When a palm reader told high-powered lawyer Jonathan Sattin to quit his job during a lunch break reading, most people would have laughed it off. Instead, he handed in his notice that very afternoon. This seemingly impulsive decision marked just one pivotal moment in an extraordinary journey from corporate law to founding London’s most respected yoga studios.
Jonathan’s story unfolds like a masterclass in authentic transformation. Growing up in an idyllic Hertfordshire village with a father who himself pivoted from medicine to filmmaking, Jonathan absorbed early lessons about professional reinvention. Yet his path wasn’t straightforward – rebelling against expectations to follow his father into medicine, he chose law instead, building a successful practice while wrestling with inner conflict and anxiety following his father’s untimely death at 50.
The universe kept sending Jonathan signals about his true calling. A colleague suggested yoga because Jonathan seemed “a bit weird” – within three months, he had stopped smoking forty cigarettes daily, quit coffee, and abandoned recreational drugs. Later, while emptying trash cans as service work at an ashram in India, he experienced a profound hour of fearlessness and clarity: “Everything I ever have done and everything I ever will do is for my upliftment.” Yet even with these powerful experiences, translating spiritual awakening into practical life change proved challenging.
Through failed business ventures, unexpected opportunities, and constant questioning, Jonathan eventually founded TriYoga, bringing uncompromising integrity to the wellness industry. When the pandemic hit, he prioritized supporting teachers over profits, eventually selling the business when value conflicts with investors became untenable. Now, he’s creating “Home” – a new wellness space in Primrose Hill designed to foster genuine connection in our disconnected world.
What makes Jonathan’s story so compelling isn’t just professional success, but his ongoing honesty about wrestling with self-doubt. “When people say ‘you’ve done it before,'” he admits, “I’m thinking ‘yeah, but I got away with it.'” This raw vulnerability alongside remarkable achievement reminds us that our dragons – like Jonathan’s imposter syndrome – aren’t necessarily slain once and for all, but companions we learn to live with compassionately.
Have you been ignoring signs pointing toward your authentic path? Jonathan’s journey shows that following those nudges, however uncertain they seem, might lead to your most meaningful work.
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Presenter
Malcolm Stern has worked as a group and individual psychotherapist for more than 30 years. He was a co-founder of Alternatives at St James’s Church in London and runs groups internationally.
He is the author of Falling in Love / Staying in Love (Piatkus 2004) and Slay Your Dragons with Compassion ( Watkins 2020). He co-presented Channel 4’s relationship series, ‘Made for Each Other’ in 2003 and 2004 and sailed on the ‘Rainbow Warrior’ with Greenpeace in the 1980s. The book he is currently writing is an exploration of the shadow and its necessity in our evolutionary development.
To become equal to the dream sewn within us, our heart must break open and usually must break more than once. That’s why they say that the only heart worth having is a broken heart. For only in breaking can it open fully and reveal what is hidden within.” – Michael Meade
This is a series of podcasts based on the premise explored in Malcolm Stern’s acclaimed book of the same name, that adversity provides us with the capacity to develop previously unexplored depths and is , in effect , a crucible for self reflection and awareness. Malcolm lost his daughter Melissa to suicide in 2014. It slowly dawned on him over the following few years that he was being educated and an opportunity was being presented where new insights helped him forge a path through his grief and despair. As part of that cathartic journey, he wrote “ Slay Your Dragons with Compassion ( Watkins 2020 ) where he was able to describe some of the practices that had helped him shed light on a way through the darkness.
