Cultivating Purpose
Build your next chapter around what makes you feel alive
- 4-5 days in Santa Fe or 5 days in Baja | Groups capped at 28
- From $2,800 | Partial scholarships available
Life is good. But you know it could be more.
Do you ever get the feeling that there’s something you’re supposed to be doing, and you’re not exactly sure what it is or how to go about doing it?
Maybe the things that used to fill you up no longer hold the same meaning and excitement. Or maybe they’ve disappeared from your life and you’re looking for the “next big why” (or handful of little whys) to fill the gap.
People say the solution is to “find your purpose.” But purpose isn’t lying around somewhere waiting to be found. It’s not a thing you have. It’s a thing you do.
That’s what you’ll practice here. Over MEA: Workshop ID is missing or could not be resolved. MEA: Workshop ID is missing or could not be resolved.
- As seen in:
The Experience
With two facilitators and a maximum of 28 participants in the room, you’ll start by looking at how much of your week goes to things you actually want to be doing. Then you’ll turn to the parts of your life that have been waiting on the sidelines, and what’s calling to you now.
From there you’ll look at what excites you, what agitates you, and what you’ve always been curious about. Then you’ll pick something to try: a small purpose experiment, run while you’re still here, so you find out how it feels to do the thing instead of thinking about it.
Mornings begin with movement and practice. Afternoons move between facilitated sessions, small-group work, and time alone to think. Evenings unfold over dinners and fireside conversation with the others in your cohort.
You’ll leave with a Purpose Portfolio you built yourself, one experiment already underway, and a cohort of new friends doing the work alongside you.
The Locations
Every Cultivating Purpose workshop covers the same curriculum. What changes is the setting and how much time you give it.
Baja California Sur, Mexico
El Pescadero Resort | 5 days
Our beachfront resort on Baja's Pacific coast, developed by MEA founder and renowned hotelier Chip Conley. Walk the beach at sunrise or go for a dip in one of our three pools. Watch whales breach offshore or the sun drop into the Pacific from the outdoor dining patio. End the day with a conversation on the beach or a soak in one of our hot tubs, then retreat to your room for a good night's sleep.
Five days leaves real time between sessions to walk, swim, read, or sit with what came up that morning. Monday through Friday, depart Saturday.
Upcoming Baja Workshops:
Santa Fe, New Mexico
Rising Circle Ranch | 4 or 5 days
Our 2,600-acre ranch in the New Mexico high desert, 25 minutes from Santa Fe, designed by MEA founder and renowned hotelier Chip Conley. Hike the winding arroyos at sunrise or ride across the range on horseback to stone ruins dating back to the 1800s. Climb to a ridge marked with ancient petroglyphs, where the view runs for miles in every direction. End the day in the sauna or around the fire under a sky thick with stars, then retreat to your room for a good night's sleep.
Offered in both lengths. Five days runs at the same unhurried pace as Baja, Monday through Friday. Four days covers the same ground with less downtime, Monday through Thursday, for calendars that can't spare a full week.
Upcoming Santa Fe Workshops:
What You’ll Leave With
- A deeper understanding of what’s most important to you now, which may be very different from the priorities that drove you at 35.
- Clarity around what you want to contribute and who it's for, whether that's your work, your family, or something you've never said out loud.
- A way to distinguish what you want from what you've been told to want, so the next decade isn't built on someone else's definition of success.
- Your Purpose Portfolio: the practices and pursuits that light you up, spread across your work, your relationships, your health, and the parts of you that haven't had room in years.
- The confidence that comes from having tried something rather than planned it, plus practices for the stretches when work gets loud again and everything else goes quiet.
- A cohort of new friends who know what you're building and are building their own.
Grounded in Social Science
Our Cultivating Purpose workshops run on the MEA Method, developed with researchers from Stanford, Harvard, UC Berkeley, and Yale who study modern midlife.
The Method combines the social science of longevity with the practice of intentional living. Purpose sits at the center of that research. People with a strong sense of it tend to live longer and live better, which makes this less a question of self-improvement than of health.
What that means in the room: structured exercises and frameworks tested and refined across thousands of participants, not a loose conversation about meaning. You’ll take stock of where your time and energy go now, work out what you want to give them to, and try something before you leave.
It also means the tools keep working. Purpose isn’t one answer you arrive at and keep for good. It shifts as your life does, and what you learn here is how to keep choosing.
Led by Facilitators Who’ve Done it Themselves
Our facilitators are trained in the MEA Method and are midlifers themselves. Every one of them has been where you are, faced with the question, “What matters to me now, and how can I embody it more fully in my life?”
They’re not here to give you answers, but to give you the tools, inspiration, and space that allows you to go deep and discover your own. You’ll have two of them with you the whole time: one leading the curriculum, one running the experience. Both with you for every activity and meal so you get plenty of face time with them along with the other members of your small group.
What People Are Saying
After 20+ years as a CEO I was burnt out and had no vision or energy for my next chapter. One week in Baja reenergized me and I emerged with an inspired vision for my 50s, 60s and beyond.
Tami Sheena
I absolutely loved my week there. I cannot even begin to tell you how special it was and how much I learned... I will definitely come back and I am thrilled about the new friends that I’ve made there. It reminded me of being back at the camp. Everyone just got along so well and we shared so much and felt so good in the environment there. MEA is the bomb!
Tami Sheena
MEA weaves together curated wisdom of the ages, a sense of deep ties embedded in ritual, and awe and beauty at nearly every moment of the day, from sunrise to star-filled skies at night. MEA’s wisdom, kindness, sense of community, and purpose will stay with you for years.
Dacher Keltner, professor of Psychology at University of California, Berkeley, founder and faculty director of the Greater Good Science Center
Who This Is for
- Life is good, yet you still catch yourself wondering what it's all adding up to.
- You have time, money, or hard-won skills to offer and no clear idea where to point them.
- Something you set aside years ago keeps coming back, and you're ready to take it seriously. (You think.)
- Something in the world genuinely agitates you, and you feel like it’s time to do something about it.
- You want the years ahead to count for something beyond what's on your résumé.
- You’re not necessarily driven to pursue some big, world-changing “Purpose” – you just want to spend your days doing what you love.
Who This Isn’t for
- You're in acute crisis and need clinical care. This is a workshop, not treatment.
- You want someone to hand you your purpose. The work here is yours to do.
- You want a career plan and nothing else. Work may be part of this, but it’s not the whole of it.
- You'd rather not do structured exercises or talk about your life in a small group.
- You're looking for a quiet vacation rather than a working retreat.
- You're not willing to step away from work and be fully present in the room for the whole time.
Eat, Rest, Explore
Every part of your stay is held to a standard you won't find at other retreats. Meals are cooked from scratch with organic ingredients, much of it from our own garden. The rooms are beautiful and spacious, with a hotelier’s attention to detail. And if you’re looking for adventure, you’ll find plenty of it in the beautiful natural setting around campus.
What Makes This Experience Unique
- Purpose is treated as something you practice, not something you locate. You'll take one possibility on a test run before the week is over.
- You'll look at your whole life, not just your career. What's calling for your attention now may have nothing to do with work.
- The MEA Method was developed with researchers from Stanford, Harvard, UC Berkeley, and Yale who study modern midlife, so what you build here holds up long after the week ends.
- Capped at 28 people, with two facilitators in the room the whole time. Nobody spends the week as a spectator.
- The campus was designed by Chip Conley, the hotelier behind Joie de Vivre and Airbnb's global hospitality, and the staff he trained handles everything else so your attention stays on the work.
- A regenerative ranch where the land gets the same care the people do, on ground where groups have gathered since 7,500 BCE. (Santa Fe only)
- You leave as part of a community with 8,000 alumni in 60 countries and 60 local chapters, so the cohort you meet here is the doorway into a much bigger group.
More Kind Words
Thank you again for the opportunity to participate in MEA. It was the best gift in my adult life.
Upkar Arora, CEO Rally
MEA was the most radically transformative journey I’ve ever embarked on.
Irene Edwards
Highly recommended to anyone interested in exploring the roles they play in the world.
Tina Seelig, Professor, Stanford University
My MEA experience was life-changing. It wove a sense of peace into my life that still remains.
Ken Page, psychotherapist
Explore Upcoming Workshops
Frequently Asked Questions
Most people considering this workshop are asking some version of the same thing: is this right for where I am right now? Here's what we hear most often.
Does having a purpose actually matter?
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.
What if I have no idea what my purpose is?
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.
Is this therapy?
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.
Is it religious or spiritual?
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.
Do I have to quit my job or start a nonprofit?
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.
What actually is a Purpose Portfolio?
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.
How much will I have to share?
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.
Who else will be there?
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.
I’ve never done anything like this. Will I feel out of place?
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.
Can I come with my partner?
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.
What happens after I leave?
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.
What’s included in the tuition?
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.
How do I know if I qualify for a scholarship?
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.
What if I’m not sure this is right for me?
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.
What Makes This Experience Unique
Our online concierge is standing by to help.
Want to Speak with a Human?
Schedule a call with our advisors. Our Advisors are all MEA alumni who can offer genuine insights into our programs. They’re passionate about helping you finding the right fit to make your next chapter the best one.
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