The Midlife Shift From Success to Self:
A Men’s Workshop
With Ben Katt and Bob Cavnar
El Pescadero Resort, Baja California Sur, Mexico
April 5–10, 2027
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.
Early enrollment rate:
Book by February 4, 2027 and save 10%
You’ve spent years being the man everyone can count on. What happens when you’re the one who’s stuck?
Life is good. Your career is solid. The kids are doing well. Retirement is on track. You stay busy with work, projects, and hobbies.
So why does part of you keep asking:
Is this all I want?
It could be that work doesn’t do it for you the way it used to. You question decisions that once felt easy and think about the past and the years ahead. Even with friends or a supportive partner, it can be hard to explain.
Over five days in Baja, author Ben Katt and former CEO turned transition coach Bob Cavnar will help you look at your identity, purpose, and relationships alongside other men asking similar questions.
You’ll leave with a Midlife Blueprint and a 90-day plan.
A beachfront campus on Baja's Pacific coast
Our beachfront campus sits on Baja’s Pacific coast and was developed by MEA founder and renowned hotelier Chip Conley. Step outside into warm, salt-tinged air and follow garden paths past palms and desert plants. Walk the beach at sunrise, swim in one of our three pools, or browse our library packed with books on midlife, purpose, and longevity.
Throughout your stay, MEA’s attentive staff will make you feel cared for. End the day talking on the beach or soaking in a hot tub, then head back to your beautifully appointed room for a good night’s sleep.
The Experience
When you’ve spent years being the guy with all of the answers, it can be hard to admit you have questions of your own.
Work, family, and responsibilities keep shifting, so you keep shifting too. Even with close friends, conversations can stay on the surface of business, sports, or family logistics while the deeper questions go unsaid.
During The Midlife Shift, you’ll finally have time and space to say them out loud.
You’ll examine how success has shaped your identity, what your experiences have taught you, and what you want to contribute now. You’ll also look honestly at your friendships and the people you want to know better.
Some of the best conversations will happen outside the workshop room. You’ll surf, hike the coast, fish from traditional pangas, and cook your catch together on the beach. By the end of the week, you’ll have a clearer sense of who you are now, what you want next, and who you want beside you.
Four Shifts. Five Days.
Performance → Presence (Identity)
You've spent decades wearing masks: the Achiever, the Provider, the Performer, the Warrior. They're not the enemy. They built your life. But they're not all of who you are. In small groups, you'll name the modes you've been running and decide what stays and what goes.
Accumulation → Integration (Meaning)
You've lived through enough to have earned real wisdom, but you've never stopped long enough to name it. You'll map the pivotal moments of your life and discover the patterns you couldn't see while you were living them.
Achievement → Purpose (Purpose)
Success asked: "How do I achieve more?" Significance asks: "What am I here to offer?" Through one-on-one conversations with other men in the room, you'll get closer to answering that. You'll write a personal purpose statement. Not aspirational fluff. Something grounded in the life you've lived.
Isolation → Connection (Belonging)
Men don't lack friendships. They lack depth. You'll build real connections through shared experience: fishing, cooking, fireside conversations, and the kind of honesty that only happens when the room feels safe. You'll leave with an accountability partner and a plan to deepen the relationships that matter most.
What You’ll Leave With
Throughout the week, you’ll build a Midlife Blueprint: a practical document you can keep working from when you return home. It brings together two self-assessments, a personal purpose statement, and a 90-day plan with an accountability partner.
It includes:
- A Four Domains Self-Assessment showing where you are across your body, daily habits, relationships, and sense of purpose.
- A Modes & Masks Inventory examining the roles you’ve been playing, including the achiever, provider, performer, and warrior, and which ones you’re ready to rely on less.
- Your Wisdom Signature: three to five lessons you’ve learned the hard way and want to carry forward or pass on.
- A personal purpose statement, plus three areas of your life where you can begin putting it into practice.
- A Connection Commitment naming the relationships you want to deepen and what you’ll do differently.
- A 90-day plan with concrete goals, daily practices, and an accountability partner to help keep you on track.
What People Are Saying
Who This Is for
- You’ve done well by most measures, but the life that used to motivate you has started to feel flat.
- You're tired of performing and ready to actually be in the room when you're in the room.
- You sense you have more to offer the world than what's on your resume.
- You're ready to go deeper in your relationships: with yourself, your partner, your friends.
- You're looking for a structured experience, not a vague "find yourself" retreat.
- You're ready to invest in yourself the way you've invested in everything else.
Who This Isn’t for
- You want a high-intensity men’s retreat built around competition, endurance tests, or cold plunges.
- You’d prefer to watch from the sidelines rather than take part in conversations and activities.
- You’re looking for clinical treatment or immediate crisis support – this workshop isn’t designed to provide either.
- You’re looking for career advice or a professional networking retreat rather than personal reflection and honest conversation.
- You want someone else to tell you exactly what the next 20 years of your life should look like.
The Schedule
Day One Monday, April 5
Day Two Tuesday, April 6
Day Three Wednesday, April 7
Day Four Thursday, April 8
Day Five Friday, April 9
Day Six Saturday, April 10
*Not all session time takes place in the classroom.
**Times are estimates; the agenda is meant to give you the general flow of the days.
Author, Meditation Teacher, Spiritual Coach
Meet Your Hosts
Ben Katt
Ben has sat with dying men in hospice and incarcerated men in prison meditation circles. He knows what honesty sounds like when the stakes are real.
He’s MEA’s Faculty in Residence and author of The Way Home: Discovering the Hero’s Journey to Wholeness at Midlife.
A former ordained minister, Ben founded the WITHIN Prison Meditation Project and has worked nationally with The On Being Project. He’s walked the path he teaches.
Workshop Facilitator & Transition Coach
Bob Cavnar
Bob is the rare executive who can talk drilling rig operations and Zen practice in the same breath. He spent four decades in oil and gas as chairman, president, CEO, COO, and CFO, steering companies through their share of crises along the way.
When the 2010 Deepwater Horizon blowout unfolded in the Gulf, he covered it as an on-air energy expert for network news and chronicled the story in his book Disaster on the Horizon. When his own corporate chapter ended, he found that decades of high-stakes leadership had left him unprepared for what came next. That gap between a life built on performance and one built on meaning brought him to MEA.
Now, as a credentialed transition coach and mentor, he helps others navigate the same unfamiliar terrain he had to cross himself.
Supported by
More Kind Words
Derek, Ben, and Jed were genuine, had fantastic content, and created a safe space. They touched me very deeply and helped me with my transformation.
MEA Alum
Midlife Shift Participant
Ben is kind, articulate, and a wonderful model for the subject. He engaged in a way that inspired and connected the cohort—everything he said felt relatable and relevant. Ben is caring and intentional, and I’d attend anything he curates. Thank you!
MEA Alum
Awakening Wisdom Participant
I cannot even begin to tell you how special it was and how much I learned from being part of that program. I’ll definitely come back and I’m 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 Alum
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 renowned hospitality expert Chip Conley's attention to detail. And if you’re looking for adventure, fantastic surfing beaches and historic Todos Santos are just down the road.
What Makes This Experience Unique
- The week follows four shifts many men face in midlife: from performing to being present, collecting experience to making sense of it, achieving to contributing, and going it alone to letting people in.
- Some of the best conversations happen while you’re walking a trail or talking after a surf lesson. The schedule makes room for those moments.
- You’ll fish for pargo and snapper from traditional pangas, then clean and grill the catch together on the beach.
- MEA’s hospitality team takes care of the practical details, from scratch-cooked meals using local ingredients and produce from the organic garden to comfortable rooms designed with Chip Conley’s hotelier’s eye. Between sessions, you can use the pools, hot tubs, steam rooms, movement studio, and library.
- The experience continues after Baja. You’ll reconnect on a 30-day reunion call, stay in touch through group check-ins, and work with a named accountability partner as you put your 90-day plan into practice.
Thinking of the Man in Your Life?
Many of our participants arrive because someone who loves them saw what they couldn’t yet see in themselves.
If you’re reading this and thinking of your partner, your brother, your father, or a friend: trust that instinct. This workshop is structured, warm, and grounded in research. It’s the space and permission he won’t give himself to ask the questions that matter most.
He’ll come home with words for things he’s been carrying silently. That changes a relationship.
Share this page with him. Or email us directly at [email protected] and we’ll help you figure out if this is the right fit.
What’s Included
- 5 nights of lodging at our world-class retreat center in Baja, Mexico with all of your meals, snacks, drinks and other amenities included
- Daily sessions and experiential activities to help you connect with your inner self, envision your desired experience, and release what no longer serves you
- Mindfulness practices to soothe your nervous system and help you cultivate greater mindfulness and presence in the moment
- Movement to get the energy flowing and build your strength and agility as you chart your course forward to the life you want to live
- Incredible bonding experiences with the most amazing humans you’ll ever meet
- Intimate gatherings to cultivate connection and celebrate the joy and beauty of life
Book Your Spot Today
The Midlife Shift
From Success to Self:
A Men’s Workshop
With Ben Katt and Bob Cavnar
El Pescadero Resort, Baja California Sur, Mexico
April 5–10, 2027
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
Before signing up for a men’s workshop, you probably want to know how much you’ll be expected to share, how physical the week will be, and who usually comes. Here are answers to some of the questions we hear most often.
I'm not really a "workshop" person. Is this going to be uncomfortable?
Honestly? Parts of it will be. Growth usually is. But this isn’t group therapy or forced vulnerability. It’s designed so you can go at your own speed. The facilitators model everything first. You set your own pace.
I'm not in great shape. Can I still participate?
Absolutely. Everything is designed for all fitness levels. The hikes are conversational, not endurance tests. The surf sessions happen on one of the best beginner beaches in Mexico with gentle waves and patient instructors. We’ve had participants in their 80s paddle out for the first time. There’s no rucking, no cold plunges, no physical competition. The only thing we ask you to stretch is your perspective.
My partner suggested I do this. Is that a red flag?
It’s actually the opposite. The partners who recommend this workshop see something in you: potential that’s ready to come forward. That’s more common than you’d think. She’s probably right.
What if I'm not in a crisis? I'm doing fine.
Most men who come are “doing fine.” That’s exactly the point. This isn’t about crisis intervention. It’s about the gap between fine and actually feeling alive. You know the difference. That’s why you’re still reading.
Is this religious or spiritual?
No. The workshop is grounded in research, not belief. You don’t need to believe in anything. Just be willing to be honest.
What's the age range?
Most participants are 45-70, but we welcome any man who resonates with the questions we’re asking. Midlife is less about your age and more about where you are in the journey.
Can I come with a friend?
Yes, and many men do. But you’ll also leave with 19 new ones.
I'm his partner and I'm reading this for him. What will he actually be like when he comes home?
More present. More willing to have real conversations. More connected to why the life you’ve built together matters. This isn’t about dismantling anything. It’s about bringing more of himself to what’s already there.
Still Have Questions?
Our online concierge is standing by to help.
Want to Speak with a Person?
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 find the right fit to make your next chapter the best one.
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