 I'm super excited to have Dave Hill Jr. on this is going to be a really special and unique interview because Dave is going to sing for us a couple of songs. And I have, I don't remember the last time I've interviewed someone who, you know, graced me with actual, you know, singing that like when I try to do entire song of possible at least. And then talk about the journey that that led him here and his new book. I'm really excited to share to for him to talk about as well. So without further ado, Dave, welcome to this interview. Thank you for doing this. And I would love for you to first just intro yourself, however you want to tell us. Yeah, yeah, tell us about your background a bit and what you're doing now. You got it. Thank you, George. And thanks for having me. It's, it's a real honor for me to be on your program. I just appreciate so much what you do for the community and for people like myself and others. And I've met some great people through you and learned a lot. So, so thank you. So yeah, so about me, how I got here, I started out as a musician and lo and behold, I'm still a musician and now a songwriter. But my journey took many valleys and vistas. And I was an executive at two high tech startup companies that I didn't know what a startup was when I joined the first one. And I was a marketing director and then a managing director for a company called Ableton. They're based in Berlin. They're very popular digital audio workstation manufacturer. It was there eight years and then went to Isotope. Did a similar about five years or so and audio software plugging company. It was a VP of sales and marketing there. And while very successful, I was also incredibly burnt out having trouble seeing up from down trying to really get my bearings. And luckily, the CEO at Isotope was a really informed guy and he started, he was working with a great coach who I worked with for a time. And then I worked with another coach. And then once I got turned on to coaching, I was like, oh, this is what my heart is really calling for. And so I became a coach because I needed a coach, you know, I say. So yeah, and then that, I guess I could go on just a little bit more that what happened to me as I became a coach is you do a lot of work on yourself. Through coaching process, I trained at a company called Integral Coaching Canada. I have a master coaching certification there and then I've done other trainings and whatnot. And through all that process, you do a lot of introspection, you get coached, you look at a lot of things. And I think so through there, I really started to get back to sound and music as being like a central theme for me. And I even play around with calling myself a musical healer. So I'm an executive coach and a musical healer for healing myself and also working with sound and music with others as well, because I find it's just such a powerful medium to play and use our imaginations for growth. That's awesome. And you are a legit musician because I see the ceiling tiles, the sound tiles, those absorb sound and so makes it. Okay, so I have questions for you, but I wonder, would this be a good time to introduce one of the songs? We could. We could. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, let's get right into it. Let's get right into it and then we'll talk some and then we'll do another song. How's that? Right. Yeah. So great. So this, I was thinking about which songs to choose and I felt like I wanted to do something with a little bit of meaning for our talk. And so this song is called The Song I'm Afraid to Write, and it was a song that I wrote near the beginning. It wasn't actually the first, but it was among the early sort of ideas I had and it was, I was really right up against it. I was working on my own and working with a friend trying to help me write some songs. And I met these two guys, Isaac and Torald Coran, they're called the Coran Brothers or Brothers Coran, and did a songwriting program with them. And it really started to, all of a sudden the flood gates came open and it started to be, it's a very personal song. It's about a lot of things that happened in my own blocks about coming to allow myself to write a song that I thought it was, so I thought songwriting was this black box you couldn't possibly enter. I've been a drummer for 40 years, but for some reason I felt like songwriting was beyond that. So this is called The Song I'm Afraid to Write, take a quick sip of water. Yeah, and also before we started recording you had shown me the Zoom setting for allowing it. But I realized you don't have to show that to us. You can do a separate video about that some other time if you want to. Yeah, I'm happy to explain. I'm using the original sound for Musician's Feature on Zoom. That's important because otherwise the sound doesn't come great. But I'm going to mute myself and allow you to sing for us. Okay, great. Thanks, George. This is the song I'm afraid to write. It might wake the dead and maybe they were right. This is the dream I've never had before. I was safe and alone too much to ignore. Maybe they were right. This is the day they won't let me sing. I'm locked away and the warden is listening. This is the song I could never release. Demons at the gate who I could never please. What if they were right? Maybe they're a barfly in a teacup. A husband without a wife. This is the song that saved my life. When I was free from being bitter. And being chased by a knife. But I hear there's another side. Here there's another side. The other side. Will they hear my song in tongues? On the other side. And I'm not the only one. On the other side. Awesome. That is haunting. There's a lot of meaning behind it. I want to hear the story. Did you do the music production side? All of it. Luckily that was my day job for a lot of it. He's been an audio software guy. I used to write for a bunch of music magazines and do software reviews back before I ever got in the tech world. I was a writer and a musician. I'm a drummer. I'm programming electronic drums sometimes. And then I'm sometimes playing keyboards. That's my side hobby. It all works symbiotically together. As I become a better singer. I become a better songwriter. Tell us about the meaning of that song. I think we can interpret it in our own ways. I want to hear from you. It's super personal. There's a whole bunch of things in there. I didn't feel it was okay to write a song for some reason. It felt like there were things that just felt like I wasn't worthy somehow. And I felt blocked. It kind of dovetails a bit into my book. And I was working a lot with inner critic. Working against the inner critic. Frustrated by the inner critic. Because I was a musician and have been a musician for so long. I've pretty developed tastes at this point. I've played hundreds of gigs at this point. As a drummer. Toured and done all sorts of things. When I came to write my own song. I'd compare myself right away with the people that have been doing this for a long time. Comparing your first step with somebody's 500th step is about as painful as you can get. That's what was happening. It didn't really click to me until I was done with the book. That actually my songwriting journey was really a classic proof case for my book. The book was really more for my coaching work. Of learning to trust my voice as a coach. Trust my intuition. In a circular way. This song is really about release. Being free from being bitter. And the book. I want to make sure people know the name of the book. You can find the link below. It's called Doubt. There we go. Doubt writing shotgun. Learning to recognize, engage and love your doubt. Yeah. I love it. I have it in my Kindle anyway. It's a great review. Totally. My first review. I'm glad. I want to ask you about your coaching training. You got integral coaching. Is that related to the integral? Can Wilbur integral? It is. It's not like he doesn't teach there. It's related to integral theory. Using those frameworks. We use those lenses as we are evaluating clients. In the end it's all in service as a client. Helping you create the right coaching program for them. That's going to resonate and land for them. We all have bias. Totally. For those who aren't super familiar with integral. Can you give us your summary of it? That's a tall order. I know. I mean, I think, you know, Ken Wilbur has, you know, I think he's sort of the godfather of the theory, I think. But as far as I know, there are other strong voices there, too. And it's honestly, it's a little bit faded out. I don't hear as much about it as I used to a decade ago. But I, what I would say is there's certain ways we orient. There are certain tendencies that we have based on, you know, our personality and our culture and our level of consciousness even. And kind of heady things, honestly. But through my, you know, honestly, using my intuition, I kind of roughly assess a client where they are. And I'm often wrong. And that's okay. But because I have the framework, I'm able to adapt and kind of find out, you know, let's say, so like one popular part of the integral model is the four quadrant model where there's upper left, upper right, lower right, lower left. And so it's like how you might orient. So for instance, upper left would mean that you're making a lot. It's very, like, like personal. Like it's the me, basically. Like I'm making meaning in the world based on what's important to me. And if I don't get it, if I'm not, you know, it's very subjective and it's very personal. And so I don't get it, then forget it. I'm not moving forward. Whereas if you're a lower left, for instance, which happens to be my orientation, it's more about the group. So like is the group aligned? Do we have a shared value, shared meaning? And that's more important than just the me. Like if I'm, I may feel something strong, but if the group doesn't feel like moving forward, then we might not move forward. There's other, you know, we could go on, you know, the upper right quadrant just, I guess, since I'm this deep, is about action. So it's about measuring, like I just look for, you know, whether they're doing, they're the external doing activity. So somebody who, like I just start getting things done. And then I know that I'm actually, that's how I'm making meaning in the world, or how I know which direction to follow. And then the lower right is somebody who needs the system or the framework or the map. So, you know, some people say, I'm not getting out of bed in the morning until I have the list and I know exactly where everything fits and what's going to happen. And so you can imagine with just those four types, one lens of the, I think, seven or eight that I learned, that lens is very, you know, if you're working with someone who's very action oriented, let's say, and you start trying to get them to care about the group shared meaning, they're like, you know, what does it matter? You know, they don't, they can't see it. So I need to be able to put my coaching program and speak to them. And even the way I might do a write up or even ask a question, I'm ideally holding that quadrant in my view gently to be able to ask a question that they really can speak to. Wow, this is really good. I actually haven't. Does that make sense? Yeah, it does. It does make sense. And it gives me a renewed appreciation for integral. And I just, I love that you're bringing that those leads lenses into your coaching. That's really powerful stuff. That's really, it's holistic. And it's also tailored to each individual. And that's, that's, that's amazing. That's really awesome. I'm happy you're doing that. Okay. So I know the time is already coming really short. So I wonder if you could do part of a second song. Okay, sure. And then I want to, I want to have another question for you after that. So, yeah. Let me see here. I think, you know, do something a little, a little more upbeat. Sure. But still a deep meaning. Yes. So my father passed away in 2019. And it had a big impact on me. I definitely had learned a lot from him. And not, I'm saying upbeat, but I'm going to hear, I'm talking about death. But, you know, these songs are born from inspiration. So my dad was a big fisherman. And I fished with him sometimes. And so this song is called Down River. And I'll just leave it at that and see if maybe the words can speak to the meaning. Okay. And I'll just, I'll stop it at some point. I think there's a kind of a natural place after like the second chorus or so. All right. This is called Down River. You can mute George if you haven't already. Let's see here. In classic show biz style, I'll start again. There's a cross at the bottom of a river. There's a man fishing upstream for the cross. There's a boy in a fishing hole looking for a soul saying take my hand and help me get across. There's a cross deep down river take my hand help me understand help me understand there's a spirit that's floating in love there's a dead man is walking for miles I guess I'm a wandering child was born to be wild reaching out take my hand and help me get across across deep down river help me understand down river they got slipped on a rock, man everybody's got an edge disappearing in time out of time Well, stop it there. Imagine an amazing solo and finish. Oh my gosh. And did you do all the music on this one as well? The guitar's a friend of mine, Jeff. Nice. He has an amazing name and he's an amazing brother of a friend of mine. Ah, so great. What a catchy song. I could totally imagine this being so much fun and like a live sighting. And I'm singing him live and playing drums while I sing. I had a show the other day. Oh, wow. I played like once a month right now with the band. We have a band called Greenwood Music Collective. Nice. GreenwoodMusicCollective.com. And where are you guys playing? We play in Seattle area. Seattle area. Nice. Two different venues. Yeah. Jack Quick, he's the primary songwriter. Okay. Hundreds of songs I think at this point. Wow. So he's been helping support me a bit. Yeah, it's so cool. So much fun. So much fun. Thank you. Thank you. So tell us what, if people want to work with you, you work with people in a couple of ways. Tell us about that. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I, you know, it's really coaching is so personal. And it's really important that you feel good about the person that's coaching you. And so I think it's really, for me, it's a wide assortment of people. When I look at the different professions and, you know, it's always hard to niche. We talked about this before, George. I've learned that from you as well, that you're trying to say, this is the exact right person. But, you know, I coach a lot of different type of executives, usually in technical type of products, but it's, it's all over in a place. And I coach some creatives as well, artists and, and people struggling with their inner critic. And I think like, you know, it's safe to say, maybe this sounds funny from a man to say this, but a lot of my inner critic work, some of my most successful clients are women. I think that women are often dealing with an imposter syndrome that can come up where they're, they're really struggling to have their voice heard. And I think that I've been really effective and I have some great testimonials to that effect. And that's, that seems to be a sweet spot. I didn't really choose, but it seems I had a strong mother figure. And I think that that maybe comes up a bit. And if you read my book, maybe that would also land for you. But yeah. Awesome. Awesome. Yeah. That's great. Oh, Dave Hill junior.com is my site. It's pretty easy. Yeah. Yeah. I'll put that below. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Dave, it's been such a pleasure. Thank you for doing this with an honor. And the first, the first of, yeah, the first of hopefully many, right? That you'll be doing. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Have a wonderful. Yeah. Wonderful day. Thanks again for doing this.