Who Yossi is
Beyond the keynote.
The story did not end in 1981. Yossi's relationship with the Amazon is a living one. He gives back. He builds. He leads. Here is the fuller picture.
Awakening the Beast · The Adventure
Even the smallest change of course is a shift of destiny.
Yossi leads immersive transformational workshops that go deep. Participants do not sit and listen. They are moved, challenged, and invited to choose one meaningful goal for their growth and fulfillment, and to make the one decision they have been avoiding.
The preparation breaks open every faculty. Ice bath. Fire-walking. Ecstatic dance. Laughter yoga. Holotropic breathwork. Not as spectacle. As initiation.
When the preparation is complete, each person commits. Not to a vague intention. To a specific goal, a daily structure, accountability to the group, and a direct channel with Yossi and his team.
Every day of the process carries a theme. Wednesdays are Holy Wednesdays: say thank you for everything, to everyone, whatever happens. There are weeks with no complaining, regardless of circumstances. A tougher challenge than it sounds. Morning self-love rituals. 25 minutes of guided meditation before the day begins.
Yossi does every task he gives. He is always part of the group.
9 months
Long-form group journey
3 months
Focused cohort
3 weeks
Intensive immersion
3 days
Deep-dive retreat
3 hours
One-on-one session
People remain in touch with Yossi for life. They describe the process as a turning point, a permanent and positive shift.
Enquire about a workshop
Buy One, Give One Free
A lit candle loses nothing when it lights another.
I started this movement from a simple desire to give something back to the community.
Most of my work happens in corporate environments. The work takes me all over the world, and I began to think: while I am already here, why not give one more talk to the community?
It could be in the cinema of Hermosillo, Mexico, with the whole town invited. It could be a youth initiative in El Salvador for young people from disadvantaged circumstances. A private school in Switzerland. A senior citizens' home in Tel Aviv. It matters not.
I am already there. I can give more.
The corporation that invites me is also invited to gift me to any community purpose they choose. And often, corporations that accept this challenge take so much pride in the event they gift that it becomes as meaningful as the keynote itself.
It becomes a double gift. I gift the corporation. They gift the community. And in return, I too receive a gift.
That random gift has the power to transform a life.
Uchupiamona Nation
Ambassador to the World.
In 2025, the Uchupiamona Nation formally appointed Yossi Ghinsberg as their Ambassador to the World. It was not honorary. It was the recognition of a relationship built over four decades.
The Uchupiamona are the indigenous people of the Bolivian Amazon, guardians of one of the most biodiverse territories on earth. Yossi has worked alongside them since the 1980s, helping to establish Chalalan Ecolodge and Madidi National Park, two of the most significant conservation achievements in South American history.
Chalalan Ecolodge · Madidi
The naiveté of those who do not know what is impossible.
Ten years after the ordeal in the Amazon, Yossi returned to the place that had nearly taken his life. He went upriver to the village of the Uchupiamona people, to thank them for saving him.
When he thanked them for saving his life, they asked if he would help them save theirs. Their village was dying. The young people were leaving and not coming back. Their dream was to build a lodge for tourists on a small, hidden gem of a lake called Chalalan.
There was no money. The location was six hours upriver, deep in the jungle.
He could not say no. So he said yes.
For three years he lived with them and they built Chalalan together. Against all odds. The Madidi was declared a protected national park. 140 Amazonian indigenous communities were inspired to stop waiting to be saved and take action themselves. The poorest, most remote village received $1.25 million from the Inter-American Development Bank and became the largest resort in the region.
Chalalan changed the lives of tens of thousands of people.
Thirty years later, Chalalan is still alive. Still the biggest and most important eco-lodge in the Madidi. Yossi is its lifetime director, and he travels there as often as he can.
Visit chalalan.com →
Lino Cambi · South Crete
Nothing shouts. Everything softly whispers.
Lino Cambi is the dream Yossi shares with his brother, Paul Templer. Together, they are building a sanctuary for transformation in the heart of South Crete.
Isolated enough to feel like a world apart. Close enough to be reached by those who are called to it.
It is a premium facility created for respite, longevity, alignment, and transformation. Not a pampered vacation. A commitment to growth, to a deeper way of being.
Lino Cambi is not architect-led, designer-led, or shaped by outside formulas. It is the manifestation of their dream, built on 15,000 square meters purchased from Agapitos and Dimitra Zeakis, who also passed down the name, carried through generations.
Yossi and Paul see themselves as custodians of this land. They are giving it their own DNA. And though a team of Greek craftsmen is helping them build the facilities, what they are creating is as unique and inimitable as themselves.
Subtle yet deep, the experience of Lino Cambi is transformational.
The Amazon
Not a place he survived. A place he belongs.
Most people who have a near-death experience want to put distance between themselves and the thing that almost killed them. Yossi went back. Then again. Then again.
The Amazon is not his past. It is his reference point, his community, his ongoing project. The Laws of the Jungle were not written in an office. They were lived, over decades, in the jungle and at home in it.
He is the lifetime director of Chalalan. He is the Ambassador of the Uchupiamona Nation. He founded the Guardians of the Madidi. He travels there as often as he can, for the community, and for his own nourishment.
To book Yossi for a keynote, a workshop, or a conversation about what is possible, start here.
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