Story & Lesson Highlights with Greg Hoy of Boulder, Colorado

We recently had the chance to connect with Greg Hoy and have shared our conversation below.

Greg, we’re thrilled to have you with us today. Before we jump into your intro and the heart of the interview, let’s start with a bit of an ice breaker: What do the first 90 minutes of your day look like?
The cooler temperature brings with it a few new post-summer rituals. Specifically, being a parent, getting my daughter up and off to kindergarten! My post summer tour ritual involves new physical routines. Most mornings being with a 5 minute tai chi inspired warm-up followed by a daily, tracked weigh-in on my Hume body scale. As the body gets older, it needs more motivation not to store every single thing I put in its mouth! Once the kid is dropped off, I grab a half caff Americano, then either take a 2 mile walk, jump on the rowing machine or Peloton, or do a weight routine at my local rec center. If I don’t workout first thing in the morning, there’s a strong chance it ain’t gonna happen!

Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
I sing, write songs, and perform live. I enjoy travel, cooking, and exercise. My entrepreneurial spirit means a few different creative pursuits around people, team building, and coaching. I’m an Aquarius, an ENFP, and an Enneagram 7. I’m the youngest of 4 siblings however, also like an ‘only’ (they were 14, 16, 18 when I came along). I grew up near Pittsburgh Pennsylvania until my mid-20s when I moved to Brooklyn for 12 years. I’ve been in and around San Francisco for the past 15 years, and now live in Colorado, near the foothills. My house was full of melodies growing up in the golden era of recorded music. My life’s education came from FM radio, vinyl records, and cassettes. My career evolved from art direction in print media and advertising to creative hiring and recruiting. In 2010, I became the first dedicated design recruiter for Facebook. In the 15 years since, I worked in-house, then eventually, as a consultant for Pinterest, Lyft, Snapchat, Yahoo, Uber, Instacart, and many, many more, along with personal artist management, under the name Hemigraph. Currently, I’m building out a brand new recording studio and art space in the NoBo art district here in Boulder as a work on writing and producing my first musical. Whew!

Appreciate your sharing that. Let’s talk about your life, growing up and some of topics and learnings around that. What did you believe about yourself as a child that you no longer believe?
It took me a long time to come into my power, so to speak. The institutional blindsiding of the 70s and 80s meant a lot of deprogramming. Fortunately, the college that accepted me had a healthy dose of GenX cynicism baked in to its religious-based backbone. Music became the force by which I could navigate the physical, psychological, and spiritual aspects of self-discovery. My parents instilled a belief that I could do whatever I wanted to do – so long as it fit in to their ideas of success! Luckily, the boundaries set by religion and tradition began to blur at an early age. By the time I’d hit 30, I was hooked on seeking truth no matter where the road led.

If you could say one kind thing to your younger self, what would it be?
This is a fantastic question. Becoming a father in 2020 mid-pandemic, I decided to do therapy around parenting my own younger self. This was both enlightening, and painful. For me, a low hum of ‘never good enough’ echoed in my head for years. Even at an age where financial and cultural success had landed on my door step, the feeling of being ‘less than’ held a firm grip on me. Doing the work for that year helped me tell my younger self that everything is OK, that being confused, or frightened, or unsure is a natural way of being – and also, to know that the answers all live within. That sense of self determination and intrinsic trust has always been there. And it’s OK that it took a full lifetime to understand what that means.

Alright, so if you are open to it, let’s explore some philosophical questions that touch on your values and worldview. Where are smart people getting it totally wrong today?
The issue isn’t right or wrong in my estimation, The overwhelming problem is a lack of critical thinking, of questioning the narrative, of looking beyond the present capitalistic system of being surveilled to be sold. My vocational evolution from print media to advertising to tech – all while stepping into my power as an artist – made the looking glass obvious, and sometimes, almost too much so. Finding empathy for those that can’t see the smoke screens – or understand the wizard behind the curtain – as not only less informed, but also frightfully naive about the true meanings of life, has been a life-long struggle. You know, stepping out of that ‘Holier than thou’ mindset. Compassion is a best defense against ignorance, along with an understanding that evolution is not evenly distributed.

Thank you so much for all of your openness so far. Maybe we can close with a future oriented question. If you knew you had 10 years left, what would you stop doing immediately?
This is an interesting question as I tend to operate like tomorrow is not guaranteed. The tension between living in the now and planning for the later tends to be at the forefront of my modus operandi, so to speak. Having a child helps to balance the two paradigms: asking myself ‘Is this good for me?’ in parallel with ‘Is this good for my child?’ is, based on my limited quantitative research, still a novel concept. My favorite meme is that ‘Inside you are two wolves…’ one, because everyone has multiple wolves. The goal from an operational point of view is to make sure they form a cohesive pack to get you to whatever destination the day has in store.

Contact Info:

Image Credits
Non-selfie photos by William Wayland and Will Toft.

Suggest a Story: BoldJourney is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems,
so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
Highlighter Series
What do the first 90 minutes of your day look like?

Coffee? Workouts? Hitting the snooze button 14 times? Everyone has their morning ritual and we

Highlighter Series
What have been the defining wounds of your life—and how have you healed them?

Our deepest wounds often shape us as much as our greatest joys. The pain we

Highlighter Series
Are you doing what you were born to do—or what you were told to do?

Culture, economic circumstances, family traditions, local customs and more can often influence us more than