Steven J. Hill

 Steven ‘Steve’ James Hill (born 31 May 1962) is a New Zealand entrepreneur. He is best known in New Zealand as the co-creater of JOLT Challenge, a 9 week self-intelligence training program that is that is licensed by Mind Warriors International and run throughout the corporate and public sector in New Zealand.

Early life
Hill was born to Lorraine Crofskey and Trenton Hill in Waitara, Taranaki, New Zealand on 31 May 1962. He is part Maori; his main tribal roots are Nga Puhi and Te Atihaunui-a-Paparangi.

Since Hill's early childhood days he has been intrigued about these things called spirits that are from another dimension. His upbringing heavily influenced his interest in spirituality. His mother belonged to a spiritualist church and one of Hill’s grandfathers Alec Christiansen was a medium. Hill has always been passionate about human potential and believes that there is more to life than what we perceive exists.

Spirituality
When Hill was young, he says he used to see visions. For example, he tells the story of a bear that used to come into his room at night and it used to freak him out. Like any kid, he forgot about the visions and only later when he was older did he start to place meaning and insights behind the visions. When he was 20, he did two things that changed his path. One, he went and trained with a medium Betty Saunders for about a year and a half and secondly he started doing martial arts

Shamanism
Hill is a qualified NLP Practitioner and has studied the Art of Metaphor and Clean Language. After working with medium Betty Saunders in his 20s he went on to study with a number of spiritual elders, shaman, medicine men and women. In the late 80s, he learnt sequoia medicine wheel therapy and participated in a number of sweat lodges with Denise Linn. In the early 90s, Hill studied The Way of the Shaman with Shamanic Healer, Terri Batten. In 1994 he trained with Lakota Medicine man, Wallace Black Elk learning the sacred red path and the Inipi ceremony. In the same year, Hill also trained with a group of Maori spiritual elders in Pikitu, Waikato, New Zealand. He continues the practice and teaches shamanism on a regular basis.

Martial arts
From 1982 to 1990, Hill practiced Jujitsu with the South Pacific Jujitsu Society under Sensei Dave Butler. During this time, he also spent four years studying Yang style Tai Chi with Master Hua Khoo and three years training in traditional Iaido Samurai Sword (Katana at the Ai Uchi Ryu school with Sensei Tony Crawford and attained level of Black Belt Instructor. In 1991, he started training and gained a Black Belt in Koryu Uchinadi Kempo Jutsu under Hanshi Patrick McCarthy. He has also been practicing Pa Tuan Tsin (Qigong) for the past 15 years.

WebMedia
WebMedia was a start-up that formed in 1996 between Hill and Glenn Harding. In four years it grew from 2 staff to 50 and their offices expanded from Auckland NZ to Hong Kong, San Francisco and Melbourne. WebMedia was a creative pioneer in the New Media industry not only in its outputs but also in its internal culture. WebMedia had a positive reputation for it's flat management style and their understanding of the creative process. With their relaxed working environment, Hill and Harding understood the creative process wasn't "just something you can turn on and off, or do nine to five. And that’s not just creative design. We consider marketing developments to be just as creative as front-end design.” - Harding. In their first two and half years of operation they did not lose a single employee, either overseas or to a competitor. At its high point, WebMedia employed 50 people at offices in Auckland, Hong Kong, San Francisco and Melbourne. In April 2001, the company flew its entire staff to Amsterdam to accept an award from the European Multimedia Association, which also put WebMedia in charge of its website.

In 2000, WebMedia won the E-commerce category for Satan Shirts at the South by South West Awards and won three awards at the Amsterdam-based European Multimedia Association’s EMMA Awards: Winner of Advertising & Marketing Online category for Wm3, Winner of Music Online category for Gogo.com and the Winner of Gold Award of Excellence chosen from all winners. Vloser to their home in New Zealand they won Best Design awards 2000, eNic Best of CC Website Competition and the Interactive NZ Awards 2000, The NetGuide Web Awards 1998 and in 2000.

In late 2001, WebMedia went into liquidation due to a major client's failure to pay their $1.05 million debt.

Improv Solutions
In 1996, Hill meet Wade Jackson while training martial arts at the same dojo. In 2002 recognizing that there was a need for experiential training programs within the corporate sector they formed Improv Solutions; a company specialized in organisational creativity and storytelling. They worked in New Zealand and abroad with some of the world's leading organisations. In their eyes, the keys to creating lasting positive change was through time-spaced, experiential and self-directed learning program, rather than short one-off prescriptive occurrences. As a culmination of their experience with Improv Solutions and seeing the increased need in companies for wellness, work/life balance, peak performance they decided to disband Improv Solutions and in 2003 formed Mind Warriors International Limited.

Mind Warriors International Limited
In 2009 Hill and Jackson publicly launched JOLT Challenge. The JOLT Challenge program is a 9 weeks of Self Intelligence training that explores the awareness of your thoughts, emotions, behaviors and capabilities.It is endorsed by management thinkers such as the late Dr. Stephen Covey and Dr. Edward de Bono. JOLT Challenge has been run in Telecom, KPMG, Westpac, Frucor, BNZ, Sky City, Global Women Leadership Program, Potentia, CanTeen, IAG Australia and the Singapore Armed Forces.

In 2010, JOLT Challenge was highly commended in the Learning and Development Innovation Award at the NZATD Education Trust Training. That same year, Mind Warriors International was a finalist in the NZ Unlimited Investment Challenge.

Personal life
Hill married Helen Grant in October 5th, 1995 and had two sons Kane and Niko. In 2007, Helen passed away from Breast Cancer.