The New Normal - Lessons from Lockdown Artwork

Soulful Conversations with Ash Grunwald

Welcome to Soulful Conversations with Ash Grunwald. The idea for this show came from Ash's book "Surf by day and Jam by night' where he interviewed prominent musicians and surfers across the globe. Soulful Conversations with Ash Grunwald goes in deep with inspiring people from around the world; musicians, surfers and experts in, mindset, creativity, health, wellbeing and making the world a better place. Ash has been a professional musician for almost 20 years, is a dedicated surfer, travelled the world with his family and along the way has been lucky enough to have some amazing Soulful conversations which have had a huge impact on his life! If you're stuck in any kind of rutt, or just ready to improve your levels of happiness success and wellbeing. Get ready to hear all about growth mindset, rock 'n' roll spirituality, health and wellbeing and how this can shape your life.

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Soulful Conversations with Ash Grunwald

The New Normal - Lessons from Lockdown

May 31, 2020 • Ash Grunwald • Season 1 • Episode 16

I don’t believe in letting external realities dictate my inner reality so I worked hard during these dark days to keep mentally resilient and focus on what I had power to change. I resisted the temptation for things to be different to what they were and focused on what I could. What am I good at? How can I bring in some money to keep us afloat? What do people need? Well I know that I am good at music, I know I am good at adapting, I am good at communicating and I have some skills that people might want. So first up and within a matter of days I set up online guitar lessons, vocal coaching, online private gigs all on the Zoom platform and some money started to filter in. This was by no means my dream job or what I saw myself doing but I realised it wasn’t about my ego. It’s firstly about feeding my family and secondly embracing what is and thirdly if I am going to do something I am going to do it the best possible way I can, so I focused on delivering the goods 100% to whoever was good enough to employ my services. And that felt great!

It is such an uncertain time and uncertainty can cause people to be paralysed with fear causing procrastination. You might want to sit and watch the news to stay informed. I can tell you I have not watched the news in over a decade and I still manage to stay informed. The news builds fear and fear is one of the most destructive forces in your life. It becomes a habit and gives you every reason why you can’t do x y and z and if you believe you can’t do it you are absolutely right!! I prefer to strive for the things I want and leave it up for life itself to tell me what I can’t do. But it’s my job to strive not to decide what I can’t do before I have even tried.

It’s not just in live music but in any situation. As we confront the so called “New Norm” we should realise that change itself is the “New Norm”. If you can think outside of the box and take action you will be rewarded. Not just financially but if you can reach out to your wider community they may appreciate it more than you could ever guess. You will learn new things by challenging yourself and that is one of the greatest gifts you can get from any situation.

Something in the human spirit dies when we feel we are in a rut. Adversity is the challenge that when met with open arms becomes the catalyst for growth.