On Sacred Places, Big Leaps and Following Your Bliss with Charley Patton

What does it take to leave behind everything you’ve built, cycle 8,000 miles across the world, with no clear plan for what comes next?

I recorded this conversation live at the Bali Spirit Festival, sitting across from Charley Patton, co-founder of the iconic Yoga Barn in Ubud. After 16 years climbing the corporate ladder in America, Charley did something that many of us dream about and few of us actually do, he left. Not impulsively, but with intention, careful planning, and a custom-built touring bicycle.

What began as a two-week stop in Bali en route to Cambodia became, slowly and irreversibly, a life. And out of that life grew one of the most beloved yoga spaces in the world.

So often we look at a successful and established business, and don’t know about the real people behind the scenes and all the decisions, big and small, that led them there. And I loved hearing about Charley’s journey. We talked about the moment Charley realised his outside life no longer matched his inside life and how yoga cracked something open in him that made staying impossible.

We talked about Bali’s extraordinary spiritual culture, the 2002 bombings and how the Balinese community responded, the ethics of tourism and how to show up with humility on land that isn’t yours.

We talked about what it really means to follow your dharma and why that might be one of the most practical and political acts available to us right now.

In this episode, we explore:

• Charley’s 16 years in corporate America, and the Sunday dread that finally made staying impossible
• How yoga first helped him survive, and then helped him see he needed to do more than survive
• His solo 8,000-mile bicycle journey through seven countries and the two-week Bali stop that never ended
• The founding of the Yoga Barn – from a tiny by-donation space on the third-floor to one of the world’s most well-known yoga communities
• Balinese spiritual culture, the significance of ceremony and offerings, and what the 2002 Bali bombings meant on a spiritual level for the Balinese people
• The ethics of tourism and how to travel with consciousness, humility and an open heart
• The question of congruence – are you living from the inside out, or wearing a mask every day?
• Joseph Campbell’s hero’s journey as a map for those standing at a crossroads
• The concentric circles of right relationship – with self, partner, family, community and the world

Connect with Charley Patton

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