John Brierley spent his early life in Dublin where he qualified as a Chartered Surveyor and set up practice as Brierley & Co in 1971 later merging with Jackson-Stops. In 1987 an existential crisis inspired him to take a sabbatical with his family.

The career break turned into career change as John, along with his wife and three children, left Ireland and moved to the Findhorn Foundation. This was to prove a pivotal time in his life with a reordering of priorities towards a spiritual perspective.

It was there he realised that it was not an outer experience he was embarking on but a spiritual journey along the inner pathways of soul.

In 1996 he convened Findhorn ‘Business for Life’ Conference where the core issue was identified as the crisis of the human spirit and the search for meaning in life.

The idea of Business Sabbaticals as an antidote to burn out, and pilgrimage as a way to reappraise life’s purpose became his abiding passion. In 2003 the first of his guidebooks to the Camino de Santiago was published.

In 2023 John took the final steps on his earthly pilgrimage and following treatment for multiple cancers passed away at the age of 75.

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Click here for a more detailed obituary and a look behind the scenes of Camino Guides, in a conversation between Johnny and his daughter Gemma.