AUGUST TURAK

AUGUST TURAK is a visionary who fuses ancient wisdom with modern insights to ignite transformation and empower growth. Turak’s career as a successful entrepreneur, award-winning author, speaker and consultant, exemplifies how the pursuit of service and selflessness can lead to extraordinary success. He has published many popular leadership articles for Forbes and is a former contributor for the BBC. He is the founder of the educational nonprofit the August Turak Foundation.

Turak has been living and working alongside the monks of Mepkin Abbey, as a frequent guest since 1996. Service and selflessness are at the heart of the 1,500-year-old monastic tradition’s remarkable business success. It is an ancient though immensely relevant economic model that preserves what is positive and productive about capitalism while transcending its ethical limitations and internal contradictions.

After a corporate career with companies like MTV, August Turak founded two highly successful software businesses, Raleigh Group International (RGI) and Elsinore Technologies. In 2000 he sold his companies to Identify Software and in 2006 the combined companies were sold to BMC Software for $150 million.

His book, Business Secrets of the Trappist Monks: One CEO’s Quest for Meaning and Authenticity, was published by Columbia Business School Publishing. This book uses 1000 years of Trappist business success and his own entrepreneurial experience to demonstrate that Trappist monks are not successful businessmen despite adhering to only the highest ethical values but because they do.

Brother John: A Monk, a Pilgrim, and the Purpose of Life, published by Clovercroft Publishing, combines Turak’s $100,000 Templeton Prize winning story with original oil paintings from award-winning artist, Glenn Harrington. Brother John offers higher meaning and purpose in a world that so many find bereft of meaning and purpose.

His new memoir, Not Less Than Everything: One Man’s Quest for Spiritual Enlightenment, reveals how August Turak overcame meaningless depression through a daring quest for life’s purpose. Through a series of wildly entertaining stories and life lessons, Turak offers a powerful blueprint for a purposeful life. A life overflowing with joy, peace, and above all gratitude.

Turak has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Fast Company, Selling Magazine, the New York Times, and Business Week.

Turak’s life and work continue to challenge the conventional. He champions the idea that success in both business and life can be achieved by adhering to timeless spiritual principles. Through his YouTube channel, @RealAugustTurak, which he launched in 2024, Turak delivers dynamic content that empowers viewers with a powerful blueprint for living a meaningful life, drawing on his profound immersion in the Hero’s Journey.

Turak resides on his seventy-five-acre farm, Iron Gate Farm, outside Raleigh, NC, where he writes, makes homemade jam, and continues to demonstrate that the keys to a fulfilling life lie in service, selflessness, and gratitude.