupposition that one must achieve Mastery, isn’t there? Bunk! Mastery is neither or relevant when one is pursuing one’s own pleasure and following one’s own path – as one must when engaged in any of the so-called Arts. I say we murder the myth of 10,000 hours! I say we murder the illusion of Talent! I say we murder the mischief of Mastery! I say, let’s get these monkeys off our backs and do our own research! Are we foolish enough to just accept the opinion of a journalist when deciding whether to pursue our heart’s desires? Get yourself a guitar, flute, sax, or whatever – a football or golf club and start hacking. Play some bum notes, miss the net and hack up a few divots - who cares if you suck? This is supposed to be fun, isn’t it? Am I making sense, here – am I convincing you? Get out there and have some fun, make lots of mistakes and enjoy every single minute of it. Fail gloriously - because only by learning to miss the net can you ever hope to score a winning goal. © Neil Cowmeadow 2017
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The Answers Have Changed. Albert Einstein famously gave the students on his course the same examination paper two years running. Einstein’s assistant asked the professor if he’d noticed it was the same paper with the same questions he’d set the previous year, to which Einstein replied “It’s not a mistake, the questions are the same; but you see, the answers have changed”. Back in the 1920s and 30s scientific theory was advancing rapidly, so Einstein wasn’t just kidding his assistant – the answers had changed in the intervening year. And isn’t that true of almost everything in life? The answers we have as children and teenagers are different than the answers we have when we are older and our lives have changed: parenthood changes everything, divorce and the death of our loved ones; accidents, injury and illness all conspire to keep the answers we need on the move and elusive. Because everything you currently know is only your best guess, based upon currently available evidence, and that’s the reason why it’s so important to keep learning and to stay curious – because the answers have changed: that’s a fact of life. If you’re not busy finding out those new answers you’ll probably keep on using your old answers, even though your old answers don’t produce the results you want anymore. Think of life as being a long corridor with doors all along both sides: you can’t open a door until you’re right in front of it, so unless you are moving along the corridor you only have access to the one door. Learning and growing is what allows you to progress along the corridor, open more doors and find the answers that you need. So, what are you learning today? It might not be The Answer, but it could be a clue to where The Answer is hiding. Stay Curious. © Neil Cowmeadow 2017
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Magick - The Science of Success Part 2 – The Rituals The Thursday Thesis - 7/9/2017 Every single one of us has our own daily magic rituals, but don’t panic - we haven’t gone over to the Dark Side or contracted religion, so breathe... What I mean is that we all perform rituals every day: we brush our teeth, tie our shoelaces, commute to our workplace, and do a hundred other things every day without really giving it any thought. Our daily rituals help us to get through the day in much the same way that we did yesterday, the day before that, and the day before that, too. Forming a ritual or habit allows us to have a reliable, pre-set way of performing an action. Once we have a ritualised way of doing something we don’t need to think about it, we just do it the same way that we always do it. Ordinarily this is beneficial to us, as we can delegate our performance of a routine task and free-up our resources for other things. So it makes sense to consciously craft our daily rituals to serve us, doesn’t it? Because when we design our rituals to produce what we want we are truly using "...The Science and Art of causing change to occur in conformity with will..." as Aleister Crowley put it when he defined Magick. If you are not already consciously challenging your normal, habitual ways of doing things then today would be a great day to start thinking about how you do things. Chances are good that most of your habits and rituals were learned accidentally and without a thought as to whether they were going to advance you toward your biggest ambition or hold you back from it. Change your rituals and it will change your life. Simply ask yourself “is this helping me or is this hurting me” when you do anything – especially if you do it in a certain way because that’s how you’ve always done it. If it helps you to achieve your defined goals, let it continue: if it isn’t helping, then do something else. Build your own rituals, rather than doom yourself to repeat other people’s unhelpful ones. If you are overweight, change what you ritually buy when you shop: make a list of healthy foods and ONLY buy what’s on the list. I know a guy who does this, and then (bizarrely) rewards himself with a bag of cookies for being such a healthy shopper! That’s certainly a ritual that he might want to change. If you smoke, change your habit of reaching for instant relief whenever you feel a pang of craving: do something else – anything at all - other than lighting up. Prove to yourself that you are not a helpless, pathetic slave to a manufactured addiction. Each morning I use a handful of designed activities to kick-start my day and move me towards my short, medium, long, and lifetime goals – I call them MAGICK, and it’s probably no surprise that it’s an acronym. Movement: exercise and stretching to keep my body fit for purpose. Affirmation: reinforcing my positivity, goals and my reasons for living. Gratitude: recognising the great things in my life and nudging my mind to find more of them. Inner-vision: solitude, meditation and self-examination. Creation: bringing my dreams into reality – I have to do The Work, nobody is coming to the rescue. Knowledge: keep learning and challenging what I know. So there you have it – my MAGICK rituals. What about you – what are the rituals you want to keep in your life, which ones will you change, and which ones will you begin? © Neil Cowmeadow 2017
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The Thursday Thesis - 31/08/2017 I am a huge fan of self-help books – I’ve read or listened to hundreds of them since I gave up my glittering career as a teenage drunk – and I’ve noticed that they all have two big ideas in common. Since both ideas are super-important and interesting, I’m going to cover one this week and one next week. Firstly, there’s the theme of our will and the power to choose the changes we make in our lives: as Gandhi put it, to “be the change you wish to see in the world”. Call it self-mastery, success, or the secret – call it what you will – it all comes down to "The Science and Art of causing Change to occur in conformity with Will". That’s the thrust of what almost every self-help writer and guru preaches. But hold on a minute - that definition didn’t come from Tony Robbins, Jim Rohn or Napoleon Hill - it came from the English writer and occultist Aleister Crowley, as he explained what Magick is. By the way, Magick is the archaic spelling of the word – it’s not a typo – and since this is my blog, I’m going to flit from one spelling to another, so there! You’d be hard-pressed to find anyone in the self-help field who would disagree with that definition as a recipe for success. So, who was Aleister Crowley? Born in Leamington Spa in 1875, Crowley was the son of a successful brewing family who held Christian Fundamentalist beliefs. At Cambridge he captained the university chess team before dropping out to spend his fortune pursuing esoteric and occult knowledge, sex, drugs and adventures of every kind. In time, his infamous lifestyle earned him the title “The wickedest man in the World”, according to the British press, though he preferred to style himself The Beast 666. But he wasn’t just a sex-mad, drug-taking, bisexual, eccentric genius – though that would be enough for many of us. Crowley was also a journalist, novelist, poet, painter, ceremonial magician, mountaineer, and – quite possibly - a spy for the British government. Yet this libertine defined Magick in terms that closely resemble most modern day definitions of success - as extolled in thousands of self-help books, DVDs, online courses and 3-day “Ra-Ra” guru events in arenas all over the World. It’s interesting, isn't it? Every time you see someone who is exceptional at what they do you’ll notice the same thing: they make it look easy, effortless and completely natural... Almost like magic. Non-experts, like you and me, wonder how they do what they do, what their secret is, and how they make it look so easy. There is something magical and spellbinding about mastery and expertise, but it isn’t magic – it’s just technique and technology. “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic” wrote Arthur C. Clarke, the author of 2001: A Space Odyssey, many science fiction books and the inventor of the communication satellite. Our experts don’t have magic on their side – they have advanced technologies and techniques which we don’t have, yet. And the most important word in that sentence is “yet”. “Yet” tells us that we can acquire the skills and habits of experts, adopt their practices and become experts ourselves – “yet” implies that the skills are learnable and that we can learn them, sometime. Follow your “yet” with “but” and you’re really opening the door to change: say aloud “I don’t know how to do it, yet, but...” What else do you want to add to complete the sentence? If you said “I’m gonna” or “I will”, you’re going to learn how to do it, aren’t you? Words are powerful – perhaps even Magical. But there’s no magick to excellence: I ask you, is effective time management magic, weight loss mystical, or success in business esoteric? I don’t think so. And there's no Magic involved when you are learning to play guitar or any other musical instrument, either. Just find an expert guitar teacher, find out how they do it and do what they do. Not what they appear to do, but how they really do it, because if you learn how it’s really done, you know it’s not magic and you can do it, too. Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) tells us to model very specifically what experts do and how they think in order to perform just like they do. That sounds like learning to perform a ritual, doesn’t it? Next week we’ll look at the practical implementation of Magick into your everyday life and how to harness the power of Rituals. © Neil Cowmeadow 2017
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The Thursday Thesis - 24/08/2017 How’s your day going, today? Are you having a good day or a bad day? Now ask yourself “why is this a good or bad day?” Chances are that you’ll credit the good day to something outside yourself: you’ll also blame the bad day on something outside of yourself, too. As a coach, teacher, and human being I have a massive problem with blaming or crediting circumstances for my happiness. Here’s why: happy and unhappy are states of mind. Your state of mind can’t be directly affected by anything external to you – the only connection between outside events and conditions is your interpretation of them. It’s obvious, when you stop to think about it, isn’t it? If the mind exists within our self then external factors cannot directly influence our state of mind because there is no unmediated connection between the external and the internal. And if circumstances are not the direct cause of happy or unhappy states of mind - our response to those external factors is. That’s why it’s so important to govern how we interpret what we hear, think, and believe – to protect us from reacting reflexively to events. I see it all the time in my guitar teaching sessions where it’s very common for students to unquestioningly recite other people’s opinions and preconceptions. They’ll often tell me “I have no talent” or “I’m not good at this”, or any other of the thousands of variations they’ve been given over the years. Their reflexive response is a compilation of other people’s opinions and throw-away remarks rather than the considered judgement of an expert guitarist or teacher. Letting that loop playback over and over again can go on for a lifetime, colouring every event and experience concerning (in this example) playing the guitar. For years – even decades – our response to circumstances and events gets handled by erroneous opinions of other people: we don’t even know that we are doing it – we “just know” we’re “untalented” or “no good at this”. It’s as though we’ve outsourced our responses to events. But that’s our job: nobody else can (or should) do it for us. That job is way too important to unwittingly handover to anyone else, ever. We are in control. When we learn to govern and control our reactions to external circumstances, we are in control of our mind, and thus our state of happiness or misery. And if we’re not in control, it becomes easy to imagine something outside of our self “triggering” us into an irrational state of mind. “Getting triggered” is a feeble justification – an excuse - and I’m not buying it. The bottom line is this: we always choose to be masters of circumstance or slaves to it. We always choose to be happy or unhappy. What are you choosing today? © Neil Cowmeadow 2017 Remember to Like and Share The Thursday Thesis with your friends, family, and anyone else. I’d love to hear your comments, along with any ideas you’d care to hurl at me. Neil@cowtownguitars.net The Thursday Thesis - 17/08/2017 Whenever you are thinking of a new goal or trying to achieve a little more, here’s a stupid-simple way to surprise yourself with a great idea. I call it the 20 Questions, and it involves (wait for it!) asking yourself twenty questions and writing down whatever comes to mind. But here’s the clever bit – every single one of the twenty questions is the same. How simple is that? So, let’s suppose that want to make more money... Ask yourself “what can I do to make more money, right now?” and write down your answer. How about stopping smoking? Ask yourself “what can I do instead of lighting a cigarette?” Now repeat the process. Keep going until you have your 20 answers. I promise you this: the first 10-12 answers will be obvious because the easy answers come first. The good stuff happens after about the 12th question, the target of 20 (or 30, or 40...) compels you to keep thinking, and this is where you begin to find creative answers. However crazy your answers become, don’t stop until you have your 20 answers. Genius lies just beyond crazy, in my opinion. Go and try it, right now – you know you want to, don’t you? And don’t stop at crazy. © Neil Cowmeadow 2017
Remember to Like and Share The Thursday Thesis with your friends, family, and anyone else. I’d love to hear your comments, along with any ideas you’d care to hurl at me. Neil@cowtownguitars.net The Thursday Thesis - 10/08/2017
It is always 99% easy. Yes, easy: the hard work, day in, day out, that produces the bulk of a project - that is the easy part. The problem is always that last 1%. At university the last 1% was submitting the assignments; today it is publishing a finished book or piece of music. You’d think it would be easy to just press the button and breathe, wouldn’t you? It isn’t easy - the fear contained in that last 1% can paralyse even the strongest person. But that last 1% is all that stands between the work and the audience: the people we wrote, composed, worked and dreamed for. In soccer, it’s the last 1% that makes all the difference. Between a goal and a miss, between winning and losing – that’s the 1%. If the ball never crosses the line – the game ends in a nil-nil draw: that’s all that gets written on the score-sheet. In life, it’s the 1% that sorts out the wannabes from the gonnabes; those who succeed and complete the job, and those who give up on the one-yard line. What’s the point in writing the world’s best novel, symphony, pop song or movie script if it sits, forever in your desk drawer or lurks in an obscure folder of your hard drive, unread, unheard, unsung and unseen? To paraphrase Oliver Wendell Holmes: “the tragedy of the average man is that he goes to his grave with his music still inside him”. The last 1% is the showdown between hope and fear. And fear fights to kill. Game on! © Neil Cowmeadow 2017 Please Like and Share The Thursday Thesis with your friends, family, your cat and anyone else. I’d love to hear your comments, along with any ideas you’d care to hurl at me. The Thursday Thesis - 2/8/2017
It’s that time of year again: when millions of us Brits pack our bags and head off for a week or two on our annual summer holiday. For some of us it’s a chance to bake our brains on the beach of a tropical paradise; for others it’s seeing the sights of one or other of the great cities of the world. Either of those holidays might appeal to you, or it might be something else again: we’re all different. But I’m not a fan. I don’t like lying on beaches, bar-hopping, playing golf every day or... well, just about anything that takes me away from teaching, learning and my work. Ok, I confess: I don’t like holidays very much – period. To me (and I’m not the only weirdo out there) there’s something odd about “escaping” from my work for a couple of weeks. This is one of the downsides of doing what you love for a living, and wanting to do it all the time. Now, I’m not sure if this is a problem. We’ll see. According to a recent survey, 84% of Brits don’t enjoy their job. That means that for 84% of the population, getting away from it all is a great idea: they’ve worked for it, they’ve earned it, and by golly they need it. And I still remember how it felt, when I was in the wrong job: my colleagues and I worked dutifully for most of the year in the jobs we didn’t enjoy in order to afford the things we wanted – including our hoidays abroad. At the time it didn’t strike me as odd: it’s what we did, and nobody challenged it. We planned our escapes for months, worked overtime to pay for it, and bitched about going back to work afterwards. But these days I have to be dragged, kicking and screaming to the airport. There’s something peculiar (at least to my addled brain) in absenting myself from my son, the work I love and the people I get to do it with, in order to do things I don’t enjoy anywhere near as much. Perhaps I’m odd, perhaps it just means that I am doing what I should be doing – perhaps I’m just a grumpy git who hates his routines being disrupted – who knows? I wish I’d known - I wish someone had told me - that when your work is your play, and your vocation feels like your vacation, you’ll never work a day in your life. Happy holidays! © Neil Cowmeadow 2017 Love Overload...
The Thursday Thesis - 27/07/2017 It’s a funny thing, but most people complain of being overloaded – you, yourself, might even think it’s a bad thing. You would – of course – be wrong. Every piece of research I’ve ever read suggests that Overload is a Good Thing – with capitals! Here’s how it works: every time you overload a muscle it suffers damage. But our bodies adapt to that damage and overcompensate: they seem to assume we’ll do the same stupid thing again and provide us with more muscle in a bid to protect us from future damage. A similar process occurs in our brains, that trembling network of connections and cells. Use it, push it, load it up and it will begin to morph into a faster and better brain. The process even has an expensive-sounding name: neuroplasticity. So we are built to grow, but it takes the threat of damage and a crisis situation to trigger that growth – it’s all tied in to our innate fight or flight response to danger. No crisis, no growth. So it’s essential that we do things that Overload and scare us: how else can we develop and grow stronger? I’m currently training to improve my public speaking abilities, which are already pretty good. But what’s fascinating to watch is how I and the other trainees smash through our fear and emerge unscathed. Within three days, one lady went from Overload and total meltdown to confident speaker: a little more practice and she’ll be rocking the house down. How did she get there? Incrementally doing a little more, a little more, a little more... Things stuck, ideas gelled, words tumbled... Do a bit, add a bit, do a bit more. Now repeat. Rest and sleep complete the process. I love Overload, so give me more, more, more! © Neil Cowmeadow 2017 Remember to Like and Share The Thursday ThoughtCast with your friends, family, and anyone else. I’d love to hear your comments, along with any ideas you’d care to hurl at me. Neil@cowtownguitars.net . The Thursday Thesis - 20/07/2017 The very excellent Angi Magic’s favourite word is “Outrageous!” – with an exclamation mark. And, a couple of days ago, I got to thinking about setting some “Outrageous!” and unreasonable goals for myself – wondering what I could do to power-up my productivity and catalyse myself into action. I asked myself “How can I share what I teach - music, guitar, happiness, and all the rest - with the 7 billion or so people I can’t work with face to face?” After one too many espressos it dawned on me that if I got my sorry arse into the chair every single day and wrote for a couple of hours every single day, I could probably finish a book a month – that would be a start, wouldn’t it? Outrageous! Unreasonable? Do-able? Let’s see... I already have over 140 outlines and/or ideas for books sitting on my hard-drive, where they are doing no good at all and helping nobody. My “Outrageous!” Idea looks like a great plan to get them off the drive and into ink... It’ll keep me busy for the next few years, at least. I’m up for the challenge, and I realise that going public with my “Outrageous!” goal is going to nail my backside down: if I miss a deadline, I know I’m going to hear about. Going public with your own Goals and Ambitions might just light a rocket under you, too. The poet, Mary Oliver asks, in one of her works, “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” But don’t tell me – tell the people who will inspire you to do it, and who’ll hold you to account if you don’t. © Neil Cowmeadow 2017
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The Thursday Thesis - 13/07/2017 “Go into The Silence...” These days, everyone is so “Connected”, our phones are on 24/7, we’re on Wi-Fi wherever we go, and we can stream music, video, and social media almost anywhere. But what are we actually connected to? In becoming more and more a node on a network, have we lost touch with ourselves? Have we, ourselves, become the small voice lost in the babble and roar of the crowd? And have we lost the Art of Solitude: the pleasure of being singular? As we have become more and more bombarded by media messages, constant connectivity and the social pressure to conform, what place is there for Solitude? Now I’m talking about Solitude, here – not loneliness – but the contented state of being quietly by oneself. You will be thought odd if you dare to turn off the phone and go invisible, kill the radio, get the hell away from the toxic telly and go into the silence of Solitude. Can you hear them saying “Are you ok? It’s not normal to be alone...” as though there was some kind of problem in you valuing yourself enough to step off the conveyor-belt of conformity and just be by yourself? Ah, Solitude – my wordless companion in stretching moonlight shadows and whispering winds; passionate mistress of the salt-streaked gale on the shore. I long for your silent embrace, your accepting quietude and your caress. Turn off The World, and let me go into The Silence again. Yes, go into The Silence - I dare you... © Neil Cowmeadow 2017
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The Thursday Thesis - 06/07/2017 “Whoever Controls the Language Controls the Debate...” WARNING: May Provoke Uncomfortable Thinking. It’s a funny thing, language. At one level it is capable of vividly expressing the core of who and what we are – this is the domain of poets, writers: those who are determined to be clear and direct. At the opposite pole there is the language that is used to hoodwink, deceive, distort and steal: Weasel Words. George Orwell knew all about Weasel Words and their ability to control the thoughts of others. In his best-know work Nineteen Eighty Four, the totalitarian regime overseen by Big Brother restricts dissent by restricting the words available to contain meaning. He expands his exploration of Weasel Words in the essay Politics and The English Language, which – when read today – seems remarkably prescient of our times. Beware the Weasel Words! Restricting which words can and cannot be used is a powerful way to restrict any exchange of ideas – that is the genius of Orwell’s Newspeak – a language so bland and impoverished the there are no words that can even contain the idea of dissent. Today we see and hear euphemism in place of clarity: nice-sounding words that conceal a vile truth. Remember when we heard “ethnic cleansing” for the first time? It sounds so hygienic, doesn’t it? So much nicer than “mass slaughter of people on religious or racial grounds”, don’t you think? Likewise the tidiness of the “West Bank”, rather than the “land illegally occupied by Israeli invaders and controlled by military force at the point of a gun”. When resistance fighters are labelled “Islamic Fundamentalist Terrorists” we can easily lose sight of the reality of a frightened and desperate people fighting for the land they call home, their way of life, and the future of their families, can’t we? If your homeland were invaded by an out-of-control, militaristic rogue state – say, Israel or the USA, backed up by a gaggle of fawning, compliant and gullible allies – what would you do? If you work to repel the invaders, are you a Resistance Fighter or a Fundamentalist Terrorist? When the good ol’ US of A adds to its tally of “interventions” by invading yet another sovereign state, it is a “regime change” – which sounds so much more civilised than decapitating another government that the US does not approve of. In war, the first casualty is Truth. And you know we’re in trouble when “Post-Truth” is the Oxford Dictionary’s Word of The Year (2016), don’t you? And if we are living in the era of “Post-Truth politics”, are we not thoughtlessly submitting ourselves to be governed by the scum and dross which remains after The Truth has been taken away? Words are power – use them wisely. © Neil Cowmeadow 2017
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The Thursday Thesis - 29/06/2017 “Just Don’t...” This week, to celebrate The Thursday Thesis’ first birthday (Happy Birthday, baby) I’d like to share one of the wisest principles of happiness I’ve ever heard. I can’t claim to have originated it, though I wish I had: I got it from my friend and mentor Peter Thomson – the hugely successful author and trainer. You can find out all about Peter at www.PeterThomson.com or watch his take on the core idea of my next book Elephant Sandwiches at http://www.neilcowmeadow.com/testimonials.html Peter’s diamond of wisdom – even better than a pearl – was this: DDWT. Huh? DDWT – what’s that all about? Don’t Deal With Tossers. Simple, isn’t it? To put it another way - decline to work with, live with, associate with, anybody who makes you unhappy. Why? Because there’s no amount of money that you can be paid that can compensate you for being made to feel miserable by someone else. Though Peter gave me that gem as a maxim for business, I think it applies to every area of life. Don’t whine about your idiot boss, your cretinous co-worker, your abusive partner – yada, yada, yada - give ‘em the finger and walk. This also goes for those dysfunctional half-wits and preening wannabees on unreality TV: fire them - DDWT! Life is short – too short – so why agree to be made miserable by someone else whilst you’re still alive? There are 7.5 BILLION people on this planet – it’s not as though there are no other people you could be with. In work, in life, in love, and in general, DDWT: Don’t Deal With Tossers. You know it makes sense, don’t you? © Neil Cowmeadow 2017
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The Thursday Thesis - 22/06/2017
“Your Inner Negative Image...” As we explored in last week’s TT, where your mind goes, your body follows; so let’s continue with that idea, and mull over the way we define ourselves by what we are not – because it’s a huge idea that we say are what we are not. Why should this be true? Hmmm.... It’s that pesky brain, again; playing games and messing with your mind. The problem is that our brains don’t handle negations – not’s, no’s, un’s and the like – very well. Do not think of an elephant. What are you thinking of? Despite being told not to, you are undoubtedly thinking of an elephant. Naughty you. What happened? Were you just contrary, or is there something else at play? The brain has to think of the thing in order to not think of the thing, and the word “elephant” immediately conjures the image of an elephant from your memory – just so that the image can be erased. So what happens when we tell ourselves what we are not, when we tell ourselves we are not lazy, scared, fat or poor? We imagine ourselves as just the things we wish not to be. Nowt as strange as folk, as they say. And that’s why any goal we have for ourselves must be positively stated. It’s why “I’m not poor” won’t end well, whereas “I’m financially successful” will probably do the business. Similarly, “I’m a non-smoker” will be feeble when compared to “I’m healthy and strong, and I breathe clean air into my spotless lungs”. So what are you telling yourself you’re not, every day? Makes you think, doesn’t it? |
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