Speaker 1: 0:46

So welcome to my podcast, slay your Dragons With Compassion, which I'm doing in conjunction with my friends, john and Sandra Wilson, at online events. This is a podcast which is about how people have managed adversity in their lives and become who they are as a result of their adversity, rather than seeing adversity as a curse, and all of us in the human condition know adversity. So I'm very happy to welcome my, my very close friend, jonathan Sattin, today. He'll probably be embarrassed at my saying that about him, but um, but um, it'd be. I think Jonathan has been an inspiration on lots of levels. Um, one is we were both runners, and he was a very, very good runner, you know, in our childhood. And um, the other is that he manages to straddle the divide between business and spirituality in a way that I've rarely seen others do. So we're going to talk a little bit about his life and what he's created and how he's done that and what he's been through in order to get there as well.

Speaker 1: 1:45

So, jonathan, welcome to our podcast. Thank you, malcolm, my great pleasure. And so I think let's start with. I'll say a little bit about what I know about you. Jonathan's about to start a really brilliant enterprise called Home, which is a yoga studio in Primrose Hill in London, and before that he founded, founded Tri Yoga, which is a very well known and very well respected yoga studio. A number of studios around London, and Jonathan brings an enormous amount of integrity and pride and and diligence to the work that he does. He's gone from being a lawyer in his younger days to taking up, with a great deal of enthusiasm, taking up the baton of yoga and creating a yoga environment. And so, jonathan, perhaps you could tell us a little bit about your beginnings, how you got to where you are with all this now.

Speaker 2: 2:48

So when you say beginnings, how far back are we going?

Speaker 1: 2:51

Well, let's take a look at your childhood. What took you through your childhood and what shaped you in the various exploits that you've done?

Speaker 2: 3:06

Should I be lying down like a sort of patient?

Speaker 1: 3:08

On the therapist's couch. Absolutely yes, yes.

Speaker 2: 3:11

Shall, I call you back in a couple of minutes. Yeah, yes, so I don't remember my birth very well, but I was brought up in. I have two older brothers and I was brought up in what was then a village, elstree or Borehamwood in Hertfordshire, which is known at that time for being the home of sort of TVs and film studios. And my father was a doctor, originally a doctor in general practice, and he had two practices in the village the village then and my mother was a very beautiful woman, very tall sort of beautiful woman, and when my father decided and she didn't, I can't remember her working when we were sort of younger. I think the story goes that she met my dad when my mum was modelling some clothes at my grandparents' couturier or something, something like that. I don't know how true that is, but anyway, who knows? And um, so I grew. So, basically, my, I grew up in this very idealistic sort of life where we had lovely garden and, you know, dogs and a dog or dogs and so on and um, it was pretty. I did it. We used to cycle to school. Occasionally school was like five miles down the road and we were very blessed to be able to go to private schools and, um, so it's quite a sort of idyllic life from, uh, looking at it. I mean, I'm not sure, I mean there were things that weren't perfect, whatever, but I it was pretty good. It was very good actually, and I went to an all-boys school, which obviously brings its own consequences at some level down the road from where Malcolm apparently was being educated, although fortunately we never ran against each other because that could have been quite entertaining. Fortunately we never ran against each other because it could have been quite entertaining and um, so, yeah, I think, um, yeah, it was a pretty nice way of growing up.

Speaker 2: 5:18

Close family, cousins, uncles, aunts and my father decided in his probably early 40s, his, um, he had a hobby of making films, you know, like short films and so on, and he decided to give up medicine and become a filmmaker. Wow, educational stroke. I think they were slightly documentary style, I'm not too sure Mainly educational films and to combine his knowledge of medicine and well-being with making films. And I have a terrible memory of one of his films being about childbirth and that was his way of educating me into the birds and bees. He showed me the film sort of thing. So I know that already, anyway. So it was sort of sweet, but he decided to do that Anyway. So it was sort of sweet and he decided to do that and he went from being running a mixture of NHS and private practice into starting this film business and he became a film director and producer.

Speaker 2: 6:23

And yeah, it was sort of my childhood and from the age of about 11, I was destined to be a doctor. So, because my father was a doctor, he wanted one of his three sons to be a professional. So I think it's not unusual for parents to want their kids to follow somewhere along their sort of trodden path. And I um so from the age of about 11, I was going to be a doctor and my two older brothers escaped that particular requirement and he ended up. You know, I was going to do physics. Well, I did physics, chemistry and biology A-levels and somehow got a place at Guy's Hospital. It clearly wasn't academically driven, because my interview was about the fact I played rugby, football, cricket and ran, and that's all they were particularly interested in at that time. But somehow I was offered a place at Guy's and I had to re-sit one of those things which probably chemistry, I think anyway of which I had a complete sort of lack of real interest in, sort of lack of real interest in, and I decided to rebel and say I didn't want to become a doctor, which created I remember now, x years later, the, the powwow in the kitchen with my parents and my mother trying to be that sort of the henry kissinger of the time or something certainly not the donald trump and um. So there was this negotiation at the kitchen table about what this boy was going to do. So I'd obviously become quite rebellious. I mean, I'd been rebellious for a long time. And so my brothers tell the story, which I don't think is true. It sounds a bit more interesting. They say that I had agreed to deal with my dad.

Speaker 2: 8:14

I had a year I played drums very badly in a band who were very good, but I was pretty average, and we had a year to make it in the music business right. Otherwise I had to go and become one of these people, and that year was really. The days got much shorter because I used to get up about 11 o'clock, have a joint, do stuff, maybe band practice or something. You know, I'm not a joint. I mean it was ridiculous and I decided by some. So basically my options were medicine, dentistry, accountancy, actuary and law. Those are my choices.

Speaker 2: 9:01

And there used to be a program on the TV called the main chance, which is like some trendy city lawyer in London. Well, I said, okay, I'll be a lawyer. Then what did I know? Right, and I ended up going to going to a trial with one of the family friends who was a lawyer to see whether I liked it, and I went to the sat behind the barrister and the solicitor in the court and anyway, I ended up applying to go to law school, which was very entertaining because I had physics, chemistry and biology A-levels. And they asked me, basically, what in their law society way, why are you doing it? And I said, oh, I've always been a believer in a varied education. I thought it would give me a much more wider space. And it's like what did I know?

Speaker 2: 10:03

And somehow I got into law school and then I got my articles they're training. They were there and I was on my way and, um, it was. You know, suddenly you're doing your stuff. And then, um, so then the first thing that happened when I was at law school I think just after I got my articles, I think my father collapsed and died aged 50 and uh, so thank god I wasn't rebelling madly at that stage. I would have felt really guilty. I mean, I was still rebelling, but not the level I used to, and so you will obviously come back to that point.

Speaker 2: 10:41

And so suddenly I'm at law school and I'm training to be a solicitor and I'm working for this firm in High Holborn, being treated like an absolute skivvy, being paid so little money. But you're just there and you're doing it and you're learning things, and I think I was quite willing to learn. I didn't think it was a particularly nice practice to be in, but it wasn't that bad. But I mean, you did things like you used to go and deliver things by hand. You used to spend an hour every lunchtime on the switchboard, right, and there you are with your a levels in your first year of law school under your belt and you thought you're on one of those doll's eye switchboards where you plug in the thing and you've got the headphones on and whatever you're doing. And we were really naughty as well.

Speaker 2: 11:36

Um, my pals who were training at the same time as me were very subversive, uh, but it was sort of just yeah, and then you know, you end up suddenly. You go back to law school for your part twos and you do your exams and you study very hard, and then I'm sort of somehow I got through my finals in one hit, which is a 30% pass rate. So they must have lowered the sort of level you had to achieve that year or something. And then you're suddenly on this road and then, after I qualified, the day I qualified, I quit the firm and I tootled off to the south of France with an old friend of mine. We drove down there in my aunt's car and I spent three months down there minding my own business and my mother started to get slightly nervous about was I going to fuck around for the rest of my life? And um, eventually I got a plane ticket back and got a job.

Speaker 1: 12:42

Suddenly you're now you're a qualified solicitor let me take you back a second, though, jonathan, before we we move on from there. It says um, I think the early death of a parent, I think any death of a parent or a death of someone we're close to, will have a major impact on us, and I'm just wondering what the impact of your father's death very untimely death, at 50 years old was for you. By the way, before we go there, I just want to also say that what's interesting is that your father set you a role modeling of someone who had a very respected profession and then found his creativity and took a leap. No Life has repeated itself, but we'll come to your leap in a moment. I never noticed that before, of course you didn't, so let's carry on though.

Speaker 1: 13:27

Let's just see. So what happened at that stage? So you've done the south of France, you've sold your wild oats or whatever, and then you're coming back and then you're knuckling down into something quite full on and professional. How did that suit you?

Speaker 2: 13:46

Well, it half suited me. I mean, I realise I'm made up of different parts, so actually part of me liked wearing a suit. I mean that'd be funny, but I used to rebel and not wear a tie. It was my sort of quasi rebellion. And so I was always a bit rebellious, like growing my hair long. When I was at law school I didn't have my hair cut for three years, or whatever. It was like growing my hair long when I was at law school I didn't have my hair cut for three years, or whatever it was.

Speaker 2: 14:11

You know, there was always that part of me that wanted to rebel and but I quite enjoyed my job. You know, I was paid reasonably, not a lot. You know, suddenly I had a flat in town after living in the countryside almost all my life. Suddenly I was living in bayswater, aka notting hill, and um, but going back to your question, I think that, um, part of the thing that came from my father's death was, uh, in, not my confidence a lot, you know, and um, I had panic attacks for a while, anxiety attacks, which then was quite felt, quite shameful, and no one talked about anything anyway.

Speaker 1: 15:00

I mean, we weren't the best family at talking about feelings, to put it mildly, and I think that, um, so that was running concurrently with this apparently sort of quasi-successful lawyer, and as you talked about the different parts of you, and I think that's interesting because you feel like you've lived out and we'll come to where that path led you, but it feels like you've lived out different parts of you, which a lot of people they knuckle down down, they do their thing, they live their life being something, whereas you've actually sort of turned yourself inside out and gone in a totally different direction um, well, I'm not sure that's totally true from the point of view of um it's.

Speaker 2: 15:53

I think it I mean obviously what you do at an outward level has a um, a measure, right how people measure it. So, if you're a lawyer, yes, it defines you well, yeah, my point is not that it defines.

Speaker 2: 16:10

I think what I'm saying is that, um, people will say, like running tri yoga had more value to humanity than, say, being a lawyer. A pretty interesting comment, and I think, and I hear that, and I think it's true at one level, but I think how you do your job, how I did my job, um also partly reflected, you know, the more left side of me than the right, but I mean I was quite full on as a lawyer. To be blunt, I mean people tell me things about my behavior. I don't mean bad behavior, but I remember I had dinner with some people a few months ago or a few years ago, and they were saying they used to sit in meetings with me and I was representing their company and they said I was very charming and then they'd see me go for the jugular and I'm going yeah, I think I probably did have that, you know, and not not in a horrible, not in a um it wasn't vicious, but you.

Speaker 1: 17:12

You could probably be very tough when you needed to be.

Speaker 2: 17:16

Yeah, possibly. Yeah, so it's that sort of thing, and I don't think that's a bad thing either. I think it's how you do it, and I'm not saying I did it well all the time, just to be clear. I'm sure at times I did it really badly, so yeah, so I think that what are we talking about now?

Speaker 1: 17:36

Well, it's interesting that law gave you a lot. We're talking about this. We're about to move towards the transition from law to I don't know what we'd call it to founding a yoga studio founding a very, very well-respected yoga studio, and what I'm starting to see are that the same gifts are in play with you being a lawyer as they were with you running yoga studios. It wasn't that you sort of flipped and became a sort of a hippie one moment. It's that you brought a lot of discipline to the work you did.

Speaker 2: 18:05

Well, I was always a hippie I'm not being funny Always a hippie. I always had that part of me that you know didn't want to conform Right. So it's never gone. Even when I was a lawyer, it was still. You know, I used to take my dog to the office, things like that. You know, just do things differently because I didn't want to do them everyone else's way. When I first qualified, I was in a meeting and I was trying to scout this other lawyer on the phone, who's obviously very experienced, and we were negotiating something. He said, you know, like sunny sort of thing. He said to me sunny, or something like that, I have all this experience and I know better. And I turned around and said to him experience is only good if you know how to use it, because if you don't, it's meaningless. Anyway, it was a bit disrespectful, but anyway. But it was true, well, meaningless anyway, it's a bit disrespectful, but anyway but it was true, you know well, he was being pompous and you were challenging him from the right.

Speaker 2: 18:59

So, yeah, anyway, it was sort of an entertaining exchange in a law, because a lot of pomposity you know people are can be anyway I um. So, but the transition that you're talking about was always in the making in the sense of you know. So, when I qualified, after three years of qualification, I'd set up my own practice, my own office in Piccadilly, and was no driving ambition to run my own practice. That suddenly one day I had my own practice and I started to build my practice and I um. And then what happened was I? Um says I built my practice and I got the practice got bigger and I got a partner, and you know that those sort of things happened and one of my partners said to me um, one day he said you're a bit weird. My wife goes to the yoga class and the yoga teacher knows you, maybe you should go, fair enough.

Speaker 2: 19:59

So just give you a picture of that point in my life I was, you know, pretty fit. I was playing football and tennis and running right, but I used to smoke 40 fags a day and drink 14 mugs of coffee a day, each with two or three sugars and other things. So there was this sort of thing. I'd learned to meditate when I was at law school. I did TM, not at law school, but while I was at law school I'd learned this. So there's a part of me always wanted to have this other thing right, without knowing what it was. To me at that time, meditation was about relaxation. It wasn't I was a seeker or something, it was just different ways to relax. You know, football and tennis could make me relax or forget things, but to be able to sit down and meditate for 20 minutes was, you know, something I wanted to do. Anyway, I was doing this tm for years.

Speaker 2: 20:49

Anyway, I went to this yoga class and this woman's house and, um, about halfway through the class, I'm lying on my back with my eyes closed and I can see a wall of mirrors and I can see myself running, want, not wanting to look in the mirror. And I decided that I had to stop and look in the mirror and so when I finished the class, I was quite, you know, taken aback. But obviously something happened to me in that class and then I started practicing yoga. I found a teacher called John Sturck who's going to be teaching workshops at home, by the way. And within three months I stopped smoking, I stopped coffee and I stopped taking drugs, and it took me a long time to realize there was a connection between that and yoga, really twig. And then and then at the same time, my then girlfriend introduced me to her meditation teacher and I had all guru and I the idea of having a guru to me was completely bizarre. And I she was going to these um satsangs every week and I thought, for god's sake, you know, that's insane.

Speaker 2: 22:11

And um, anyway, I ended up that summer going to spend five days in her teachers at ashram in upstate New York, and when you go there that you're invited to offer service, or say word meaning self-service. You were invited to offer that. So I did without any comprehension of what it was, and my saver was emptying trash cans. And there I was, this high-powered lawyer in the ashram, walking around emptying trash cans all day and guess what? I was really happy. I was really happy and I didn't really comprehend that. It was a practice. I just was doing it and that was, in a way, my interesting choice of words, saving grace. It was something that I really enjoy, not always cause it's push, it pushes you, it presses your buttons, my buttons, you know it presses me and makes me think or question things.

Speaker 2: 23:17

And then suddenly, but I New Year, and I had a very powerful experience and I basically I realized I had a choice to make. I either am committed to this path for myself so I really went because my girlfriend was going, or don't bother with it. And I decided at that point that I am committed to this path and and I remember the following day, which I think was New Year's Day, we're in this field, outside the ashram, in the middle of India, and I remember looking across and we were chanting in the morning and chanting used to freak me out. Just to be clear, when I first started, I think my friends would think I'm a complete weirdo and I remember looking across to these hills outside the ashram and I said this is why you were born. I had this realization, this is why I was born, this is what I was born for. So it was quite a you know. So I had that going on.

Speaker 1: 24:30

You were born for. What would that be? I was born for chanting. I was born for spiritual practice. What was it?

Speaker 2: 24:36

I think I was born for to live a real life Right.

Speaker 1: 24:48

Right An authentic life.

Speaker 2: 24:50

Well, I don't use the word authentic. I think it's just a sense of a life worth living and these practices. It's not just about having my car or my house. I know it sounds very simplistic. It was about a far more profound way of life. So, anyway, I committed myself more. I didn't suddenly become a monk or something, I just became more committed to the practices and so on.

Speaker 2: 25:24

I learnt about why I chant and how beneficial it is to me, you know. And the thing about it is it's quite challenging. It's not like everyone's going. You know you're a wonderful person. It's quite challenging. It's not like everyone's going. You know you're a wonderful person. It's a really challenging path because that's how I grow. And you know your theme is about adversity. Well, it's not so much adversity. I think it's through challenge or something that I have the opportunity to grow or not grow. And just to be clear, I don't embrace challenges wholeheartedly, without fear all the time. That would be absolute bullshit, right? I get freaked out all those things I do, and my modus operandi sometimes is I get on with it and then I have to deal with the consequences emotionally, right as you know.

Speaker 1: 26:16

Well, it's interesting because you remind me. This is a high compliment for you to take it where it sits, but it reminds me of Leonard Cohen going to spend three years in a monastery as chauffeur to the Roshi. There he's a he's a world famous musician and he humbled himself, like you, emptying the trash cans. He humbled himself by spending three years doing a very menial job and it transformed his music and him, and what I'm hearing is that this is, this is a place of transformation you're talking about there now well, I think.

Speaker 2: 26:49

Yeah, I think it is. I ended up at some point. I spent three months there and it was in India. I was in the dish room and it was really challenging, like at one level, I felt like a sort of prisoner, with a number of days left written on the wall right. And then, at another level, every day was an opportunity of amazing growth. Every day was an opportunity of amazing growth, and I think my favourite memory of that time was I was sitting on my bed one afternoon and I was reading a book and I suddenly had that you know that phrase everything happens for the best. I suddenly, because I understand it philosophically, but at that point it was no longer a philosophical thing, it was. I actually knew it and I remember I got off my bed and I started to walk up through the ashram and everything seemed a little bit more vibrant. I know it sounds a bit cliche, but it just, I totally get it yes, and I saw some people who I sort of found a bit irritating.

Speaker 2: 28:02

I quite like them she's like you know and I remember I went to a yoga class up in the as a hall above the up in the hills of the ashram and, uh, my body was the most unbelievably flexible it was it was joke, right and I didn't want to talk to anyone.

Speaker 2: 28:21

I didn't want to break that, that feeling. And I remember I left the class at the end and I was walking through the gardens and I remember this, standing there at one point looking up at a tree and going this is what my teacher wishes for me to know, that everything I do is for my upliftment. And then it went everything I ever ever have done and everything I ever will do is for my upliftment and everything I ever will do is for my upliftment, everything. And at that point it was an amazing feeling and I had to contemplate what that? Because it finished eventually right, sadly right. But I had to really ponder what that feeling was and eventually I realized what that was is fearlessness, when I knew that everything was for my, was smart, listening, good or bad in quotes, in that state it didn't matter, because it was there to serve me that reminds me of Krishnamurti's quote where he says um, um that everything, if we are in a place where you welcome everything, where nothing is wrong, then we just are.

Speaker 1: 29:41

Whatever happens to us is not wrong or right. And then he found utter peace. And what I'm hearing is you found a place of peace. That is quite rare, I mean. I think a lot of us have experiences like that. I'm sort of reflecting back. I'm not going to tell you them now, but I'm reflecting back to some of the places where I've just had those moments perhaps days, um, but a lot of how those would take us beyond our earthly normality it was only.

Speaker 2: 30:05

It was only about an hour. Trust me, it wasn't, you know?

Speaker 1: 30:07

yes, feeling timelessness in it as well, isn't this? It was only about an hour, but actually you're no longer dealing with the everyday stuff in that hour.

Speaker 2: 30:17

Yeah, really, I didn't want to interact with anyone for fear of taking it away. So, yeah, so, yeah, so, anyway, so I'm living this double life, right, I was lawyer, blah blah, blah, blah blah. And at the same time I'm going to ashrams and chanting away and doing whatever I'm doing. And it wasn't really a double life, but at one level it might look like that. And then, um, I always knew, I mean, I went through some pretty rough times when I was a lawyer. I had a business partner who cost me a fortune, um and other things. That went on. And then, you know, sort of to cut a long story short I ended up in a practice, like a consultant in a bigger practice. I didn't know what I was going to do. I mean, I just thought I was tooling along, I was doing all right, and so on. And um, and then, uh, this is one day a friend of mine said, like I didn't know what I was meant to be doing. I had no idea really what I was meant to be doing in my life. Right, I had this sort of um, spiritual, I had this sort of spiritual element to my life, for want of a better word. I was still playing football and running and tennis and all that stuff. And I was doing my yoga a bit I mean not very well, and all that stuff. And after that time in the ashram I thought I'm bound to know what I wanted to do and it still didn't happen. I was expecting someone to go. You're meant to be doing this, you know what I mean. Well, my teacher says I've always thought you should be doing this or whatever it was. And I'd hear snippets of conversations. I mean, oh, maybe I should be doing that. Oh, I don't know. Anyway, I eventually go.

Speaker 2: 32:05

So I'm back at work and a friend of mine said there's this amazing palm reader in Putney whose name I can't remember. Anyway, he said, or she said go and see her, she's really interesting. In my lunch break I drive off to Putney and I go to have my palm read have you had your palm read? Yeah, left hand's your past, right hand's your future, I can't remember Anyway. So she starts with my left hand and she said things about me that only I knew Apparently not, but only I was meant to know. And she said yeah, what do you do? I said I'm a lawyer. She went no, no, no, no, no. So I said yeah, I know, and she gets on my right hand. She said no, no. So I said yeah, I know, and she gets on my right hand. She said no, you're not a lawyer. I said, well, I don't know what to do. She said well, you're not, you shouldn't be a lawyer anymore. So I said half jokingly, you mean I should go back and handed my notice. And she said yes, so okay, I did.

Speaker 2: 33:07

That was like the tipping point. It wasn't yeah, a really good friend of mine it's a guy called Leonard Ross who's sadly no longer with us physically and he was a wonderful man and I went to see him. I said look, and we were good friends at that point. He's much older than me, but we were good friends. We were kindred spirits in the sort of we'd both built law firms, you know, from the start, and we had other people who came to work for us, but we were the. He was the driving light of that firm and he knew, you know, I said the only way I would continue in law is if he and I started our own practice together. And he said no, he said it's no, he said he's stuck to that firm.

Speaker 2: 33:49

And I had my notice. Him and I had a year's notice to work out and in that time I was involved with we're trying to work out what I should be doing. And then I got a job as a an agent in the entertainment industry. A friend of mine was setting up a business, asked me to get involved with that, so I was doing that two days a week and I had a job as my mate set up yo sushi. Simon woodruff set up yo sushi and I used to work with him two days a week. I mean, I helped in the beginning when he was setting it up and so on and um, but I still didn't know what I was meant to do.

Speaker 2: 34:30

And anyway, by a whole lot of circumstances, I was originally going to a fitness club God knows why and I went to America to research health and fitness and I'd never been to a bloody gym. I kept fit by running and playing do you know what I mean? And eventually I bumped into this couple on Primroserose hill with our dogs. My dog at the time was called teddy, who was my second retriever. Yeah, so I had thomas and teddy. Anyway, they had a, um, a vishla, and we started talking and chatting and they said what are you doing?

Speaker 2: 35:05

And I still had this idea about opening this place. And, um, I'd come up with the name tribeca, you know, after that cool part of new york, and I researched it and we put together this plan or I did most of the stuff, and then they helped me because he was a pr, he was into he was a marketing director of lloyds or something. They were like high powered and, um, we went to raise some money. We were raising 5 million quid, something like that, and we raised it. I don't know how it was like. When I look back, what I didn't know was absolutely shocking. But you know, I think when you're a lawyer, people half believe you. They think you have some sense of knowledge. And I, um, I, I, and then we found a building that the major investor changed his mind and I thought, well, that's rather useful. In a very sardonic way, like what the fuck?

Speaker 1: 36:07

Right.

Speaker 2: 36:08

And I said that's anyway. And I one of my friends was teaching at Yoga Works in LA, which at that time was the best yoga center in the world, and she said why don't you do what you love? You're not a gym person, you love yoga. Yoga is really big here.

Speaker 2: 36:24

I went to see Yoga Works in LA the founders, chuck and Matty, to get the license to use their name in the UK, and I took them out for dinner and I liked them a lot and they said sure, you can do that. I paid them a license fee and the next morning they rang up my friend Bridget Bridget and Lee Kramer. They said we're not going to do it because we don't believe him. You can't trust him. He's a lawyer, fair enough. So I came back to London and I remember I had Tribeca on my laptop or PC and I changed the B-E-C-A to Y-O-G-A and I had this thing, trioga, and I thought, well, we'll come up with a name. And I rewrote the plan and found a building and there you go, and it was a very much more painful route than that.

Speaker 1: 37:22

That's a very Sure, but I think what I found interesting and we're coming towards the end, so I'm just going to sort of move you through here I'm sure you'll be relieved but you actually built up a really successful yoga business and then the pandemic came along and we're looking at adversity here. So the pandemic came along and suddenly no one can do live yoga anymore and it's all got to be online and your business suffered as a result of that and you suffered as a result of that. Perhaps you could tell us a little bit about that pandemic covid when did that?

Speaker 2: 37:57

happen oh yeah, this is interesting. Oh, yeah, I remember that. Yeah, well, yeah, it was pretty.

Speaker 1: 38:02

Uh, we I don't know we were good at what we did, and it wasn't just yoga, it was yoga pilates treatments actually, let me say more than that, jonathan, because I remember having talked with you at one point, and what was different about you from a lot of people who were involved with, with businesses of us is that you actually had a handle on publicity, on law, on structure. You had a handle on the whole breadth of it all, um, and so, even though you employ people to do things you had, you knew what was going on and and I think that that business was very conscious is what I could see.

Speaker 2: 38:35

Well, my dog's just barking, come in, come in, come on. I think it was a pretty tough time. You're right. You know it was a hard thing to run those places because it's very people, it's very personal and you know it's not always easy, and so I have the utmost respect for people who run. Even calling it a yoga business has a feeling to it that I don't particularly like, right, I think. So it's a very interesting thing to navigate that about what is right and what is.

Speaker 2: 39:14

I suppose my big thing about the whole thing is, can I sort of say I've done it in a in the right way in the sense of do I have integrity? And that means different things to different people. So for some people I might have a lot of integrity, other people may think I have none. People I might have a lot of integrity, other people may think I have none. Um, so I think, um, I was lucky at the time. I had some really good people working at Tri Yoga uh, jenny Wilkinson Priest, who's now the co-owner of Mission in uh Spitalfields, was my yoga director, and, and I had a guy called Rhys Kendall working with me who was our digital guy, and between us we managed to do things pretty well and we were pretty creative and all our guest teachers were amazing. They all went online, all that sort of thing. So it was pretty shocking financially, from being reasonably safe to being pretty unsafe, um. But, uh, I think that you know, and I got a lot of crap from people about you know, some things we did and didn't do um, we were very religious on things like social distancing, um. So, as I said, we did things pretty well, some things we didn't do well and I think for me it was the beginning of the end, in the sense of like, after Jenny left, it wasn't quite so much fun. I know it sounds a bit pathetic, but it wasn't quite so much fun.

Speaker 2: 40:50

And I think that you know, know, I think I'd done my time there, I'd been there, and then we were someone off to buy us and my major investors wanted out. They didn't like um, I think they didn't like me anymore. But you know, we're, jenny and I, were a good team in covid because we wanted to support the teachers and and we knew it was important to make sure they were being paid and so on, and my major investors weren't so happy with that. So, yeah. So it was pretty tough. And then when these people came along and said they wanted to buy it, my view was if they could maintain the Tri Yoga and the way it should be maintained and my then investors weren't so keen on it anymore, I thought they were prepared to do that. Then it makes sense and um, but it didn't work out. You know, we sold in december 21 and by july 22 I was.

Speaker 2: 41:46

I was going because it wasn't for me and um, I'm not criticizing the people, we just have different values and I I feel I was very well trained how to run things and I had a particular. I think you have to be pretty disciplined and not in a bad way, but I mean you know, disciplined about how you run these things and just different people have a different way. But I mean you know, disciplined about how you run these things and it's different people have a different way of doing things and I'm a mix. I'm partly disciplined, I'm partly a pain in the backside, you know, inconsistent to deal with, which is probably a nightmare to work with. So I am that mix. But yeah, I mean basically I had enough. But yeah, I mean basically I had enough. I was lucky Well, not lucky my older dog then, jj, had a few sort of health issues, so we had six or eight months at home, which was amazing.

Speaker 2: 42:42

I mean, it was really painful but it was tough, but it was amazing. And we had Piper as well, and then that was it, and then I wasn't going to do it again, I had enough and I didn't have to have to work I mean, I'm not, like you know, in my house in the Bahamas or something and then I decided that there needs to be something. There needs to be something different at the moment. And the old Tri Yoga building the first one in Primrose Hill was strange on the market still and I managed to negotiate a deal with a landlord who's the same landlord as when I was originally there and I wanted to create somewhere different.

Speaker 2: 43:23

I wanted to create somewhere that people felt connection and I'm not criticizing anywhere else, I just think that we're unbelievably disconnected and unbelievably connected and I think there is a possibility of creating somewhere where people really want to be and getting it right, making that, you know, like when you walk in, that feeling of and the weird thing is when I first went to look at that building this time around as I walked out I thought, well, I have to call that home because that's what it feels like, and so that was the idea. And then the word home means lots of different things for people and it's been a pretty choppy journey from then to now getting the finance, you know, building issues, whatever, whatever. But I decided that, uh, I mean, I'm a bit sort of when I get like a dog with it, with a bone sort of thing, I'm just gonna keep bloody going. And uh, we're opening, um, apparently on the 29th of june, um, um, apparently on the 29th of june, um, homewellnessuk and all lowercase and it's sort of I'm really looking forward to.

Speaker 2: 44:40

At one level, my therapist is on speed dial and has retired to the bahamas on the back of my usage for the last year. But I think, um, I want to create somewhere amazing for people to go to and that when they feel, when they walk in there, this is somewhere you know that I want to be and it won't look, I'll make mistakes, I'm just covering myself. I'll make this, probably make mistakes, and everything won't work perfectly from day one. You know we've got a tight budget and so on, but I really believe in what we're doing and um, I get the sense that lots of people believe in it and enthusiasm.

Speaker 1: 45:18

There's sort of colors, other people as well. But I've I've seen the difference from you when, when you were sort of retired, not sure what you were going to do, and then now having even though it's tough now having the bit between your teeth and actually really going for the big creation of something that's an expression of you, an expression of your philosophy and and um of what you would like to see in the world. So we're coming towards the um, the end of the podcast. The question I always ask at the end is um, what's the particular dragon you've had to slay, what's the obstacle you've had to overcome to be who you are?

Speaker 2: 45:55

Apart from supporting spurs. Well, that's a difficult one but yes, apart from that, can I become that and my poor sense of humour Can't overcome that, can't get past that either. Well, I don't think I've overcome it. I think I'm still having it wrestle with it yeah right.

Speaker 2: 46:14

I'd say um, I think, um, I would say lack of self-worth, aka imposter syndrome, like when people say to me oh, you've done it before I'm going, yeah, but I got away with it, sort of thing. So I would say that, um, that being found out is probably there, being found out as not being quite what either. People think I am and there's a fear around. If I believe in myself too much, it becomes arrogance. Do you know what I mean?

Speaker 1: 46:53

It's a fine line. Yeah, it's a fine line and you're treading it and that's the thing, and you'll continue to tread it and you will make mistakes, but actually you've also got incredible resources to undo those mistakes when you make them. I've seen them happen before. So, thank you, jonathan. I really appreciate your coming here and sharing your story with us, and we'll catch up shortly.