Three weeks alone in the Amazon.
No food. No shelter. No rescue coming.
1981. Tel Aviv. The edge of the map.
Yossi Ghinsberg was 22, fresh from the Israeli Navy, studying philosophy at Tel Aviv University. He found his way to Bolivia. A stranger claimed to know of hidden gold and uncharted land. Yossi walked into the Bolivian Amazon with four men and no way back.
The group collapsed. The raft hit a waterfall. He was alone.
Fear. Disagreements. A guide who may have been leading them nowhere. One by one, they separated. Then Yossi's raft hit a waterfall. When the river released him, there was no one within days of walking in any direction.
Day 6. A jaguar watched him sleep.
No food. No shelter he didn't build. Floods, fever, insects burrowing into his flesh. He woke to find a jaguar watching him. He grabbed mosquito repellent and a lighter, made a flamethrower, and drove it back.
He kept moving. Stopping meant death. He ate what he could find, not much. No gun, no knife, no fire, the horror came at night, and hallucinations were the only respite. He didn't give up; against all odds, he made it to the riverbank.
Twenty days alone amidst the worst rainy season in decades. Kevin Gale, who refused to stop searching, and the indigenous Uchupiamona hunters that accompanied him, found him alive.
After rescue, Bolivia, 1981
He wrote a book. Millions of people worldwide read it.
The original Hebrew edition appeared in 1985: Back from Tuichi. The English title became Jungle. A second book followed: Laws of the Jungle, applying what the Amazon taught him to leadership.
In 2017, director Greg McLean made it into a film starring Daniel Radcliffe. It premiered as the opening night gala at the Melbourne International Film Festival. The movie tie-in edition carries a foreword by Radcliffe himself.
1M+
Copies sold
20
Languages
2017
Hollywood film
MIFF
Opening night gala
The jungle he gave back.
He returned to the Amazon. Not to relive. To do something with it.
He was instrumental in founding the Chalalan Ecolodge in Bolivia's Madidi National Park and helped establish the park itself. The lodge is owned and run entirely by the Uchupiamona people of San José de Uchupiamonas.
National Geographic Traveler, 2002
Named one of the 20 most important tourist destinations in the world.
Equator Prize, UNDP, 2008
The world's leading recognition for indigenous-led conservation.
Community impact
~40 local jobs. Health services and schools for 750 people.
Notable guests
Brad Pitt, Harrison Ford, Leonardo DiCaprio, and the King of Sweden. They came because the community built something worth coming to.
Ambassador of the Uchupiamona Nation to the World.
Appointed by Magna Asamblea. Signed by the community president, the territorial corregidor, and the sub-alcalde. Not an honorary title. A charge.
He also served as Vice President of CITA — the Center for Research and Treatment of Addiction — helping establish twelve clinics in twelve cities around the world. Work that rarely appears in the speaker biography. It is part of the story regardless.
Forty years. The story still travels.
Discovery Channel, 2005
I Shouldn't Be Alive
Season 1, Episode 3. The 21 days dramatised for television. Twenty-four years after the rescue.
Watch full episode →Wondery / Amazon Podcasts, 2023
Against The Odds — Season 32
“Lost in the Rainforest” — a four-episode narrative series. Forty-two years after the rescue.
Listen on Wondery →Stories that are true don't expire.
Mr Sleep and the Flying Green Toad.
In 2008, Yossi released an album of world music and global fusion with musicians Avishai Barnatan and Amir Paiss. Thirteen tracks. Every lyric written by him.
“A musical journey that will enchant children and adults alike.” A completely different side of the same man. Available on Spotify and Apple Music.
He doesn't only speak about courage. He attempts it.
Between 2013 and 2017, he found himself in Silicon Valley, building companies around AI and digital identity before either concept had a mainstream name. Two ventures: Blinq and Headbox.
Not a conventional tech founder. A curious man who showed up, surrounded by people far more experienced, applying what the jungle taught him: the ones who survive are not always the most qualified. Sometimes they are just the ones who showed up.
The ventures did not change the world. He has the bruises to prove he tried. That is why, when he speaks about being brave in a new world, it lands.
ASPIRE conference, ICE Krakow, 2017. 2,000 attendees
On stage. Still the room.
He speaks to audiences of 10,000. He speaks to boardrooms of twelve. One story. Whoever is in the room.
6.6 / 7.0
CoreNet Global rating
6,000
MDRT 2025, Miami Beach
#1
Most Unforgettable Speaker
Clinton · Branson · Taleb
Same programmes
The story you just read is what he brings to your stage. Every keynote is built on what actually happened.
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He doesn't stop at the edge.
He builds there.
In May 2024, Yossi and Paul Templer signed the deed on a piece of land in South Crete. Ten thousand square metres overlooking the Libyan Sea.
Paul Templer is a Zimbabwean-born adventurer who, in 1996, while leading an expedition on the Zambezi River, fought a hippopotamus for eight minutes and won. Today, he is a respected speaker, author, entrepreneur, and philanthropist. The two men who should not be alive have connected and decided to build a dream together.
The name is Lino Cambi, a hidden sanctuary that awaits only those who hear the calling. Season one has only six lush suites. Blue Zone cuisine. Overlooking the Libyan Sea. Opening June 2027. Not a resort but a place where people who are done with noise can come to remember what matters, rejuvenate, recharge, align, and have great fun doing that.
“Nothing shouts. Everything softly whispers.”
Voted Most Unforgettable Speaker
1M+ Books Sold in 20 Languages
Hollywood Film, Starring Daniel Radcliffe
MDRT Main Stage 2025, 6,000 Attendees
Equator Prize — UNDP, 2008
What audiences leave with
A new frame for fear
Not a technique. A lived example. Fear is information, not a verdict. They leave with a different relationship to uncertainty.
Permission to aim higher
When a room of 5,000 hears what one person survived on instinct alone, the bar for what is possible shifts permanently.
Decision they won't put off
Every talk ends the same way: what are you waiting for? Not a slogan. A direct question. Audiences act on something within 48 hours.
Trusted by organisations that believe people are their greatest frontier.
Google · Apple · Microsoft · BMW · YPO · MDRT · Coca-Cola · IBM · American Express · Cunard
The story beyond the stage
The book. The sequel. The film.
Book
Laws of the Jungle
Nine revelations from the Amazon. Jaguars don't need self-help books. Neither should you.
Buy on Amazon
Film
Jungle
Starring Daniel Radcliffe. Directed by Greg McLean. A harrowing true story of adventure, danger and survival.
Watch on AmazonIf you are looking for a speaker your audience will still talk about a year from now, this is the conversation to start.
Book Yossi to Speak