105TTP Self Sabotage & Being Calibrated Perfectly

 

DESCRIPTION

‘It’s all about calibration – we work perfectly, but if we are mis-calibrated we’ll work perfectly in pursuit of the wrong thing’

In this fascinating episode, Neil explains how self-sabotaging behaviours can be conquered if you are aware of the behaviours and take action to change them.

The key is our own perception of normal and the story we have for ourselves, the inner voice that always seeks to return us to our own ‘normal’.

If you want to bring your story into your reality and make choices that will drive you forward then listen in.

 

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Sabotage is defined as any deliberate action aimed at undermining or impeding the progress of a person or organization.
• Often it is voiced as a misunderstanding and rationalised in some way.
• If you are your own saboteur, you are potentially taking actions that could cost you time, money and impact on the relationships you have.
• Self-sabotage is linked to how we feel and what we perceive as normal.
• If things are going well and exceeding expectations people will self-sabotage to bring things back to what they perceive as normal – often a lower level because that’s where they feel they deserve to be.
• The same self-sabotage is in action when the situation is below expectations.
• We are our own worst enemies, and we are our own greatest assets.
• At the time of self-sabotage, you will justify almost any of the actions you take.

Changing

• Becoming aware is vital – when you are about to do something self-sabotaging ask yourself;
• Is this what my business is really all about?
• Is this helping me, or is this hurting me?
• You must be honest with yourself because the easiest person to fool is yourself.

Prevention

• Schedule regular time slots to analyse what you do and reflect and review your actions, it will help you stay on track.
• Update the stories you tell yourself as these have a habit of coming true. Your inner narrative should be constantly evolving as you do to provide the clarity you need.
• Calibrate your own stories: tell yourself better lies and start living in accord with them
• Check your progress honestly, eliminating what doesn’t help you and focussing on what you need to do to bring your story into reality.

 

BEST MOMENTS

‘It can be easy to be lured into doing daft stuff that won’t help you’

‘Our inborn tendency to stay true to whatever lies/stories we tell ourselves’

‘We’ll unconsciously act to exert control and restore the situation to whatever our idea of normal should be’

 

VALUABLE RESOURCES

The Tutor Podcast

Weird Things Guitarists Do book by Neil Cowmeadow

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]  

The Tutor Podcast Twitter   

In this episode Neil explains how you can turn your problems into positives and how a problem can not necessarily be a problem. He discusses how problems can depend on the perspective and mind-set that you have on a particular issue.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

BEST MOMENTS

‘When is a problem not a problem?’

‘Situations are just situations’

‘Seize every opportunity you have’

VALUABLE RESOURCES

The Tutor Podcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/tutorpodcast

ABOUT THE HOST

Neil Cowmeadow is a maverick peripatetic guitar teacher from Telford with over 19 years of 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

Neil Cowmeadow

• [email protected]

Some very high-profile people have made excellent use of social media to position themselves as experts and to develop a personal brand – and that’s SM being used as a valid strategy and a powerful marketing tool. It helps if you are young, female and good-looking. In this episode Neil discusses how you can use social media to grow your business.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• We can all learn from their examples if we want to “big ourselves up” and be more visible. SM reaches countless people, so it should be possible to construct a following for yourself, regardless of what niche you are operating in.
• You have to be very consistent for a very long time to grow your tribe, but it’s doable. You’ll be posting regularly and often, dealing with fans and trolls – lovers and haters.
• Weigh up the pros of doing lots of SM – then consider the Cons.
• Social media is a really big deal to a lot of people – we, as tutors need to decide whether we want it to be a big deal for us. Use social media going to give you a commercial advantage or marketing edge

There is way more people consuming content on SM than there are producing it – so the chances are that you will be a consumer rather than a producer. That time could be better spent face to face with clients, marketing, developing IP such as music, writing, courses and so on.

BEST MOMENTS

‘Everything has up/downsides’

‘Getting sucked in to the YouTube vortex is – for me – the kiss of death.’

‘SM is a gold mine, but for the vast majority it is a black hole.’

VALUABLE RESOURCES

The Tutor Podcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/tutorpodcast

ABOUT THE HOST

Neil Cowmeadow is a maverick peripatetic guitar teacher from Telford with over 19 years of 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

Neil Cowmeadow

• [email protected]

What are the most important numbers for your business?

Knowing your numbers is key to knowing whether your business is going to work for you.

Being good at something doesn’t necessarily mean you can turn it into a successful business unless you know your numbers.

Neil takes an in-depth look at the  numbers in your business helping anyone who has a tutoring business to understand what and how they can have a truly successful business doing what they love

 

KEY TAKEAWAYS

As tutors, business isn’t usually an area of special knowledge

There is a  focus on the technical skills and knowledge needed to teach and the necessary business skills may be neglected.

What are the most important numbers for your business?

It’s not how much money you bring in to your business it’s what there is after you’ve paid for everything.

There are  two variables that generate profit - sales and costs

Sales are generated through;

Teaching fees

Product sales

Royalties & commissions

Investment incomes

Anything else that brings money into the business

Costs are incurred through;

Wages

Cost of goods and materials (sheet music, strings, etc)

Equipment purchase/leasing/rental

Travel – motor use/trains/planes/hotels/food

Rent, rates and other property expenses: fuel gas, electricity, insurance etc

Everything else that is vital to the running of the business and which takes money out of the business.

Until you understand and know what your numbers really are, you don’t really know if you have a viable business.

Without the numbers, you can’t assess where you are.

You have no baseline to and cannot measure the effect of any changes you may make to how you run your business.

How can you increase your revenue?

Think about it – could you:increase your customer base, Raise your fee rate,Increase the frequency of sales

How can you reduce your costs?

Look at all your costs – the fixed costs, and the variable costs of doing business

Fixed costs don’t vary with the amount of work done – rent, fixed salaries etc

Variable costs depend on the amount of work done – e.g. cost of travel to a client’s location

You have the control to raise your income and reduce your costs if you understand the numbers in your business.

Get the clarity you need on your numbers and then you can move your business forward and make more money.

 

BEST MOMENTS

‘It’s easy to confuse our excellence and specific technical skills with having a good business, but they’re very different things.

‘Turnover is vanity, profit is sanity’

 

VALUABLE RESOURCES

The Tutor Podcast

Weird Things Guitarists Do book by Neil Cowmeadow

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]  

The Tutor Podcast Twitter   

 

Neil has been thinking about time and its value and explains the importance of punctuality and respect for time in relation to your tutor business and to life in this episode.

We all have people in our lives who are punctual and also those who are consistently late and Neil explains how our punctuality or lack of is woven into the respect and the trust we have with others.

A lack of punctuality gives permission for others to mess you around whilst punctuality and consistency are the hallmarks of excellence – listen in and find out how you can respect both yourself and others through the way you manage your time.

 

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Not only do you have to respect your own time but you must also respect the time of others.
• If you don’t respect their time they won’t respect yours.
• Always be punctual and consistently on time. Consistency is the hallmark of excellence
• Punctual people are more likely to be perceived as trustworthy as opposed to those who show up late and are seen as unpredictable.
• Punctual people do better than people who are late because they get more respect.
• Punctual people earn more money because they command more trust and respect, It automatically positions them as experts.
• People who show up on time get more referrals as people won’t recommend someone who doesn’t show up on time.
• When you make it easy to deal with you, your students will back for longer.
• When you are punctual, reliable and consistent you are automatically perceived as having everything together in your life.
• The 3-step formula for earning extra credibility, respect and ultimately higher fees just by being punctual are;
• Show up on time and leave on time (don’t give the impression you have nothing else to do with your time)
• Show up prepared have everything you need and in working order
• Deliver a kick-arse content that is fun for your students and for you.

 

BEST MOMENTS

‘Because I’m always on time my tribe is always on time’

‘If you are consistent and punctual then your tribe will love you’

‘There are only so many hours in the day so I put a start and end time on everything’

 

 

VALUABLE RESOURCES

The Tutor Podcast

Weird Things Guitarists Do book by Neil Cowmeadow

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] 

The Tutor Podcast Twitter   

 

You can wake up 2,3, or 5 years down the line and wonder what has happened and where the time went. This is particularly common to driven personalities and entrepreneurs who are immersed in their work, have a strong inner compass, determined action takers and some might say obsessed.

 

Neil explains an easy method for how you can avoid this from happening.

 

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Check your progress every couple of months. A good way to do this is to have accountability days every month to check the performance of the business and work on the next acquisition or deal.
• Spend the whole of that day examining your business – get away from your desk and turn the phone off. If it’s urgent they’ll call back
• Make a date with yourself to do this regularly – in your diary – don’t let anything shunt it off your schedule, because it matters too much to let it slide.
• When you’ve done your reflection analysis – make your plans to implement what you noticed about your business.
• Do it, and see how you get on – I’m pretty certain that you’ll have an “A-ha!” moment or six when you do the work and get honest with yourself – I know I did!

BEST MOMENTS

‘Planning and reflection works’

‘Bottom line is that this stuff works.’

 

VALUABLE RESOURCES

The Tutor Podcast

Weird Things Guitarists Do book by Neil Cowmeadow

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] 

The Tutor Podcast Twitter   

 

 

In this episode Neil shares an effective technique for solving problems without having to ask anyone else or search anywhere for answers.

 

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• This podcast is the tens of thousands of hours spent learning my industry and within business all boiled down to bitesize episodes.
• Have 10 minutes of uninterrupted time. No phone, no noise, no people or anything that can distract you.
• Have a really nice pen and really nice paper or whatever you’d enjoy writing with the most.
• At the top of the page write down the problem you have. Re read it and then write down as much as you can that pops into your head that may be helpful to overcome or solve this problem.
• Write without stopping and don’t stop or have a break. Don’t worry about any punctuation or spelling, just get it down.
• Often you already know the answer but the problem is hiding it.
• The main thing about this exercise is not to self critic or try to be clever, just get your thoughts down regardless of whether it’s good or bad.

 

BEST MOMENTS

‘More important than all that cash is time investment’

‘Time is the most precious thing you have’

‘The more you do it, the better you get’

 

VALUABLE RESOURCES

The Tutor Podcast

Weird Things Guitarists Do book by Neil Cowmeadow

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] 

The Tutor Podcast Twitter   

Doing your tax Self-Assessment can be stressful because it can get you flagged for investigation by HMRC, you can have fines for late filing, additional charges and interest for late payment and you’ve no idea about upcoming tax liabilities. You don’t even know if you really have a business. So in this episode Neil tells you how you can get on top of your business finances and stresses the importance of doing so. 

KEY TAKEAWAYS 

• Ensure you do your books and meet the deadline for your tax return so that you know you’re making money and don’t get fined. 

• Keeping proper accounts of where your business finances are, are bloody important part of being your own boss. 
• These days a book keeper isn’t necessary in order to keep on top of your books, use accounting software that can link to your bank and your phone. 
• The benefit of doing everything digitally is that it’s fast and easy to do which allows you to do what you do best. 
• It only takes 10 minutes a week to do your accounts, as long as you do it consistently and regularly. It’s also a lot better than leaving it all last minute. 
• If you leave everything last minute, then you’ll get stresses which will then have a negative impact on all other aspects of your business and even your personal life.  

• No matter how good you do your taxes, HMRC will find some way of fining you. 
• If the business part of you isn’t good, then you wont be able to sustain being a good tutor. 

BEST MOMENTS 

“Accounts are vital for your survival and to your success” 

“There’s nothing mysteriously difficult about keeping your books in order” 

“If your back office is a mess then it’s likely to spill over into other parts of your business” 

“Business first then tutor” 

VALUABLE RESOURCES 

• The Tutor Podcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/tutorpodcast 

ABOUT THE HOST 

Neil Cowmeadow is a maverick peripatetic guitar teacher from Telford with over 19 years of 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 

Neil Cowmeadow 

[email protected] 

Neil explains the benefits of tutoring in the private sector and why teaching in the mainstream system may not be for you.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world, the unreasonable man persists to try adapt the world to himself, therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man

The school teaching system for tutoring is boring and can give people itchy feet. If you’ve got a thought of your own, Ofsted is likely not to like it.

When you’re stuck teaching in the education system you’re limited to the amount of money you can make too.

Being a misfit from the mainstream can make you a winner. A lot of parents look for someone who makes learning fun.

No one wants a normal tutor.

BEST MOMENTS

“don’t teach all day mark all night”

“Creativeness and individualism is being squeezed out by the education system.”

“The mainstream system is ill”

VALUABLE RESOURCES

The Tutor Podcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/tutorpodcast

ABOUT THE HOST

Neil Cowmeadow is a maverick peripatetic guitar teacher from Telford with over 19 years of 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

Neil Cowmeadow

• [email protected]

the self-employed. You can minimise your tax bill, just to let you know. So, instead of missing the deadline, start learning about the benefits of being proactive for paying taxes. 

The self-employed people are at a better position in regard to taxation than the majority. Let’s do our responsibilities as citizens. Pay your taxes and sleep soundly at night. 

KEY TAKEAWAYS 

You’re only liable for tax on your profits, so make sure to: 

• Claim all allowances 

• Use of your own car for business 
• Use of part of your home for business 
• Investment reliefs 

• Account for all expenses (e.g. materials, equipment, marketing, etc.) 
• Ask accountant on how you can save tax. Your accountant should help you save on your taxes. If you think he/she doesn’t understand and help your situation, find a better one. 
• Don’t file late. You save up and earn more when you avoid fines! If you still don’t have the exact figures, use provisional (best estimate) figures.  

Always plan. Know how you want your business to grow and where your finances will be. Neil assures you you can save mores on taxes when you’re on the right track. 

BEST MOMENTS 

“Don’t file late!” 

“Tax code is not your area of expertise, it’s theirs (accountants). They’re working for you” 

“Have a set day and time when you update your records and take care of business. It’s a pain, but it’s less of a pain than sweating over doing a year’s worth of your books at the last minute.” 

VALUABLE RESOURCES 

• HMRC - https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/hm-revenue-customs 

• The Tutor Podcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/tutorpodcast 

ABOUT THE HOST 

Neil Cowmeadow is a maverick peripatetic guitar teacher from Telford with over 19 years of 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 

Neil Cowmeadow 

[email protected]