The Meaning of Your Life Retreats

Without meaning, happiness is impossible

Research shows that what we experience as happiness is composed of three elements, or “macronutrients”: enjoyment, satisfaction, and meaning.

Most high achievers have gotten pretty good at the first two. They find enjoyment in their lives with the people they love, and take tremendous satisfaction in accomplishing goals. But the third macronutrient, meaning, often gets neglected – pushed aside by the pace of achievement, buried under busyness, postponed until there's “more time” (which never seems to arrive). And when meaning is missing, life feels gray. Perhaps pointless.

This problem has a remedy. That's what this new science-backed retreat is about.

This isn’t a lecture series or a seminar.

It's an experiential, guided journey through the three questions that Brooks argues every person needs to answer – not once, but continuously throughout their lives:

Why do things happen the way they do in my life? Where am I going? Why does my life matter?

These questions form the backbone of what meaning means:
Meaning = Coherence + Purpose + Significance

The retreat is structured around all three – through teaching drawn directly from Brooks' research, guided reflection, deep small-group conversation, and practices designed to move this work out of your head and into your actual life.

And you’ll do this powerful work in an intimate setting surrounded by the beauty of the high desert and supported by MEA’s legendary hospitality.

He Found Happiness the Hard Way (Now He Makes It Easier for You)

Arthur C. Brooks is a professor at Harvard Business School and the Harvard Kennedy School, a #1 New York Times bestselling author, and one of the world's leading authorities on happiness and human flourishing.

His course on Leadership and Happiness has had a waiting list for years. His books – including From Strength to Strength, Build the Life You Want (co-authored with Oprah Winfrey), and his latest, The Meaning of Your Life – have reached millions of readers worldwide.

But Brooks didn't take the traditional route to any of this. At 19, he dropped out of college to play French horn professionally, eventually performing with the City Orchestra of Barcelona. He earned his degree slowly, in hotel rooms and on tour buses, piecing it together between rehearsals.

He came to academia late – and left it for over a decade before returning in 2019, when what he found on campus stopped him cold: more anxiety, more loneliness, more depression. Students who were succeeding by every measure, but struggling to say why any of it mattered.

That observation sent him back into the research, and resulted in his new book. It’s also why he designed this retreat – and why he was so deliberate about who he trusted to lead it.

Brooks is not, as he's the first to say, a naturally happy person. He learned this. He tracks his own happiness on a spreadsheet. He has walked the Camino de Santiago. He has sat with the same questions he now teaches – and found that the only way through them is not analysis, but living.

That's exactly why he teaches it. And exactly why this retreat exists.

Jill Nykoliation

Jill spent thirty years in the business of understanding why people do what they do. As founder and CEO of Juniper Park\TBWA, she shaped brand strategy for some of the world's most recognized companies – work that was always, underneath the business language, about human motivation and meaning.

She has since turned that same depth of attention toward individuals. As a personal coach, she works with people navigating pivotal moments – the kind where the old map stops working and a new one hasn't appeared yet.

Jill worked directly with Arthur Brooks to learn his Meaning of Your Life framework from the inside – not just the concepts, but how to help someone actually move through them. She is the facilitator Arthur trained and trusted to lead this work in the room.

Kari Cardinale

Kari Cardinale has spent nearly thirty years figuring out how ideas become experiences – how insight that lives on a page or in a lecture can be translated into something a person actually carries home.

As MEA's Chief Content Officer, she has built programs that have reached thousands of people navigating the second half of life. She has collaborated with hundreds of thought leaders in the longevity space and produced global summits on aging and human flourishing.

For this retreat, Kari worked in close collaboration with Arthur Brooks and his team to develop the curriculum – translating the framework from his book into a live, structured, multi-day experience. She joins Jill as co-facilitator for the inaugural June retreat.

Why Arthur Chose MEA to Host These Retreats

Arthur Brooks has spent years looking for a place where this work could be shared with people who are serious about implementing it in their lives. When he found Modern Elder Academy, he stopped looking.

MEA is the world's first midlife wisdom school, founded by Chip Conley in 2018, with world-class retreat centers in Baja and Santa Fe, New Mexico. Rising Circle Ranch is a 2,600-acre regenerative ranch surrounded by the beauty of the high desert. It offers intimate small-group workshops offering transformative experiences and the legendary hospitality for which renowned hotelier Chip Conley is famous.

MEA was built on a conviction that Arthur shares: that the second half of life isn't a decline to manage – it's a passage into something deeper. Since opening its doors, MEA has welcomed thousands of people at turning points in their lives to rethink their stories, repurpose their gifts, and design a more meaningful next chapter. 

MEA’s programs are grounded in science and built around their proven MEA Method, which has been designed in collaboration with academics from Stanford, Harvard, UC Berkeley, and Yale, who have dedicated themselves to understanding modern midlife.