August Turak

Amanda Greene 7-18-2013
Photo courtesy RNS.

The monks of Mepkin Abbey. Photo courtesy RNS.

Driving through the Spanish moss-draped gates of the Mepkin Abbey Trappist monastery in Moncks Corner, S.C., businessman August Turak felt as if he had just lost a whole lot of weight.

Not physical weight, but the weight of emotional and spiritual burdens.

After a corporate career with companies like MTV, Turak sold two successful software companies for $150 million, but shattering his ankle in a skydiving accident “brought me face to face with my own mortality.”