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Keynote speaker  /  Wellness tourism strategist

Regulate
to elevate.

Your people aren’t lazy. They’re running on empty. I help leaders, teams and audiences understand the nervous system behind burnout and performance, and leave with tools they use the next morning.

Free guide: 8 Steps to Calm → Book James to speak
James Yates
James YatesCo-founder, Reignite Retreats. Creator of the WellVenture Method.
8 Steps to Calm guide coverFree guide8 Steps to Calm.The practices we use with every guest, matched to your mode.Get the free guide →
★★★★★100+ five-star reviews
1,000+ guests hosted
25+ years on stage and in the field
Five continents, thousands of events
Featured in RETREAT Magazine
Founder and creator

Everything we have built.

Explore the ventures →
Reignite RetreatsInternational retreats WellVentureEat. Sleep. Move. Regulate. FitVentureMove your body Retreat ConsultingWellness meets tourism alphaVIENutrition to thrive PhytaProGo where you’ve never been
The belief

I spent twenty years teaching people how to perform. Burnout taught me how to recover. Now I teach both.

JamesKeynote speaker, co-founder of Reignite,
creator of the WellVenture Method
James Yates in a Regulate to Elevate shirt James and Chantel, co-founders of Reignite
2018Reignite founded
Meet James

My story didn’t start with balance.

It started with burnout. For twenty years I lived on stages around the world. Thousands of events. Keynotes, trainings, rooms full of people. I was teaching high performance and running on adrenaline.

In 2011 it caught up with me. No rest. No recovery. No quality.

Chantel and I rebuilt from the ground up. Food. Sleep. Movement. Learning to calm my nervous system. Simple things, done every day. That rebuild became the WellVenture Method.

More than 1,000 guests later, I still only teach what I have lived.

2001First on stage, researching exercise and motivation
2011Burnout, and the rebuild that changed everything
2018Co-founded Reignite Retreats in Noosa
NowFour destinations, an app and a method we live by
The Regulator

How do you feel right now?

One tap tells the Regulator. It names the mode we are in, Go, Restore or Shutdown, then guides us back to Restore with a practice made for that moment.

Voice-guided

A calm voice through every breath, after a one-minute prep: settle, hear what we are about to do, then one practice round.

20+ practices

Breath leads, with eat, move and sleep tools underneath for the moments when breath alone is not the answer.

Two minutes is enough

Most practices have a short version for a busy day, and a longer one when there is time to go deeper.

A woman breathing out slowly, lit in warm light Live preview
In
Regulation · from 2 min

Physiological sigh

The fastest reset. Two inhales through the nose, then a long exhale through the mouth.

Try it. Tell it how you feel.

Our nervous system is always in one of three modes. Go Mode mobilises us to act. Shutdown Mode protects us when it has had too much. Restore Mode is where the magic happens. The Regulator meets us where we are, and walks us home.

Get first access to the app →
Free guide

8 Steps to Calm.

Our free guide to regulating your nervous system. The three modes, the 8 steps we teach every WellVenture® guest, and a plan for the mode you live in. Tell us where you spend most of your time and we’ll start you in the right place.

One email with the guide, then the occasional note from us. Unsubscribe any time.

The WellVenture Method

Four pillars.
One home base.

It’s what I rebuilt my own life on. It sits behind every WellVenture®, every keynote and every consulting project. Simple enough to start tomorrow morning.

WellVenture
Fresh fruit beside a plunge pool
01

Eat

Real food, already prepared. When the right choice is the easy choice, you make it.

Guests relaxing in a sauna
02

Sleep

Rhythm, light and a proper wind-down. Sleep is where the repair happens.

Morning movement in the shallows
03

Move

Move every day. Build capacity without tipping back into overdrive.

Guests supporting each other through an ice bath
04

Regulate

Breath, cold and stillness. Learn the way home to Restore.

Coming soon
The WellVenture App

Breathe.
Reset. Repeat.

Everything we teach on location, now on your phone. The WellVenture® app turns the Method into a daily practice: check in with your nervous system, feel the shift happen, then know exactly what to do next.

The RegulatorTell us how you feel and we meet you right where you are, from Go back to Restore.
Every morningYour Readiness, Restoration and Resilience scores, ready when you wake.
PracticesShort, guided and made by our facilitators, including James on breath, cold and calm.
ExperiencesEvery WellVenture® and FitVenture® date in one place, one tap away.
Pre-register for first access →
The WellVenture app: Breathe. Reset. Repeat. The Regulator: know where you are today Before and after: feel the shift happen The Regulator: tell us how you feel Practices: a practice for every moment Our facilitators: learn from James Experiences: your next reset, one tap away Coming soon: your reset, every single day
The Complete WellVenture Journal resting on tropical leaves The Complete WellVenture Journal held in two hands
The Complete WellVenture Journal

296 pages.
Twelve months.
One focus at a time.

A hardcover companion to the WellVenture Method, so the tools learned on the week travel home. Every pillar ends with the Power 8: eight key habits to build, tracked month by month.

EATPower 8
SLEEPPower 8
MOVEPower 8
REGULATEPower 8

You can’t buy it. The Journal is only given to WellVenture® guests, to take home at the end of their week.

Book a free call →Find your WellVenture®
Speaking

Your audience is exhausted.
Another pep talk won’t fix it.

Motivation wears off by Monday. Burnout doesn’t. Most keynotes give people a lift for an hour and change nothing in how they actually feel. I take a different approach: I explain what is really happening in their nervous system, then get the whole room to feel the shift, live, before they leave their seats.

A room that feels itA guided breathwork reset in every keynote. People feel calmer and sharper in minutes, not weeks.
Science in plain languageGo, Restore and Shutdown. A model anyone can use the moment they walk out.
A story they rememberTwenty years on stage, burnout in 2011, and the rebuild that became a business.
Tools for MondayTwo-minute practices your people will actually use, plus the free 8 Steps to Calm guide for every attendee.
01
Signature keynote

Regulate to Elevate

Stressed is your nervous system doing its job a little too well. This keynote shows people what is really driving their energy, mood and performance, then gives them the tools to come back to Restore. Includes a live breathwork reset.

  • Leadership
  • Conferences
  • Sales kick-offs
02
Industry keynote

The Future of Wellness Tourism

Guests don’t want another holiday they come home tired from. They want to come home different. What that means for hotels, resorts and operators, and how we built experiences people rebook and refer.

  • Tourism
  • Hospitality
  • Panels
03
Story keynote

From Burnout to Reignite

Twenty years on stage, running on adrenaline. Then burnout. The honest story of hitting the wall, and the four simple things that rebuilt everything.

  • Wellbeing weeks
  • Opening keynote
  • Closing keynote
04
Experiential session

Breath, Cold and Calm

Breathwork and cold exposure your team will talk about for years. Led by me, as a credentialed breathwork and cold exposure facilitator, with safety built in from the first breath.

  • Offsites
  • Corporate retreats
  • Workshops
James Yates presenting Regulate to Elevate to a room of guests James Yates presenting to a room James Yates sharing his story with guests James Yates leaning over an ice bath, guiding a guest
On stage, on site, on the shoreline
AustraliaNew ZealandSouth AfricaSouth-East AsiaThe Middle EastJohannesburgKoh SamuiChiang MaiNoosa AustraliaNew ZealandSouth AfricaSouth-East AsiaThe Middle EastJohannesburgKoh SamuiChiang MaiNoosa

Formats

  • Keynote, 45 to 90 minutes
  • Half-day and full-day workshops
  • Panels and fireside chats
  • MC and host
  • Live breathwork and cold experiences

Past stages

  • International Convention Centre, Sydney
  • The Star, Gold Coast
  • The Capital, Durban
  • Masa Square Hotel, Gaborone
  • Emperors Palace, Johannesburg
  • DoubleTree by Hilton, Cape Town
  • Novotel, Auckland

What organisers get

  • A talk tailored to your audience and theme
  • A pre-event briefing call
  • A room that leaves calmer and more energised
  • Practical tools people use the next morning
Check my date →

Send your date and city. We reply within two business days with availability and fees.

Lived, not theorised

From the stage
to the shoreline.

Everything I teach on stage, we have lived with more than 1,000 guests across Thailand and Australia.

James Yates presenting to guests
James Yates leading a session
Ice bath support
Guests celebrating on a yacht
Yoga in an open-air shala
A WellVenture group holding coconuts
A guest jumping into the ocean
A villa pool leading to the ocean
1,000+guests through the model we now build with partners
Wellness tourism consulting

Most wellness offers are a spa menu with a yoga class. Guests don’t come back for that.

Guests no longer want to be pampered. They want to go home sleeping better and feeling like themselves again, and they rebook, review and refer when that happens. We built Reignite on exactly that, across Thailand and Australia, with 1,000+ guests and 100+ five-star reviews. Now I help hotels, resorts and operators do the same, without the years of expensive mistakes.

01

Concept and programme design

A wellness offer built on a method, with itineraries, session flow, food and facilitators that work together.

02

Guest journey

Every touchpoint from first enquiry to the week after checkout, designed so guests feel looked after and come back.

03

Sales and conversion

The enquiry, discovery call and consultation process that fills our experiences, adapted to your team.

04

Systems and operations

The operating system we run on: sales, guest experience, events and contracts, connected to your booking platform.

Hotels and resortsDestinationsRetreat operatorsInvestorsCorporate wellbeing

Start with a free 30-minute strategy call. You’ll leave with the three things we would fix first, whether we work together or not.

Book a strategy call →Retreat Consulting
0Guests hosted
0Five-star reviews
0Years of experience
0Trees planted with Tree-Nation
Ventures

One philosophy.
A family of brands.

RETREAT Magazine cover
As featured inA five-page feature in RETREAT Magazine on our philosophy and founders.
In their words

James is one of the most positive, supportive and inspiring people I have worked with.

Dr Celline Mullins, Psychologist, Coach and Training Consultant

It was far more necessary for me than I was even aware. I feel fantastic.

Susan, WellVenture® guest

I honestly didn’t want it to end. I’ve come away from Ko Samui with a whole new friendship group.

Renee, Koh Samui
As featured in RETREAT Magazine The Hotel Guide Intentional Living
Where to start

Regulate to elevate.
Choose your next step.

WellVenture

Experience it

Seven days in Thailand or Australia, all inclusive. Have you experienced a WellVenture® or FitVenture®?

Book a free call

Practise it daily

The Regulator, guided practices and our facilitators, in the WellVenture® app.

Get first access
Retreat Consulting

Build your own

Strategy, systems and Retreat OS for retreat businesses, hotels and destinations.

Partner with us
James

Book James

Keynotes, workshops and live breathwork for your conference or team.

Check availability
Bring the method homealphaVIEAdaptogenic productsPhytaProYoga mats
Work with James

Give your people
more than a pep talk.

A keynote they feel. Tools they use on Monday. Tell us your date and we’ll come back within two business days.

Book James to speak →Consulting enquiry
Enquiries

Let’s talk.

Tell us your date, city and audience. We’ll come back within two business days with availability, fees and a short call to tailor the talk to your people.

Emailmedia@reignitelife.com
Based inNoosa, Queensland. Working worldwide.
Speaking enquiriesInclude your dates, location and audience size.