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And while a life story can be
interesting, it is neither the wealth of our pasts,
nor the depth of our experiences that determine who we
have become. Who we are is rightly revealed
by our actions.

Mick
Quinn's life was radically transformed in the summer of 2001 while
sitting in meditation
with world-renowned spiritual
teacher, Andrew Cohen* during
a long-term retreat in the
South of France.

Mick
has been a bartender, a delivery person, a civil servant,
and a founding partner in a pair of multimillion
-dollar technology companies based in New York City.
He also founded an
international
executive coaching practice, an import business catering to
some
of Hollywood's finest, and
an 'angel' investment fund.

But, before all this, in 1986, after his studies at Trinity
College, Dublin, Mick left his home country for a
new life in the United States. Following several years of a
thrilling, yet precarious escapade as an illegal alien, he
"won"
his Green Card in an official lottery.

This was to be the first major
turning point in his quest for
the
"American Dream". The second
turning point
came in 1992 when
he took a meditation
class in
Boston with Will Arntz, the
director of the hit movie,
"What the Bleep!".

Following the recommendation of
his teacher, and
visionary behind
The Frederick P. Lenz Foundation
for American Buddhism.
Mick
moved
to New York City. There
he enrolled at Columbia
University to study computer technology. He also
continued his
studies of sales, marketing, business,
Buddhism, Zen, and meditation.

In 1994, Mick seized an opportunity
to join a fledgling technology company in New York City.
In less than three
years the company had become a multi-million dollar operation
with offices throughout
the United States.


Mick simultaneously maintained
an
interest in spirituality, but it
was a distant second to personal success.
Now with both his home and
business addresses on New York
City’s prestigious Fifth Avenue,
he was confident that this perfect
balance of spiritual seeking and
the pursuit of the
"American
Dream"
would eventually lead
to the end of emotional and psychological suffering. Deep
down,
however, ease and
contentment remained elusive.
In 1997, after completing a pre-
IPO merger with a competitor,
Mick resigned his founding position
in this first start-up. He went on
to form a second successful
company from the 79th floor of
World Trade Center, Tower 1.
* www.guru-talk.com |
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Press
area:

By
late 1999, Mick sold his interest
in the business to his partners and
started an executive leadership
practice. He worked with an inter-
national clientele of business
leaders and entrepreneurs. This
new career gave him the flexibility
to pursue his spiritual interests in greater depth.

Mick traveled the US, and to
India
and France to attend workshops and retreats.

There he met other people who
were also grappling with the
questions that had plagued him
since his twenties, ones he had unsuccessfully tried to
smother with the myriad distractions
of a busy life, questions such as:
Who Am I? and How Shall I live?

His bookshelves were filled with
spiritual bestsellers, but in
his
heart nothing really changed.
Going from one retreat
to the next,
he found rooms full of those who
had been seeking inner peace for
twenty-five or thirty years.

As a curious neophyte, this state
of affairs seemed to hold little
hope for the success of his own quest. Then, on August
26, 2001,
in meditation near Nice, France, everything became apparent.

In those instants of Unity, Mick
also realized that the motives and intentions that had
been driving his relationships, careers, and his spiritual
quest, were exclusive products of individual and collective
conditioning.

What he firmly believed had been his spiritual path was
just a holograph of progress, courtesy of conditioning,
which had been leading him in grand circles around
the possibility of awakening.

On September 9, 2001, Mick
returned to
New York City
wondering what to do with a
life that was no longer his.

Compelled by the revelation that
life is full and complete just as
it is, Mick began to wind down his
existing
lifestyle and the litany of situations and relationships he had formed based on the presence of concealed conditioning.

Following the tragic event of 9/11, the loss of several
friends and his business at the Towers, Mick choose to move
back to his native Europe.

Letting go of a conditioned way of living was not without
its cost. But,
the surprising part was that when released, the content
that was once so closely guarded was no longer
wanted.

A quick search led to the purchase
of a restored 19th-century watermill in northern Portugal. This home was
to become the birthplace of Mick's writings.

This move also led him to meet Debora Prieto, a native of
neighboring Spain, and subsequently to their marriage
and a first publishing contract
in 2007. Mick and Debora now
teach
together.

Click for more
photos
Mick Quinn
Debora Prieto Morais
Barcelona
July, 2007.
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