January 9, 2020
In this episode, I sit down with my good friend Christopher to talk about my journey with cityHUNT, the scavenger hunt company I own and operate.
We dive into our friendship, the adventure of moving to Philly, and the challenge of learning to breathe—even as an Eagles fan.
Podcast
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Transcript
Christopher Plant: Welcome to RadioKismet Live with Christopher Plant. RadioKismet Live is a partnership with Kismet Cowork and is located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. This is a short segment with Ben Hoffman, who is the owner and operator of a scavenger hunt company called City Hunt that was founded in New York City in 2000. I first met Ben in 2013 at my birthday party and we’ve had a great friendship since then. Ben moved down to the Atlanta area several years ago, but we’ve managed to stay in touch and so I was very excited to get him in for my third podcast of the year at Radio Kismet. I’m excited for you to take a listen. He’s on a journey and he’s a great guy. Here we go. Here we are live at Radio Kismet for our first exercise in Unscripted with Christopher Plant. Uh huh. Yes. We are here today in the studio with Mr. Ben Hoffman and his amazing son, Ziggy.
Ben Hoffman: Ziggy.
Christopher Plant: They’ve just arrived from just outside of Atlanta down in Serenby.
Ben Hoffman: Serenity. Yeah. Chattahoochee Hills.
Christopher Plant: Chattahoochee Hills.
Ben Hoffman: Chattahoochee Hills.
Christopher Plant: Chattahoochee Hills. Yes. And they’ve just come in and we are all going to. What are we doing on Sunday?
Ben Hoffman: E A G L E S. Eagles.
Christopher Plant: We’re gonna go see the Eagles in the first wild card playoff against the Seattle Seahawks. And so I thought I’d take the opportunity to invite Ben into the studio. Ben and I are old friends and have done a lot of really, really fun things together.
Ben Hoffman: BFFs.
Christopher Plant: BFF? Yeah. Most notably, we just got back from the Summit series out in Los Angeles and we had a fabulous time and we just, we travel well together. We share many of the same sensibilities. His scarves are always a little bit larger than mine.
Ben Hoffman: I like to call them skankets or blarves, not scarves. I feel like that’s a more proper term for the neckwear, body wear that are wrapped around or a skanket.
Christopher Plant: I like skank it better.
Ben Hoffman: Yeah, I mean, it’s either or. I’m not going to, like, judge you if you call it a blarf. I’m not going to judge you if you call it a skank it. And some days it might feel like a skanket, some days you might feel like a blarf. And like, totally fine.
Christopher Plant: Fantastic. So, Ben, I know a lot about you, but why don’t you give us a highly abridged version of how you came to be Sitting here. You started a scavenger hunt company out of your dorm room when?
Ben Hoffman: Around 2000, 2001? Ish, I guess. At NYU? Yeah.
Christopher Plant: Yeah. And so you were. You were in your dorm and you decided you wanted to have a scavenger hunt company.
Ben Hoffman: And so I went to NYU for theater. And at the end I was like, oh, wow, this was really great education, really fun, but I am not going to do theater. This is a miserable profession to be in. I was like seeing all my friends who graduated starving doing like terrible theater that I’d have to go watch and not getting paid. I’m like, oh, my goodness.
Christopher Plant: Not going to do it.
Ben Hoffman: No good, no bueno. So, yeah, so my co founder at the time, he had done this sort of scavenger hunt pub crawl experience. I came. It was a disaster, but it was still so much more fun than a regular night out. And so I was like, what if we made this a theatrical experience? Everybody was part of it. And that was always my favorite part. I realized about theater was not like, oh, I’m an audience. Everybody has their role, but everybody’s a part of it. The whole city’s the set, all the people are part of it. And just sort of making magic together. And we’re doing it with Polaroid cameras. And a lot of the times in the beginning, it was basically theatrical pub crawls. That’s what I would say, with gamification tied in. All this stuff that I didn’t know about, just sort of doing it. And then one day someone, we were doing this, we do it for our friends, birthday parties, things like that. One day someone was like, oh, can you do this for my company? And I was like, sure. What’s your budget? They told me their budget. They’re like, yeah, as a team building event. I was like, oh, that’s what we do. Team building events, obviously. This is obviously a team building company. Of course.
Christopher Plant: That’s what we do.
Ben Hoffman: Yeah, that’s what we do. And then that just what do you need?
Christopher Plant: That’s what we did.
Ben Hoffman: That’s exactly. It was like that moment of like, I didn’t. When they told me that number, I didn’t flinch. Which was like a life changing moment right there. I just sort of was like, yes, yes.
Christopher Plant: Whatever it is, I’ll figure it out.
Ben Hoffman: Yeah. So that figured it out and built a crazy game that was like way too complicated. But they had a lot of fun. It was a lot of work. Then we figured it out over time and yeah. And then we had digital camera. It was just a Good time in New York too. This is kind of early 2000s and there’s just a lot of people were hungry for team building and the options.
Christopher Plant: It was kind of the beginning of the experiential kind of thing that was going on. I know that at the time, Blue Man Group had just launched and was doing great. De La Guarda was doing really well in Union Square and I had spent a lot of time in Europe. I’d seen a lot of experiential stuff. And so it’s just natural that that kind of hunger for experience would. Would filter down into the everyday life.
Ben Hoffman: Yeah. Yeah. And that’s what sort of I realized was like, okay, how do we take this, like what circus Olay was to circuses? How could we take the idea of a scavenger hunt? And what do we do to make it totally different, experiential, unexpected, and use this amazing city as our playground where we could do. Get people to do crazy, fun things and connect them. That’s what I realized the best part was connecting with one another and the people of New York.
Christopher Plant: Yeah. And. Yeah, 7 million people there as opposed to a smaller town. And just the natural spectacle that. That. That is New York conditions people to be a little over the top just from. From the very beginning. So an auspicious place to begin a business, but so you’ve been doing it for. For years and years. And eventually you left. You know, I met you when you lived in Philadelphia. You know, we met. I don’t know if you remember the year. Do you remember the year?
Ben Hoffman: A long time ago.
Christopher Plant: Two, one. 2013. Seven years ago. Wow. And I remember the moment, just not the year.
Ben Hoffman: The year’s a blur, but I remember.
Christopher Plant: Raining out in particular because of other things that happened in that year. And it was my birthday party and it was a terrible weather and I was throwing myself my own gallery show.
Ben Hoffman: Shocking.
Christopher Plant: To prevent me from having to sit at home by myself on my birthday. I threw myself my own birthday party. And. And I’d taken over this. This storefront and made it into a gallery and brought in DJ equipment and. And I remember that Judy McCoobry brought you in and, you know, you guys had your hoods up and you’re dripping wet and. And. And I’m like, who’s this guy? And. And, you know, I won’t call it love at first sight, but we. We fell in.
Ben Hoffman: We did pretty quickly. We fell in. Bromance pretty fast. Romance fast. It was a very fast bromance.
Christopher Plant: Yeah. And we’ve been. Yeah. Making our Wives Nerv. But. But yeah. And we immediately started kind of like working on projects. And I was very fascinated by a lot of the stuff you were working on and tagged along with to a lot of meetings and things like that. And, you know, I think I’ve always loved how the status quo has never been like. Like where you were looking to go. You were like, okay, I got here, let’s go there, let’s go there. And. And then we each made our own comical videos. We are our lives impacted by Dollar Shave Club Totally. And made our own videos. But, you know. So why did you decide to come from New York down to Philadelphia?
Ben Hoffman: Yeah, so we were transitioning the company. We, you know, it was always like, oh, what’s next? How can we share this kind of what we were doing, the positive psychology, the gamification to more places. So we were doing more stuff in D.C. that was sort of the next market we went to. And I’m from Philadelphia originally, and it was sort of in the middle. And actually, I think I was down here looking at an investment property. And my wife at the time, she’ saw this house that was just like Philadelphia had, like. We were like, buying real estate in New York and she was a real estate broker there. So we saw this. She was like, this is the best deal ever. Let’s move here. I was like, okay.
Christopher Plant: Compared to New York standards.
Ben Hoffman: Yeah, yeah. And that was like. Our mindset was that it was this old house from the 1800s, like from the Freeman Auction House just in Germantown. And I.
Christopher Plant: It was that your house on Price Street?
Ben Hoffman: Yeah, Price street house, yeah. So Chris has a big old house too. Not that far away. Yeah, there’s just coming from New York, that wasn’t possible.
Christopher Plant: No, I mean, I live. I live in my dream house. By comparative standards of what I was looking at. I mean, I fled New York basically because of, you know, what I perceived as an inability to afford New York real estate and the style of living that I wanted. I had a kid. I was about to have a second kid. The towers had just fallen. And I was like, you know what? I’m getting out of here. Philadelphia was a natural place to go. And I still believe that the quality of life here is incredibly high compared to the other towns that I’m familiar with. Washington, Boston, and primarily New York and even Los Angeles, San Francisco and Chicago. But how long were you here in Philadelphia?
Ben Hoffman: How long was I. I moved about a little over three years ago, so. And I may have been there a year or two. So I don’t know, three or four years, something like that.
Christopher Plant: It’s gotta be a little more than that.
Ben Hoffman: Maybe maybe five years. I don’t know. What’s time, what’s years? What’s all this you speak of? I don’t even understand any of this. Like, I’m believing what you’re saying when you said it was 2013. But honestly, a lot of this stuff, like recently just becomes a little blurry, Hazy. Yeah, it’s just like, what’s the work? It’s all the same.
Christopher Plant: Anyway, my friend Ben, the alien, the extraterrestrial.
Ben Hoffman: So.
Christopher Plant: But you. So three years ago you moved down to. To Atlanta.
Ben Hoffman: Yes.
Christopher Plant: And you have found yourself to this community that was really interesting. It’s called Serenity.
Ben Hoffman: Yes. So I knew that I wanted to live in a conscious community. And Tony Hsieh was sort of working on one in Las Vegas. Something that was planned out based on relationships, kind of social collisions, this idea. I saw him speak and I was getting involved in some stuff he was doing in Vegas. And that didn’t. Didn’t pan out into kind of what I was expecting, but I was just open to it. I just wanted to be there. And so we were just on vacation in Serenby. And it’s a pretty amazing place where it’s just built about people, kind of beautiful, amazing nature and people and all coming together and magic and. Yeah. And then the next thing I knew, I had a five acre farm next to Serenity and I was not planning on living there full time. I kept my house in Philadelphia, but it’s very hard to, once you get into this life, drive around on a golf cart. And by that time, right when I had met Chris, we were getting into the technology space and kind of, we were always a positive. We became a positive psychology, team building company. And then that was around the time of like iPhone and Android, all that stuff was really taking off. So we were developing this technology so we could go national and International around 2013. And then by that time when I moved, we were everywhere and we were just expanding so I could really be anywhere. And the Atlanta airport’s only 20 miles away, so it gave that ability to go. And yeah, it’s been amazing.
Christopher Plant: So the app really did change the entire way that you could do business.
Ben Hoffman: Yeah. So before it was very driven in terms of who could be on site, having these really amazing. Which we still have amazing trained people all over the country. But I had this vision of making this available for anyone, anywhere, anytime. And the only way to do that was through technology. Taking all the stuff we built for corporations and then kind of reconfiguring that and making it available. And we still do mostly corporate team building events, but now anybody schools, we have this program called Mofo make awesome for others. And that’s what I’m most passionate about at this point, where we give scholarships to nonprofits in schools so they can afford really amazing team building events. Because I can see the giant difference. Even two hours of building relationships for corporations. And then in the schools and nonprofits, it feels like it’s even like rocket fuel. But because they don’t. They don’t get a lot of that because it’s. Team building can be really, really expensive. So making that available to them.
Christopher Plant: So how many cities are you in right now?
Ben Hoffman: That’s a great question. Just like Todd, I’ve honestly lost everywhere. Like, any time. We’re building new experiences all the time, people. You know, someone was like, we just built something in Canada last year. And I was like, where is that? They’re like, well, like, they named a hockey player.
Christopher Plant: Yeah.
Ben Hoffman: And they’re from here. I was like, okay, yeah, that’s good enough for me. Let’s build it. Do you have, you know, do you have cell service? Perfect. Okay, we’ll figure it out.
Christopher Plant: That’s great.
Ben Hoffman: So, yeah, we’re, you know, all over. All over the world now, mostly North America, but we get crazy requests and build stuff.
Christopher Plant: Yeah.
Ben Hoffman: Wherever people want it, in really boring places and really exciting places. And we’ve had to find a way through augmented reality and different technology.
Christopher Plant: Yeah.
Ben Hoffman: To make it work no matter where people are.
Christopher Plant: That’s great. And so, I mean, I know as I’ve watched, you know, sort of our relationship over the. Over the years, you know, moving down to Atlanta allowed you to do a lot of different things. You bought this farm, Ziggy became a competitive horseback rider. You had tons of animals, motorcycles, and. And you’ve invited a lot of people into your life. What do you. What are some of the major impacts of. Of being down there that have impacted your life in general?
Ben Hoffman: I think the biggest impact was I’ve always lived in a city. When I was 18, I moved to New York City, and I was always in Philadelphia. So being. I think nature has been the biggest shift kind of that energy. Spent a lot more time just being quiet. Got much more into mindfulness meditation. I’d been doing a lot of personal development work, positive psychology work, kind of on the. Getting coached a lot going into it, and that then it just shifted drastically, kind of being there and Being able to be there and be committed to breathing. Yeah, maybe I didn’t breathe that much for the first.
Christopher Plant: No, it’s funny because, I mean, I could easily tie you into my journey to sort of higher consciousness. As, you know, you had done a lot of Tony Robbins back in the day, and, you know, you had invited me to go check it out, and in the end, you were not able to go. I went on my own and. And, and surprisingly, I’m most grateful, actually, for that, that I got to go on my own. And it’s kismet that you. That you let me down. No, I’m kidding. But. But I. It was. It was amazing that I got to go by myself. I did not have to live up to anybody’s expectations, and. And I got to feel it on my own. Right. And I went in skeptical, and I. I emerged from that definitely different. You know, I. I walked the fire. And even though the intellectual part of my brain was trying to avoid being moved by the experience, I was in fact, moved. And that was in 2014. By 2015, I was doing the Goldman Sachs program. Then I did the design leadership program, then I did the mba, then I did the kismets. And so. Thanks. Ben.
Ben Hoffman: Yeah. I have to tell you something right now that I haven’t told you before.
Christopher Plant: Oh, no, you’re not.
Ben Hoffman: I’m going to tell you. Yeah, Yeah. I did that on purpose.
Christopher Plant: Yeah.
Ben Hoffman: The same thing. When I went into Tony Robbins, someone did the exact same thing to me. They made it seem like we were going together.
Christopher Plant: Yeah.
Ben Hoffman: And then they didn’t show up, and I had to do it myself. And that was the first time I had to be that vulnerable in an experience. And it really, really shattered me in a great way. And so when I had done that, I was playing.
Christopher Plant: You’re just coming clean here.
Ben Hoffman: Now, six years later, six years later, now that. Now that it’s a positive experience, I was just going to wait to see how you made it, how you made it through. I mean, it was such a big thing for me, honestly, in my life to be. I’d never been in a situation like that. Like, it was so extreme. And to be there by myself without anyone to cling to or anything, and just felt there because it’s. It’s a really intense experience. And then when I was like, go, go, go. I was like, I, you know, I can’t go.
Christopher Plant: Yeah, I remember it was, you know, thanks. Thanksgiving weekend in 2014. And, you know, the. The trip was at the beginning of January, and I. I was like, Are you going? Are you going? You’re like, I. I can’t go. And I was like, okay, it. I’m gonna go. And I, you know, decided to do it on my own. And. And I was also. I mean, I felt. I. I definitely felt vulnerable. I think I felt more skeptical than. Than anything.
Ben Hoffman: Yeah, no, that too. Vulnerable.
Christopher Plant: Skeptical.
Ben Hoffman: All of that. Yeah.
Christopher Plant: What I was gonna find. And there are elements of it that I. That I don’t enjoy. You know, the, you know, groups of people showing up in the Keller Williams team real estate T shirts and like. Yeah. You know, but. But in the end, you don’t like.
Ben Hoffman: People dancing and business casual on stage. It seems like that’d be totally your jam.
Christopher Plant: Yeah, like. Well, some version of it is. Yeah, it is. But. But regardless, it was. I was really glad that I did it. And. And it absolutely, you know, impacted the trajectory of the sort of rest of my days because sort of everything since then has been hyper focused on, you know, both personal and professional development and making sure that. That. That I always had something, some kind of, like, secret driving force pushing me. And. And, you know, you’ve always been heavily engaged in, you know, like, mindfulness and these ideas behind, you know, just sort of higher consciousness. And I remember that, you know, I was happy first that we stayed in touch, but, you know, hearing about all the stuff that was going on down at. At the farm and with the developments with. With this. With the. With. With City Hunt and how that was evolving and being excited about the future projects that I knew that you were going to come up with. And so, you know, right now we are. You know, we went to the summit series in Los Angeles together back in November, and we were great roommates.
Ben Hoffman: Big spoon. Your little spoon.
Christopher Plant: Big spoon. Little spoon.
Ben Hoffman: Totally.
Christopher Plant: And we.
Ben Hoffman: We.
Christopher Plant: We had a blast. Tell me about, you know, you’ve been to a bunch of festivals. You’ve been to a lot of places. What’s going on with Ben Hoffman?
Ben Hoffman: Yeah. So, so blessed.
Christopher Plant: Yeah.
Ben Hoffman: Thank you. In love with the universe.
Christopher Plant: Yeah.
Ben Hoffman: Yeah. My life took a drastic, drastic shift last, you know, this last February, so I was very much into as I was. The company has been growing. City Hunt. I’m so blessed with that. We’ve been growing all this beautifulness. I got the chance. I’m working on a book right now, so I have an amazing partner, and I’ve been working on a book last year around sort of this idea of kind of what I’ve done the last 20 years and making this available for people who want to grow themselves, grow Their businesses, all the positive psychologists. And I realized it was like Tony Robbins was a huge impact on me. Some other people from the masculine side of positive psychology and that type of work. And then last year I was invited to. It was called a transformative festival. I had no idea what that meant in Costa Rica. And there’s no way I could go. You know, I have businesses to run. I have kids, all kids, everything like that. And multiple people. You have that. You have those things where multiple people keep inviting you. So you’re just like, okay, this is. Something’s happening. And then there’s like, no way this can work. But at the last minute, I was just like, okay, I’m going. And I didn’t really. I didn’t do any research, didn’t know what it was. I was like, oh, there’s some yoga meditation, which is totally my jam. Beautiful, amazing music. I thought I was going to an all inclusive resort. So I fly down, I meet my friend, we get out and we like bribe our way onto a bus. And I see him literally slip someone money. They’re like, no, you know, you have to put it in this piece of paper. And I’m like, what’s going on? I was like, I’ve got work to do. Yeah, I’ve got, I’ve got like a company.
Christopher Plant: Where’s my Internet connection?
Ben Hoffman: Yes. No, totally. And he’s like, we’re going to the jungle. He’s like. I was like, how far? He’s like, it’s four hours away. I was like, where are we staying? He’s like, in the jungle. He’s like, you’re not working. So it was great. And it was one of the first times where I just had to trust my team. And I said, okay, I’m about to lose connection. You’re in charge, all of this. So that was a lot where I had to. My ego had to get shut down. And it wasn’t my choice. And I just had to trust others to work the company, Everything that I’d been building for so long. And then it was just an amazing experience one morning. It was lots of meditation, yoga. We were homeless, we lost our place. Literally didn’t have a place to stay. There was no connection. Someone let us sleep in their hammocks under a tree house. And there was 8,000 people who were just so kind and loving. Sort of the Burning man ethos of everyone was providing for one another. And then one morning I was meditating and I had this crazy experience where I just shattered. I don’t know how else to explain it, I still don’t know. But there was no me anymore. There was a bunch of molecules for a little while. There was no future, there was no past. There was nothing. And then there’s really nothing. And then I came back together and I was not the same person for sure. I came home, I could hardly use my phone. I would go and talk to people and just miss every meeting because I would just be like, my eyes would get really big. I was like, I can feel your heart, you know, and this like overwhelming wave of feminine energy. It’s like I felt like my heart was like the Grinch, like grew three sizes after I came back and, and it was just not on this planet for about a month. And then I just had to follow kind of where that led and kind of openness to that. And it led to me reconnecting with my godfather, who’s a shaman, getting to spend time with some shamans in Ecuador.
Christopher Plant: Well, you did that recently?
Ben Hoffman: Yeah, in June. So right after that, February. And then I just started connecting and it was just open to all of this and realizing that that was the solution.
Christopher Plant: Envision, you’ve been to twice now or you just went to Envision earlier this year.
Ben Hoffman: Yeah, it happens in 19.
Christopher Plant: Yeah, yeah, that’s a big year.
Ben Hoffman: It’s a big year.
Christopher Plant: And to be frank, you know, what we’re talking about is a little bit about like plant based medicines and, and things like that. And there was this, you know, it’s funny to kind of bring it to a kismetic level. You know, you ultimately first learned about plant based medicines in Los Angeles, hanging out with my friend Eric Oberholtzer who is the founder of an incredible restaurant group and who’s done some amazing things with his life and practiced meditation for 30 years. And he and I came together through it’s somewhat unbelievable scenario through Facebook messenger. But you know, we talked on the phone. I ended up visiting him in LA and then found out that his restaurant group was the chef for the San Diego Chargers. On the flight home, looked up the schedule for the year and mind you, this is the year that the Eagles would go on to win the Super Bowl. We, the Eagles were playing the Chargers in their new home in the LA Galaxy Stadium. 26,000 people compared to the 65,000 that you know, frequently come to the link. And I called Eric up and in classic Christopher Plant tradition invited myself out to the game and a friend, and a friend, and a friend. And so Ben and I went out to Los Angeles and met up and you know Had a Airbnb circular bed.
Ben Hoffman: Circular bed. The hanging circular bed.
Christopher Plant: Ben got it on Saturday, I got it on Sunday. Yes.
Ben Hoffman: That was before we were comfortable. We hadn’t gone. Our bromance hadn’t gone to that level yet.
Christopher Plant: Yeah. But it was fun because it was very interesting to talk to Eric about some of the things that he was aware of that were going on happening in California. And it was something that obviously stuck in your head. And we both know from our, you know, both having read the book Stealing Fire and some of our other research that, you know, the vast majority of very, very successful Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, billionaires, and people who have, you know, created groundbreaking products and services, almost all have in common that they have, at some level or another, dabbled in psychedelics and participated in events similar to what we’ve done with Summit series like Burning Man. And was that something that was kind of playing into this growing consciousness of yours?
Ben Hoffman: Yeah. So when Eric told me that was the first time, I was like. Because his business is a beautiful story about its growth. And I was like, how do. Because City Hunt was still in a place of. I wasn’t sure what was going to go, how big I wanted to grow, all of that. And he had just coming out of this major growth phase, and then he started talking about his experiences with plant medicine. And it was like. That’s what I was saying. It was like Alice in Wonderland. He opened this door and I was like, what? This whole world that he painted, and it just stuck in my mind. I didn’t know. It was scary at the time. It was scary but interesting. Dangerous but interesting and intriguing about lessons learned. And it definitely stuck. And then, as I said, I sort of stumbled into it a little bit. How I ended up there. The universe, that’s the plants call you. You don’t call the plants that. Sort of some of the phrasing that you hear is just time. Where I was there, the timing was right. And then it’s just my life has changed drastically since then, and I just feel so much more in alignment with the universe based on this. Like, just amazing people that are coming together, doing this work, trying, and that’s what they all have in common. Whatever they’re using. Meditation, yoga, all this consciousness, mindfulness work, psychedelics, if that’s it, focused on creating a better universe by sort of letting all the love of the universe radiate through them.
Christopher Plant: Yeah.
Ben Hoffman: And pouring them out and making more awesome for other people every day, which is just. It’s a lot more fun than being anxious.
Christopher Plant: Yeah.
Ben Hoffman: Depressed super. Like, well, battling for every inch of everything. Feeling like someone has to lose so you can win. My mindset has shifted so, so, so much. I don’t. I’ve. It’s. It’s crazy to think before and after.
Christopher Plant: Well, and, you know, I. In, you know, I’m basically on my second pass through Stealing Fire, that. That incredible book that is pushing me, pushing a lot of the right buttons in my world right now. And, you know, they had said that over the last 30 years, there have been, like, literally 4,000 plus studies on depression, and there have been less than 60 studies on happiness, joy, and positive psychology. And it’s pretty hard to imagine this world where all we’re doing is studying these, like, incredibly negative things without really. And trying to figure out how to treat them with, you know, either services or drugs or processes, and yet not spending an equal amount of time studying, you know, the rigor and the process behind joy and happiness and how that can work. And it seems so claustrophobic and counterintuitive now, but, I mean, it’s a pretty amazing fact that’s out there. Yeah.
Ben Hoffman: And I could see that in all the work we’ve done, probably city hunts for, I don’t know, close to a million people at this point. And I was looking at the data when we were deciding how to build this before, it was just fun, theatrical. Then I got really into the positive psychology side and the gamification side. And I see that 70% of people are so disengaged at work that they’re physically getting ill.
Christopher Plant: Right.
Ben Hoffman: And the feedback. I get the game. It’s not magic. People are like, oh, there’s so much fun. But it’s just, I’m using the positive psychology. A lot of the work of Shawn Achor, kind of his work coming out of Harvard, he has a great TED talk that was really inspirational to me. And reading those type of things where when people. They just want to connect as humans. I want to feel your heart. And a lot of the times we’re never given that opportunity at work.
Christopher Plant: Yeah.
Ben Hoffman: So we’re. We have this weird thing where we’re not being human with each other, but then you have two hours where we can just be human. I can get a CEO of a major company to hug a tree.
Christopher Plant: Yeah. Or Hoda and.
Ben Hoffman: Hoda and Jenna from the Today show.
Christopher Plant: They.
Ben Hoffman: They crushed it. We just. They both were coming back from maternity leave, and they brought me in to do their team building event in Rock Center. It was just so beautiful. They were so much fun.
Christopher Plant: They were they were having a blast.
Ben Hoffman: They had a blast, and they were creating so much fun for all the people in Rock Center. It was just like, it turned into this big, beautiful party. I mean, they came in, their energy. They’re that. But it’s the people who come in who don’t expect. Right. That’s the most interesting thing in these experiences is when I have companies where people’s arms are crossed and they’re so angry, they have to be there.
Christopher Plant: Yeah.
Ben Hoffman: And then by the end, they’re laughing, they’re smiling, and it’s just because I let them be them for two hours.
Christopher Plant: It’s funny. You can, like, spot them across the room when they come in.
Ben Hoffman: I mean, I point them out and, like, play with them if I’m hosting an event, which I don’t get to do that often anymore. But that’s, like, when I train, too. I’m like, connect with that person, the toughest person in the room, because they have the most. They could get the most benefit of today. Like, that’s where my heart is, because I’ve been there. Right. I know that feeling. I know that look. I know that weight, that. You’re not going to break me. You know, there’s been times in my life where I’m like, I’m upset, I’m angry no matter what. You. You do?
Christopher Plant: Yeah.
Ben Hoffman: And that’s like the ultimate challenge is like, okay, how can I just like.
Christopher Plant: Well, it’s kind of like, you know, the old western cowboy, you know, take that, the nastiest, you know, mangiest, meanest, you know, pony, and try and break it.
Ben Hoffman: Yeah.
Christopher Plant: Show the other ponies what’s up.
Ben Hoffman: Yeah. And it’s just fun to see that, too, because that. That’s such a. Maybe this person hasn’t smiled in a year. Right. If I can get them laughing and smiling just for two hours.
Christopher Plant: Yeah.
Ben Hoffman: And I used to be like, is that enough? Am I doing enough, you know, to change the world, all of this. But I get them for two hours. And sometimes I hear that this is the best two hours of work that I’ve had this year.
Christopher Plant: I mean, it doesn’t surprise me for a second. I mean, it is somewhat unbelievable how hard. I mean, it’s not that hard to believe, but, like, how hard life is for many, many people. And I am. I feel incredibly lucky, and I feel a lot of gratitude for the life that I’ve had now that hasn’t just happened to me. I’ve worked for and. But, you know, I have a lot of empathy for people who work in terrible jobs. And, you know, there’s a lot of stuff as enlightened as maybe you and I might be at this table, somebody still has to take the trash out. And there’s a lot of ugly jobs out there where it’s hard for me to compellingly understand how you can balance that out with whatever it is you might want to try and do that with. And so I’m interested in how this growing consciousness that’s impacting the workplace and that sort of thing is going to create a sort of broader idea of wellness and that sort of thing in our world. But you are working on something that could potentially impact that. And tell me a little bit about the Breathwork project you’re working on.
Ben Hoffman: Yeah, so this is an interesting project. After I had come back from Ecuador, there was a bunch of changes in my personal life. And when I was in my early 20s, I got to go to India, and I felt this magic there that I hadn’t felt anywhere. I got to travel a lot, but there was something about India. And I knew that there was some drastic changes coming up in my personal life. So at one point, I was with the therapist, and he was like, you have to work through this. And I was like, I’m not going to work through this in an office. I just knew that I wasn’t going to sit there and just talk to somebody to work through. So I start telling everyone, I’m like, I’m going to India. And then I love Ram Dass. That’s who I was, like, reading when I was in India. Be here now. And then through my godfather, RIP Ram Dass? Yeah, just. Or he’s here with us now. Like, that was just like, there’s just a transition. So beautiful. That’s a whole nother Ramda story. But so I was just started telling people, I’m like, I’m going to India. And I had been connected to all these amazing people doing all these amazing things. And they’re like, oh, his friend Raghu Markus just left. You missed him. You could have gone to India and gone to all the places Ram Dass went. And I was like, oh. So I told another friend, and they’re like, wait, call this person. You might be able to go. So I called in there, like, and Saraswati, who was running the trip, she was like, can you get your visa this weekend? Come with us to India. So the next thing I know, I’m in India in the Himalayas, or Himalayas, as I found out is the right way to say it, because I had no Idea what I was doing. It’s a yoga yatra. And like, there’s all these people who knew what was going on talking about all this stuff, and I was just like, I’m here. I have no idea. But it’s so magical. It’s India, like getting dropped into Delhi, you know, and it just. India is just. There’s no place like it on earth, especially there. And then traveling, going like 10 miles. But it takes, you know, it takes nine hours. Yes. Wait, you’re going with the ox and all of that. But it was. It was beautiful. It was amazing. And it was just so heart opening. And I knew that I had been able to build this really cool technology with City Hunt, the app, and it was really changing lives. But still, it’s a 1% thing, right? You start to think about it. Who can really do this? It was the 1%. So I was just like, universe, how can I pour this out? I want everyone to get to experience what this is, what we all have in common. And what is that? So I was like, oh, I want to talk to some gurus. I want to see what that is. I want to hear from these different people kind of what that is that will tie us all together and maybe use technology, which I did with our app in the first place with City Hunt, where I can make people more happy as opposed to technology, where it gets a lot of. And it can make people really depressed and really sad and really disconnected. So what’s this next phase? I’m open to it. And that was part of it. I was working through my own stuff there, but I also wanted to build that there. And I didn’t know how, what form it was gonna. I had this idea that, like, the Dalai Lama was gonna start writing apps. Like, it’s just crazy stuff like that. So just open. So I got to spend some time and I got to go up. At one point, they’re like, oh, there’s a guru on top of this mountain. It’s a two hour straight up hike. But he’s 100 years old and he lives in a cave for 50 years. And I went up there and it was. There’s nothing like that. It was true. I joked that when we left, they’re like, okay, get that guy out of makeup. Turn the sets off. It was just like, totally unreal. And there was some crazy stuff that happened there, but it led to a lot of things, like getting to hang out with these people. And one thing they all talked about when I was listening to the shamans, when I was Meeting all these people in India who had done a lot of personal work was the breath. I felt like when you drill it down, everyone’s a guru, everyone’s a shaman, and how we’re connected is. Is the breath.
Christopher Plant: Yeah.
Ben Hoffman: You might not really have to eat. You can go a long time without eating. You can go a long time, you know, a little bit long. Longer without people. Like these people are cave. You know, water. You do need water, but you can go pretty long time with the breath. It’s four minutes.
Christopher Plant: Yeah.
Ben Hoffman: Unless you’re David Blaine.
Christopher Plant: Yeah.
Ben Hoffman: But like most of us, right? So. And that’s such a way that we can connect as humans. And I met this amazing person there, Julia, she’s an Olympic gold medalist, and she had this vision on Necker island about the world breathing. Breathing together as one. And I said, I think I have technology where we can do that. So we started developing, along with some other amazing people around the world, this app called Breatholution. Where the idea. Breatholution, like revolution.
Christopher Plant: Yeah.
Ben Hoffman: With an O, not an A, not breath. No. A lot of people. It’s confusing. That’s what I have to say. We got to fix that. But anyway, so. But the idea of this is to get a billion people breathing together for one minute. One once a day.
Christopher Plant: Yeah.
Ben Hoffman: How does that change the world? Because we all have our phones. It’s just one minute. And, like, you can’t mess it up. Like, you’re doing great right now. You haven’t died since we’ve been here, so I know you’re breathing, right. You’re crushing it. Chris. You’re, like, so good at breathing, man. And, like, you don’t have to meditate. Like, that’s a scary word to some people. You don’t have to be conscious.
Christopher Plant: You don’t have to be mindful baggage.
Ben Hoffman: You can’t mess it up. It’s just breathe in and out. Breathe in and out. Breathe in and out. Breathe in all the love of the universe. Just radiate that all out. In and out. One more time. Just breathe in all the gratefulness in your life. Hold it for a second, let it all out. And just take like 20 seconds of just being in that grateful place.
Christopher Plant: That’s good.
Ben Hoffman: It’s good, right?
Christopher Plant: Yeah.
Ben Hoffman: I hope everybody out there just did that with us. Maybe I could have pre framed it a little bit.
Christopher Plant: Feel free to rewind it and start back again.
Ben Hoffman: But seriously, I do this now when I start all my meetings. Even with clients, a lot of the times I’ll ask them just to breathe with Me, just so I can do a better job. Whatever I need to do, it gets me in a different state for sure.
Christopher Plant: I’ve seen dozens of presentations over the last six to 12 months that have started out with a small breathing exercise. And I think it’s a really great way of cracking the ice and kind of setting an intention around anything. And, you know, because the world is filled with panic and fear and weirdness and, you know, if you are convening a group of people to talk about something or to listen to something, taking a minute to stop and chill out and kind of reset the table, I think it’s a. It’s a great thing.
Ben Hoffman: Yeah. Because we’re the same in that moment. There’s no you. We’re just breathing.
Christopher Plant: Yeah. Yeah.
Ben Hoffman: All that stuff’s gone. When I was around the shamans, they use this term, shungo.
Christopher Plant: Shango, Shango.
Ben Hoffman: And I was like, what is that? It’d be a shungo. It’s like, same, same. We’re the same. There’s no difference. And I don’t know if I’m getting that exactly right. So all the shamans of the shaman sending letters or people know what’s really. Yes. Like, you know, there. So.
Christopher Plant: But.
Ben Hoffman: And I was like, oh, that’s everything. Right. There’s no difference between us. And then when I was in India, I was talking about that, and they’re like, oh, sabek. And it’s a Sanskrit term for same thing.
Christopher Plant: Yeah.
Ben Hoffman: And it’s like, we don’t have that term, but for them, it’s such a big part of what they are.
Christopher Plant: Same, same, same, same.
Ben Hoffman: No difference. We’re all one. We’re all connected. And that’s been my journey, is feeling that when that. When I shattered that moment in Costa Rica.
Christopher Plant: Yeah.
Ben Hoffman: And there was nothing but everything. Right? There was nothing, but it was everything. And like, I look at that and then be like, oh, if we break ourselves down, we’re all just like a bunch of stardust anyway. Like, when you break it, all the stuff, all the science, it’s like tying into spirituality when it’s all the same. We’re so good at pointing out differences and what makes us special, but we’re the same. And that’s where the magic is, and that’s where the frustration is. Sub ec. Yeah. Like S U, B, space ek. Yes.
Christopher Plant: And shungo.
Ben Hoffman: And shungo. And that’s been just the big turning point in my life, trying to live that, seeing I don’t see. We’re just mirrors of each other.
Christopher Plant: Yeah. Yeah. And you and I quite literally are.
Ben Hoffman: Yeah. Yeah. I just have a bigger skanket than you. That’s the only difference.
Christopher Plant: The only difference. So. Okay, man, you’re on this wild mission, and yet, I mean, you’re such a perfect. You still have your Eagles season tickets.
Ben Hoffman: Yes.
Christopher Plant: And you’re still like a major fan. So you’re this.
Ben Hoffman: I’ll tell you a funny story because I’ve been thinking about that. I’ll tell you a funny story about the Eagles. So it’s interesting. So, I mean, before this all happened, the Eagles won a Super Bowl.
Christopher Plant: Right.
Ben Hoffman: So I feel like that’s really why how I got my.
Christopher Plant: You were there.
Ben Hoffman: I was there. Yeah. So I was blessed enough to be zig there. No, no, no, no. Now he’s talking. He’s really mad. I promise him if they go to Miami, he’s going. So if they make it to the super bowl, you’ve heard it right now. So you can remind me. He gets to go to Miami.
Christopher Plant: I hope he gets to go to Miami.
Ben Hoffman: So they had that, and I felt changed after they won that Super Bowl. And then all this. All this stuff happened to me. And like, I used to really stress out at Eagles games.
Christopher Plant: Yeah.
Ben Hoffman: I’d go and it was like sort of a fun but, like, not so fun experience.
Christopher Plant: Yeah.
Ben Hoffman: But now it’s like a learning. Every time I go, I’m like, this is enough. Whether I win or lose, being around.
Christopher Plant: 60,000 people who care like I do.
Ben Hoffman: Yeah, but you’re just in this state. And then I see some people, like, losing.
Christopher Plant: If you could get to breathe, well.
Ben Hoffman: That’S hope to do that at the Olympics.
Christopher Plant: Oh, my God.
Ben Hoffman: Julie is going to be at 20, 22 Olympics, my friend. She’s a gold medalist snowboarder founder. We want at the opening ceremony, no flags, no nothing. What if we all just breathe for a minute as the world. What if we did that at stadiums? Just breathe. I do that at random places before people eat. I’m like, can we just breathe for a minute before we eat? And all of this, because it just changes the energy there, where there’s no different teams because we’re not. And that’s fun. That we can have our differences and have city pride, but, like, having that moment of being together makes the difference a little bit more beautiful. And even being at the game and enjoying that energy and being able to step away when people are going. I watch Eagles fans literally fight with each other.
Christopher Plant: Oh, I know, it’s great.
Ben Hoffman: And it’s just like, wow, this type of energy. And I know I’ve had that energy, and it’s still within me. But it’s interesting to kind of be able to step outside a little bit.
Christopher Plant: Extrapolate.
Ben Hoffman: Yeah, yeah. And be there with all my necklaces, my shaman hat, and, like, my Eagles jersey, you know, but be there.
Christopher Plant: That’s funny.
Ben Hoffman: We should.
Christopher Plant: We should try and invent, like, a peaceful talisman, you know, for the Eagles that we can sort of infect the stadium with and get a bunch of those.
Ben Hoffman: No, I try to do that with my section.
Christopher Plant: I mean, how cool would it be to sort of help remake the image of the Philly Eagles fan, you know, which is, you know, reviled around our country in those parking lots.
Ben Hoffman: I don’t. I’m always like, if I see stuff going down, like, harassing, I’m like, I have my Eagle stuff on, but I’m like, come on. You know, I try to be.
Christopher Plant: No, I loathe it.
Ben Hoffman: Yeah. And, like, I try to say something now. In the past, I would just be like. I wouldn’t get involved, but I would look away.
Christopher Plant: Yeah.
Ben Hoffman: But now I’ve just tried to be like, hey, you know, like, not cool. Like, dude, let’s do it. Come on.
Christopher Plant: Chill it.
Ben Hoffman: Yeah. Just be kind about it. And not trying to judge them for their thing and not trying to judge those others, but just trying to have it not escalate so that bottles are being thrown and not even for rep. But these are human beings here who.
Christopher Plant: Care about the same sp. And if we didn’t have an opponent, you wouldn’t have a game. If you don’t have a game, you can’t be a fan.
Ben Hoffman: Yes. They’re so similar, and it’s just like.
Christopher Plant: This person traveled all the way from wherever they were to come to a game in a known hostile territory. Give him some respect.
Ben Hoffman: Or I’d, like, what’s it gonna do? Like, this fight is just, like, you’re not gonna go see the game, like, the outcome. Be like, just give everybody a break.
Christopher Plant: Yeah.
Ben Hoffman: Just be. It’s okay.
Christopher Plant: Same. Same dude.
Ben Hoffman: Say Shango. That’s what I’m just gonna say. Shungo.
Christopher Plant: Shungo.
Ben Hoffman: Yeah, that’s gonna be.
Christopher Plant: We should put that on the back of a J jersey.
Ben Hoffman: Yeah.
Christopher Plant: Double zero. Shungo.
Ben Hoffman: Sell back jerseys. We should start selling those. Write that down. Oh, I thought you’re about to write down this idea.
Christopher Plant: Eagleshungo.com I got it down there, so. Yeah. But this is great, Ben. I. I love that, the journey you’re on. I love that I get to share in it. I’m thrilled that you’re here. I’m thrilled that we’re going to the game. I know that there is a very powerful 2020 coming for us both and, and that there’s a lot of things that we’ve yet to do in the grand scope of a person’s world. I think it’s incredibly lucky that I would find someone like you when I was already in my 40s and be able to develop such a sincere and profound friendship. So I’d like to thank you for that and thanks for being here to talk with us at Radio Kismet.
Ben Hoffman: Yeah, man, thank you so much. I love you so deep in my heart. Like true to this point, you are such a special person in what you’re putting out to the universe. I can feel the care and love in watching you grow as a person and change and how many lives you’re impacting with the work that you’re doing and sort of looking at it as adding more love, peace and joy and light to the universe through your work, your co working spaces, creating housing for people and just creating a safe space for people to explore themselves. So I love you, brother. Even if you didn’t do all that stuff, I’d still love you, I’d love Shango, I’d still subck you just because you’re you. It is amazing what you’re doing, but that’s not it because you know, I can, I can feel your heart every day. So thank you for being in my life.
Christopher Plant: Fantastic. All right, signing off.
Ben Hoffman: Peace out.
Christopher Plant: Radio Kismet. Bye bye.
Ben Hoffman: Bye.
Christopher Plant: You can find Ben Hoffman at www.cityhunt.org. that’s www.cityhunt.org. you can also learn more about breatholution@www. Breatholution.com. that’s B R E A T H O L-O-U-T-I-O-N.com and if you’d like to find more about Ben in particular, you can look him [email protected] Peace Hoffman. That’s B E N J A M I N P E a c e H-F-F-M-A-N.com and by that time you should know all you need to know about my dear friend Ben Hoffman. Radio Kismet is a partnership with Kismet Cowork Kismet Cowork is a shared office based solution in the Philadelphia region with locations in Chestnut Hill, Manayunk and locations in the Spring Arts neighborhood of downtown Philadelphia. We care about what we do, we care about the design and we care about how it makes you feel. We produce effective and efficient workspace and we want to know how we can help you do the work that you need to do. Thank you and come visit Akismet soon. You can find out more about RadioKismet at www.radiokismet.com. that’s R R-A D I O K I S M E T.com. you can also find out more about Kismet Cowork at www.kismetcowork.com. that’s K I S M E T C O w o r k.com and by that time you should know everything you need to know about what we do. Thank you very much. See you soon.