Paul earned a bachelors degree in psychology from McKendree College where he was a resident assistant, programming board chair, student government officer, and the school mascot. He completed his masters degree in college student personnel from Bowling Green State University while interning first at Heidelberg College as Assistant Director of Residential Life and then as Coordinator of BGSU's Student Wellness Program. He also worked with Owens Corning Fiberglas to develop an outcomes assessment tool for their alcohol/drug treatment program and was honored by BGSU's faculty and students as the CSP Graduate Student of the Year.

Paul ventured to Wisconsin to accept a position at Beloit College as Assistant Director of Residential Life & Assistant Director of Summer Conferences. His next stop was the University of Wisconsin - Madison where he worked as a Residence Life Coordinator. He also began volunteering at Madison's AIDS Network as a source of emotional support for people living with HIV/AIDS. Paul was eventually recruited to join AIDS Network's management team as Director of Volunteer Services where he developed a pool of several hundred active volunteers.

Other adventures in his life include having been a lifeguard, summer camp counselor, support group facilitator, radio talk show host, and his college mascot.

Since 1990, Paul has been presenting conference workshops and designing staff training for a variety of organizations in the private and public sector. He gradually began receiving requests to deliver keynote addresses and in 1997 transformed Stone Soup Seminars from a part-time hobby into a full-time career. He currently works with 80 clients a year around the U.S. (and a few stops in Canada!) with audiences ranging in size from a dozen to several thousand.

In early 1999, Paul began sending out eRipples, a Monday morning email that served as a source of inspiration to the few dozen people who initially signed up. The weekly splash of inspiration grew into The Ripples Project, an organization with thousands of members whose mission is to encourage small waves of kindness.