What is it like to go on an adventure retreat?

Wow! It'’s been a few weeks and I’m finally able to put into words what the Pivot with Purpose Retreat experience was like!

When I wrote my book The Power of Pivoting - How to Embrace Change and Create a Life You Love I had no idea what it was for or if it would turn into anything. I honestly just wanted help people navigate through the scary changes in their lives by offering some tools I created for myself.

Once the book was out, I had people asking for more. Something I probably should have thought about before writing it but who knows, then maybe it would have turned into something else with a game plan and profit margin. I loved that I wrote it with no agenda or expectations but also, I wasn’t sure how to combine the book with my travel show.

After hearing time and time again “It doesn’t make sense, you have a travel show about facing fears, a podcast about entrepreneurship, and now a book about Pivoting”. I decided I needed some outside perspective. I hired my business coach and after hosting a mindset mastermind and taking a few one-on-one coaching clients, it hit me, a RETREAT! It’s the perfect combination of everything I teach in my book and masterminds but actually seeing people face their fears on adventures! Boom, the Pivot with Purpose Retreats were born!

I still figured the retreats were more of a “someday” plan and then I was looking around at venues and stumbled upon the Black Tree Resort. It was all-inclusive, in the mountains, and perfect! They had one weekend free and I knew it was meant to be so I booked it and we were off!

As I spoke to each woman one by one, I knew that we were in for a heck of a weekend. It seemed that they were all going through some sort of pivot and looking for the same thing, connection and growth. This was going to be one epic retreat!

Thursday night as everyone showed up, we began getting to know one another and playing introduction games to break the ice. After dinner we gathered around our campfire before hitting the hay for a big weekend ahead of us.

Friday, we started with breakfast served in our glamping tents and then had a morning meditation to set our intentions and start to lean into our purposes. Afterward, we had our first session “Facing Fears and Breaking Through Barriers.” We each took the time to write down our list of accomplishments and then after talking about fears and ways to break through them, we ended by writing a love letter to ourselves to keep on hand to remind us we are truly badasses that can handle anything that comes our way.

Then, it was adventure time! We hopped in the cars and headed to Buena Vista to go rock climbing and rappelling with Noah’s Ark Outfitter. It was such a rewarding experience to watch these women conquer their fears and climb up 50’ and 70’ walls and then rappel off of a 100’ cliff! There was tears, some swearing, and lots of cheering one another on! After an amazing grilled dinner, we hung out around the fire exhausted and full-hearted.

Saturday kicked off with another cozy breakfast in bed followed by a visualization meditation to start picturing out where the next pivot would take us. Then we were whisked off to Raft Echo Canyon Expeditions to do some white-water rafting. After my last experience with a scary swim, this was the adventure I was the most nervous for. But it turned out to be a relaxing and beautiful way to ease back into rafting!

We headed back to camp to create the visual representation of the morning’s meditation for a vision board happy hour, sponsored by Great Divide Brewing Company. While we were finishing up, we were served a delicious greek buffet and then ended the day with s’mores, campfire games, and lifetime bonding around the fire.

Sunday morning, after breakfast, we packed up camp and gathered for our last session where we put all of the weekend’s hard work in to place. We combined the visualization exercises with a goal-setting session and created individual plans of action to making those goals happen. It was an incredible bonding experience cheering each other on and feeling motivated leaving the retreat. But we had one last adventure.

After we left camp, we headed to M Lazy C Ranch for a relaxing horseback ride. The sun shinning, and slow-paced ride, helped us all to reflect on the past three days and spend the morning full of gratitude and peace. After we said our goodbyes, I came home with the fullest of full hearts.

Our retreat weekend was one of those divine events that solidified everything I’d been working for for the past seven years. I haven’t always seen the purpose or direction in the things that I’ve done but meeting these women and experiencing these adventures made me realize how the show, the podcast, the book, the coaching, everything had happened to bring me to this - retreats. Inspiring others to face their fears and create a life they love is truly my purpose on this earth and I can’t wait to do more of it!

Take a look at our epic weekend below and learn more about how you can join one of our upcoming retreats here!

And if you need even MORE convincing after watching that, check out what the girls had to say about attending.