Yes, more than most people realize. Purpose is associated with living longer and living better, and researchers who study longevity treat it as a health factor rather than a nice-to-have. Chip Conley puts the order this way: if you want a longer quantity of life, work on the quality of it.

That’s who this is built for. Almost nobody arrives with an answer, and the ones who think they have one often leave with a different one. The week starts with what’s true about your life now, not with a blank page and a big question.

No. It’s a workshop with a curriculum, built on the MEA Method and developed with researchers from Stanford, Harvard, UC Berkeley, and Yale. You’ll do structured exercises, learn frameworks, and work in small groups. Our facilitators are experienced at holding hard conversations, but they aren’t clinicians and this isn’t treatment. If you’re in acute crisis, this isn’t the right week for you.

There’s no doctrine attached to any of it. The curriculum is grounded in social science. There’s meditation, breathwork, and a lot of time outside, and you’re free to take what’s useful and leave the rest.

No. Some people go home and redesign their work. Others keep the same job and change what it’s for, or find that the part of their life that needed attention had nothing to do with work at all. Purpose isn’t one big move, and it’s rarely just about your career.

It’s the set of pursuits you’re deliberately giving your time to, spread across work, relationships, health, creativity, and contribution, rather than one big purpose carrying all the weight. You build yours during the week, and you’ll keep pruning and adding to it for years.

That’s up to you. Some exercises are solo, some are in pairs, some happen in small groups of five or six. Nobody gets called on in front of all 28 people, and nothing requires you to disclose more than you want to. Most people end up sharing more than they planned, because the room makes it easy.

Around 28 people, most of them somewhere between 45 and 70, from a wide mix of careers and countries. Most come on their own. What everyone has in common is a question about what’s next and a decision to do something deliberate about it.

Almost everyone says some version of that on the first morning. Most arrive alone, and plenty have never done a retreat of any kind. By the second evening that feeling is usually gone, which is less about the program than about who’s in the room with you.

Yes, couples do come together, and plenty of people come alone while their partner stays home. Either works. You’ll each do your own work during the week.

You go home with an experiment already in motion and a portfolio to keep working on. Most cohorts stay in touch on their own, and you’ll have access to our alumni community, which runs local chapters in more than 60 countries.

All workshop sessions, [##] nights of accommodations, chef-prepared meals, snacks, beverages, and full use of the campus. The only additional costs are travel and anything personal.

MEA offers scholarships on a needs-aware basis. If cost is a barrier, we encourage you to apply. Our goal is to make this accessible to the people who would benefit most.

Book a call with one of our advisors. They’re all MEA alumni who’ve been through the programs themselves, and they’ll tell you honestly if Cultivating Purpose isn’t the right fit for where you are.