Meet Greg With Peace

We recently connected with Greg With Peace and have shared our conversation below.

Greg, we’re thrilled to have you sharing your thoughts and lessons with our community. So, for folks who are at a stage in their life or career where they are trying to be more resilient, can you share where you get your resilience from?

I understood that there’s nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, there is no other real option than living this life with purpose. Thus the only real thing we can do is to find out what is our role as part of Nature, fulfill that and have much fun in the meantime. We can do this by connecting to our hearts and let Nature/Universe/God guide us through our intuitions, emotions and passion. We can outsource the tasks of the mind, but we cannot outsource the tasks of the heart. This is very important. When Nature wants to bring a solution to something it works through us by igniting the desire in our hearts to do what we are here to do. So we must pay very close attention to what we feel in our heart that we’d love to do. Then go for it! I accepted that I am not here by accident and when I started to feel and see that I have a mission to carry out, something that is coming from me very naturally, there was no turning back. It can be quite challenging sometimes, so resilience is definitely needed. But we are resilient beings, it’s our nature.

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?

Raising people’s musical consciousness.

Imagine that you go back in time to 1985 and you leave your smartphone on the table by accident while it’s playing some music. Then some people find it, look at it, see that it’s a super thin screen, when they touch it it’s showing some nice image, the date and time and playing “some radio station” with music. They’d thought that this was one of the coolest things on Earth. It’d seem to be some extra terrestrial technology for them at that time. If only they know that if they have the pass code to unlock the phone it’s so much more than what they think it is. It’s actually a tool for accessing any information in the world within seconds, it’s a video phone, a satellite navigation system, it’s a camera, a live broadcasting station, etc. It’s something that when people start using it changes their lives profoundly, in ways that were unimaginable before.

Well, most of the people look at sound and music pretty much the same way as people in 1985 would look at that smartphone. They understand that it’s something cool and important but they have no idea how profoundly it can change their lives if they look under the surface and learn to utilize it. Music is so much more than merely a performing art and entertainment. Playing music is one of the most powerful tools, medicine, social glue, source of connection and tool of manifestation. Most importantly it’s not something only for the “talented” and only for “musicians”. It’s a skill and not a talent. Anyone can acquire the necessary skills and understanding to play simple forms of music and become a musically conscious being and improve their lives (and even others) profoundly. It doesn’t take that much at all and it can – and should be – fun from the beginning. It’s especially true if we learn with medicine songs/music, mantras, sound meditations. When we share this journey and learn and play together with other people, the fun, the effectiveness and all the positive effects are enhanced.

My project is PlayMusicPeople! which is a music education platform and community for heart centered music, focusing on music beyond performing art. It’s a “musical garden” where people can plant their musical selves to sprout, grow and bloom. My work is to create this garden and be a good gardener of it. Bring everything that’s needed for the growth and create the best possible environment for the musical consciousness to grow in people.

It’s been 6 years since this idea started to form in me. It went through many iterations and currently I am running an online guitar course based on medicine music and mantras called “The Chords of Love”. There is a free masterclass version available for anyone, and there is a much more detailed, constantly evolving “Full Immersion” program for those who make the decision to integrate guitar playing into their lives and want to have guidance, frequent help and be part of an amazing community. As part of this we have 2×8 chapters very comprehensive video course (level1 for total beginners and level2 for intermediate players), regular zoom calls, in-person workshops, and informal gatherings on the beach, in forests, amazing places in Portugal, mainly in the Lisbon area. We have lots of musical fun together and we learn by playing. We play music together as people used to play music together in the “old days”.

My intention for the near future is to invite many amazing teachers with many kinds of instruments to share their wisdom and be part of the PlayMusicPeople! community. This allows them to focus all their energy on teaching and helping the community, while taking care of all the technical stuff, infrastructure and marketing is the job of our team.

In the meantime I also create and facilitate many heart centered musical events and experiences such as mantra/medicine music circles, sound journeys, workshops, retreats and it’s also my intention to teach others how to create such things because I’ve been witnessing the immense power of these occasions time and time again.

Website: https://playmusicpeople.com
Free masterclass https://playmusicpeople.com/the-chords-of-love
About the Full Immersion program https://playmusicpeople.com/check-out-our-community

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

First, find out what’s the thing that you love to do, that you are genuinely interested in. It can be one thing or several things. Then look for how it could serve the world and be benefit to others. Then imagine in detail who would be a great person who could carry out the mission that you’d like to carry out. Then look at yourself and see where you are matching that person and what you are missing. Most often it’s skills and experience that are missing. But that’s good news! Because those you can acquire. You can become that person. It might take a few years, but that’s all right. It’s worth the investment, totally. At least that’s the case for me. It took me 3-4 years, but I became the person who I imagined. And it transformed my life profoundly.

When I doubt myself or I don’t have the confidence, most often it comes from the lack of knowledge and experience. So what I do is I go after that knowledge, I learn, then I get some experience. Then it’s proven for myself that I am good enough and that I can do it. The best remedy for self doubt is learning and getting experience.

Authenticity and integrity are your biggest assets. Never try to be like someone else. You are you because that’s what the world needs.

How can folks who want to work with you connect?

A small ship can be sailed alone,but a big one cannot. Also, we cannot, and should not be good at everything. It’s all about synergy. That’s how Nature works. Therefore, honest, transparent partnerships are crucial. Though I believe we never should wait for the right partner to appear to start something. We need to start, so the right partners can appear. We need to get a basic understanding of how everything works, but as soon as it’s possible, we’d better delegate the tasks for those who are really good at those.

I’m naturally much more focused on being a good teacher, mentor, coach, musician and creating the vision than on the operational business side or being a marketing expert or graphic designer. I’d love to have a business partner(s) who shares the same values and vision that I have. Who has the natural drive, the skills and experience in those fields and together we can turn this “small ship into a big one”. That way we could serve more people and have a bigger impact on the world sooner and create true win-win situations and thrive together.

Contact Info:

Image Credits

@rajanalex, @margotroth @itisedua @ana_marta_dias

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