Mickey Singer is back in the spotlight with autobiographical book
By Anthony Clark / Business editor
Posted Jul 26, 2015 at 6:00 AM
Michael “Mickey” Singer said he continues to be blown away by the direction his life took after he learned to ignore the “neurotic voice” in his head pestering him with negative reactions.
Michael “Mickey” Singer said he continues to be blown away by the direction his life took after he learned to ignore the “neurotic voice” in his head pestering him with negative reactions and instead go with the flow of what life was presenting him.
As part of a spiritual journey that started with zen meditation, Singer would follow life’s flow to start a meditation temple, a construction company and a multimillion-dollar medical software company. Along the way, he became instantly celebrated locally in 1999 when he donated Claude Monet’s painting “Champ d’avoine” to the Harn Museum of Art at the University of Florida.
Singer even considers the 2003 FBI raid on his software company and subsequent securities fraud indictment — charges that were eventually dropped — to be part of his spiritual growth.
His resignation from the software company would give him time to write “The Untethered Soul,” a spiritual self-help book that landed him an interview on Oprah Winfrey’s show and became No. 1 on The New York Times Best Sellers list.
Singer has now written a follow-up. “The Surrender Experiment,” released June 2, is an autobiographical look at how he arrived at the lessons of the earlier book and where they led him in his own life.
Singer turns down most interview requests, but has done a couple selected interviews lately and said he decided to speak to The Sun because so much of the book takes place locally.
As the book details, Singer just wanted to meditate in the woods by himself when he built a small house with the help of a friend on 10 acres he bought in Alachua in 1971. But as he delved deeper into his own spiritual awakening, he made a decision to ignore his initial reluctance to change when opportunities arose so he would be in harmony with the life unfolding before him.
As a graduate student in economics, he reluctantly agreed to tutor Santa Fe College President Alan Robertson, who was working on his doctorate. He reluctantly accepted a part-time teaching position at Santa Fe at Robertson’s insistence. His classes on the lessons he imparted from his own spiritual journey grew in popularity, and eventually, students started showing up at his property to meditate and attend his talks. He would host traveling gurus, further growing a spiritual community that led to building the Temple of the Universe on his property in 1975.
When a sheriff’s deputy showed up at the temple one day in 1976, what he first thought could be trouble turned out to be another opportunity when the deputy turned out to be an admirer of the temple’s construction who asked him to build an addition to his house.
Word of mouth from a satisfied customer led to more work, and Singer’s Built with Love company would go on to do more home and commercial construction and remodeling.
Then came the day in 1978 when he walked into a RadioShack and became fascinated by the TRS-80 Model I computer, one of the first personal computers. Singer taught himself programming commands and wrote an accounting system for his company. He showed his work to the manager at RadioShack, who started referring clients to Singer to write programs for their companies, leading him to found Personalized Programming.
When two medical practices called on the same day asking for a patient and insurance billing program, he wrote the software that would eventually grow into Medical Manager, a $300-million-a-year software company with at one point, more than 300 employees in Alachua.
The business was riding high following a public stock offering and its acquisition by Healtheon WebMD Corp., but that all came crashing down when an executive caught in a $5.4 million kickback scheme implicated Singer and the other executives to take the heat off of himself. The charges were eventually dropped, but not before the defense spent $190 million in legal costs, and Singer resigned and paid a $2.5 million settlement.
While admitting the situation was sometimes scary and challenging, he said he looked at it almost like a sport, life’s way of challenging him to keep his inner peace.
“That was one of the most spiritually growthful and liberating experiences and when I look back at it, I feel just such deep respect and honor. .. I would look at it as, ‘Look what life did this time,’ so how could it not have been tremendously liberating for me if I was willing to let go of myself going through that experience?“
With his new-found time, Singer wrote “The Untethered Soul,” published in 2007. It has since been published in 30 languages and landed him a 2012 interview with Oprah Winfrey, which he agreed to do after she called him directly.
The book is still the No. 5 best-seller under Religion, Spirituality and Faith, with “The Surrender Experiment” at No. 7.
Following a series of acquisitions, the operation that started as Medical Manager is now part of Greenway Health and still has more than 100 employees in Alachua.
Singer and the Temple of the Universe continue to host morning meditations, talks two nights a week and Sunday services with 70 to 80 people in attendance. He said the temple has been getting more University of Florida students lately who are dealing with school and social stress.
Singer said it is very inspiring to him how much people are getting from his writing and talks, “seeing that the teachings are so universal, about that voice talking inside your head. That’s what it boils down to. ’Hello, have you noticed there’s a killjoy inside your head that’s kind of ruining your life? Would you like to be free from that?“
Singer said he wrote “The Surrender Experiment” “to share the experience so people can learn from that and do their own journey.”
“I would like for people to realize that if they’re willing to, all the experiences of their life — good and bad — are tremendously exciting, unbelievable experiences for their growth and for making a very amazing life.”
BIO
Michael “Mickey” Singer, 68, president, Temple of the Universe and Shanti Publications
PERSONAL: Married, one daughter, three granddaughters
PETS: None
DREAM PARTNERS FOR LUNCH: Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud
FAVORITE BOOK: “Autobiography of a Yogi” by Paramahansa Yogananda
FAVORITE TV SHOWS: Classic action movies like “The Bourne Trilogy”
FAVORITE LISTENING: Beethoven
HOBBIES: Meditation and yoga
EDUCATION: Master’s degree in business administration, University of Florida
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