Mick Quinn - Detailed Biography See photo albums here and also on Facebook 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 for the future. Mick has been a bartender, a delivery person, a civil servant. He has  started six different companies, one while he was an illegal alien, three  of which were sold, two of which were multimillion -dollar technology  companies based in New York City, and one of which was destroy on 9/11. 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. 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, 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. The teacher of this class was Will Arntz, the director of the  hit recent movie, 'What the Bleep do we know!'. Following the recommendation of his teacher, and the 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. During the next seven years in NYC, Mick simultaneously maintained an interest in spirituality, but it was a distant second to personal success,  even though at that time he thought 'spirit' was primary in his actions. In a short time 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. By late 1999, Mick sold his interest in the business to his partners and started an executive leadership practice. He worked with an international  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? - How Shall I live? - Do I have a role in the future of humanity? 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 personal. 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 to deepen his practice and to write. 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 a wonderful 19th-century watermill in northern  Portugal. This home was to become the birthplace of his books. This move to rural northern Portugal 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. Mick Quinn, Debora Prieto Morais Barcelona July, 2007 contactphotos