ROB QUINN, MS

Founder, R4 Style | Author
Advocate • Educator • Survivor
Boston, MA

📧 rob@r4style.com
🌐 r4style.com
💼 LinkedIn

"You are never too far gone to come back to yourself." – Rob Quinn

A Life of Beginning Again 

Much of my life has been about learning how to live again.

In my thirties, an HIV diagnosis shattered everything I thought I was. My health collapsed. My career as a Child Life Specialist—the work I loved—was gone. In the aftermath, I lost my sense of belonging, my identity, and even my belief that I still mattered.

For years, I disappeared into addiction. Numbing myself felt easier than facing the grief, fear, and shame that seemed too heavy to carry. Yet even in my darkest hours, a quiet, stubborn persistence refused to let me go. That tiny ember of hope eventually grew into a fire—and became the foundation for what I now call R4 Style.

The R4 Style Framework

Born from lived experience, R4 Style is how I found my way back to myself:

• Rock Bottom – Recognizing the moment when life as you know it has ended, and the truth you can no longer avoid comes into sharp focus.
   
• Recovery – Choosing the hard, daily work of healing—physically, emotionally, and spiritually—while rebuilding trust in yourself.
   
• Resilience – Cultivating the strength to keep going, especially when the path is uncertain or the terrain is rough.
   
• Reinvention – Stepping boldly into the unknown to create a life that reflects your deepest values and truest self.
   

My Voice, My Work 

Over the past three decades, I’ve learned that transformation isn’t one lightning-bolt moment—it’s the accumulation of countless small choices: to stay, to try again, to tell the truth even when it’s uncomfortable.

I’ve had the privilege to:

• Facilitate peer support groups where people navigating illness, grief, and recovery can feel seen, heard, and valued.
   
• Design community health programs that empower and educate.
   
• Speak openly to help end the stigma around HIV and encourage real conversations about chronic illness and mental health.
   

At the heart of it all is my belief that vulnerability is not weakness—it’s the doorway to real healing.

In the Media

I’ve been honored to have my story and work featured in:

• Boston Seniority Magazine

• Age Strong Public Awareness Campaign

• Pennrose Companies 

• A&U: America’s AIDS Magazine – “Heart & Soul” (Feature Interview by Chip Alfred)
  May 2017, Issue 271

• I’m Still Josh
   
• POZ Magazine

• New England Journal of Medicine

• Today's Dietitian 

• The Rainbow Times
   

My Debut Book

On the Other Side of the Street  is more than a memoir—it’s an invitation.

It asks you to release what’s safe, step into uncertainty, and choose a life that’s truly yours. Threaded through my story are the core principles of R4 Style—a framework for anyone standing at the edge of change, whether that change is chosen or forced upon you.

Though deeply personal, my story is also universal. It’s for anyone who has faced loss, identity shifts, or the quiet unraveling of a life once trusted.

Today

I live in Boston, Massachusetts, where I write, mentor, and create spaces—on the page, in community rooms, and in the hearts of those who need them most—where authenticity isn’t just accepted, it’s celebrated.

My hope is simple: to remind you that no matter how far you’ve fallen, you can rise, rebuild, and come home—not to who you once were, but to the person you were always meant to be.

Rock Bottom may have stripped away the life you knew, but Recovery opens the door to healing. Resilience is the strength you discover along the way, and Reinvention is the moment you choose to step into the life waiting for you.

Every scar, every stumble, every step has shaped you into someone braver, wiser, and more whole. And when you take that next step forward—however small—you are not going back. You are moving toward the other side of the street.

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