Michael Kriegsman

I was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA. Around the corner was Swan Lake. The rabbi was our next-door neighboor. My parents split when I was 4, yet my younger brother and I grew up happy and loved, alternating between homes. 

In highschool, I met my first love. Biology. Biology asks, “what am I made of”. All of the characters in my inner workings fascinated me. I continued my studies at The Ohio State University, but as I advanced, we kept zooming in, and instead of learning the characters of biological systems, I was memorizing chemical pathways. I followed my question “what am I made of” into a psychology class, and changed my major to neuroscience. 

As graduation neared, I was terrified – uncertain what to do next. More school became my best guess. I began my PhD in Cognitive Neuroscience at The University of Texas at Dallas, studying MRI brain networks – how parts of the brain talk to each other. I loved the material, but graduate school had more lessons for me than I had signed up for. In my 3rd year, my fiance and I broke up. It was a major shock to my self-understanding, and it started a massive new wave of questions in me. “Could I trust a partner again”? “Can I trust myself, again”? “Wait, do I trust myself”? “Wtf… what can I trust”?!

To be honest, I devoted my next 7 years or so to these questions. While completing my doctorate, I took improv courses, discovered Jewish mysticism, explored eastern spirituality, and joined Leap Forward – a conscious community focused on developing emotional awareness and resilience, within oneself and in relationality. I completed my PhD in 2018, specializing in multidimensional “big data” statistics. I then began working as a freelance tutor in statistics, research, neuroscience, and scientific writing. But mainly, I minimized my costs, building and living in an old van, “Pam”, and spending time in community, in self-exploration, and in the forest. Ohh, those glorious Redwoods… 

With Covid, everything changed once again. I left the Leap Forward community, and began to carve a new path – a path that is of course still unfolding. I pivoted my career into freelance data science consulting, working with non-profits and research institutes to develop and carry out their data analysis tools and strategies. I’ve also steered toward the intersection between science and spirituality – bringing the utmost scientific rigor to the edges of what is currently pseudoscience. Measuring the things that resist measurement – growth, awareness, inner healing. 

Currently, in work, I’m called into the world of conscious business. There is a relationality in science that builds argument, challenges theory and refines concepts. Yet, there is a relationality in business that is closer to life itself – it feeds a family, it demands collaboration and innovation. The connection to money is the connection to survival – it keeps the stakes high. And it all centers around relationships – inner relationships and outer relationships. 

Currently, in life, I’m called once more to the wide open road. But this time, more integrated. I’m traveling the US and Canada with my girlfriend, towing our camper / tiny home / mobile office. We are visiting friends and family and nature, investing in our relationship and our careers. In awe with the unfolding path.