Lila is the Sanskrit word for divine play — the idea that the universe creates itself for the joy of it. We took the word seriously. The Lila Lab is a four-day, three-night retreat held twice a year: a high-desert basin in northern New Mexico in spring, a coastal pine forest on the Oregon coast in autumn. Sixty participants. Sold out nine months in advance.
Day 1 — Drop the suit
You arrive midday. There is no welcome PowerPoint. There is a basin of warm water and rosemary, and we wash your hands. Yes, really. Yes, the COO of a publicly traded company. Then a long lunch under a canopy, then a walking introduction in pairs — no nametags, no titles, no LinkedIn. You introduce yourself by your first vivid childhood memory of being alive.
Your title is not invited.
You are.
Day 2 — What is alive?
Morning: a facilitated Vitality Diagnostic on each participant's venture. By lunch every leader has a fresh map of where energy is flowing, depleted, dormant and emerging. Afternoon: a solo wander — three hours, alone, in nature, with one question in a sealed envelope. Evening: storytelling circle. Seven minutes each. Live music underneath. Tears are extremely common. So are belly laughs.
Day 3 — Build something ridiculous
This is the day your CHRO emails us about for the rest of their career. We split the cohort into venture pods of four to six and hand each pod a wildly impossible challenge — design a product line for a Mars colony, redesign elementary school for octopuses, build a bank for trees. The absurdity strips away the inner critic. You can't be wrong about a bank for trees. You can only be playful. And once leaders remember they can be playful, they bring that capacity back into their real ventures the following Monday.
Day 4 — Bring it home
Morning integration walk. Each participant articulates one Living Commitment they will take back. Not twelve. Not a ninety-day plan. One thing, alive, that they will tend. Closing ceremony. The band plays one final set. There are usually three or four marriages-of-business-partnerships announced over the last meal. We have stopped being surprised.
The economics
$14,500/person early bird · $17,500 standard · $22,000/person for a private corporate buyout (executive team of up to fifteen). All-inclusive: canvas tents with real beds and woodstoves, all meals by a chef who used to run a Michelin two-star, all music, all facilitation, all expert visitors, thirty days of integration coaching post-retreat, plus a year of the Living Venture OS at the team tier.
For the thesis the retreat enacts, see The Machine Metaphor Died in 1911. To inquire about the next cohort, the booking bar is on Consulting ↗.