Techie Richard Margolin, on the extreme focus and finger dexterity of origami (yes, origami)

In what might be the least likely origami origin story ever, Richard Margolin got into the art of Japanese paper folding when he injured his arm while wrestling in college.

Back then, he was just looking for something to do that could help him improve his motor control during physical therapy. But then the precision of origami took hold.

Now, more than a decade later, Margolin—a cofounder and the chief technology officer of RoboKind, a company that develops educational robots to help kids with autism—has kept up his devotion.

One year he made a four-foot-tall origami Christmas tree. At one point, he was producing so many small paper stars that he began to use them in lieu of packing peanuts when shipping gifts.

For Margolin, origami helps him decompress after work, but it also helps him with motivation to improve at work. “It’s something where you can start simple,” he says, “and as you learn, you see that there’s an immense amount of complexity."

Excerpt from Article: Published in the March, 2020 issue of Men’s Health and published online March 8, 2020: Nick Offerman Thinks Men Would Be Happier if We Had More Hobbies