Join a small group of business owners at Amatara Wellness Resort in Phuket, Thailand. Step away from the daily demands of leadership, reconnect with your vision, and build a business that supports the life you want to live… and, new for 2027, leave with your own retreat designed, priced and ready to launch.
New for 2027
Besides the 8 business workshops, four afternoons of the week are the Retreat Creator Intensive. You build your own retreat live, from concept and numbers to venue, itinerary, policies, retreat page and launch plan, while living inside a working one. Arilda uses the Amatara retreat itself as the worked example.
4 afternoon sessions
Taught by Arilda and Alex
Recordings and templates to take home
Owning a business can be one of the most rewarding journeys you’ll ever take, but it can also be incredibly demanding. As business owners, we’re often so focused on serving others, leading our teams, making decisions, and growing our businesses that we rarely give ourselves the time and space to pause. It’s easy to lose sight of the very reason you started, or to feel stuck wondering what’s next.
This retreat is your invitation to step away from the day-to-day, reconnect with your vision, invest in yourself, and return home with renewed clarity, meaningful connections, and practical strategies to help you grow both personally and professionally.
While the educational workshops are at the heart of this retreat, I believe some of the most meaningful moments happen outside the classroom.
This week has been intentionally designed to give you the opportunity to step away from the constant demands of running a business, reconnect with your vision, and build genuine relationships with other business owners who understand the unique challenges and rewards of entrepreneurship.
Throughout your stay, you’ll enjoy a thoughtfully curated experience that includes:
Elegant accommodations at Amatara on the Cape Panwa peninsula.
Breakfast, lunch, and dinner, plus a daytime beverage package.
A 60-minute treatment at Amatara's award-winning spa.
A guided session in Amatara's seaside yoga sala.
A hands-on class with a visit to a local market.
Four half-day workshops with the retreat faculty, plus four afternoons building your own retreat in the Retreat Creator Intensive.
Inspiring conversations with fellow business owners.
Temple tours, island escapes, or an elephant sanctuary visit.
Private transfers to and from Phuket International.
Space to slow down, reflect, and enjoy Phuket.
Group dinners and special evenings that celebrate community.
Your week in Phuket
Mornings hold the business workshops, four afternoons hold the Retreat Creator Intensive, and Sunday is a free day. Each session runs about 3 hours.
Wednesday
Morning
Arrivals and private airport transfers
Afternoon
Settle in, resort time
Evening
Welcome dinner and opening circle
Thursday
Morning
Yoga, then business session 1 (Arilda): Leading From the Inside Out; Building a Business That Supports the Life You Want to Live
Afternoon · Retreat Creator Intensive
Retreat Creator 1 (Arilda): Design your retreat
Evening
Free
Friday
Morning
Business session 2 (Alex): Speak to One, Sell to Everyone; Found First
Afternoon
Spa treatment and free time
Evening
Group dinner
Saturday
Morning
Market visit and Thai cooking class
Afternoon · Retreat Creator Intensive
Retreat Creator 2 (Arilda): The numbers
Evening
Free
Sunday
All day
Free day, optional excursions
Monday
Morning
Business session 3 (Arilda and Alex): The Money Behind the Business; Beyond the Bottleneck
Afternoon · Retreat Creator Intensive
Retreat Creator 3 (Arilda and Alex): Build your retreat
Evening
Evening experience
Tuesday
Morning
Business session 4 (Denielle): Sustainable Leadership; From Founder to CEO
Afternoon · Retreat Creator Intensive
Retreat Creator 4 (Alex): Launch and fill
Evening
Farewell dinner and closing circle
Wednesday
Morning
Breakfast, departures and private airport transfers
New for 2027
Four afternoons of the week are the Retreat Creator Course, taught live, one phase per session. Each session runs about 3 hours with teaching, work time and hot seats, so you build your own retreat as you go.
You are living inside a working retreat all week, so Arilda uses the Amatara retreat itself as the example: its venue deal, budget, pricing and schedule.
Session 1 · Thursday
Taught by Arilda
What we cover
Vision, ideal attendee, concept and the retreat promise
You leave with
A retreat concept and one-sentence promise
Session 2 · Saturday
Taught by Arilda
What we cover
Destinations, venue outreach, budget, pricing, break-even and deposit-plus-monthly payment plans
You leave with
A rough budget, a price and a venue shortlist
Session 3 · Monday
Taught by Arilda, then Alex
What we cover
Venue contracts, itinerary, policies and waivers (Arilda); the retreat page, registration and payments (Alex)
You leave with
A draft itinerary, a policy list and a page outline
Session 4 · Tuesday
Taught by Alex
What we cover
Getting found, waitlist, launch plan, sales conversations and filling seats
You leave with
A 90-day launch plan and your next three steps
What you take home
You get the Retreat Creator Course recordings plus the templates we use in the sessions, so the work you start in Phuket keeps going at home.
Retreat Creator Course recordings
Retreat Blueprint workbook
Venue comparison sheet
Budget and break-even calculator
Itinerary template
Host & Lead Facilitator
This retreat is about so much more than growing your business, it’s about investing in yourself as a leader.
“My hope is that you leave with much more than new business strategies. I want you to return home feeling refreshed, inspired, and more connected to yourself, your business, and a community of leaders who continue to support one another long after the retreat has ended.”
This retreat brings together leaders across sustainable growth, business systems, leadership, and financial psychology, each leading focused workshops during the week, plus a Retreat Creator Intensive where you build your own retreat, live.
Host · Founder, Sustainable Growth Consulting & Coaching · Founder, Wellness Counseling Inc.
Arilda Surridge brings a unique perspective to her work with business owners, entrepreneurs, and leaders by combining her background in mental health with her experience building and growing multiple businesses.Her work explores the human side of business ownership, the way our nervous systems, relationships with money, beliefs about success, leadership patterns, and personal values influence the businesses we build and the decisions we make.Having grown her own businesses using a sustainable, well-being-centered approach, Arilda is passionate about helping other business owners grow without sacrificing their health, relationships, freedom, or the life they actually want to live.She is also the founder of Therapists Retreats and has led more than 18 retreats around the world.
WORKSHOP
How Understanding Your Brain and Nervous System Can Transform the Way You Lead
Building a successful business requires more than a great strategy. It requires a leader who can navigate uncertainty, make difficult decisions, adapt to change, manage pressure, and continue moving forward through challenges.As business owners, we are constantly making decisions, solving problems, supporting our teams, and carrying the responsibility that comes with leadership. Over time, that pressure can influence the way we think, communicate, respond to challenges, and envision the future of our businesses.In this session, we’ll explore how your brain and nervous system influence the way you lead. Through a neuro-informed approach, you’ll gain practical strategies to strengthen resilience, make clearer decisions, respond rather than react, and lead your business from a more grounded place.
Because one of the most valuable assets in your business is you.
WORKSHOP
Understanding Your Relationship With Money, Profitability, and Growth
We talk a lot about revenue in business. We talk much less about our relationship with money.Yet the way we price, spend, save, invest, take risks, negotiate, and make decisions about growth can be influenced by much more than numbers. Our experiences, beliefs, fears, definitions of success, and sense of financial security can all show up in the way we run our businesses.In this session, we’ll look beyond revenue and explore both the numbers and the psychology behind the money in your business. We’ll examine your relationship with money, the financial patterns influencing your decisions, and the difference between building a business that generates revenue and one that actually creates sustainable profit.You’ll have an opportunity to look more intentionally at pricing, expenses, profitability, financial goals, and the beliefs or behaviors that may be influencing the decisions you make.
Because making more money and building a financially healthy business are not always the same thing.
WORKSHOP
Creating Sustainable Success Without Losing Yourself Along the Way
Many entrepreneurs start their businesses with a vision of freedom, flexibility, financial independence, and creating something meaningful. Yet somewhere along the journey, it’s easy to become consumed by the very business we worked so hard to build.Success should not require sacrificing your health, relationships, purpose, freedom, or quality of life.In this session, we’ll step away from the day-to-day demands of running a business and reconnect with the bigger picture. We’ll explore what success actually means to you, what you want your business to provide financially and personally, and whether the business you are building is supporting that vision.Together, you’ll begin identifying the changes needed to create a business that supports the life you want to live, not one that constantly competes with it.
Because building a successful business is only part of the journey. Creating a life you genuinely enjoy living is the greater goal.
Co-founder, HiveSourced
Alex Sandev works with founders who’ve built something real and hit the point where they’ve become the bottleneck in their own business. As co-founder of HiveSourced, the web design, SEO and systems agency he started in 2023, he builds the websites, search visibility, marketing and AI-driven workflows that bring in the right clients and let a business run without the owner glued to every decision. Most of his work is with therapy practices and service businesses, the same kind of owners you’ll meet at this retreat.
WORKSHOP
Building a Business That Doesn’t Need You in Every Room
Most founders don’t build a business, they build a job they can’t leave. Every decision, every fire, every client conversation routes through them, and growth stalls the moment their own capacity runs out.
In this workshop, Alex breaks down the systems layer that separates businesses that scale from businesses that stay capped at what one person can personally handle: what to automate, what to delegate, and where AI actually replaces hours of founder time versus where it can’t and shouldn’t. You’ll leave with a clear map of where you are the bottleneck right now, and the first system to build to remove yourself from it.
You’ll walk away with a practical framework for identifying your highest-leverage systems gap, and a concrete next step to close it, not a vague mandate to “automate more.”
WORKSHOP
Finding Your ICP and the Message That Actually Converts
Most businesses market to everyone and end up converting no one. When the message is broad enough to fit any customer, it lands with none of them.
In this workshop, Alex walks through how to define your ideal customer with enough precision that your marketing stops sounding like everyone else’s, and how to translate that clarity into positioning, outreach, and sales messaging that people actually respond to. You’ll work through your own ICP live, not in the abstract, and see how a sharper definition changes what you say, where you say it, and who replies.
You’ll leave with a written ICP definition, a messaging framework you can apply across every channel, and a clear next step for the sales system built around it.
WORKSHOP
Turning Google and AI Recommendations Into Your Best Source of Clients
Your next best client isn’t scrolling social media. They’re asking Google, or asking ChatGPT, “who’s the best one near me?” If your business doesn’t show up in that answer, you’re invisible at the exact moment someone is ready to buy.
In this workshop, Alex shares what he’s learned building and ranking websites through HiveSourced: how search is changing with AI, what makes Google and AI tools recommend one business over another, and how to build a steady flow of inbound leads that doesn’t depend on you posting every day or paying for more ads.
You’ll leave with a snapshot of how your business shows up today, the 3 fixes that will move the needle fastest, and a 90-day plan for turning search into your most reliable source of revenue.
Licensed Professional Counselor • Founder Saltwater Coaching
Denielle Rigoglioso-Lambert has dedicated her career to helping leaders build organizations that are as healthy as they are successful. Having built and led two multimillion-dollar organizations, she understands that long-term growth is never just about strategy, it’s about developing the leadership capacity to sustain it.
Drawing from her unique background in executive leadership and psychology, Denielle helps founders navigate one of the most important transitions in business: evolving from the person who drives the business to the leader who develops people, shapes culture, and builds an organization capable of thriving beyond its founder. Her work prepares leaders to make better decisions, strengthen their teams, and create businesses that support sustainable success without sacrificing themselves in the process.
WORKSHOP
How to Build a Business That Can Grow Without Burning You Out
Most entrepreneurs don’t stop growing because they run out of opportunity. They stop growing because they become the bottleneck.
As businesses expand, the demands on the owner increase. More decisions. More responsibility. More complexity. Without intention, success can quietly become unsustainable.
In this workshop, Denielle explores how exceptional leaders protect one of their most valuable business assets: their own capacity. You’ll learn to recognize the hidden patterns that lead to burnout, identify where your business is creating unnecessary strain, establish boundaries that strengthen both leadership and profitability, and make strategic decisions that support long-term growth.
You’ll leave with a practical framework for leading with greater clarity, protecting your energy, and building a business that grows because of you, not at the expense of you.
WORKSHOP
Building an Organization That Can Thrive Beyond You
Every successful business eventually reaches a point where the founder must evolve.
The leadership skills that build a business are not always the same skills that scale one. Sustainable organizations are built by leaders who know how to delegate, develop people, create accountability, and empower others to lead.
In this workshop, Denielle will guide you through the leadership evolution required to move from founder to CEO. Through practical strategy and real-world application, you’ll strengthen your ability to delegate with confidence, build high-performing teams, foster accountability, navigate difficult conversations, and create an organizational culture where both people and the business can thrive.
You’ll leave with a renewed perspective on leadership and a clear roadmap for becoming the CEO your business needs for its next stage of growth.
Reconnect with your core vision and align your business decisions with your deeper purpose.
Develop greater emotional intelligence, presence, and capacity to lead with intention.
Learn frameworks for sustainable growth that honor both your well-being and your business goals.
Leave with clear, actionable insights and a concrete plan for implementing change.
Return home refreshed, grounded, and ready to lead with clarity and purpose.
Connect with other business owners navigating similar challenges and opportunities.
Set on the tranquil Cape Panwa peninsula in Phuket, Amatara Wellness Resort is an award-winning sanctuary of Thai-inspired suites, ocean views, and lush tropical gardens, designed for restoration, reflection, and genuine renewal.
All week, the Andaman Sea is your backdrop, with access to Amatara’s renowned spa, oceanfront yoga sala, and infinity pools, the kind of setting that makes it easy to slow down and reconnect.
From the moment you arrive, every detail is taken care of, so you can focus entirely on the experience, the learning, and the people around you.
Every option includes the full retreat, accommodations, meals, sessions, and wellness experiences. Choose private or shared occupancy.
RECOMMENDED
Your own private suite for the full week, space to fully rest, reflect, and recharge.
Share a suite with another attendee and save $1,500, a great option to split the cost or make a new connection.
Pricing covers your suite, meals, retreat programming, and the included wellness experiences. International airfare is not included. Room assignments are confirmed on a first-reserved basis.
Two ways to work with us
The Business Owner's Retreat and Retreat Ready are separate offers, and both teach you to create your own retreat. Here is how they compare.
The Business Owner's Retreat (Thailand)
Retreat Ready
Format
7 nights in person, Phuket
6 months online, join anytime
Retreat Creator Course
Taught live in 4 sessions
All 23 pre-recorded lessons, from day one
Coaching
Hot seats during the week
Weekly calls, Slack coaching and 4 gate reviews for 6 months
Also includes
8 business workshops, wellness and the full resort experience
Build Lab, Scorecard, full toolkit and Fill-phase support
Best for
Business owners who want an immersive week, the wider business topics and time away
Therapists who want step-by-step support until their retreat is on sale and filling
Price
$9,997 private, $8,497 shared
Core $5,500, VIP $11,000
Dates
March 24 to 31, 2027
Opens December 14, 2026
Thailand alumni
If you want help turning your Phuket retreat plan into a retreat that is on sale and full, you can join Retreat Ready at an alumni rate. You finish the Design work in Phuket, so you start with Gate 1 already done and move straight into Build.
Alumni rate open until April 30, 2027.
Core
$4,500
Standard price $5,500
or 6 payments of $800
VIP
$9,000
Standard price $11,000
or 6 payments of $1,600
Registration opens soon. Only 15 spots are available for this retreat. Add your name for early access and be first to hear when registration opens.
Save 10% when you pay in full by January 24, 2027. Only 15 spots are available for this retreat.
