We recently connected with Ben Hoffman and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Ben, thanks for joining us today. What’s something you believe that most people in your industry (or in general) disagree with?

In the world of entrepreneurship, many of us get sucked into what I call manipulation culture–it’s always about hustling up the next deal or sale. I rethought this during covid when my team building company came to a near standstill. I spent a lot of time alone, in forced solitude, and, after doing deep shadow work, came out the other side with a new perspective. I stopped trying to manipulate situations for a specific outcome. Now I set an intention and try to stay unattached to the outcome. Found more personal peace, my team is a lot less stressed, and interestingly, my business has grown.

Ben, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

When I got invited to a scavenger hunt birthday party pub tour at NYU over 20 years ago, I had no idea where it would lead. The actual scavenger hunt was a bit of a disaster (we didn’t realize that if a clue didn’t work or people couldn’t solve it we wouldn’t be able to meet at the next pub—LOL) but it was still a lot of fun and we did find each other (Yay! Flip phone technology). On a whim I said to a friend that we should start a scavenger hunt company, and with $300 from his parents for Polaroid cameras that is what we did. It’s opened up an incredible and sometimes absurd world for me, one where I often spent my days figuring out how to whip a bunch of buttoned up executives into a dance frenzy. Along the way we worked with most Fortune 500 companies; tech companies like Instagram, Google, and Apple; and nonprofits including the ASPCA, the Michael J. Fox Foundation and the Susan G. Komen Foundation, to name a few. We did this while bootstrapping, eventually adding employees and then evolving to a new model where we help talented people start their own companies to support our bigger vision

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

During covid, we had a lot of our eggs in one basket with one client. We started working on a big event for them, and in the middle of this, I took some time in the jungle to do some deep yoga and meditation work, trying to heal through deep pain from my divorce and the stress the company was experiencing during the pandemic. I had taken a break from my mobile phone, and when I finally checked it, my team was freaking out because the client was experiencing a bureaucratic, internal issue related to the event that threatened to derail it. There was nothing we could do on our side. I told my team just breathe, be yourself, if the client cancels, life will go on. I realized we could not fix the client. Giving the client space to resolve things –being supportive but not codependent–gave them time to work things out, and the event ended up being very successful for them.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

I had no training in business, so I read every business book I could find. (I went to school for theater, for God’s sake, so I had to teach myself). It was the same story over and over again. Business is war, winner takes-all, push it to the limit. I thought, “I guess this is what I have to do to build a business.”

There was one problem: It stressed me out to no end. I was obsessed with the idea that people were going to try to take me out. I was motivated by fear of failure.

The business-is-war mindset got me motivated but over time, I found it wasn’t sustainable. There’s a reason people stop fighting wars. You grind everyone up to dust but in the end, you’re all dust.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://cityhunt.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/realcityhunt/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RealcityHUNT/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/cityhunt/?trk=ppro_cprof
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/realcityHUNT
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jc6-xDql2_o
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/cityhunt-new-york-2?osq=cityHUNT
• Other: https://www.pinterest.com/realcityhunt/

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