This week, I’m hosting my fall Focus Refresh Retreat, a four-to-six-day immersive experience designed specifically for different thinker leaders.
The funny thing? There’s no exact “focus” to it. Meals are provided, we’re in the wilderness, there are rooms to rest, but the real purpose is simple: step away from the day-to-day noise, bring one to three projects, and give yourself the gift of uninterrupted focus.
The secret of this retreat is not a packed agenda. In fact, it’s the opposite. Leaders rarely give themselves the time and space to think, reflect, and work deeply on what matters most. That’s the gift of Focus Refresh.
What Happens at the Retreat
Here’s how it works:
- You arrive with your projects, ideas, or concepts.
- You unplug from the distractions of everyday leadership.
- You spend uninterrupted time diving deep into your work.
- Once a day, we gather around the table to share, connect, and give each other feedback.
- Each CEO or leader also gets a private one-on-one coaching session with me daily.
This combination of solitude, collaboration, and personal coaching creates breakthroughs that simply wouldn’t happen in the daily grind. Leaders walk away with fresh insights, new energy, and clarity in ways that months of regular work could never produce.
A Typical Daily Agenda
To give you an idea of the rhythm:
- Morning meditation or journaling (anytime between 5:00am and 10:00am)
- Project time
- Breakfast whenever you decide
- Post your intention for the day on the group board, along with any asks you have
- Project time
- Lunch (12:30 pm) join the group or have a plate brought to you
- Project time & 1:1 coaching with me
- Dinner (6:00 pm) group meal and report back what you learned that day
- Free time relax, restore, or keep working
Why It Works for Different Thinker Leaders
As different thinkers, we naturally see lots of opportunities. The challenge isn’t seeing what’s possible, it’s finding the space and time to actually implement, take action, and let our brains process everything fully.
That’s what Focus Refresh is about: creating the conditions for your mind to put the puzzle pieces together, like an incredible jigsaw puzzle finally coming into view.
The retreat offers:
- Time – four to six days to make real progress.
- Space – Being in nature or away from routine shifts your perspective.
- Community – Sharing with other leaders sparks collaboration and breakthroughs.
The result? Projects move forward. Ideas come to life. Leaders leave refreshed, recharged, and grounded in their vision.
How This All Got Started
Years ago, I was gifted a chance to attend a retreat because someone else dropped out and I was pulled from the waiting list. It was a women’s writers retreat and while the others were authors working on books, I came simply with a couple of projects and a desire for space.
The retreat provided a beautiful location, an incredible chef, and most importantly, the time to focus. For the first time, I wasn’t responsible for anything except myself and my projects. I realized how deeply I had been craving that.
That experience planted the seed. I knew leaders like me needed a space like this. Not more information, not more responsibility. But stillness, clarity, and focus. And so, the Focus Refresh Retreat was born.
Past & Future Locations
Past retreats have been hosted in:
- Las Vegas, NV
- Los Angeles, CA
- New York, NY
- Minneapolis, MN
- Saint Cloud, MN
Future retreats are already planned for:
- Las Vegas, NV
- Minneapolis, MN
- Duluth, MN
What Participants Say
Most people who come once, come back again and again.
Why? Because once you experience this kind of focus, you can’t imagine leading without it. The transformation is too powerful.
As one leader told me:
“The retreat gave me more progress in five days than I’d made in the last two years.”
Today, I even have waiting lists for these retreats, proof of how rare and valuable this space really is.
My Takeaway as the Host
While I’m guiding the group, I also work on my own small project. Every single time, I leave with new clarity and momentum. This isn’t just transformational for participants, it’s invaluable for me too.
The Bigger Lesson
Most leaders don’t realize how much they need this kind of intentional time until they’ve had it. Once they do, they never go back.
Focused, spacious time is not a luxury, it’s a leadership necessity.
Do You Want to Get on the Waiting List?
If you’re a different thinker leader craving clarity, creativity, and momentum, consider joining one of my Focus Refresh Retreats.
And while you’re waiting for the next one, get on my newsletter list to be one of the first to hear about the next Focus Refresh Retreat dates and have access to my upcoming resource, The Unconventional Leader’s Playbook. It will give you strategies to start creating pockets of focus and clarity in your leadership journey today.
Transcription:
This week I’m hosting one of my Focus Refresh events. Here’s the secret: the magic isn’t having a packed agenda. In fact, it’s that there isn’t one. The whole point of the retreat is to step away from the noise of everyday leadership.
You bring one to three projects or ideas, and you come out into the wilderness. Sometimes we’re in a city. Meals are provided, and then you’re given the gift leaders rarely allow themselves—time and space to think for four to six days. You unplug from distractions, you deep dive into your projects.
Once a day we come together over a meal, share ideas, get feedback, and collaborate. And each CEO gets a half hour one-on-one with me every day. It just creates such magic for them, and what happens is really incredible. Leaders move forward in these few days in ways that would never have happened over months. They get fresh ideas, new clarity, and renewed energy in what they’re doing in the world.
So here’s the truth, leaders, especially different thinkers: leaders don’t give themselves the kind of space often enough. We’re so used to solving, managing, and moving forward, we forget about the focus it requires for stillness. And once leaders experience it, they feel and know the value of what this brings, and they never—they don’t want to miss it.
I have people on waiting lists wanting to attend this. They come back again and again because they see the transformation it creates and the work it does in their lives.
So if you’re wondering how all of this got started, and why I started this Focus and Refresh Retreat, it was because I was gifted—actually, somebody dropped out of a retreat that I had signed up for multiple times. And luckily, because of that, I got called off the waiting list.
I had an opportunity years ago to go to—it was a women’s retreat, it was a women’s writers retreat. And when they asked me if I was a writer, I said yes, because I write content. But in reality, I was with authors that write books and were focused on that.
It was sponsored, actually, by a fellow author who allowed us to do this retreat for a very reasonable price. She provided a space, a beautiful space for us to be in. They had an incredible chef that came in and catered all of our meals, except for breakfast. We brought some of our own breakfast. And it was in a beautiful location where we were able to spread out and do some of our own stuff.
I went there and focused on two or three projects, and I had no idea that is what I had been looking for and waiting for, for so long—just to have space. To not be responsible for anything other than myself, my needs, and a few projects.
It’s kind of like when you were a kid and you didn’t care about the bills. You know, you didn’t have bills to worry about. You didn’t have people to worry about. And now, as leaders, you have other people’s lives to worry about, their livelihoods, running the company, and what’s going on in the world, the pivoting, the new opportunities. How do you plug all that in?
What you don’t need is to shove more stuff in. And as different thinkers, I have no problem seeing lots of opportunities. What I do have a struggle with is implementing and having the time and space to take action, and to really let my brain process it. To really put all the pieces together like an incredible jigsaw puzzle.
That is what this is about. It is about allowing for that much space, that much time, that much energy, to really be focused on that. And to really be able to focus on yourself.
So that’s how this got started, and it really—it’s been quite amazing, the response that I’ve been getting since I started to give it to other leaders. Allowing them this space, not adding more data, but allowing them to just start to really process and do great things.