You have been playing this thing like your life depends on it.
It does not. And that is not the bad news.
You have been playing this thing like your life depends on it.
It does not.
And that is not the bad news.
Picture this: it is the second week of January. You have a new notebook. The plan in it is the plan from last year with better handwriting.
By March something has gone sideways, and you handle it, because handling it is what you do. By June you are bored, so you buy a course, or you take on a market you do not want, or you start a second business. By November you are here, reading this, with a year behind you that you could not summarise in one sentence if I paid you.
And underneath all of it, one engine. Pressure.
Every gear you have ever grown through, you got there by lighting a fire. A shortfall. A crisis. A deadline you set to make yourself move. Sometimes you did not even wait for one to arrive. You went and found the matches.
It works. I did it for seven years after the restaurant.
It also sends the bill somewhere. To your body, or your marriage, or the version of you your kids will remember.
You are not.
You are playing the game of who you become through this business. There is no final level. There is no board you clear. Nobody dies if you get it wrong.
Somewhere in the last few years it got so serious that you forgot you chose to play.
In our world, we do not fix that with a better plan. A better plan on the same fuel gets you the same year with tidier numbers.
We change the fuel.
The morning is money. Katie takes you through the numbers, Profit First, and where you have written yourself in as the last creditor in your own business.
The afternoon is the wash off. Whatever you have been carrying since 2024 does not come into 2027 with you.
Then we play, because you cannot leave a room in that state.
Every November I take a room of women who run real businesses while raising real children up to Russell, and we do three things.
Every November I take a room of women who run real businesses while raising real children up to Russell, and we do three things.
That part is the same every year, and it is the part you can picture. What you cannot picture is what it feels like to do it as a game.
Whose picture is on the lid of the box you are building from?
Most women are working from a plan they absorbed, not one they chose. We find out which parts are actually yours.
Then the afternoon takes you out of the room and into Russell, and you find out what you actually do when you need something you cannot get on your own.
I am not going to tell you what is in it.
I will tell you this much. It runs across all three days. It has a scoreboard, and the scoreboard does not rank you against anybody else in that room. It has rules, and by Wednesday lunchtime you will recognise the ones you have been breaking for years. It has players, and one of them will surprise you.
And if you book your seat by 31 August,
Yours specifically. Built around what you actually do.
After the 31st you get the generalised version, which is a genuinely good game, and it is not about you.
I know exactly how annoying it is to be told there is a surprise and not what it is. The surprise is doing real work. If I explain it now, you will decide what it means before you arrive, and then it will not do that work.
Trust me for three days.
I am not going to tell you what is in it.
I will tell you this much. It runs across all three days. It has a scoreboard, and the scoreboard does not rank you against anybody else in that room. It has rules, and by Wednesday lunchtime you will recognise the ones you have been breaking for years. It has players, and one of them will surprise you.
And if you book your seat by 31 August, Yours specifically. Built around what you actually do.
After the 31st you get the generalised version, which is a genuinely good game, and it is not about you.
I know exactly how annoying it is to be told there is a surprise and not what it is. The surprise is doing real work. If I explain it now, you will decide what it means before you arrive, and then it will not do that work.
Trust me for three days.
The morning is money. Katie takes you through the numbers, Profit First, and where you have written yourself in as the last creditor in your own business.
The afternoon is the wash off. Whatever you have been carrying since 2024 does not come into 2027 with you.
Then we play, because you cannot leave a room in that state.
Whose picture is on the lid of the box you are building from?
Most women are working from a plan they absorbed, not one they chose. We find out which parts are actually yours.
Then the afternoon takes you out of the room and into Russell, and you find out what you actually do when you need something you cannot get on your own.
What worked, what you learned, what you are done carrying. The numbers, not the feelings about the numbers.
Every year we do this differently. This year we wash it off, and I am not going to tell you how.
Written out loud, in front of witnesses, before you leave the room on Friday.
What worked, what you learned, what you are done carrying. The numbers, not the feelings about the numbers.
Every year we do this differently. This year we wash it off, and I am not going to tell you how.
Written out loud, in front of witnesses, before you leave the room on Friday.
Your vision, the numbers that prove you are moving toward it, and the purpose underneath the whole thing.
The values your business actually runs on. Not the ones on the website.
Waypoints, domino goals, the measures that matter, and where your six week projects fit.
You build the plan in October. You bring it to Russell, and we finish it there.
You build the plan in October. You bring it to Russell, and we finish it there.
This retreat is built for women
(and a select group of vibe checked men) who are running businesses and running households. You’re likely the primary parent, caregiver, or homemaker and the visionary behind your business, too.
Every seat comes with a private one to one session with me. Normally US$1,000.
It happens after Russell, not before, because the useful conversation is the one about your actual plan and not the one about what you hope it might be.
You book it yourself, whenever it suits your business. Any time between 16 November and 18 December, or between 12 January and 31 January.
Some women want it in the first week of December, when the plan meets reality for the first time. Some want it in January, once the year has actually started. Your call.
I take eight of these a week and no more, so the good slots go early. And it expires on 31 January. I do mean expires.
Included with every in-person seat and the first 25 virtual seats. Available as an add-on after that.
A chocolate maker who moved out of their home kitchen, scaled production, landed international subscription deals, and finally took real family time away.
The Fit Check is a twenty minute conversation with me. We work out whether this is your year for the room or your year for the screen, whether funding applies to you, and whether the three days will actually do what you need them to.
If I do not already know you, I would like this conversation before you book anyway.
I am Sarah Greener.
Twenty years of physical businesses.
A restaurant, a charter boat, an Airbnb, and now this. I raised a family through all of it and moved countries in the middle.
I have made every mistake in the list above. The seven years of lighting fires to feel something is not a case study I read. It is what I did.
I am not going to tell you it is not hard.
I am going to tell you it does not have to be this hard.
I am Sarah Greener.
Twenty years of physical businesses.
A restaurant, a charter boat, an Airbnb, and now this. I raised a family through all of it and moved countries in the middle.
I have made every mistake in the list above. The seven years of lighting fires to feel something is not a case study I read. It is what I did.
I am not going to tell you it is not hard.
I am going to tell you it does not have to be this hard.