Neil diligently battles through his fly to bring you this episode on diligence! As he defines it, it’s the ongoing execution of right action in the pursuit of worthy goals. Describing how to stay around the straight and narrow, Neil explains the advantages of being diligent about timescale and your attention and to be sure that what you are aiming for is worth your efforts.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• A lot of us are good beginners, and lousy finishers. Nothing beats the excitement of a new project.
• Worthy goals have to have value and be worth the effort. They should also be a vehicle for your own self expression, else you’ll reach a goal that means nothing to you.
• Set the time aside and never let anything take the spot. 
• If we increase the frequency of our tasks it becomes more efficient. 

BEST MOMENTS
‘Before anything else, I must confess, I’m actually pretty crap at this. I love the excitement of new stuff and I don’t much care for the mundane, routine things in life.’
‘The trick is to keep taking the next step. You’ll know soon enough if you’re on the right path as each step reveals the next.’
‘I know what my goals are. I’ve identified the goals that are worthy of my time and my effort. The teaching is to spread the love affair with the guitar. That’s worth my time.’ 

VALUABLE RESOURCES
The Tutor Podcast
www.Neilcowmeadow.com

ABOUT THE HOST
Neil Cowmeadow is a maverick peripatetic guitar teacher from Telford with over 19 years’ experience in the business of helping people. Learn how to start, grow and love your business with Neil’s invaluable advice and tips without the buzzwords and BS!

CONTACT METHOD
[email protected] 

We all have one. Yeah, you do! It’s the stupid idiot part of us that keeps on doing stupid things even when we know for sure it isn’t going to help us move forward, stay in shape, maintain our relationships and do better business and make more money. Neil is going to help you kick out that inner moron. 

KEY TAKEAWAYS

•  The little inner voice that tells you deserve a Mars bar because you’ve been to the gym. Wrong.
• Refocus on what works. Never let your inner moron run you.
• Just stop, pause, take a breath, and take the choice that truly benefits you.

BEST MOMENTS
‘Your reward for going to the gym is to be a little fitter, a little bit stronger and a little bit better than you were.’
‘This where the rubber meets the road and you either battle your inner moron or you surrender to it.’
‘It will lie to you. It will bully and flatter you. It will coerce, control and manipulate you but you cannot let it win.’

VALUABLE RESOURCES
The Tutor Podcast
www.Neilcowmeadow.com

ABOUT THE HOST
Neil Cowmeadow is a maverick peripatetic guitar teacher from Telford with over 19 years’ experience in the business of helping people. Learn how to start, grow and love your business with Neil’s invaluable advice and tips without the buzzwords and BS!

CONTACT METHOD
[email protected] 

When trying to challenge students' ideas of their own identity, or even one's own, there are 3 parts to this easily applied psychological method to make your efforts flow much more easily.  

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Absolutely ; find what the student believes is absolutely true for them. For example ‘I’m tone deaf’ or ‘I have no rhythm’.
• Always ; find something the student believes they are good at, but haven’t always been good at.  Use this to identify change and improvement. For example ‘I used to be bad at guitar playing, but I’m much better now.’ 
• Sometimes ; find one moment where they have been good at what they think they are bad at, and remove the absolute nature of their belief. 

BEST MOMENTS
‘Today a mature student told me that they used to sing all the time when they were little, but stopped when they were seven after the school music teacher told them that their voice was awful’
‘Those beliefs are actually temporary over the long term. They’re changeable. I think our job as teachers is to change the buggers.’ 
‘I have taken their identity of being capable and able from one context and grafted it into the guitar lesson.’

VALUABLE RESOURCES
The Tutor Podcast
www.Neilcowmeadow.com

ABOUT THE HOST
Neil Cowmeadow is a maverick peripatetic guitar teacher from Telford with over 19 years’ experience in the business of helping people. Learn how to start, grow and love your business with Neil’s invaluable advice and tips without the buzzwords and BS!

CONTACT METHOD
[email protected] 

These are the two elements that being a successful teacher really hinges on, but which has the greatest affect on the student, imparting skills and knowledge or the ability to change their belief systems? 

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Your communication skills are your ability to present, demonstrate and explain practical skills in a way the student can understand. 
• Ultimately the imparting of skills will lead nowhere unless you can change the students belief in themselves. Belief drives everything. 
• A negative belief will prevent the student from using any of the skills you could impart to them. Unless they believe themselves to be a musician, they will not play.

BEST MOMENTS

‘Since I’m a guitar teacher I’ll spend lots of time building the students foundational skills and their technical base using the music they love, moving from a very simplified, paired down version and adding layers of complexity and nuance as we go.’

‘People will stay true to who they believe themselves to be, for better or for worse.’ 

‘Without changing their beliefs, you and I are going to struggle to help them to get what they want because what they want to do most is confirm their beliefs.’ 

VALUABLE RESOURCES

The Tutor Podcast

 www.Neilcowmeadow.com

ABOUT THE HOST

Neil Cowmeadow is a maverick peripatetic guitar teacher from Telford with over 19 years’ experience in the business of helping people. Learn how to start, grow and love your business with Neil’s invaluable advice and tips without the buzzwords and BS!

CONTACT METHOD

[email protected] 

Pacing and Leading is a concept within Neuro Linguistic Programming, or NLP, which is applied linguistics and psychology to alter or set patterns of human behaviour.  Pacing and Leading is a great way to gain rapport and trust with students and allows you to take an unmotivated, stressed out student and move them to a more positive position. Neil tells you how. 

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Pacing is where you move yourself into the same state that the student is in. Connect with them as they currently are to gain rapport.  You may need to observe closely adopting posture, breathing, movement and language.
• When you are matched you can then move yourself into a more positive state. If you make small subtle changes and see if they follow, you can influence them into a more positive position.
• This method allows not only learning but can give the normally challenged student a positive experience that they will want to repeat.

BEST MOMENTS

‘You can think of it as falling into step alongside someone, a friend perhaps, while you’re walking down the road. It just makes everything easier if you’re walking in step.’   

‘When I’ve got a depressed or a sad student I’ll move into their world and then bring them back into mine so they are uplifted and empowered and capable of learning.’ 

‘As with any skill, use this for the benefit of your students and your clients’ 

VALUABLE RESOURCES

The Tutor Podcast

 www.Neilcowmeadow.com

ABOUT THE HOST

Neil Cowmeadow is a maverick peripatetic guitar teacher from Telford with over 19 years’ experience in the business of helping people. Learn how to start, grow and love your business with Neil’s invaluable advice and tips without the buzzwords and BS!

CONTACT METHOD

[email protected] 

In this episode Neil leads you through how to identify the right price to charge for your tutoring sessions and what factors to consider and ignore when reaching your decision. Pricing matters, but maybe not in the way you think. 

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• It is not greedy to charge as much as people are willing to pay for what you do, its just sensible.
• People don’t pay just for your actions but for your knowledge and experience. 
• If you reduce your price too much, people will assume you are of low quality and avoid you. 
• Discounts often result in difficulty when the rate reverts to normal. It may result in constant price renegotiation.

BEST MOMENTS

‘If you’re charging £20 an hour and people would gladly pay £30 for what you do, doesn’t it make sense to give them the opportunity to give you that higher rate?’

‘A big part of your fee will be due to trust. Trust that the customer has in you.’

‘If your customer demographic is affluent, you should charge what they expect.’

‘Having delivered all my technical stuff they still want to come and spend time with me.’ 

VALUABLE RESOURCES

The Tutor Podcast

 www.Neilcowmeadow.com

ABOUT THE HOST

Neil Cowmeadow is a maverick peripatetic guitar teacher from Telford with over 19 years’ experience in the business of helping people. Learn how to start, grow and love your business with Neil’s invaluable advice and tips without the buzzwords and BS!

CONTACT METHOD

[email protected] 

Many people think they are not creative, devoid of inspiration or don’t have the required skill or natural makeup to even improvise. Neil disagrees and believes that all of us are creative to a greater or lesser extent and it is a skill that must be practiced to be developed. He explains how he encourages and teaches his students to move beyond their own narrow definitions of themselves.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Everyone is creative at whatever age and whatever background. There is a natural drive in every human that seeks expression. 
• Give your students a safe place to express and just allow it to happen. Don’t judge it or allow your students to judge themselves.
• Give them technique and then encourage them to disrupt it to create something new.
• Creativity is often discouraged by mainstream education so it is up to individual tutors to fan that creative spark back into life.

BEST MOMENTS

‘You don’t learn much from what you already know and what you’ve proved to work, that’s a done deal. It’s when you make errors, when you try stuff out, that’s when you create something new.’

‘Make them curious. Get them to ask the correct questions of themselves.’  

‘There is no place for creativity in a great deal of the mainstream education system because that’s all about passing exams. It’s about compliance and conformity.’ 

VALUABLE RESOURCES

The Tutor Podcast

 www.Neilcowmeadow.com

ABOUT THE HOST

Neil Cowmeadow is a maverick peripatetic guitar teacher from Telford with over 19 years’ experience in the business of helping people. Learn how to start, grow and love your business with Neil’s invaluable advice and tips without the buzzwords and BS!

CONTACT METHOD

[email protected] 

Neil explains ‘The Great Escape’ or ‘The Great Retreat’ as a preventative measure for those who get swamped, overwhelmed or over absorbed in their business or work. Here is Neil’s method of getting back to the big picture, the long view, and strategic planning if you get caught up in the nitty-gritty, everyday grind of your business.
KEY TAKEAWAYS

• We tend to miss small details, trends and shifts in the marketplace, miss openings and opportunities. 
• Make regular time for your strategic planning. Take more than one day out from the business to properly consider it from a distance and see what you may have been missing.
• Disconnect from the daily tasks of the business to take real time to consider its direction and forward planning. 

BEST MOMENTS
‘We can end up neglecting the long view and this is absolutely normal because we’re working ‘in the business’, we’re not working ‘on the business.’’
‘I need to disconnect from the day to day running of the business. So I deliberately don’t do email. I also don't phone, I leave it at home.’
‘The big thing is to be away from my teaching work completely. And that means no scheduling, no admin, no taking calls..nothing.’
VALUABLE RESOURCES
The Tutor Podcast
www.Neilcowmeadow.com
ABOUT THE HOST
Neil Cowmeadow is a maverick peripatetic guitar teacher from Telford with over 19 years’ experience in the business of helping people. Learn how to start, grow and love your business with Neil’s invaluable advice and tips without the buzzwords and BS!
CONTACT METHOD
[email protected] 

A ‘brand’ is a product, service, business or even person that is easily identified and widely known. But what is it that makes a brand and how do you become one? Neil takes a look at how you can get started on the road to being well known for the services that you offer.
KEY TAKEAWAYS

• A brand is not simply a logo or a slogan. These are all just signifiers, signposts for the potential customer to follow. 
• A strong and unified idea of what the business or product is about is the brand. 
• If you can provoke an emotional response people will behave irrationally when purchasing products and services, allowing you to charge more.
• You need to be known for something positive and then make every one aware of it in exactly the same way. 
• Be consistent in what you offer, be the same person, if possible even in dress and behaviour. 

BEST MOMENTS
‘The brand isn’t the logo. That’s just a signifier. It’s a distinctive symbol designed to capture attention.’
‘It’s the widely held belief that the particular business or product is actually doing something special, perhaps even magical.’
‘To me ‘rock god’, ‘guitar hero’, I mean, how’s that for elevation of an ordinary person to a very high status? How’s that for pushing that high perceived value?’
‘Where I am, everybody knows Neil Cowmeadow because there are big banners on the fence outside of my house, with the stupid name on it! Cowmeadow! Its just daft, everybody knows Neil the guitar guy.’ 
VALUABLE RESOURCES
The Tutor Podcast
www.Neilcowmeadow.com
ABOUT THE HOST
Neil Cowmeadow is a maverick peripatetic guitar teacher from Telford with over 19 years’ experience in the business of helping people. Learn how to start, grow and love your business with Neil’s invaluable advice and tips without the buzzwords and BS!
CONTACT METHOD
[email protected] 

If you are in business for yourself your are in a significant minority with currently only 13.7% of working people self employed, the lowest since 2011. There is a lot of peer pressure to get a job and be miserable. However, Neil urges you to carry on with your own business and keep your time and happiness under your own control.
KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Avoid the ‘loser speak’ because that’s what you are going to hear a lot of and you are going to hear it from the majority of the people around you.
• Don’t take career advice from unhappy, unfulfilled, underpaid people.
• Some people will resent you in your freedom and success.

BEST MOMENTS
‘If you’re busy, they’ll tell you not to work so hard. They’ll tell you that you need to chill out. And I hate that term.’
‘Because we’ve chosen to leave the safety of the herd, break rank and separate ourselves from who we used to be, believe me, it changes you.’
‘Nobody else can live our life for us.’
VALUABLE RESOURCES
The Tutor Podcast
www.Neilcowmeadow.com
ABOUT THE HOST
Neil Cowmeadow is a maverick peripatetic guitar teacher from Telford with over 19 years’ experience in the business of helping people. Learn how to start, grow and love your business with Neil’s invaluable advice and tips without the buzzwords and BS!
CONTACT METHOD
[email protected]