Thrive Global

Community//March 12, 2018

Nature is right

What I learned running 30 miles in the Indian Peaks Wilderness

Benjamin, always love

This past fall I ran about thirty miles around Sawtooth Mountain, Thunderbolt Peak, and Mount Audubon in Colorado. This is what I learned: the more time I spend in nature, the more I feel like it literally has infinite love and wisdom to offer, because no matter what negative feelings I go in with, they eventually and almost inevitably dissolve. I remember the fights, but they feel more like silly squabbles that pale in comparison to the connection. The void left by the the negative is replaced by joy and gratitude. I don’t understand how it happens or why, but the experience feels true.

— Published on March 12, 2018

Ancient Wisdom,

Benjamin, always love

Benjamin is an angel investor and Director of User Experience at WeWork. He is passionate about creating new products, brands, and businesses based on a better understanding of real human needs.

At WeWork, Benjamin works closely with the Head of User Experience, Tomer Sharon, and the rest of the UX team to make the member experience visible to all of WeWork and help the company decide what to work on using evidence of what members need.

Before WeWork, Benjamin consulted for fortune 500s, international corporations, government, foundations, and non-profits across a variety of industries for clients including BlackRock, Ford, Microsoft, American Express, Citigroup, Bloomberg, British Airways, Omron, Nike, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and several New York based startups including Celmatix.

Benjamin holds an M.F.A. in Interaction Design from the School of Visual Arts in New York (2012) and a B.S. in Neuroscience and Behavioral Biology from Emory University (2007).

He has been published in design books including Becoming a Design Entrepreneur by Stephen Heller and Validating Product Ideas Through Lean User Research by Tomer Sharon.

Outside of work, Benjamin enjoys teaching. He has taught and mentored students at Cornell, Harvard, Parsons, NYU, and The School of Visual Arts as well as several incubators and accelerators including Techstars, a New York based startup accelerator. Benjamin also enjoys spending time in nature, marathon and ultra trail running, drone racing, and art. His sculpture has been exhibited in the Luggage Store Gallery in San Francisco and is in permanent installation on Emory University’s campus.

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“People look for retreats for themselves, in the country, by the coast, or in the hills . . . There is nowhere that a person can find a more peaceful and trouble-free retreat than in his own mind. . . . So constantly give yourself this retreat, and renew yourself.”

- MARCUS AURELIUS

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