How will the new lockdown restrictions affect your tutoring business? In today’s episode, Neil shares his advice on how you can adapt and scale your business, continue to serve your tribe online and how you can set and achieve new goals both for your personal development and your business during the lockdown. Listen in and learn and why it’s important to stay positive, why you need to remain a leader to your students and how you and your business can thrive under new restrictions.

 

Contact Neil ([email protected])

 

KEY TAKEAWAYS

 

• Use the new lockdown to set yourself a goal. Consider your accounts, out of date admin and if you’re learning anything moving forward? Set yourself an income goal, a health goal and everything to keep your business going and your mind active.
  
  

This is a good time to think strategically about your business, how you will adapt and change and how to can diversify your business in order to reach 6-streams of income to reduce any risk.

How can you continue to serve your tribe during the lockdown? Serve your tribe, contact your students and ensure you’re continuing to teach online, on social media and over the phone. This is also a good opportunity to ask for referrals, market and expand your tribe.

 

• Remember you can’t change what happens, but you can change how you respond. More than ever, it’s down to you and me to take action on our own behalf – nobody is coming to the rescue, so it’s down to us.
  
  

We are responsible, meaning “able to respond”. This is your chance to LEAD and to SHINE, to be a reliable & positive influence in the lives of your students, clients and mentees.

 

BEST MOMENTS

 

“You can do NOTHING about the draconian legislation itself – but you DO get to choose how you respond to it.”

“Work on all those projects that you haven’t had time for”

“You should aim to have six streams of income in your business”

“Get yourself more organised and figure out how you can do things better”

 

 

VALUABLE RESOURCES

• Listen to The Tutor Podcast on the Apple Podcasts (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-tutor-podcast/id1369191372)!
  • Build Your Online Course Week 1: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/build-your-online-course/id1369191372?i=1000477109724

Course Planning Week 2: Who Am I?: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/build-your-online-course/id1369191372?i=1000477109724

Who are They? (Know Your Punters): https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/who-are-they-know-your-punters/id1369191372?i=1000478984529

Read the Weird Things Guitarists Do book by Neil Cowmeadow, which is available now on Amazon. Link - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Weird-Things-Guitarists-Do-Misconceptions/dp/1519026579/

Contact Neil via this website - 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]

How are you perceived by your students and in your marketplace? Listen in as Neil shares his tips on how to figure out how you are positioned and how you can align your view with your students. Discover why consistency is key to success, how to position yourself as an authority in your field and how to identify your lane and stay in it.

 

Contact Neil ([email protected])

 

KEY TAKEAWAYS

 

• Be true to yourself. Integrity is honesty and it will give your students a sense of certainty. What is it you do that makes you special, different and authority in your chosen field? Ask yourself, why you want to be a tutor?
  
  

Ask your students and get feedback from them. Ensure their perception of you is aligned with the tutor you are.

Look at what creates the perception of your teaching. Consider your environment, the lighting, your accolades and the tidiness of your teaching room. Everything says something about you and impact on the impression student will have on you.

 

• Nothing says more about you than how you deal with time. Be on time and be professional. Being unprepared and failing to plan for your students will seriously undermine your status so take notes and keep records.

 

• Availability can affect how you are perceived, if your calendar is empty you will appear to be unpopular, if you are booked solid you will appear to be sought after.

 

• Consider your fees. Aim for the premium end of the market and you will attract a certain type of clientele. Additionally always offer a super-premium tier or package for your clients.

 

• Everything counts, when you meet your students you must be who they expect you to be. Don’t leave anything to chance.

 

 

 

BEST MOMENTS

“Consistently show up and be the same person each and every week”

“Your appearance and your language is key to your student perception of you.”

“Identify your lane and stay in it”

“Who are you to your tribe?”

 

VALUABLE RESOURCES

• Listen to The Tutor Podcast on the Apple Podcasts (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-tutor-podcast/id1369191372)!
  • Build Your Online Course Week 1: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/build-your-online-course/id1369191372?i=1000477109724

Course Planning Week 2: Who Am I?: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/build-your-online-course/id1369191372?i=1000477109724

Who are They? (Know Your Punters): https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/who-are-they-know-your-punters/id1369191372?i=1000478984529

Read the Weird Things Guitarists Do book by Neil Cowmeadow, which is available now on Amazon. Link - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Weird-Things-Guitarists-Do-Misconceptions/dp/1519026579/

Contact Neil via this website - 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]

 

 

 

 

Is the amount of free video content online a problem or an opportunity for your coaching, tutoring or teaching business? Today, Neil shares his thoughts on the opportunity YouTube presents and how you can use it to created structured and sequenced lessons online but also validate your own one to one tutoring with feedback, accountability and tailored content. Listen in to find out more!

 

Contact Neil ([email protected]) 

 

KEY TAKEAWAYS 

 

• Students learning on YouTube suffer from the same issue of ‘monkey see, money do’ and as a result, there is no underlying knowledge that allows them to create beyond what they’ve learnt online.

 

• As a novice seeking to learn a new skill, you don’t know what’s good or what’s bad, what’s productive and what’s relevant and what will actually be useful to them. 

 

• YouTube has become a massive opportunity for tutors providing structured and sequenced lessons with logical progression based on a system or approach. As well as providing inspiration and insights into what students are looking to learn.

 

• By tutoring an individual you can tailor lessons to their ability and evolve their together as their knowledge and understanding develop, whereas a YouTube video is created for the masses.

 

• Always give feedback to the students and create accountability for them that will create a solid foundation for them to build upon.
  
  

It’s likely that everything the student needs is on Youtube, along with a lot of useless content and unless the student is an expert, they’re unlikely to know the difference.

 

BEST MOMENTS 

“With the amount of video content out there is it a problem or an opportunity?”

“A lot of students have self-taught from Youtube and pick up the basics but those students demonstrate the same problems of overwhelm” 

“With the amount of content online, students don’t know what content to consume and how valid it is”

“Students learning online are trying to build on foundations built on sand”

“People today are doing more work on Youtube and getting nowhere fast”

“Humour and playfulness have to be built into your tutoring sessions”

“Cover the basics and go from the centre outwards.”

 

VALUABLE RESOURCES

• Listen to The Tutor Podcast on the Apple Podcasts (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-tutor-podcast/id1369191372)!
• Build Your Online Course Week 1: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/build-your-online-course/id1369191372?i=1000477109724

Course Planning Week 2: Who Am I?: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/build-your-online-course/id1369191372?i=1000477109724

Who are They? (Know Your Punters): https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/who-are-they-know-your-punters/id1369191372?i=1000478984529

Read the Weird Things Guitarists Do book by Neil Cowmeadow, which is available now on Amazon. Link - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Weird-Things-Guitarists-Do-Misconceptions/dp/1519026579/

Contact Neil via this website - 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]

 

‘What’s good about this?’ By asking this question you can turn anything into something good and when you’re facing a situation at first glance, looking for the good is all that really matters. Tune in to hear Neil’s all-time favourite question and how you too, can benefit from a change in mindset, perception and fortunes when simply looking for the good and turning a negative into a positive.

 

Contact Neil ([email protected]) with how you get on asking ‘What’s good about this’ in your business.

 

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• By just asking ‘what’s good about this’ reframes whatever problem or issue you’re facing and takes it from being a negative situation to a situation that contains something good and valuable and allows you to dilute the gravity of the situation.

 

• The power of asking that question can bring about new opportunities and can allow you to turn a negative situation and mindset into a positive and profitable outcome when you apply this question to your business and personal life.

 

• Your perception will change when you begin looking for the good in the situations you encounter. If you begin to do this in all aspects of life.

 

BEST MOMENTS

“My favourite question of all time forces you to look at whatever the situation is and find the good in it.”

 

VALUABLE RESOURCES

• Listen to The Tutor Podcast on the Apple Podcasts (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-tutor-podcast/id1369191372)!
  • Build Your Online Course Week 1: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/build-your-online-course/id1369191372?i=1000477109724

Course Planning Week 2: Who Am I?: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/build-your-online-course/id1369191372?i=1000477109724

Who are They? (Know Your Punters): https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/who-are-they-know-your-punters/id1369191372?i=1000478984529

Read the Weird Things Guitarists Do book by Neil Cowmeadow, which is available now on Amazon. Link - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Weird-Things-Guitarists-Do-Misconceptions/dp/1519026579/

Contact Neil via this website - 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]

Habits define who we are and who we believe ourselves to be but can also lead to our depression and our happiness and overtime habits will determine who we become. In today’s episode, Neil discusses the power of habits and routines and why they really matter to the success of your business, your tutoring and your wider life. Listen in to hear how to battle your inner moron and build better habits.

 

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Habits give you an evolutionary advantage, they speed up shortcuts, save energy and speed up actions.

 

• Habits really matter. It’s an automatic behaviour pattern, set off by a trigger with an exit routine that becomes unconscious.

 

• Socialisation forms our habits and governments, advertisers and marketers know we are susceptible to ‘under the radar influence’ and since negative and positive habits are formed in the same way it’s easy to be pulled in the wrong direction.

 

• The minute you admit you have a habit is the minute you’ve given up control to whatever person or organisation created that habit.

 

• Aim to create a tick list that forms habits that are in your best interest and in turn that will help you trigger, action, exit and you will form habits that help you instead of hurt you. Your own anticipation of ‘ticking the box’ will release dopamine rewarding you for your work.
  
  

If your habits help and serve you, identify and optimise them to trigger them again and again. If your habits hurt you, identify the trigger and replace it with a new trigger for better behaviour.

 

BEST MOMENTS

“Not many people stop and think about their habits”

“Tame your inner moron”

 

VALUABLE RESOURCES

• Book - The Art Of War
• Listen to The Tutor Podcast on the Apple Podcasts (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-tutor-podcast/id1369191372)!
  • Build Your Online Course Week 1: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/build-your-online-course/id1369191372?i=1000477109724

Course Planning Week 2: Who Am I?: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/build-your-online-course/id1369191372?i=1000477109724

Who are They? (Know Your Punters): https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/who-are-they-know-your-punters/id1369191372?i=1000478984529

Read the Weird Things Guitarists Do book by Neil Cowmeadow, which is available now on Amazon. Link - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Weird-Things-Guitarists-Do-Misconceptions/dp/1519026579/

Contact Neil via this website - 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]

Communication is vitally important as a teacher because it is through communication skills that a teacher can utilise a students belief system and life experience to better tailor teachings to the student. In today’s episode, discover the art of utilisation and how you can use it as a successful teaching method to better educate and evolve your tutoring, teaching and coaching business.

 

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• As a teacher you cannot focus on anything more vital than communications skills, it’s the conduit that all communication is delivered to your students. A more flexible and effective communicator will convince more people and get their message across more quickly.
  
  

All beliefs and all paradigms will fight tooth and nail for their survival. People are very resistant to change and as teachers, you must harness the power of their beliefs to help teach and overcome their defensive belief systems. Aim to turn them into a delivery system for your new ideas and proven and trusted teachings.

Always listen to your students as they will casually reversal overtime who they really are. Always ‘listen, listen and listen’ to discover whatever is in the student’s mind.

The role of a successful teacher is to remove ego and empty and inject all of your knowledge and information into your student through the right channel for them.

 

BEST MOMENTS

“The greatest victories are the ones that require no battle”

“Tailor the way you communicate to the receiving person (the student)”

“No matter what age your students are, ask them about their life”

“Gather intelligence about your students before going into battle”

“People are often dug into mental trenches”

“Speak in terms of the existing paradigm“

 

VALUABLE RESOURCES

• Book - The Art Of War
• Listen to The Tutor Podcast on the Apple Podcasts (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-tutor-podcast/id1369191372)!
  • Build Your Online Course Week 1: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/build-your-online-course/id1369191372?i=1000477109724

Course Planning Week 2: Who Am I?: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/build-your-online-course/id1369191372?i=1000477109724

Who are They? (Know Your Punters): https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/who-are-they-know-your-punters/id1369191372?i=1000478984529

Read the Weird Things Guitarists Do book by Neil Cowmeadow, which is available now on Amazon. Link - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Weird-Things-Guitarists-Do-Misconceptions/dp/1519026579/

Contact Neil via this website - 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]

Have you ever been taken aback by an unexpected question from one of your students during a tutoring lesson? Join Neil today as he discusses how to answer your student’s troubling questions and why you are a great source to answer them. Discover why it is important to immediately deal with your students’ query, how answering their anxieties can increase your value to them and why your own personal experiences can help shape the answer they need.

 

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• An unexpected question asked during your tutoring session from your student is often something that has been troubling them for years. If they have been playing from their teens and are now in their sixties and they have finally figured out that it is worth getting lessons, then the tutor is able to be the source that answers that question for them.

 

• When a student asks you an unexpected question, answer it straight away. Otherwise, with that nagging question in their minds you will struggle to engage with them on the planned material, and so will you. The question has precedence and has put down some roots in the mind. It is hogging their attention and you should deal with it. If it is not dealt with the real material will bounce off their defences.

 

• Depending on how you’re wired up, how you respond to that question can be a problem, or it can be a chance to be of greater service and value to your students. If you’re hard-wired into the syllabus, the chances are it is a problem that needs getting rid of. If you have the knowledge and experience to formulate a solution for your students, then this is your golden moment. When you answer that question and resolve the years of anxiety then you have just ratcheted up your value to them.

 

• Answering their unexpected questions earns you loyalty and confirms you as their authority figure. The very fact that you care enough to shift your focus demonstrates that your student’s outcome matters more to you than dogmatically following the lesson plan.

 

• As tutors, by being useful you are able to help students by moving their lives in the direction of their dreams. You are able to help them become the people they would like to be. It is a fabulous way to make a living, and if you share all the insights and knowledge that you have to build up throughout the years, you are even more useful than if you confine yourself to a single narrow field of excellence.

 

• As you figure out the answers and effectively communicate the answers to your students, you make new connections. You are able to discover new routes and conduits for your subject matter or an unrelated subject. As everybody knows the teacher always receives the best listeners. The most valuable lessons of all are taught to us when we teach what's uncommon and what’s hard to teach.

 

BEST MOMENTS

“These little unexpected squirrels and the rabbit holes that take us off track are really where the gold is.”

 

“You’ve demonstrated by your actions that you’re present for them and that you are able to respond to their needs You’ve made the lesson more about them and you have drawn on your own expertise and knowledge”

 

“It is the greatest thing about what we do day in day out. We get to be more useful.”

 

VALUABLE RESOURCES

• Listen to The Tutor Podcast on the Apple Podcasts (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-tutor-podcast/id1369191372)!
  • Build Your Online Course Week 1: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/build-your-online-course/id1369191372?i=1000477109724

Course Planning Week 2: Who Am I?: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/build-your-online-course/id1369191372?i=1000477109724

Who are They? (Know Your Punters): https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/who-are-they-know-your-punters/id1369191372?i=1000478984529

Read the Weird Things Guitarists Do book by Neil Cowmeadow, which is available now on Amazon. Link - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Weird-Things-Guitarists-Do-Misconceptions/dp/1519026579/

Contact Neil via this website - 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]

Discover today the benefits of perfecting the art of vanishing. Join Neil as he discusses the importance of going off the grid for the day to take yourself away from working in the business so you can focus on working on the business. Neil talks through how to eliminate your everyday distractions, how to prepare for your isolation day and why it is beneficial to take time away from your everyday life to focus on your future.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• The art of vanishing is giving yourself a day of isolation to just step back. It is really easy to get yourself sucked into the vortex of everyday ‘doing’. When you’re in business with yourself you are constantly busy, and that can be a danger. Many business owners can fall into the habit of doing little jobs for the business on top of your already large list of jobs coupled with your private life.

 

• Having an isolation day is a really beneficial thing to do. It should be your ambition to aim to vanish a couple of days each month. Getting away from your ‘normal’ life is a tactic. Take yourself completely off the grid and eliminate all distractions. Each interruption to your working day will take about 20 minutes out of your life.

 

• Even with the new COVID restrictions it is still well advised to take a day to yourself. This may mean not leaving the house. Tell your family members or housemates whom you live with, that you are not available throughout the day. Get your partner or your spouse on board but be prepared for some resistance and push back. Remember, you are not having a day off, you are having a clear day to think strategically and plan a better future for you both to share.

 

• Start thinking about what supplies you will need for your isolation day. You don’t want to have to break up the precious and sacred time you have set aside for yourself, in order to go and purchase supplies. Park your car offsite. If people think that your cars are not on the driveway, then you must also be out. Turn off the doorbell and house phone as well as drawing all the curtains to prevent you from being impulsively visited.

 

• Think about how you will structure the next ten years of your life. The best way to do this is by getting away from what you do on a day to day basis. Put some space between you and what would normally be done. Clear a whole day to escape from your desk and spend that time really thinking about how things are going. Review where you are and what you want to do more and less of.

 

 

BEST MOMENTS

“It is my way of guaranteeing I am going to work on the business, not just in it.”

 

“Nothing life or death ever came via email.”

 

“This is the time where you decide how it is going to go down for you.”

VALUABLE RESOURCES

• Listen to The Tutor Podcast on the Apple Podcasts (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-tutor-podcast/id1369191372)!
  • Build Your Online Course Week 1: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/build-your-online-course/id1369191372?i=1000477109724

Course Planning Week 2: Who Am I?: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/build-your-online-course/id1369191372?i=1000477109724

Who are They? (Know Your Punters): https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/who-are-they-know-your-punters/id1369191372?i=1000478984529

Read the Weird Things Guitarists Do book by Neil Cowmeadow, which is available now on Amazon. Link - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Weird-Things-Guitarists-Do-Misconceptions/dp/1519026579/

Contact Neil via this website - 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]

Have you ever had a student confess to you that they are just not creative? That they have never been able to create something unique themselves? Today Neil provides you with an exercise to exhort that creativity from each of your students. Encourage your students’ imagination by asking them to imagine what is in the fictitious box, and encourage their creativity to evolve.

 

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• It is no wonder that governments are such big fans of education. When you impose conformity and suppress new ideas, you have to inevitably kill imagination and murder the idea of play. When the right way to do something is dogmatically enforced and non-compliance is punished, it is no wonder that children shut themselves down to avoid negative consequences. This is what schools do to kids.

 

• Time after time students may tell you that they are not the creative type. Encourage your students to make mistakes so that they can get rid of the sounds that they don’t want and the ideas they don’t use. Start them very broad and narrow down their creativity.

 

• What’s in the box is a technique that came from Standford University. Ask your student to close their eyes and pretend you are handing them a small box with a lid on it. There is always something in the box. Ask the student to open the box and tell you what is inside? What they find in the box is the preferred subject of a song, story or poem which they have just created out of thin air.

 

• They have created the seed of an idea based on the position that there is something in the box at all times. Often they are reluctant to say what is in the box but you can always encourage them. Ask them ‘what colour is it?’ , ‘tell me more about it?’ or ‘where did it come from?’. Soften the questions by telling them that what they are telling you is really interesting to you.

 

• The more physical attributes that the student can conjure up such as weight, colour, smell and texture then the more vivid the thing in the box becomes. Your job is to help your students play with the contents of the box and throw ideas backwards and forwards until the student is capable of looking after the process all by themselves.

 

 

BEST MOMENTS

“They weren’t creative, they were compliant.”

“That’s not bad for someone who isn’t creative, is it?”

“I’ve lost count of the number of students who have discovered something in the box.”

VALUABLE RESOURCES

• Listen to The Tutor Podcast on the Apple Podcasts (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-tutor-podcast/id1369191372)!
  • Build Your Online Course Week 1: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/build-your-online-course/id1369191372?i=1000477109724

Course Planning Week 2: Who Am I?: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/build-your-online-course/id1369191372?i=1000477109724

Who are They? (Know Your Punters): https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/who-are-they-know-your-punters/id1369191372?i=1000478984529

Read the Weird Things Guitarists Do book by Neil Cowmeadow, which is available now on Amazon. Link - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Weird-Things-Guitarists-Do-Misconceptions/dp/1519026579/

Contact Neil via this website - 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 today's episode, Neil discusses how to create a treasure basket of teaching treasure to help your students learn in the best way possible. Discover how accumulating your thoughts on paper can lead to creating some of your best teaching material, how new ideas often come from non-typical students and why they love it when you try out new techniques tailored specifically for them.

 

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• By allowing waste paper to accumulate, things that would have ordinarily been thrown away are able to be utilised for good material. Some of it may be everyday material but sometimes it comes out with a twist. Perhaps you will find a new pattern or a twist on the usual material.

 

• Pieces of material that you have jotted down in the past on pieces of waste paper can actually catch a nuance of something you have been using subliminally below the threshold of your own recognition.

 

• Let's say you have a new idea or implementation you would like to use on students, sometimes it may work and sometimes it doesn’t. New ideas usually come from non-typical students and you may need to come up with new ideas to help support them. Tell them that they are your ‘lab rat’ and you are going to test a new technique out on them.

 

• The first attempt will not often work, therefore you need to tweak it and do a revised version of the new technique. The early versions will end up in the treasure basket and that is where the teaching treasure is kept.

 

• You may find that your students love it when you try out new techniques designed to their needs as it makes the lesson solely about them. You are not just using a bog-standard approach to teaching, it is using their thoughts and processes to tailor the content to them. It is collaborating creativity because you are coming up with ideas, throwing them out there and they are giving you feedback on your new technique.

 

• If you are not catching this, you may be missing out on a source of solid teaching gold. If you are planning to write on what you do as a teacher then this is a no brainer. Capture your output, especially on paper and especially those brilliant ideas in their raw form. The paper part is vital as it will sit in the basket looking at you and invite you to mine some of that gold. It is tangible and visible and it won't vanish.

 

BEST MOMENTS

“It turned what I thought was trash into treasure.”

“There might just be a shift in perspective from ourselves.”

“Those early versions go into the treasure basket.”

 

VALUABLE RESOURCES

• Listen to The Tutor Podcast on the Apple Podcasts (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-tutor-podcast/id1369191372)!
  • Build Your Online Course Week 1: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/build-your-online-course/id1369191372?i=1000477109724

Course Planning Week 2: Who Am I?: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/build-your-online-course/id1369191372?i=1000477109724

Who are They? (Know Your Punters): https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/who-are-they-know-your-punters/id1369191372?i=1000478984529

Read the Weird Things Guitarists Do book by Neil Cowmeadow, which is available now on Amazon. Link - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Weird-Things-Guitarists-Do-Misconceptions/dp/1519026579/

Contact Neil via this website - 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]