Repacking Your Bags: Lighten Your Load for the Good Life
Is a partial scholarship for you?
We believe in making personal growth and education accessible to everyone, which is why we offer partial scholarships on a needs-aware basis for many of our programs.
These scholarships support individuals facing financial challenges, including — but not limited to — members of underrepresented communities. If financial stress might prevent you from attending a workshop, we encourage you to apply.
Partial scholarships, provided through the Association for Growth and Education, are limited to 2–3 seats per workshop and reviewed in the order received. We recommend applying as soon as possible, as scholarship decisions are typically confirmed 90–120 days before the workshop date.
Richard Leider
Purpose Coach & Bestselling Author
Spend four days with purpose pioneer Richard Leider, unpacking what you've been carrying and repacking around the life you want now
Over the years, you’ve gathered a beautifully complicated collection of commitments. You've packed a lot into this life, and you've managed it well.
But lately, your “backpack” is feeling extra heavy.
Some of that weight is practical – obligations, schedules, a life built for a version of you that's still catching up. But the clutter that lingers longest and can be hardest to let go of is the roles, identities, and beliefs you've simply never given yourself permission to set down.
Now you find yourself wondering:
What do I truly want in my life?
What fulfills me?
How do I build a life that feels more honest, joyful, and alive now?
Left unexamined, the weight you’re carrying doesn’t usually disappear.
It starts to shape your days: the same patterns, the same roles, the same careful postponing of the life you keep meaning to claim.
You may keep telling yourself you’ll sort out what you really want your life to look like later – like when work is calmer or the people you care for need a little less from you.
But the answers only tend to come when you stop long enough to unpack what you’ve been carrying and decide what still belongs.
Richard Leider’s Repacking Your Bags has sold more than 1.5 million copies and been published in more than 20 languages. In this 4-day workshop, the framework comes off the page as Richard guides you through it in person.
Lighten your load for the good life you want now.
In this 4-day Santa Fe experience, Richard Leider brings Repacking Your Bags into the room with you, turning the book’s core practice into something you can work through in real time.
Look honestly at what you’ve been carrying. Decide what you choose to carry forward. Then learn how to return to the practice as life keeps changing.
At the center of the workshop is Richard’s definition of the good life: living in the place you belong, with the people you love, doing the right work, on purpose.
Using his Repacking Journal, the Good Life Inventory, and purpose framework, you’ll sort through the pieces of your life: place, people, work, and purpose. The aim isn’t to force a dramatic reinvention. It’s to find a new balance, a more honest story, and simple practices you can use in ordinary life.
Richard describes repacking as an adventure: a practical way to look at your life with honesty, support, and room to choose.
At MEA’s Rising Circle Ranch, you’ll have space, nature, nourishing food, movement, conversation, and community that makes this work easier to stay with. It’s all part of how insight starts to take shape.
This is your place to pause, unpack, and choose what comes with you.
Leave Santa Fe knowing what you’re ready to bring forward into your next chapter.
Over 4 days with Richard, you’ll sort through the parts of life that are most important to you: where you live, who you give your time to, what work gets your energy, and what gives your days purpose. You’ll also:
Clarify what the good life means for you now
Use Richard’s definition as a lens for your own life, so you can see what feels aligned, what needs attention, and what you’re ready to make room for.
Unpack. Repack. Repeat.
Richard’s simple life skill for transition: look honestly at what you’re carrying, choose what goes forward, and practice it in ordinary life, when another transition, decision, or season asks you to reassess.
Work with a purpose partner
You’ll work with someone who can listen closely, ask useful questions, and help you begin building the kind of internal sounding board Richard believes we all need beyond the workshop.
Sort through the four bags: place, people, work, and purpose
Examine the areas shaping your daily life: where you feel most at home, who you want close, what work calls on your gifts, and what gives you a reason to get up in the morning.
Create your Good Life map
Capture what you’re seeing in a written, personalized map you can return to after Santa Fe, so what you discover in Santa Fe has somewhere to live when you’re back home. Use it as a reference point for decisions about your time, work, relationships, home, and energy.
Recognize purpose as something you can live from now
Richard’s approach helps you look for purpose in your gifts, your relationships, your experiences, and the places you feel most alive. You don’t need to chase a perfect purpose statement. You’ll practice noticing, naming, and living from what’s already asking for your attention.
Experience MEA’s small-cohort format
This is an intimate room for real conversation, direct access to Richard, and the kind of shared attention that helps you go deeper. You’ll be with people who are also asking what comes next, without needing to perform certainty or have it all figured out before they arrive.
This Workshop
Is For You If…
Meet Your Faculty
Richard Leider
Purpose Coach | Bestselling Author | Purposeful Living Pioneer
Richard Leider has spent more than four decades helping people answer one deceptively simple question: Why do you get up in the morning?
An internationally bestselling author, coach, retreat guide, and widely recognized pioneer of the global purpose movement, Richard has written 12 books, including The Power of Purpose, Repacking Your Bags, and Who Do You Want to Be When You Grow Old? His books have sold over a million copies and been translated into over 20 languages.
Richard is a Purpose Ambassador for Blue Zones, and has been recognized by Forbes as one of the top five most respected executive coaches.
Our Agenda at a Glance
Monday:
Tuesday:
Wednesday:
Thursday:
4:00 PM: Arrival / Check-In
6:30 PM: Welcome Reception & Dinner
8:00 PM: Orientation Session
Friday:
7:30 AM: Mindful Movement
8:30 AM: Breakfast
10:00 AM: Classroom Time
1:15 PM: Lunch
2:00 PM: Classroom Time
6:30 PM: Dinner
8:00 PM: Evening Gathering
Saturday:
7:30 AM: Mindful Movement
8:30 AM: Breakfast
10:00 AM: Classroom Time
1:15 PM: Lunch
2:00 PM: Classroom Time
6:30 PM: Dinner
8:00 PM: Evening Gathering
Sunday:
8:30 AM: Breakfast
10:00 AM: Checkout / Departure
*Please note that not all “classroom time” activities take place in the actual classroom.
Step into transformation in the high desert
Rising Circle Ranch | Santa Fe, USA.
Our spectacular Santa Fe campus is located on an upscale regenerative ranch featuring traditional Pueblo architecture and nearly 2,600 acres of wildlife, hiking trails in the arroyo, and awe-inspiring beauty. Close to historic Santa Fe, an artisan’s mecca.
PLUS: Gourmet from-scratch meals, snacks, and drinks featuring locally sourced ingredients, made by our in-house chefs
Explore the ranch
on horseback
Our Rising Circle Ranch spans 2,600 acres of New Mexico high desert, offering guided horseback riding for all experience levels through diverse terrains under the vast Southwest sky
You’ll experience highlights like:
Horseback riding is an optional add-on activity you can book once you arrive on the ranch. Whether you’re seasoned or brand new to horseback adventures, this guided experience lets you discover the ranch’s natural wonders alongside our gentle horses.
Your Workshop Includes:
Letting go of what no longer fits is one of the most liberating – and courageous – things you can do.
You’ve spent years building, holding, leading, loving, and making things work. Now you have a chance to step away from daily demands and look honestly at what still belongs.
Over 4 days in Santa Fe, Richard Leider will guide you through the repacking framework: a practical way to examine where you live, who you give your time to, what work still feels right, and what gives you a reason to get up in the morning.
You’ll leave with a personal Good Life map, Richard’s Repacking Journal and Good Life Inventory, a purpose partner, and simple practices you can return to as life keeps changing.
You’ve carried a lot to get here. Now you get to choose what comes with you.
Book your spot today
Repacking Your Bags: Lighten Your Load for the Good Life
Is a partial scholarship for you?
We believe in making personal growth and education accessible to everyone, which is why we offer partial scholarships on a needs-aware basis for many of our programs.
These scholarships support individuals facing financial challenges, including — but not limited to — members of underrepresented communities. If financial stress might prevent you from attending a workshop, we encourage you to apply.
Partial scholarships, provided through the Association for Growth and Education, are limited to 2–3 seats per workshop and reviewed in the order received. We recommend applying as soon as possible, as scholarship decisions are typically confirmed 90–120 days before the workshop date.
Frequently Asked Questions
How does Richard Leider’s approach differ?
Richard has been a student and teacher of purpose for more than five decades, and he’s widely viewed as a pioneer of the global purpose movement.
His approach is practical, story-driven, and grounded in real life. He helps you look at your life with more honesty and ask what wants to come forward now, blending psychology, purposeful aging, life transition, coaching, and the adventure of repacking for the road ahead.
Is this therapy?
As Richard says, “It’s not like therapy, although it’s therapeutic.”
This workshop is reflective, honest, and personal, but it’s not designed to diagnose, fix, or process your entire past. It’s designed to help you look at what you’re carrying now and make clearer choices about the road ahead.
Richard sees repacking as more of an adventure than a clinical process. There will be stories, practical exercises, small-group conversation, purpose partner work, movement, nature, and time to think.
What if I don’t know what I want yet?
That’s exactly why this workshop exists. You’ve outgrown the old answers and don’t have new ones yet.
You don’t need to arrive with answers. Many people come because the questions have gotten too big to keep sorting through alone.
What’s included in the investment?
Your investment includes the 4-day workshop experience with Richard Leider, four nights of lodging at MEA’s Santa Fe retreat center, all meals, snacks, drinks, workshop materials, and group experiences.
You’ll also receive and work with:
- The Repacking Journal
- The Good Life Inventory
- Richard’s Three Stages of Purpose framework
- A purpose partner
- Small-group conversation and reflection
- Mind and body practices
- Time in nature at Rising Circle Ranch
The only additional costs are your travel to Santa Fe, optional horseback riding, and personal expenses.
What will I leave with?
You’ll leave with a written Good Life map across place, people, work, and purpose. You’ll also leave with your Repacking Journal, Good Life Inventory, purpose partner experience, and simple practices you can use when you return home.
Most importantly, you’ll leave with language for the choices in front of you: what deserves your attention now, what’s become too heavy, and what you want to make room for next.
Still deciding or have questions?
Connect with our helpful team of 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.
Daniel Booz
Lucas Erie
Leslie Bartlett