Workshops

There are places on earth that wake something up in a man.

Kona is one of them.

Forged by volcano. Shaped by the ocean. Ground that carries both power and peace. When you stand here, you feel it. It is strength without noise. Confidence without performance. Presence without apology.

This year’s Men’s Retreat is built on three Hawaiian values that define a whole man:

Lokahi.     Kuleana.     Ho’oponopono.

Lokahi is alignment. When your ambition, your relationships, your body, and your spirit are pulling in the same direction.

Kuleana is responsibility. The kind that builds legacy. The kind that says, “I will lead this well.”

Ho’oponopono is repair. The courage to clear what’s unspoken, restore what matters, and strengthen the bonds that carry your life.

Most men are capable of more than they are currently expressing. More clarity, more depth. More strength and connection. This retreat will unlock that which is inside you, ready to come out.

Over five immersive days in Kona, you will sharpen your focus, deepen your leadership, and strengthen the way you show up at home and at work. Through powerful workshops, physical collaboration, ocean immersion, structured reflection, and direct brotherhood, you’ll recalibrate what it means to be grounded and powerful at the same time.

• You will train your nervous system to stay steady under pressure.

• You will refine your communication so your words carry weight.

• You will reconnect to a purpose that feels clean and uncompromised.

• You will stand shoulder to shoulder with men who expect more of themselves.

A balanced journey of deep, personalize insights along with restorative clarity. You will leave with:

• A clear standard for the man you are committed to being

• Renewed strength in your leadership and decision-making

• Deeper connection with your spouse, children, and those who matter most

• Conversations initiated, not avoided

• Emotional range anchored in grounded masculinity

• A concrete plan for your next season

Lokahi. Kuleana. Ho’oponopono.

Alignment. Responsibility. Repair.

Five days in Kona that will reset your trajectory for extraordinary!

The Kona Pre-Trip!!

October 19th-21st, 2026

We’ll explore Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park (by e-bike) to see the earth being formed, honoring Pele, the goddess of fire, if she’s flowing. Witnessing the earth create itself is deeply grounding.

We’ll also spend time in the ocean – surfing, snorkeling, swimming – and visit local spots and beaches missed during the main retreat. This honors Kona’s power beyond a meeting space.

The trip combines movement, sport, and adventure with extended pre-work. We’ll start deeper conversations, build natural connection, and arrive at the main retreat grounded and engaged.

It’s the best of both worlds: exploring Hawai‘i authentically while beginning the insight and brotherhood that defines the week.

If you come to Kona, come ready to experience it fully.

The tuition is $3,295.

Workshop Start: Monday, October 19th, 2026
Workshop End: Friday, October 23rd, 2026
Main Retreat Location: Westerbeke Ranch, Sonoma CA
Post-Trip End (Optional):  Sunday, October 25th, 2026
Post-Trip Location: Casa Bella Estate, Kenwood CA
Tuition Covers: Workshop, Lodging in cabins and all meals (for the main retreat) and Workshop lodging and group dinner (for the post trip)

You’ve already done the work of looking back. You know where the reactions were born and how the old strategies took hold. This isn’t that. This is the question that comes after.

Most of us, somewhere along the way, expected more. We did the things we were told would get us there. Some of us reached it and found it strangely quiet. Others are still reaching, and can’t quite say why the reaching never lands.

Here’s what we know to be true, and what this workshop is built to expose: some of your habits are holding onto a fear, a belief, a piece of who you think you are. Move one and you’ll feel the whole structure resist. We don’t touch those here. We go after the other kind. The ones nothing is defending. The ones that started because they worked once, and never got looked at again. Those can be changed without a fight, which is exactly why most people never bother to look.

Over two days, you’ll get specific and honest about why one part of your life is the way it is, not the childhood version, the present-tense version. You’ll find the unchosen habit that’s quietly producing a result you don’t want, and the exact moment you stopped noticing you had a choice. Then you’ll turn forward: recovering real evidence – not a fantasy, an actual lived memory – that the life you actually want isn’t invented. It’s something you’ve already tasted.

You won’t leave with your whole future mapped. You’ll leave with something better to start from: one sentence you can say out loud about why your life looks the way it does, and one move that you’d bet on yourself to make.

This isn’t about understanding yourself better. You’ve already done that.
This is about what to do here to get there.

Workshop Details:
Workshop Dates: November 7th – 8th, 2026
Workshop Timing: 9am-5pm both days
Location: Mission Viejo, CA
Refreshments: Light refreshments provided during workshop
Tuition Covers: Workshop and all materials (lodging on own)

Have you ever avoided a tough conversation because you weren’t sure how it would go? Or jumped into one at the wrong time – only to end up frustrated and disconnected? Maybe you’ve longed for more intimacy, but daily life keeps getting in the way.

This retreat isn’t just about fixing problems – it’s about amplifying what’s already good and making it extraordinary.

You’ll step away from the noise of daily life and immerse yourselves in a luxurious, romantic setting designed for deep connection, open-hearted communication, and rekindling the fire between you.

Your Relationship Is Your Greatest Investment

Think about it: You tune up your car. You track your health. You set goals in your career. But when’s the last time you prioritized your relationship with the same level of care?

Intimacy isn’t self-sustaining – it needs attention, adventure, and intentionality. At this retreat, you’ll rediscover the magic of being truly seen and understood by your partner while learning new ways to communicate, grow, and create a relationship that thrives.

What You’ll Explore Together:

💡 Elevating Your Purpose as a Couple – Clarify your shared vision for the future and align your values.
💡 Balancing Individuality & Partnership – Strengthen your bond while embracing personal growth.
💡 Turning the Expected into the Exceptional – Keep romance alive even in the routines of everyday life.
💡 The Art of Authentic Communication – Navigate difficult conversations with love and confidence.
💡 And So Much More…

Whether you’re in a new romance, navigating a major life transition, or wanting to deepen decades of love, this retreat is designed to bring you closer than ever.

Your relationship is worth it. Your love story is still being written. 🔥

Ready to experience something unforgettable? Join us for the 2026 Couples Retreat.

Tuition is per individual: Couples tuition is $3,350 per person / $6,700 per couple

Workshop Start: Friday, December 11th, 2026
Workshop End: Sunday, December 13th, 2026
Refreshments: Light refreshments provided during workshop
Hotel: Avila Lighthouse Suites
Tuition Covers: Workshop, lodging based on double occupancy, self parking and breakfast

There is something in your life right now that isn’t working.

You feel it.

It shows up in a relationship that keeps looping. A leadership tension you can’t quite solve. A conversation you keep postponing. Or maybe it’s quieter than that. A sense that you’re capable of more, but you haven’t stepped into it.

Curated Insights is built for that exact tension.

This is not a pre-packaged workshop. There is no binder. No pre-written script. 

We design it around you.

Before you arrive, you’ll complete preparation work that tells us where you’re stuck, where you’re ambitious, where you’re confused, and where you’re protecting yourself. We study it. We look for patterns. We look for edges.

Then we walk into the room and build the experience around what is actually present.

The questions are written for the people sitting there. The exercises are shaped by what surfaces. The coaching is direct and personal.

You will see your patterns. The ones that make you effective and the ones that quietly cost you connection, momentum, and peace. You will hear yourself in a new way. You will understand the dynamics you keep recreating. And you will be challenged, respectfully and directly, to move.

This is emotional intelligence applied to your real life. Your marriage. Your parenting. Your leadership. Your money. Your ambition. The conversations you’re avoiding. The future you say you want.

We meet oceanfront in Oceanside. The space helps. The air helps. The walks between sessions help. But clarity doesn’t come from the view. It comes from finally seeing yourself clearly.

By the end of three days, you won’t just feel inspired. You’ll know what you’ve been doing. You’ll know why. And you’ll know what needs to change.

When you can see the pattern, you can stop repeating it. When you truly understand yourself, the next move becomes obvious.

Workshop Start: January 22nd 2027 – 1pm
Workshop End: January 24th 2027 – 1pm
Refreshments: Light refreshments provided during workshop
Hotel: Mission Pacific Beach Resort in Oceanside, CA
Tuition Covers: Workshop, lodging based on double occupancy & parking.

Your life is shaped by the conversations you’re willing to have… and the ones you avoid!

The tension you don’t name.
The resentment you swallow.
The feedback you soften.
The truth you circle but never say.

Most people think they have a communication problem. What they actually have is a reactivity problem. It’s a lack of courage and ownership.

This workshop is not about techniques. It’s about power.

When you change how you communicate, you change your relationships. Your leadership. Your marriage. Your parenting. Your influence. Even the way you speak to yourself.

Because communication isn’t just what comes out of your mouth. It’s the nervous system underneath it. The story behind it which is based on the identity driving it.

In this immersive experience, you’ll confront the habits that keep you reactive, defensive, vague, or overly accommodating. You’ll see how you distort your message to avoid discomfort. And then you’ll learn to lead instead.

• You’ll regulate yourself in high-stakes moments.
• You’ll say hard things cleanly.
• You’ll listen without preparing your defense.
• You’ll replace blame with ownership.

This is where drama dissolves and clarity begins.

The oceanfront space in Oceanside helps you slow down and reset. But the real shift happens internally, from reacting to responding, from hinting to naming, from hoping people “get it” to communicating with precision.

You will leave with:

• The ability to regulate yourself in difficult conversations
• Language that replaces blame and defensiveness
• A framework for navigating conflict without collapsing or dominating
• Listening skills that build trust and authority
• Confidence to initiate conversations you’ve been avoiding

Communication as a Path to Your Highest Potential is where you stop managing impressions and start telling the truth.

When your signal is clean, your leadership sharpens. Your relationships strengthen. Your life gets simpler.

Say what you mean. Mean what you say. And watch what changes.

Workshop Start: April 9th 2027 – 1pm
Workshop End: April 11th 2027 – 1pm
Refreshments: Light refreshments provided during workshop
Hotel: The Seabird Resort in Oceanside, CA
Tuition Covers: Workshop, lodging based on double occupancy & parking.

Imi Na‘auao means “to seek wisdom.” In this workshop, we treat wisdom not as something you collect, but something you embody.

Most of us can name our values. Integrity. Family. Courage. Excellence. Faith. Service. Leadership. We believe in them. We teach them. We expect them from others.

But believing in values and living them are two very different things.

Inspired by Hawaiian cultural principles, we’ll move beyond surface definitions and explore what it actually means to live aligned with what matters most. Because alignment is easy when life is calm. The real test comes in the messy moments – when you’re tired, triggered, under pressure, or pulled between competing priorities.

When your child pushes your patience.
When a colleague challenges your authority.
When profit conflicts with principle.
When speed competes with quality.
When loyalty collides with honesty.

These are the moments that define you.

In Imi Na‘auao, we look honestly at why living our values can be harder than we expect. We examine how values can appear to conflict with one another, how fear and ego subtly override intention, and what it can cost to honor what truly matters. We also explore what it costs not to.

Through guided reflection, dynamic dialogue, and practical application, you’ll examine the gap between who you intend to be and how you actually show up. You’ll identify where you drift under stress, where you rationalize, and where you are ready to recommit.

This is not about perfection. It’s about congruence.

You will leave with:

• A clarified and prioritized personal values framework
• Language for making difficult, values-based decisions
• Greater awareness of how stress impacts alignment
• Tools for navigating moments where values feel in tension
• A grounded, usable approach for choosing integrity in real time

Imi Na‘auao invites you to seek wisdom not in theory, but in practice.

Because who you are when life gets real, when no one is applauding and the decision is costly, is who you truly are becoming.

And wisdom is earned there.

Workshop Start: June 16th, 2027 – Time TBD (Typically around 4pm)
Workshop End: June 20th, 2027 – Time TBD (Typically around 10am)
Refreshments: Light refreshments provided during workshop
Lodging: Kanaloa at Kona Oceanfront Vacation Rentals
Tuition Covers: Workshop, lodging based on shared condos, parking, a group dinner and activities.
Please note if you also register for Keystone Habits (week 2 of Hawaii) your lodging between workshops is included.

We are drawn to big goals. Vision statements. Strategic plans. Bold commitments about who we want to become. But most breakdowns don’t happen because the vision was wrong. They happen because the small structural supports underneath it were weak.

Keystone Habits is about the invisible behaviors that quietly determine whether your goals materialize. In architecture, a keystone holds an arch together. Remove it and the structure collapses. Strengthen it and the entire system stabilizes. Your leadership and your life work the same way.

In business and at home, the “tip of the arrow” – vision, purpose, strategy – gets the attention. The stabilizers determine whether the arrow flies true. Sleep rhythms. Calendar discipline. How you start meetings. How you repair conflict. Whether you follow through on small commitments. How you reset after stress. These behaviors compound over time, for better or worse.

In this workshop, you’ll map your highest-level commitments across leadership, relationships, health, and personal growth. Then you’ll isolate the few catalytic habits that make those commitments sustainable. Instead of adding more to your plate, you’ll clarify what actually drives results and design realistic protections for those habits when pressure and distraction show up.

You will leave with:

• A clear map of your highest-level commitments
• Identification of the 2–4 keystone habits that sustain them
• A practical protection plan for high-stress seasons
• Systems for follow-through that survive distraction
• Greater confidence that your daily actions align with your long-term outcomes

Big outcomes are built on small decisions repeated with integrity. Strengthen the keystone, and performance steadies, relationships deepen, and progress becomes more predictable.

Workshop Start: June 23rd, 2027 – Time TBD (Typically around 4pm)
Workshop End: June 27th, 2027 – Time TBD (Typically around 10am)
Refreshments: Light refreshments provided during workshop
Location: Kanaloa at Kona Oceanfront Vacation Rentals
Tuition Covers: Workshop, lodging based on shared condos, parking, a group dinner and activities.
Please note if you also register for Imi Na‘auao (week 1 of Hawaii) your lodging between workshops is included.

Set It Down

The 1st Ever Women’s Retreat Pre‑Trip

It usually takes a few days into any retreat before we shed the stress of our daily lives. The mental load, the group texts and the running grocery list in the back of your mind all tend to come along for the ride. Set It Down is designed to wash away those layers of gunk so you can reach the deep tranquility that powerful growth requires.

Three Days at Ojo Santa Fe

Ojo Santa Fe is a 77‑acre desert oasis with spring‑fed thermal soaking pools tucked beneath the cottonwoods. The Pueblo people sought out these waters for healing centuries ago. You’ll understand why within minutes of your first soak.

For three days we surrender here. Together we’ll release the stories that were never ours to bare and go beneath the surface to find the freedom that has been hidden from us for too long. Letting go of the personas we’ve used as cover may be one of the bravest adventures a woman can take. You’ll do it alongside a circle of women who understand.

What the Days Hold

Cassie and Betty Jo will guide you through workshop sessions designed to help you untangle what you’ve been carrying. Between sessions you’ll soak in the healing waters, stretch through morning yoga, gather for a ceremonial temazcal sweat lodge and share a celebration dinner on the final night. The resort even has a daily puppy hour. Nobody has ever left a retreat worse off for holding a puppy.

Open to Every Woman

Set It Down leaves you poised and ready for Rise, the 10th Annual Women’s Retreat, so you can step into the main retreat ready for profound transformation. If you aren’t joining us for Rise, you’ll still go home free of the burdens you arrived carrying. Either way, every woman is welcome.

Pre‑Trip Details

Dates: Friday, August 27 to Sunday, August 29, 2027
Location: Ojo Santa Fe Resort, Santa Fe, New Mexico
Led By: Cassie and Betty Jo
Tuition: $3,895 includes the workshop, lodging, activities and a final group dinner

After ten years of women rising, this year we celebrate.

It’s late, and you’re sitting in a starlit courtyard at MEA’s Cottonwood Retreat Center outside Santa Fe with a journal that’s nearly full. Cassie and Betty Jo have poured their wisdom and wholehearted belief into every woman here. The women beside you have filled you with encouragement and the wide desert sky has filled you with energy you forgot you had. Your pages are overflowing with plans for your work, your adventures and the way you’ll love your people from this day forward.

You Did the Work to Get Here

Over the years you let go of old stories, cried the tears that needed crying and cleared space inside yourself you never knew existed. You arrive lighter than you’ve ever been. This retreat is where you finally discover what that space is meant to hold.

Ten Years of Sisterhood

Ten years ago, a small circle of women chose to stop living by the stories the world had written for them. Cassie and Betty Jo have guided that circle as it grew into a sisterhood that keeps rising together year after year. For our 10th anniversary, we’re celebrating everything that has grown in the space they made. There’s a seat in that courtyard waiting for you.

Five Days in the High Desert

Rising Circle Ranch is built in the traditional Pueblo style, with earth‑toned walls, quiet arroyos, mountain views and sunsets that set the whole sky on fire. For five days the Cottonwood Campus is ours alone, and nobody there will need a snack, a signature or a ride to practice from you.

You’ll move through guided experiences, embodied practices, honest group conversation and quiet time in the desert. Somewhere between the morning sessions and the evening circles, you’ll set down the roles you carry as partner, mother, leader and caregiver long enough to remember who you are underneath them. Expect laughter, plenty of tears and at least one moment when something clicks and you feel yourself come home.

What You’ll Leave With

• A clear vision for your work, your adventures and your relationships
• The confidence to set boundaries without guilt and ask for what you want without apology
• Freedom from the pressure to be everything to everyone
• Renewed trust in your intuition and your decisions
• A sisterhood of women who see you, challenge you and cheer you on for years to come

Arrive Early with Set It Down

For the first time ever, the Women’s Retreat opens with a pre‑trip. Set It Down runs August 27 to 29 at Ojo Santa Fe Resort. It gives you three days in spring‑fed healing waters to release what you’ve been carrying, so you arrive at Rise ready for the deepest work.

Retreat Details

Workshop Start: Sunday, August 29, 2027
Workshop End: Thursday, September 2, 2027
Location: MEA Cottonwood Campus, Rising Circle Ranch, Santa Fe, New Mexico
Led By: Cassie and Betty Jo
Tuition: $6,895 includes the workshop, lodging, all meals, activities and all transportation, including to and from the airport

Only six spots left.

Catch & Release

The Men’s Retreat 2027 Pre‑Trip

You’ve stood in the river long enough for your mind to go quiet. Then the line snaps tight and a big brown trout comes thrashing out of the water, all muscle and fight. Your heart is pounding and you’re laughing like you’re twelve again. For those few seconds, you’re more awake than you’ve been in years.

Then you cradle him in the cold current and open your hands. Watching him swim off teaches you something no speech could: you can hold something powerful, honor it, let it go and come out stronger. That’s the awakening Catch & Release is built for.

Three Days in the San Juan Mountains

The Lodge & Ranch at Chama sits high in northern New Mexico’s San Juan Mountains, surrounded by private water, open meadows and peaks that turn gold in the late afternoon. Evenings end in the main lodge around a stone fireplace big enough to stand in, trading stories about the one that got away.

You’ll be fully equipped and guided, so whether you’ve never held a fly rod or you tie your own flies, you’ll get your moment on the water. The trout don’t care about your job title, which turns out to be one of the most relaxing things about them.

More Than a Fishing Trip

Mark Nicole will join the group to turn each day’s adrenaline into reflective conversation. Men who were strangers on Friday afternoon will be telling each other the truth by Saturday night. That’s the kind of brotherhood that usually takes a full week to build, and here you’ll have it before the Main Retreat even starts.

By the time you head south to Santa Fe, you’ll be awake, unguarded and ready for the deepest work. Catch & Release is where your Legacy begins.

Pre‑Trip Details

Dates: Friday, August 27 to Sunday, August 29, 2027
Location: The Lodge & Ranch at Chama, Chama, New Mexico
Led By: Mark Nicole
Tuition: $3,895 includes lodging, guided fishing with all gear, all meals and transportation
*Catch & Release is only available as an add‑on for Main Retreat participants.

Men’s Retreat 2027: Legacy

Your legacy is being written right now. Come write it on purpose.

Your legacy is being written right now, whether you mean to or not. It shows up in how your kids talk about you when you’re not in the room, in what your partner feels when you walk through the door and in the work people will remember long after you’re gone.

For 13 years, Productive Learning’s Men’s Retreat has helped men build lives worth passing on. This is the work Lindon O. and Lindon A. do best. As a father and son, they know that a legacy gets handed down in the everyday moments between the people who matter most.

Five Days in the High Desert

For five days, the MEA Juniper Campus at Rising Circle Ranch is yours alone. The property stretches across nearly 2,600 acres of open high desert outside Santa Fe, with wide skies, quiet ridge lines and ancient petroglyphs still carved into the rocks nearby. People have been leaving their story on this land for centuries, and here you’ll decide what you want yours to say.

Out here, nobody will ask you to fix the Wi‑Fi, approve a budget or find the other shoe. That leaves a lot of room to think clearly, speak honestly and get reacquainted with the questions that usually get buried under work and responsibility.

What the Week Holds

Over five days you’ll move through experiences, honest group conversations, physical challenges and time on the desert trails. The Lindons will help you tease out your truest sense of purpose so you can connect it to the values and beliefs you’ve chosen for your life. You’ll take an honest look at how you show up as a partner, father, leader and friend, then decide what stays, what goes and what you want to build next.

When you wake up to your purpose, it changes everything you touch. It changes how you love your family and how you serve your community. It shapes what you build through your life’s work and how you treat yourself.

What You’ll Leave With

• A clear sense of your purpose and the values you want to be known for
• A brotherhood of men who will keep you honest long after you fly home
• A deeper connection with your partner, your kids and the people who matter most
• More emotional range while staying the steady man your family relies on
• A practical plan for your next chapter, so the clarity lasts longer than your first morning back in your inbox

Start Early with Catch & Release

Before Legacy begins, a small group of men will spend August 27 to 29 fly fishing at the Lodge & Ranch at Chama, high in New Mexico’s San Juan Mountains. It’s two days of cold rivers, big brown trout and real conversation. By the time the group heads south to Santa Fe, every man will arrive awake, unguarded and ready for the deepest work.

Retreat Details

Workshop Start: Sunday, August 29, 2027
Workshop End: Thursday, September 2, 2027
Location: MEA Juniper Campus, Rising Circle Ranch, Santa Fe, New Mexico
Led By: Lindon O. and Lindon A.
Tuition: $6,895 includes the workshop, lodging, all meals, activities and all transportation to and from the airport

A Leadership Intensive at Wonder Valley Ranch

For three immersive days at Wonder Valley Ranch, empathy leaves the whiteboard and enters the arena.

Influence Under Fire is an all-inclusive leadership and relational intensive designed for people who lead — companies, teams, families, and conversations that matter. This experience stretches your emotional range, sharpens your awareness, and strengthens your ability to influence when pressure is high and stakes are real.

Set on a dynamic ranch property filled with high-adrenaline and high-connection experiences, this workshop uses movement, competition, and real-time dynamics to reveal how leadership actually functions under stress. Ropes courses test trust. Paintball exposes communication breakdowns. Team challenges surface blind spots in authority, collaboration, and decision-making.

Because influence is easy when things are calm.

The question is who you are when they’re not.

This experience integrates three critical lenses:

Generational Empathy
Understand how values, communication styles, ambition, and emotional expression shift across generations. Learn how to bridge divides inside organizations and families without compromising standards.

Executive Empathy
Examine power dynamics, mentorship, accountability, and influence. Develop the capacity to lead decisively while building cultures where performance and humanity coexist.

Relational Empathy
Identify the micro-moments where misunderstanding begins. Interrupt defensiveness. Increase trust. Create clarity in high-stakes conversations.

Over three days, you will move, compete, collaborate, and reflect:

• Ropes course challenges that demand trust under pressure
• Paintball strategy sessions that surface real communication patterns
• Team-based problem-solving that reveals leadership tendencies
• Guided empathy labs and live dialogue work
• Structured mentorship circles
• Integration sessions that convert insight into action

The ranch setting adds intensity and camaraderie. It pushes you past comfort while grounding you in connection. You’ll experience how your presence affects others in real time — not in theory.

You will leave with:

• The ability to regulate yourself when emotions spike
• Language for difficult conversations across power levels and generations
• Tools to mentor and influence without dominance or withdrawal
• A clear view of the blind spots that limit your impact
• Increased trust-building capacity
• A practical empathy operating system you can apply immediately

Influence Under Fire is not about becoming softer.

It’s about becoming more effective.

More precise.
More aware.
More trusted.

Because the leaders who win long term are not the loudest or the toughest.

They are the ones who can stay steady, read the room, and move people forward when pressure rises.

That’s the edge.

Workshop Start: October 1st, 2027 – 1pm
Workshop End: October 3rd, 2027 – 1pm
Resort: Wonder Valley Ranch Resort 
Tuition Covers: Workshop, lodging based on double occupancy, parking, all meals (all inclusive), and various workshop/resort activities.

Pearls of Wisdom

An eight‑day retreat written and led by Lindon O. Crow

Every pearl begins as an irritant. Something got inside the oyster that shouldn’t have, and over the years the oyster wrapped it in layer after layer until the wound became the most valuable thing it owns.

Your life has done the same work. The loss you didn’t see coming, the failure that rearranged your plans and the year you barely got through each left something behind, layered and waiting.

A pearl in a closed shell is worth nothing to anyone. Brought to the surface with intention, it becomes the clearest guidance you will ever receive about who you are becoming. For eight days, a circle of people with a lifetime of stories will open the shell together and see what has been growing inside.

Who Pearls of Wisdom Is For

This retreat is for anyone standing at the edge of something new, at any age. Your transition might be a big one, like a new decade, a career reinvention or a family that has changed shape. It might be quieter, a growing sense that the next version of you is forming and you want to step into it on purpose. Whether life handed you the change or you chose it yourself, you’re ready to make sense of the life you’ve lived and walk boldly into what comes next.

Lindon’s approach rests on a simple belief: every phase of life, every mess, every gain and every loss carries wisdom. The work is to integrate that wisdom so it shapes who you are today and who you are becoming. You’ll sit among remarkable people who bring decades of hard‑won lessons and extraordinary stories into the room. You’ll leave with real clarity about your own life and the confidence to live it fully.

The World’s First Midlife Wisdom School

It all happens at the Modern Elder Academy campus in Todos Santos, Mexico, the world’s first midlife wisdom school. For eight days the entire beachfront campus is ours alone, from the arched terraces and pools to the gardens spilling over with bougainvillea. All meals, daily activities and transportation are included, so the only decision waiting for you each morning is whether to start with coffee on the terrace or a walk on the beach. See the campus here.

Swim with Whale Sharks

One morning, we leave the shore behind. Whale shark season on the Sea of Cortez begins in November, and we’ve reserved a private charter to carry us out to swim among these gentle giants. Mother Nature decides whether they show up, so we go out with open hands and trust her timing.

We ask you to arrive at Pearls of Wisdom the same way. Something in your life is ready to surface, and this week gives it the time, the attention and the company it deserves.

Isla Espíritu Santo

Another adventure takes us to Isla Espíritu Santo, a UNESCO‑protected island of red rock and impossibly clear coves. We’ll snorkel alongside a colony of sea lions whose pups like to treat snorkelers as new playmates, and we’ll watch for the sea turtles that glide through these waters.

The ocean and the workshop make the same request. They ask you to go deep, stay until you see clearly and bring up what you find. On the water, that might be a new friend with fins. In the room, it might be the pearl you never knew you carried. Either way, you come back up changed.

Retreat Details

Workshop Start: Sunday, November 14, 2027
Workshop End: Sunday, November 21, 2027
Location: MEA Todos Santos Campus, Baja California Sur, Mexico
Written and Led By: Lindon O. Crow
Tuition: $14,495 includes the workshop, lodging, all meals, daily activities and transportation to and from the airport