About Dr. Ben Michaelis —

Whether he’s coaching clients on navigating the ever-changing landscape of work and personal life or making space for hard conversations and open dialogue through his non-profit The Decency Project, he’s focused on helping others to connect the dots, pointing them toward through-lines and links that others cannot see. Creating sacred spaces that facilitate connection, foster empathy, and build community is what drives his work: He is known for bringing together people who have outsize impacts on each other’s lives through his retreats, and he puts great care into constructing talks and working sessions for corporate clients looking to leverage his fluency in organizational dynamics to foster healthy change through The Michaelis Group.

The author of Your Next Big Thing: Ten Small Steps to Get Moving and Get Happy, Ben applies a cross-training mentality to his career, following his curiosity and seeking both fresh problems and perspectives. After graduating summa cum laude from Columbia University, he traveled to Nepal and India to study with Buddhist monks before getting his Master’s Degree from New York University in 2001 and his PhD in 2004. Before starting his private practice, Ben served as a clinical intern at New York University-Bellevue Hospital. He’s since co-founded The Clinicians Collective, an organization connecting private-practice clinicians and providing group health plans, and launched One Minute Diagnosis, a YouTube series on common mental health disorders that is used by various non-profit and governmental organizations. Incubating new ideas and having projects in the pipeline is core to who he is and what he does.