On the one hand Richard Dance led a pretty normal middle-class upbringing on the gulf coast of Florida in the mid century. On the other hand, there were some remarkable turning points that propelled him into unexpected adventures early on. Read about it all in his short, entertaining autobiography, Stumbling to Enlightenment (see BOOKS). 

 

Richard holds multiple degrees in economics, business, and the humanities. His first careers after college were in international construction and commercial real estate valuation. He lived abroad for many years, working in multi-cultural environments and traveling to over twenty nations on six continents. Richard cultivated a parallel career path as a journeyman musican for fifty years, performing around the globe...USA, Europe, Middle East, Southeast Asia, Mexico, and Australia.

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At midlife, Richard returned to academia to study philosophy, religion, mythology, and depth psychology, earning a masters degree. He then taught and advised at several colleges for about ten years, also counseling privately and conducting retreats. His main influences were the Axial Period philosophers of the classical East & West and their important interpreters.  He wrote four books over his teaching career, which became required reading for his various classes. Some of his philosophical counseling work is published in the HarperCollins bestseller, Plato Not Prozac by Lou Marinoff, now translated into twenty-seven languages.

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After a decade in academia, Richard returned to the field of real estate as a cultural creative, using his prior market knowledge as a commerical property appraiser to began urban pioneering, adapting old structures to creative new uses.