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How is it possible that in so many tutor’s experiences a student claims to forget everything they have learned as soon as they leave the teaching room? Neil shares his theories on this puzzling phenomena of instantly vanishing memory.    KEY THEORIES Maybe the lesson hasn’t been embedded properly by the tutor.   The student may be resistant to learning for their own reasons. There could be a conflict in the student’s beliefs and how they visualise themselves.  Your teaching room and yourself have secret magical powers that imbue the student with knowledge which is then mystically removed when they leave.  BEST MOMENTS ‘It’s possible that I've not made the ideas stick enough, that I haven’t put it in a form that is inescapable for them.’  ‘Students frequently tell you that they understand something when they don’t because they don’t want to look stupid. We need always to make them feel safe and know that if they don’t understand something it’s not because they’re stupid, it’s because they don’t understand it yet.’ ‘When they go home they start to argue with themselves about what they did and begin to dismiss it.’ ‘The language used will massively affect the perception of the experience that’s being coded and understood via that language.’  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 info@neilcowmeadow.com  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In light of the recent Ed Sheeran’s recent success in court defending himself against a spurious copyright claim, Neil takes a look at Intellectual Property and Copyright in the UK and how it applies to tutoring in terms of teaching tools and materials.  KEY TAKEAWAYS Tutors get to add their flavour and slant to the materials they teach. These materials are a tangible asset to you and your business, your Intellectual Property.   Copyright is an automatic legal basis that says that if you create it, it belongs to you. It is a good idea to put ‘Copyright of’ and your name and the year on all the materials that you produce for your teaching. Marking yourself as creator solidifies your image as an expert. BEST MOMENTS ‘Unless you’re content to just play through standard texts and, in my opinion, go through the motions you’ll doubtless be creating your own teaching materials; examples, explanations, diagrams, exercises, stories, music and so on.’ ‘Let’s say you write an explanation of a concept in your own words.  And, hey presto, that particular form of words is yours and yours alone.’ ‘If they do (nick your stuff) you’ll have records and timestamps all over the metadata of anything that you’ve created on a computer.’  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 info@neilcowmeadow.com  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Neil shares his evil genius with you in this episode explaining how, when you overturn your student’s expectations, difficulties and complexities so extensively that they sit there open-mouthed, it really makes your tutoring job worthwhile.     KEY TAKEAWAYS Simplify. Simplify. Simplify. Peel away the complexity and present the core of an idea. Resistance exists when there is no clarity. BEST MOMENTS ‘Sometimes the things that are the most stripped back and simplified have the greatest impact and help the students to move past the limits that they thought they had.’ ‘I’ve actually been called an evil genius twice today by two students whilst sharing with them, in separate lessons, a simple idea that really allowed them to dominate the fretboard and produce cool-sounding improvised guitar solos.’ ‘They had incontrovertible proof that it was simple and doable. Oooh, evil 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 info@neilcowmeadow.com          See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Neil addresses the myth of getting rich quickly and explains the reality of getting rich slowly.  He’s done the latter himself so he’s here to explain to you how.  KEY TAKEAWAYS From today you could decide to become wealthy, whatever that means to you. Write down your target, think medium to long term, and remind yourself daily.  Discipline and dedicate your efforts to achieving this, keeping up your effort and avoiding distractions.  Shut out the doubters.  Invest in yourself and educate yourself in the ways of money and finance. BEST MOMENTS ‘That really leaves us with getting rich slowly. Sounds sort of meh, doesn’t it? But here’s the thing, it’s possible.’  ‘Can you open your mind to possibility?’ ‘Invest any savings you may have in low-risk, high return tax efficient schemes to increase your tax flow.’  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 info@neilcowmeadow.com  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The people in your network, your friends, your family, your students and anyone who positively knows you, can not only be a social support but a business one too. Neil explains how people you know can recruit students for you with a little incentive.  KEY TAKEAWAYS You can turn your friends into recruiters by providing your network with a reward for finding you students or allowing them to offer free lessons or other incentives on your behalf. You can use cash rewards, competition inclusion, free lessons, free merch, or anything else that has value for them.  Word-of-mouth marketing is the very best kind of marketing there is. Make sure you capitalise on it. BEST MOMENTS ‘The idea is just to make your network enthusiastic recruiters for you.’ ‘I offer any recruiting student an incentive, either cash or free lesson time.’  ‘If you don’t like the idea of having too many students then don’t use this idea!’ 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 info@neilcowmeadow.com  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Neil explains The Benefit Trap, the mistaken belief that you have to accept any idea that has any kind of benefit to it despite the amount it offers or its compatibility with your current methods. He urges you to raise the bar when you consider a method and think carefully if any idea is worth including in your tutoring tool kit.  KEY TAKEAWAYS A technique that has some benefit may not have enough to justify using it.  Consider what other tutors are doing and decide if what they are doing is helping them in their progress and if not, look for other methods that work for you. Challenge, enthral, disrupt and inspire your students by introducing them to all the ideas, methods, tricks, styles and shortcuts you have access to as a tutor.   BEST MOMENTS ‘The Thinking Book is a safe place where I let my pen ramble through and around, in and out of whatever it is I’m interested in at that time, a huge journal on steroids if you like.’  ‘I share every single hack, cheat, shortcut, under-handed mind-bending reimagining of music that I possibly can with them and I stretch them. I have them playing what they wouldn’t normally listen to.’  ‘It’s got to be fun for them. It’s got to make it the high point of their week. It’s got to be something they cherish and they look forward to every single week of their busy lives.’   VALUABLE RESOURCES The Tutor Podcast www.Neilcowmeadow.com ABOUT THE HOSTNeil 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 METHODinfo@neilcowmeadow.com  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Neil expands on the concept of ‘The Work’ and how, rather than being a source of angst and torture, it can be the main source of fun and joy in your life.  KEY TAKEAWAYS Neil is compelled to teach. It is his reason. Tutoring is an opportunity to spend time with people you love. The job is to help people to shine a light in their darkness.  BEST MOMENTS ‘If someone else’s idea of a bad night is sitting in front of someone listening to them mangle a fairly simple piece of music that’s their opinion. I love it because I know I can get them to do it better.’ ‘Every day I’m hanging out with people I love. I’ve become very loyal to my tribe.’  ‘I want to honour the guitar. I want to share its beauty, its finesse, its brilliance, its intelligence and its history with as many people as I possibly can.’  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 METHODinfo@neilcowmeadow.com  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What is the difference between tutors that are struggling to make ends meet and always working, ever popular, always booked tutors? Neil identifies the ‘special sauce’ that turns clients into raving fans whereas someone with the same technical skills can struggle to make a living.   KEY TAKEAWAYS You are the selling point of your business. You are the unique offering. All your skills and experiences are not reproducible by anyone else. You can gather all the technical skills in the world but they are useless if you cannot communicate them.   BEST MOMENTS ‘The difference is you. When you boil it all down what you deliver to your clients, your students are you.’ ‘You can be a very highly qualified specialist in your field, that isn’t going to count for very much for a tutor unless you can communicate that to your students.’   ‘Why would anyone in their right mind not be ‘all-in’ in this game?’  ‘Be absurdly optimistic, ridiculously generous, brilliantly clever, hysterically funny and deeply groovy.’  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 info@neilcowmeadow.com  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Neil has come to realise there are 2 kinds of work. The first is bookkeeping, routine admin, scheduling lessons, lesson plans etc, the everyday routine work that is so regular that it does not require 100% focus. The second kind is ‘deep’ work, the most challenging, energising, absorbing and ‘time-distorting’ work.  KEY TAKEAWAYS Deep work is characterised by a total focus on just the work at hand. Eliminate distractions. Deep work also requires solitude unless it involves collaboration.  Schedule blocks of time for the activity, be it hours, days, weeks or months. Monitor your deep work. Choose a measurable result that can be easily tracked. BEST MOMENTS ‘This shallow work can be done pretty much while handling everything else, the phone ringing, the emails coming and going, the odd flash of seductive on-screen entertainment with lurid headlines and click-bait pictures.’   ‘Elimination of distractions! That means turn your phone off and put it somewhere else. Turn off your screen notifications. Get away from all those alluring non-subscription entertainment products like Reddit, YouTube, Twitter and so on.’    ‘Your deep work could be very different to mine and that’s totally cool. It just has to be the most important and demanding thing for you.’  ‘I’ve always said that all my problems come with hair on top. These days we are all expected to respond to emails, text messages, DM’s and PM’s and phone calls and the like in a very short 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 info@neilcowmeadow.com  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Neil explains the meaning and regular usage of his IDGAF muscle. As an entrepreneur and someone making things happen for yourself, you have to be willing to go against the grain of mainstream thinking. Listen in to find out what the ‘F’ stands for. No prizes though. KEY TAKEAWAYS 80% to 90% of people really dislike what they do for a living. Do not give a …. for what the world thinks. Use your IDGAF muscle to detach yourself from the ghastly groupthink. Remove yourself from the company of people whose actions and ideas hinder you. BEST MOMENTS ‘If you look around anywhere you will see that depression is now a massive problem.’ ‘It’s a basic human drive to try to fit in. We are tribal animals and ostracism and isolation from the tribe would have been life-threatening back in the day.’ ‘Are they helping or hurting you, the people around you? Are they improving your chance of success and happiness or diminishing it?’ ‘Maybe you just want to break your old patterns and your habits.’ 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 info@neilcowmeadow.com           See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Neil introduces a few techniques to build rapport and increase the effectiveness of teaching to any student. If used well, they can be used to improve communication and ease, increasing your chances of making good progress with even a difficult client.  KEY TAKEAWAYS The more like us we perceive a person to be the more we like them.  The Neurolinguistic Programming Techniques of matching and mirroring can be employed to achieve this result.  Matching is the replication of another’s body language and movements in order to gain rapport. However, be careful to not adopt this approach too early in case they think you are mocking them.   Mirroring is a technique similar to matching, but using a direct reflective technique to create a mirror image of their movements.   Match their language patterns. This can often happen naturally, as with the copying of accents or inflexions of speech, but also mimic the level of vocabulary.  BEST MOMENTS ‘We are more able to influence them. As teachers, that’s what we do. This is why old sales manuals used to suggest that salespeople should be able to speak enthusiastically about almost anything the customer says.’  ‘As adults, we retain these unconscious ‘fitting in’ skills and we use them most with people we know and like.’  ‘Another language cue is the propensity to use colourful language. So if someone drops an F-bomb every sentence and you feel it’s appropriate, you drop one.’  ‘Take a look at their posture. Do they stand tall and straight or are they stooped over? If they’re sitting down, how do they sit?’  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 info@neilcowmeadow.com  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There is the fear of failure and the fear of success. Neil examines both of these fears and how they can leave us stuck with his own story of encouraging success, how we jump through hoops to fool ourselves that doing nothing is a good strategy, and how we can fight the urge to take an apparently ‘safe’ route and defeat the fear.   KEY TAKEAWAYS The actual task, goal or dream is in itself not scary, but the prospect of failure, ridicule and loss is.   Fear of succeeding can be fear of responsibility and change.   Doing nothing seems like a safe action, but is an active choice to cease to be in control. Write things down. This will help you process your ideas. Avoid distractions and examine your fears, the real possible disasters, and then all the benefits of trying and taking action, all the possible successes. When you look at the reasons for staying still and doing nothing, you will realise that most of them are ridiculous.   BEST MOMENTS ‘Maybe we are afraid that if we fail, people will laugh at us and think we are a bit crazy.’ ‘Do you really want to be safe in your current position? I don’t think so. Inaction is actually an active strategy, you are choosing to do nothing.’ ‘Think of all the benefits and the upsides of trying and then succeeding and write them down.’ ‘Whether it’s fear of failure or fear of success, fear is the enemy. Action is the qkey.’  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 info@neilcowmeadow.com  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Neil has been producing The Tutor Podcast for five full years, every Monday, every week, without fail through pandemics, and economic crises, as well as running three successful businesses. In this episode, he shares why, and what he has learned from the experience.  KEY TAKEAWAYS Nearly everyone struggles with self-doubt and a fear of failure. People feel guilty about success and money.  Educate yourself, invest in yourself. Spend money on training and learning.  Creating the podcast has encouraged Neil’s hunger for information.  BEST MOMENTS ‘I’ve learned that nothing’s wrong with me, apart from an irrational desire to help other people define their own way to their own kind of success.’  ‘The next thing I’ve learned is money and finance are still topics that need to be taught to kids.’ ‘To really understand something, the best thing you can do is teach it to someone else.’ ‘I no longer believe in writer's block.’  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 info@neilcowmeadow.com  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What are the motivations of successful coaches and teachers? What drives those people that keep plugging away at the job and never seem to lose enthusiasm or energy? Neil is one of those people and has been teaching guitar since 1999 and is still loving it. He reveals his reasons for never losing his love for his chosen career. KEY TAKEAWAYS Neil has an addictive personality and wants to turn it towards all aspects of his life and has found it is not about your achievement but the nature of your goals.    It is not about the endpoint, it is the process that provides the drive.  Hitting a goal can cause a depressive period due to the sudden drop in dopamine produced by the body.  BEST MOMENTS ‘I’m sort of curious about why I still can’t wait to get in the teaching room every day to welcome my students, tune them up and start having fun.’  ‘The sort of friction that you have to overcome stimulates the chemicals in your body that push you forward.’ ‘So no endpoints for me. Milestones on the way but what I’m really looking to do is to play forever in a whole raft of endless games.’ 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 info@neilcowmeadow.com  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Change is the only constant in human life. Teaching is about changing students for the better and so tutors know more than most why change is so hard, and how and why we resist change. Neil explains how to break down that natural resistance and how to identify and remove a students limiting beliefs about themselves and what they are capable of.  KEY TAKEAWAYS Talent generally is irrelevant in guitar teaching, secondary to skill and technique. Students will often provide reasons as to why they find it difficult to learn, progress or transform that are simply not true.  Teachability is inverse in proportion to experience. It is up to you to deprogram your students of their limiting beliefs and bolster them with a new, dynamic and successful vision of themselves with the skills you teach them.  BEST MOMENTS ‘Round about all that stuff there is also my little belief that talent is mostly irrelevant as what I teach every single day simulates the idea of talent so closely.’ ‘When you really listen to what students tell you they will tell you exactly how they see themselves.’  ‘I figure out how they think and how they look at it, and then I go in and royally mess it up for them. I’ll mess up their programming so much they can’t get it back.’  ‘People are funny things. They want to find a way to change and get what they always wanted, but then they find a way to beat it away from themselves.’ 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 info@neilcowmeadow.com  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The one thing that can bring your plans to further your tutoring business to a crashing halt is illness. No one can avoid this eventuality completely, but looking after your health and fitness is one of the highest considerations for anyone looking to mitigate the risks of debilitation. You need a healthy body for a healthy mind, and Neil is here with his tips on how to keep ahead and energised so you can concentrate fully on your business.  KEY TAKEAWAYS Unless you have an independent source of income or truly comprehensive health insurance you are at risk of loss if you find yourself unable to work.  How healthy are you? Nearly half of the population of the UK regularly take prescription drugs.  Avoid highly processed foods such as ready meals and snack foods. A low carbohydrate diet works for weight control and avoidance of type 2 diabetes.  Try not to eat too much sugar in foods like sugary drinks and sweets. Don’t trust additives and artificial fats and sweeteners.  Exercise and its plethora of options is beneficial. Find something you enjoy to supplement a good diet.  BEST MOMENTS ‘You’re in trouble if you get sick. This was my wake up call when I had a big cycling accident in Spain and lost the tip of nine of my fingers and realised that if I couldn’t teach guitar I was in deep trouble.’ ‘Nobody is coming to the rescue. That means it’s on you. We have to take responsibility for our own health so that we can keep doing what we do.’  ‘There’s a lot of dubious stuff on the government dietary website. So my suggestion is you just eat fresh unprocessed foods.’  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 info@neilcowmeadow.com  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Continuing with his examination of blind spots in business and life, Neil is here with a cautionary tale of an intervention by a friend to alter his trajectory when distracted and entranced by a bright shiny penny.  KEY TAKEAWAYS This story is about the value of getting someone else’s eyes on your blind spots, as well as the seductive power of bright shiny pennies, those alluring distractions that catch your eye and lure you away from your true mission.   When faced with the possibility of losing his guitar coaching business, Neil invested in training and learning about property investment.  That’s when a new member of Neils’ Blind Spot Council (go back and listen to episode 255 if you haven’t already) offered some timely and sage insight.  BEST MOMENTS ‘At that point, I realised I was just one accident or one illness away from being skint and in trouble if I was forced to stop teaching guitar which I had never really thought of before.’  ‘At a small table in the middle of the room sat my new mentor, Derek.’  ‘I think that anything that takes you away from the work you love, your teaching business, is not going to be worth it because you’ll end up resenting it for taking you away from your true love.’  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 info@neilcowmeadow.com  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this episode, Neil is going to take a look at your blind spots in business. These are all the things you constantly miss, action incorrectly or are unaware of. The only problem is, you cannot see your blind spots so your only option is to call for an extra pair of eyes! KEY TAKEAWAYS Usually, our blind spots are completely obvious to the people around us.  The outsiders’ view is vital. If you are not as influential, successful, healthy and wealthy as you want to be, you have to admit you don’t know everything. Put together a group of people, preferably with knowledge of you and your business, to take a look at what you do and how you operate to see if those extra eyes spot anything you have been missing. BEST MOMENTS ‘What are your blind spots? Well, chances are you don’t know, because you’re blind to them! The clues in the name.’   ‘Ask them the vital question, what am I missing? Ask them for their opinions. Don’t ask them for feedback as that can get a bit cringey in my opinion.’  ‘My imaginary fiends gave me answers that were every bit as useful to me as real world counsellors.’  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 info@neilcowmeadow.com  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this episode, Neil deals with other people. Musicians are always looking for more information, more music to play, more riffs, more chords, more tunes, and more songs. There are a few problems that are encountered within a student’s constant search for knowledge and Neil has some sage advice on how to turn what looks like a potential difficulty into an advantage.    KEY TAKEAWAYS Being able to play the piano does not qualify you as a guitar teacher even if you play the instrument. Technical knowledge is key. Books and magazines often provide inaccurate or out of date information. Online material can be great but unless you know the difference between the quality and rubbish it can be a lottery. As a tutor you will often be competing with other sources for prevalence. Embrace this. Other sources may bring you knowledge and if they are inadequate they will be exposed over time. You can collaborate with the other source if you can find a teacher that will do so or embellish the students extra learning with your own techniques. But don’t get huffy! BEST MOMENTS ‘I don’t think this is deliberate. I think this is genuinely well meaning people demonstrating that they have really poor technique and an unusual interpretation of reality.’ ‘It’s not unusual for a student to show up for a lesson with me having got the point last session then utterly confused themselves by watching a ton of contradictory youtube videos.’ ‘If little Jonny absolutely loves his other teacher, no matter how bad their teacher may be, if you slag that other teacher off you’re going to be the bad 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 info@neilcowmeadow.com           See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Mobile phones are divisive in that they offer us organisational convenience while simultaneously invading our private time and information. Neil gives his opinion on this constant helpful interloper into our existence and what we can do to fight its more unhelpful influences.  KEY TAKEAWAYS The dichotomy is that we run our lives via mobile phone tech but also suspect that it tracks your every move and that calls and messages are recorded and analysed by people that don’t have our best interests at heart.    It is prudent to bear in mind when handling your sensitive data that mobile phones allow unscrupulous tech companies to track and data scrape your private information. Phones constantly interrupt you with demands for attention. They can be a corrupting influence on your time management, relationships and safety. Turn your phone off when tutoring. To do otherwise suggests a lack of care and respect for your student.  BEST MOMENTS ‘I’m by no means a Luddite, by no means a tech-fearing tinfoil hat-wearing conspiracy theorist. Like you, I use my mobile phone most days.’  ‘Frankly, I think it’s a mistake and I think we’d be wise to manage our relationship with the phone very, very carefully.’   ‘Turn the phone off. What a radical idea that is! That’s actually too hard for most people to do!’ 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 info@neilcowmeadow.com  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.