Misha Collins

When he was growing up, his family were very poor and were evicted a lot. He was in a new school at least once a year. However, after attending the Greenfield Center School, Misha graduated from Northfield Mount Hermon in 1992. During high school, Misha's house burned down. In the following year, he pursued a wide variety of interests, including: a six month job at NPR headquarters, National Public Radio, in 1995. He worked as a producer and copy writer on a show called "Weekly Edition". It was a job he loved.

He also had a White House internship, in the Office of Presidential Personnel in charge of selecting nominees for presidential appointments. In the 90s, there were 3,500 jobs given out by appointment ranging from the Secretary of Agriculture and Ambassadors to low-level jobs. He also worked in construction, and did an EMT certification course.

He then went on to the University of Chicago for undergrad, where he studied social theory and spent four years there. He took a year off from college and went to Nepal and Tibet. Spending several months in seclusion at a monastery. It is something he continues to this day but now he simply goes to a monastic retreat “where it’s just silence,” he says. “I go and sit and meditate in silence for 10 days. Don’t talk to anyone, don’t talk about anything – I’m just with myself. It always restores me a little bit. You always learn something about yourself when you spend 10 days alone with yourself.” One thing he’s learned? “I now feel like we have a purpose on the planet, which is kind of a nice feeling to have.”

Whilst in Washington, DC he began an internet start-up company that was making educational software, a non-profit summer program for urban teens.