Navigate: A Women's Leadership Retreat in Italy
Italian Riviera · September 27 – October 3, 2026
You come home knowing your next move,
and the people you lead feel it before you say a word.
You're not just burned out.
You're boxed in.
One retreat. Ten women. Six days.
No ballroom, no slides.
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10 CME/CE credits if you need them.
AMA PRA Category 1 | and three more.
Nothing is wrong
with you.
It's 9:47 PM. The house is finally quiet. You're still at the desk.
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Tomorrow is full before tomorrow starts, the one-on-one you keep moving, the decision only you can make, the deck that's due.
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So you run the math you always run. Get up an hour earlier. Batch the emails. Move Thursday. It fits.
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It always fits. You've made it fit for years, and that's the part no one sees. You are very, very good at making it fit.
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So why does Monday already sit heavy on your chest, before it's even here?
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You've tried the usual things.
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The vacation where you answered email from a beach chair. The book on boundaries you opened once, on a plane. The "retreat" in a hotel ballroom, where you swapped cards with people performing being fine, and felt nothing.
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You keep reaching for the same fix: manage the time better, be more disciplined. But this was never a time problem. You're the most disciplined person you know.
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You followed the map exactly. And you reached the edge of it.
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The edge feels like a wall. It isn't. It's just the part no map has drawn yet.
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That's where this begins. Six days on the trails of the Italian Riviera. Nine women who lead. Coaching that happens on the trail, not under fluorescent lights.
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This time, something moves.
I know what you'll reach for next...
You're a fixer. It's how you got here. So you'll try to fix this too.
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How do I know this?
​I'm Marsha, a family physician, medical leader, and certified leadership coach. I know the version of "running on empty" where you're still expected to have every answer, because I've been her.
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​Here are the three moves you'll reach for, and why each one fails you.
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"I just need to get away and finally think."
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A few quiet days, a good notebook, and you'll come back with it figured out.
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But you don't have a thinking shortage. You think for a living, and you're still at that desk at 9:47pm. The answer was never going to come from thinking harder in a nicer room.
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So here, for six days, you decide nothing.
I handle every train, every booking, every turn of the trail.
What you've been circling for months tends to surface out there, not at the desk you've been staring it down from.
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"I need a room full of people who get it."
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One more mastermind, one more table of impressive women, and maybe this time something real happens.
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But you've sat at those tables. Everyone's holding the same face you are.
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This is different.
It's nine women on a trail who carry what you carry.
What you say to each other near the top of a climb,
when you're both too winded to keep up the act,
is a conversation you don't get to have anywhere else.
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"It won't stick anyway."
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You know the Sunday night high. Full of notes, sure that this time is different. By Wednesday the binder is on a shelf and nothing moved.
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That's because it happened in your head, in a chair, under fluorescent lights.
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Here it happens while your body is moving.
On a switchback. Over aperitivo. On the boat back in.
The breakthrough lands while you're in it, which is exactly why it's still with you, long after a workshop high would have worn off.
You can't be performative and mindful at the same time.
Here's the part no one says out loud: your body has been braced for years.
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At home it never gets to stand down. Someone is always waiting on a decision from you.
There's always a next answer to have ready. The part of you that's very, very good at making it fit never clocks out, because there's always an audience, and always one more thing to manage.
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That's the performance. It isn't fake. It's just constant.
And you can't hear yourself think underneath it, because it never goes quiet.
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Out on the trail, for the first time in longer than you'd admit, no one is waiting on you.
No decision is yours to make.
There's nothing to manage and no one to be ready for.
I've handled all of it before you arrive.
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So the bracing stops. And somewhere on a climb, when you're too winded to keep up the act, the true thing finally says itself out loud. Maybe for the first time in years.
I'm beside you when you do.
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That isn't the mountain air. It's the first space you've had where the performance has nothing left to feed it.
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Picture the third morning.
You've stopped reaching for your phone before your feet hit the floor.
It took two days to break the habit.
You walk a coastal path above the sea, close enough to hear it.
The trail tilts up. Your breath gets short.
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By afternoon you're at a long table in Sestri Levante, aperitivo in hand, with nine women who aren't keeping score against you.
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The next day, a boat to San Fruttuoso, the abbey rising out of the water.
Lunch at a vineyard above Monterosso, hiked in from Vernazza, legs tired in the good way.
The kind of tired you forgot existed.
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The breakthrough won't come at a desk.
It'll come on a switchback with your legs burning, or over a glass with the water in front of you, or on the boat back in.
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Not because the view is pretty. Because it happened in your body, on your feet, tied to a place and a moment, instead of as a note in a binder. Your body keeps what your head files away and forgets.
That's why it's still with you weeks later, when a workshop high would have worn off by Wednesday.
The people you lead feel the difference before you've said a word about it.
20‑minute fit call • No pressure • See if the retreat is right for you
What six days actually hold
Here is what we will do:
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Challenging hikes through Cinque Terre, Camogli, and the hills above Sestri Levante. The coaching isn't bolted on at the end. It runs through the walking, the meals, all six days.
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Nine other women who lead, whose names you'll know by Tuesday. Not two hundred strangers and a lanyard. Hand-picked so the room fits, because that's what makes the real conversations possible.
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A pesto class with your hands in the mortar. Wine tasting at the vineyard where the grapes grow. A gala dinner on the last night.
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Your own room, not a shared one. Morning yoga when you want it. Unscheduled hours that are yours alone.
One decision is yours. I handle the rest.
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You make decisions all day. It's the quiet tax of leading. For six days, you won't make any. The trails, the boats and trains between towns, where you sleep, nearly every meal - all handled, before you arrive. A few meals and pockets of free time are yours to wander as you like.
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That's not pampering. It's the point. Every ounce of bandwidth you'd burn deciding where to eat or how to get there goes where you actually came to spend it: on the trail, in the conversation, on the shift you came to make.
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Getting to Italy is the one thing on you. If you want to make a trip of it before or after, I'll help you plan that too. Once you arrive, you carry nothing but yourself up the hill.
This retreat isn't for everyone
If you want a beautiful week to switch off and avoid the hard thing, you can buy that anywhere. This asks more of you.
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It's not a spa weekend (though the accommodations are luxurious). The hikes are challenging. The coaching is real. And somewhere around day two you'll be uncomfortable, and that's the part that works.
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It's for you if you lead something, a team, a company, a room, or you're fighting your way toward it. You already did the ballroom version and walked out exactly as boxed in as you walked in. You know there's a shift you've been circling for a while, and you haven't had the space to make it. You're done swapping cards and hoping to feel different.
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If that's you, here are the next steps:
How to join:
1
Book a connection call
Tell me where you're at, and what's got you boxed in.
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We talk
I'll have a real conversation with you, and we'll decide together if it's the right fit.
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You're in
If it's a fit, you choose your room, pay your deposit and your spot is held. Then, all you do is show up ready to explore.
Ten spots. One conversation with each woman. When they're gone, they're gone.
The founding ten
Founding rate: $9,450 CAD. That's $3,000 below the standard $12,450, for the first ten women only.
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Deposit: $1,500 CAD to hold your spot
Then: pay in full, or in two installments of $3,975 CAD
Bonus: before July 31, 2026: a third 1:1 coaching session, before or after the retreat. Your choice.
Founding pricing closes: July 31, 2026, or when the ten spots fill, whichever comes first
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What's included once you arrive in Sestri Levante:
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Your six-night stay at Hotel Vis a Vis
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Most meals, all hikes, yoga, boats, and trains
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Every experience, and coaching throughout all six days
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Two private 1:1 sessions with me. One before you fly out, one when you're home
You handle your flights and trains to Sestri. I handle the rest.
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If you've read this far, part of you has already leaned in. The next step is one conversation, just the two of us, to see if this is your year.
Ten spots. When they're gone, they're gone.
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Not ready to talk yet? See the full retreat details or read our story.
CME and CE options
In support of improving patient care, this activity has been planned and implemented by Unchartd Leadership and Pinnacle Conference, LLC. Pinnacle Conference, LLC is jointly accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME), the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE), and the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC), to provide continuing education for the healthcare team.
This activity offers 10 CE credit(s) for:
1. Physicians (AMA PRA Category 1 Credit™)
2. Nurses (ANCC NCPD)
3. Pharmacists (ACPE CPE)
4. Dentists (ADA-CERP CE)
5. Other*
*All other attendees will receive an AMA PRA Category 1 Credit™ participation certificate
