THE MUSIC WAS ALWAYS CALLING ME

This is the story of a kid banging pots and pans in a Michigan kitchen who became an All-State athlete, the #1 sales rep in the world, and, finally, a musician in the conscious leadership movement. It took forty-five years. Every one of them was necessary, and I’m so grateful to be able to share my story with you. Thank you for being here.

ELK RAPIDS, MICHIGAN

My parents created a childhood for my brother and me built on unconditional love. My dad is no longer with us, and writing that still makes me grateful and sad at once. My mom, brother, and friends loved him very much.

Both were teachers with summers off, so for ten years I split my time between a farm outside Chicago September-June and Elk Rapids, Michigan, June through August... Elk Rapids was the place my dad fell in love with as a kid and always meant to come back to.

THE DAY I FELL IN LOVE WITH MUSIC

By the time I was 2 I knew my dad loved music. He always had music on... the Beatles, Michael Jackson, random records and mix tapes.

My mom also loved music and was a dance choreographer at the school where they both taught and brought me to practice constantly. Music was just always there.

Then one night my dad put on Bad. My whole entire world shifted. My body wanted to move and my voice wanted to sing. I remember that moment like it was yesterday and what I remember is I felt free.

That was the first time music moved me instead of just surrounding me. I have been chasing that feeling ever since.

FROM POTS and PANS to MY FIRST BANDS

In middle school I was in band class. In that class I wanted to be a drummer so bad, however, there were already to many good drummers so I had to play the alto saxophone.

That didn’t stop me from drumming through. When I was 14 I convinced my mom to buy me a drum set, and that led to my high school bands including Slow Children, a Walking Cliche and Give Us Your Money $.

SPORTS, SPORTS, SPORTS

As the oldest kid, I was competitive about everything... book contests, yard games, anything with a scoreboard. That drive showed up most for me in athletics. In high school I played baseball, basketball, football and soccer; those were the organized sports… the sport I truly fell in love with in high school was snowboarding, but it wasn't a sport. Mainly, the rebels were snowboarders, and my mom literally paid me to play winter sports because she didn’t want me at the snowboard hill more than I already was… Looking back that was a smart move by her.

Even though I was part of a State Championship in Soccer as the Goalie, baseball was my true love and still is. It is the one I was built for. Senior year, I went 11-1 as a pitcher, hitting close to .600, broke the state record for home runs in a game and was on a clear path to a scholarship.

Then I tore my rotator cuff in the last game of the regular season my senior year. Everything changed.

Up to that point, I had coasted on raw talent. The injury forced me to learn what real work felt like.

While I rehabbed, I moved home, got a job, and went to a community college, where I took a music appreciation class. And that is where I met Jason Sanis, who introduced me to Ryan Whyte Maloney... the musician who changed my life. The three of us started Indulge together, and that band taught me many, many lessons I wouldn’t understand until 15 years later.

LEARNING TO SELL, LEARNING TO LEAD, LEARNING TO FINISH

After rehabbing my shoulder I went to Hope College to play baseball and that’s where I met a young man named Jason who introduced me to selling Cutco Knives. Three months later I left college to sell Cutco full time and within two years was the top rep in the country.

Over the next 15 years I would use Cutco as the financial vehicle to explore who I really am. I moved to Boulder Colorado, Los Angeles, California, Kalamazoo, Michigan, Austin Texas and eventually came back to the place that I fell in love with, which was the same place my dad fell in love with… Elk Rapids Michigan.

FINDING THE SOUND. FINDING THE STAGE.

After a big sales year in Cutco in 2006 I called my brother from California and asked to join his band.

Since he was a drummer too, I proposed that I play hand percussion and be the rapper, oh, and I would also handle all the booking stuff… which nobody likes to do.

The next day... he called me back you're in. I drove my Saturn back to Michigan less than 1 month later.

THE MOMENT I KNEW I COULD NOT WALK AWAY

After the band in 2006/2007 the lead singer left and I thought to myself. Well, it’s been fun to be in a band.. Now it’s time to get back to work… earning money. As I let my passion for music fade I slipped into a little bit of a depression, until 2008 when my brother and I randomly decided to record an album as a Christmas gift for our family.

On the album I would be the main singer, along with the percussion, production and even a little bass.

One night, mid-session, I had to stop my production to go sell knives. I looked at the screen and said out loud: I would do this for free. I love this. I do not want to stop. It was the first time I had felf that feeling, but it was unmistakable. I have never forgotten it.

WRITING MUSIC FOR THE FIRST TIME. WRITING IT FOR MYSELF.

That Christmas album project was called Organixx and it cracked something open that never closed. I was coming out of a long relationship, dealing with depression, and doing work that meant nothing to me. The music was the first true thing I had felt in years.

During the songwriting process, I started writing some of the songs for myself, not an audience... conversations with the version of me I was trying to become. Songs like Relaxation Station, which is packed with personal growth mechanics I had learned selling Cutco.

4 months after the Christmas album came out - I joined another one of my brothers' bands… FUNKTION.

150 SHOWS A YEAR. 26 STATES. LEARNING WHAT LEADERSHIP ACTUALLY COSTS.

From 2009 to 2012, I was the percussion player, rapper and booking agent for the Kalamazoo based Funk, Soul, Groove band, FUNKTION, over the 3 years we went from 50 shows a year to over 150 a year, across 26 states.

During that time there were many many lessons. First off, looking back I see that, I was not a great leader yet. But I was paying attention. Everything I got wrong in FUNKTION made me a far better leader later... during the pandemic, inside organizations, and now inside my own business.

Then there was the music. The guys in the band were SO good and I was by far and away the worst musician in the band. That made me want to get better and better and better. It’s a great example of why who you hang around matters.

GOING SOLO. LEARNING TO SING. BUILDING THE INSTRUMENT FROM SCRATCH.

When FUNKTION ended, I made the scariest decision of my musical life: go solo, write my own songs, learn to play guitar, and be the lead singer... despite not singing on pitch, having no original songs, and never having performed alone.

I spent two years learning to sing, play guitar, and live-loop, layering instruments in real time so one person sounds like a full band. I named the project Brotha James because it was a nickname I’d picked up in the different bands I was in, and said yes to every opportunity that came my way.

Showing up before I was ready is still the thing I am most proud of from that era. I owe that leap of faith to my coach at the time, Ian. He was one of the best life coaches I’ve ever had.

Over two years of learning to be a solo musician, I simultaneously built a new division of my Cutco business. This time it would be the B2B side of things. I sold Cutco to Realtors and Loan officers as a replacement for the gifts they usually give. Building this business would pay off big as I transitioned to a full-time musician.

WHEN MUSIC AND FACILITATION FOUND EACH OTHER

Starting in 2015 I was brought into more than 20 events run by Jon Berghoff, one of the best facilitators in the world. He originally hired me to play music. But,watching him work, I realized music and facilitation were solving the same problem from different angles... both trying to get people out of their heads and into their full potential. Both were about making the world a better place. So, I started to ask the question… how could I combine them?

For the next several years, I combined them: music as the emotional amplifier, a pathway into the head and the heart, with facilitation as the structure.

Together they created something neither could alone. I had found my combination, and I was only beginning to understand how powerful it was.

For the next three years, I would spend most of my time on the road, bringing music to events, facilitating them, and coaching others on how to do the same.

This is where I started to find my love for bringing my empowering music and message to schools.

Then came the pandemic.

INSIDE THE ORGANIZATIONS. LIVING IT UNDER REAL PRESSURE.

During the pandemic, I joined Xchange and, over three years, helped take the company from roughly $700K to over $2M in revenue as the head of sales.

I led weekly meetings, built the sales engine, and served as the company's primary salesperson during that time. Looking back, I can see that I was treating the business like my own.

Then after a short break, I became CGO and de facto CEO of Miracle Morning, inheriting a 15-person global team in the middle of a legal crisis and turning it around. Those were the most intense years of my professional life... and the proof that everything I had learned about conscious leadership from my mentors Dr. Danny Friedland and Meg Wheatley was real, not theoretical.

WHAT MATTERS MOST? GOING WITHIN. GOING ALL IN.

For years I was excellent at excelling inside other people's organizations, and every time I did, the distance between who I was being and who I was meant to be grew a little wider.

I kept choosing others' visions over my own... not because I doubted the vision, but because some part of me was afraid it was not enough.

J HOBBS. THE WHOLE FIRST ACT WAS BUILDING TOWARD THIS.

I spent forty-five years becoming the person who could do this work of making music and leading empowering experiences at the level it deserves. Every sales call. Every show. Every event. Every crisis I led through. All of it was training for one thing: creating and sharing empowering music and experiences with the world.

With all my learning in mind and a calling to write a new chapter in my story, I decided to change my name from Brotha James to J Hobbs. That was not branding. It was a declaration of my values. Hobbs is my mother's maiden name, my brother's, and my middle name, and to this day the Hobbs family is very close and spends multiple holidays together… Hobbs is who I am.

I believe that everything I just shared with you was the first act, and now it’s time for act 2. While each act has different eras and chapters, what I know is that I’m just getting started and I can’t wait to share what’s coming next with you. More music, more content, more empowerment.

I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU MADE IT TO THE END. THAT MEANS SOMETHING.

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