A bunch of coaches walk into the woods...
Highlights, insights and a peek inside Coaching Corner's first retreat
Last week, I had the honor of cohosting Coaching Corner’s first ever retreat in the Hudson Valley. It started as a simple idea: take powerful connections born inside a digital slack community and see what happens when you bring everyone together, IRL.
As the idea took shape, the vision became clear: unplug from your business, deepen virtual connections and be brave together.
What does brave together look like?
Coaching Corner is all about helping coaches deepen their coaching practice and build their businesses, alongside one another. Not with one “right” way, but through a harmonious mixture of perspectives. The purpose of the “Corner,” just like coaching itself, isn’t to get clear answers. It’s to get questions that help you discover the right answer for your coaching business.
Starting a business is scary as hell. So, Braver Together felt like a perfect retreat theme.
And so… coaches descended on Rosendale, NY to practice bravery. To be seen. To be vulnerable. To build resilience not as a business strategy, but as a human one.
The experience was designed with high intentionality: crafted sessions, shared meals and prompts that nudged us into discomfort, space for reflection and room for magic. And also, a ton of dancing.
Still, the experience surpassed my wildest expectations. It became something sacred, surprising, and deeply communal. I’ve been on all kinds of retreats over the years, but this one was different. Partly because I built it alongside my long-term coaching partners. Mostly because coaches carry an ability to hold space and embody realness with effortlessness. And we have the best coaches in Coaching Corner.
To share more about the retreat, I’ll lean on Vincent Su’s incredible photos and pepper in some words of my own. The visuals take the cake.
Be Real
The first day was all about arriving in this beautiful space. New York was slated for a bad storm, but we hit peak foliage and nestled into the beautiful Lifebridge Sanctuary - the coziest of log cabins fit for reflection.
We opened with a masking exercise.
On one side: draw the mask you wear in the world. Who do people think you are?
On the other side: draw who you really are. How do you long to be really seen?
The conversation was raw and grounded us into day one. Many of us knew one another - through our masks - and the ways we showed up at quick networking events or in virtual spaces. Here, we all stepped into the space and unmasked ourselves for real.
In the evening, we settled into a home cooked meal, puzzling, friendship bracelets, bottles of wine, deep conversations and snacks galore.
Be Brave
Day two was all about practicing what we came here to do: practice being brave. We started with movement in the morning (brave for some) and dropped powerful notes into the Scary Jar (brave for all), all before lunch.
Following lunch, we did what we do best: we Unconferenced.
Back in the spring, Kelly Liu and I hosted Coaching Corner’s first Unconference in NYC and it was a hit. What’s an Unconference?
An unconference is a participant-driven event where the agenda is created collaboratively by attendees at the start of the gathering, rather than being pre-planned by organizers. It flips the traditional conference model by encouraging everyone to be a potential speaker and facilitator, focusing on discussions and small group interaction instead of formal, one-way presentations. This approach creates a more flexible and engaging format focused on the immediate interests of those present. - Google AI ain’t so bad
We brought the same format to the retreat.
But instead of quick 30 minute sessions, we hosted 6 luxuriously long sessions that had less to do with the business of coaching and everything to do with feeling good. We danced, we screamed, we played improv games, we talked sex & relationships, we filled in each other sentences, we drew and we walked in the woods.
I led two of the six sessions and man, how I love to lead a group. My husband calls me “camp counselor” Jori. This is the epitome of where I get the nickname from.
That evening, we kept the drinks and puzzles flowing.
Be Seen
The last day, we woke up to sunshine and one more breakfast together. We concluded our time together connecting with the unmasked versions of each of us, experienced through pictures, words and lots of tears.
While there is so much more here to unpack, I’m going to leave you with a quote that landed in my inbox this Sunday as I was still processing the retreat.
Someone sent a meme the other day that said, “Be yourself, so the people looking for you can find you.”
That’s the best thing that being publicly vulnerable achieves. It achieves exactly what the critics say it does: it draws attention to you.
But the attention that it draws comes from those who recognize themselves in the stories that you tell, in the way that you live — and your journey becomes part of their journey, because your reflections help them to see the things that they themselves have been looking for.
While you may not be a coach, nor may you be looking to be more publicly vulnerable, what’s something a scary thing you can put into your own scary jar this week?
The biggest of thank you’s to the team at Lifebridge Sanctuary, Chef Zach, Retreat Expert Maggie Blackburn, Photographer Vincent Su, the incredible Coaching Corner members that took a chance on an upstate retreat. And of course, to my two favorite Lius: Connie and Kelly. Look at what we’ve built <3
Hi - I’m Jori and I’m a Product Coach. If you’re Product Leader or on a Product team looking for support - drop me a note.
Congratulations Jori - this is really wonderful to see!
Love it! This is inspiring!