Curiosity Co-op
Life Change by Design
Are you a mid- or late-career professional wishing to make some significant change in your work or home life? Are you in transition, or simply no longer excited by your day-to-day routine? This retreat will help you get unstuck. The tested three-day curriculum blends instruction, facilitated small group work, and one-on-one coaching to help you define your change goal and design a path toward it.
The Experience
Relax, Reassess, Redesign
Join us for an immersive retreat experience, where our expert executive coaches will help you understand and tackle whatever is preventing you from living your fullest life. You may envision yourself in a different job or life situation but be unsure how to get there. You might feel ready to make a change in your lifestyle or make a new health commitment, but not know where to start. Or you might be feeling that your life has become dull and blunted, and seek to rediscover the joy in your daily purpose and day-to-day routine. We will help you explore what is most important to you right now…and how to bring that into your life.
Five pillars define our retreat experiences:
-
Retreat: Leave your home with its distractions and responsibilities to immerse yourself in the calm, beautiful surroundings of a nature-based retreat. You’ll have time to relax, reflect, and begin a purposeful shift toward whatever is calling for change in your life.
-
Community of learning: Engage in a 3-day proven curriculum, beginning with a critical assessment of where you are now, including your current motivators. Clarify what you’d like to change or where you wish to be heading. Identify barriers which might be holding you back. Working together with fellow retreat participants, design a path toward that destination.
-
Guided exploration: One-on-one sessions with a certified executive coach will help advance your discovery through inquiry-based exploration. Your coach will be your thinking partner - challenging your assumptions, revealing alternate perspectives, and helping you define and achieve the shifts you’re seeking in life.
-
Environment: Draw on the quiet, restorative power of nature to help declutter your mind and make room for calm - a place where fresh thinking and insight can occur.
-
Commitment: Work with your retreat community and coach to define your commitments and a plan of action that will carry you forward.
The Retreats
Previous Retreats
Future Retreats
Gramercy Mansion, Stevenson, MD
Ghost Ranch, Abiquiu, NM
Parador Resort, Costa Rica
Meet Your Team
Rachel Bishop, MD, MPH
Curiosity Co-op Co-founder
and Executive Coach
Rachel is a Georgetown University certified executive coach, credentialed by the International Coaching Federation. She specializes in leadership development, transition management, and life design. She helps individuals and teams define and achieve their goals.
Rachel is also a practicing physician and faculty member at Johns Hopkins University. Prior to becoming a coach, Rachel served 21 years in uniformed service in the U.S. Army and U.S. Public Health Service, including 14 years at the National Institutes of Health conducting clinical research and caring for patients.
Rachel volunteers as a coach for The Honor Foundation, helping U.S. special operations forces transition to civilian careers. She holds a bachelor of science in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania, and a master’s of public health from Johns Hopkins. She lives in Bethesda with her husband and their blended family. When life allows, you’ll find Rachel escaping to Vermont for quiet cabin time, running in the woods with her dogs, and skiing.
Noel Bulger
Curiosity Co-op Co-founder
and Executive Coach
Noel carries a lifelong love of leadership and social innovation and has dedicated his professional life to leadership and organizational development. For the first 9 years of his career, he served as a Marine Corps officer leading high performance teams globally in both combat and diplomatic roles before transitioning to the startup world in order to work more directly in social innovation and help create the next generation of inclusive leaders.
Noel has been fortunate to work with hundreds of extraordinary leaders in innovative organizations. As an ICF accredited executive coach, he supports founders and CEOs on leadership development, strategy, and culture creation.
Noel is a graduate of Stanford GSB's Ignite program, holds a Masters degree from Georgetown's McDonough School of Business, and a leadership coaching certification from Georgetown University.
Noel is married, with a 7-year-old daughter, is a self described adrenaline sports junkie, avid reader, cook and writer.
Carmen Suro-Bredie
Curiosity Co-op Executive Coach
Carmen received her Executive Certificate in Leadership Coaching from Georgetown University. Until recently, she served as Senior International Advisor at the American Academy of Actuaries and fulfilled a similar function at the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB), the U.S. regulator of auditors from 2011-2017.
Carmen served as the Assistant United States Trade Representative for Policy Coordination, Assistant USTR for Latin America, the Caribbean and Africa, and Assistant USTR for the Environment and Intellectual Property. Ms. Suro-Bredie’s career includes the negotiation of bilateral agreements with over thirty countries; she has led delegations to several international organizations. Carmen has been a guest lecturer at universities in Europe, the U.S., and Latin America. She taught negotiation and trade policy at the Department of State’s Foreign Service Institute. Carmen holds an M.B.A. from the Harvard Business School (with second-year honors), a master’s degree from the Johns Hopkins University School for Advanced International Studies, and a bachelor’s degree in political science from Manhattanville College. She is married to a Dutchman and is the mother of two adult sons.
Testimonials
“Rachel and Noel are coaching geniuses.”
Lisa R., Atlanta, Georgia
Where are you stuck?
Ask yourself:
Do you feel ready to make a shift or change – in your work, your personal life, your relationships, or your health - but you’re not sure where or how to begin?
Does part of your life feel a bit off track…as if the force that got you there isn’t in you anymore, and you’re going through the motions rather than being engaged?
Is there energy inside you that seeks to be expressed, but you don’t know how to let it out, or where it will fit into your life?
If you answered yes to any of these, we invite you to reach out to us.
Complete the inquiry request to speak with Rachel about your goals, ask questions, and determine whether a retreat can help you begin to change something that matters to you.
