The Sicilian Retreat with Kate Christie
A 7-day executive retreat for you - the woman who refuses to settle for less. Leave with your signed 10-year Life List and a 90-day plan to start living it.
3–9 October 2027 Sicily
You've built the career. You've managed the family. You've spent decades "doing it all," and doing it exceptionally well. Now, as you look toward your next chapter as a midlife woman, a quiet question starts to whisper: "Is this all there is?"
Midlife+ isn't a crisis. It's your greatest catalyst: the first moment in decades you have the time, the freedom and the complete and utter agency to design something extraordinary for yourself, on your terms instead of by default.
Join me - Australia's leading time management expert, international bestselling author of 5 books, executive coach and very happy Sicilian Palazzo restorer, for an exclusive 7-day, 6-night executive retreat on the beautiful north western coast of Sicily. Designed for the woman who refuses to settle for less.
It's time to design the life you choose.
This isn't a wellness week. It's a working retreat. Seven days to apply a proven method to your own next decade, on an island I now call home.
Life is too short. Later might be too late.
Here's what this week is actually about: designing your next decade, on paper, in detail. I call it a Life List, and it's the opposite of a bucket list.
counts down to an ending: everything you want to do before you die.
builds a beginning: everything you want to do while you're still young enough to enjoy it.
THE 10-YEAR LIFE & WORK DESIGN
An elite, high-level professional development and time-optimisation retreat, grounded in the proven frameworks from Me First and The Life List. Three structured sessions. The rest of your time is yours to spend on the excursions, food and rhythm of Sicily.
The Diagnostic
An intimate audit to articulate your boldest ambitions, dismantle your resisting forces, and align your life with your core values.
You leave this session witha written audit of your non-negotiables: the specific commitments, roles and habits you're keeping, and the ones you're not.
The Reclamation
A bespoke action plan to invest time in implementation, restoring your energy and redirecting your focus to what truly matters.
You leave this session witha 90-day action plan, stress-tested against your actual calendar.
The Blueprint
Design the roadmap for your next ten years, your most audacious chapter.
You leave this session witha signed 10-year Life List, workshopped and refined as a group with Kate's direct input on your plan before you fly out.
Three sessions. The rest of the week is a mix of structured and unstructured activities (opt in or out). Sicily, not a syllabus, does the remaining work. I will be fully present, hands-on and coaching for all three sessions. That's where my energy is deliberately concentrated, not spread thin across seven days of hosting.
Some excursions, like the Palermo day, are drop-off and pick-up experiences rather than fully escorted; morning movement sessions run most days but aren't always led by me; and dinners are together as a group by default, not a fixed obligation.
This isn't a retreat where one woman is expected to be switched on for seven straight days, for you or for me. It's built so the coaching, when it happens, has my full attention.
Every guest also receives a complimentary 60-minute 1:1 with me, three months after the Retreat: a private touch-base to recalibrate and stay accountable to the Life List you built in Sicily. Booked once the retreat is behind you, when the follow-through actually starts to matter.
Ready to design your next decade?
Apply NowExperience Sicily as it's meant to be lived. I'm opening the doors to the authentic, intentional Italian lifestyle that made me fall in love with this island and build a life here. You can not get this experience as a tourist.
Lawyer, senior executive, entrepreneur, single mum, and time-management specialist to some of the world's most recognisable companies, governments and highest offices, all under the same strict confidentiality she'll bring to your week in Sicily. And, more recently, accidental midlife influencer. Kate doesn't just teach strategy. She lives it.
Her exit from the corporate world came down to a cup-cake tragedy (it's a long story) at the point where the juggle had simply become too hard to sustain. Kate turned her attention to learning how to better manage her own time as a professional woman with children, and started her first business: an online portal connecting busy women with home help. But what she was really selling people wasn't a babysitter or a nanny. It was time and freedom to live a life by design. That epiphany became her first book, Me Time, guiding professional and business women to regain time, energy and control. It became a bestseller, and Kate had found her purpose.
Many of the executives and business owners Kate works with think that working exceptionally hard and saving for retirement is what planning for life is all about. They don't realise they can plan for, design and live their perfect life right now. It was that realisation, following a family tragedy, that led Kate to publish her 5th book in April 2023, The Life List: Master Every Moment and Live an Audacious Life. The Life List is about taking control and designing our perfect lives today, because later might be too late. It's a call to action for women who want more.
The book won Best General Business Book at the 2023 Australian Business Book Awards and has since been translated into Chinese. Kate has toured China for the Australian Government and DFAT, is a regular guest on podcasts, co-hosts Kochie's Business Builders, and writes as Opinion Columnist for CEOWorld Magazine.
Applying that same expertise to her own life, Kate created a Life List: everything she wants to experience while she is still young enough to enjoy it. From learning to surf, downsizing her family home to a cool city apartment, travelling only business class, hiking a volcano, falling in love again, to restoring a Sicilian Palazzo. Along the way, Kate has built a global community of women who also want to live large, audacious lives.
Kate understands the exact mental clutter, decision fatigue and societal pressure that holds high-achieving women back. She is here to give you the frameworks, the courage, and the tools to make your own "It's My Turn" declaration.
Welcome to the Upgrade Era.
Kate's time-management & goal-setting frameworks are trusted at the highest levels. Clients include Supreme Court Judges, DFAT, The Dept. of Prime Minister & Cabinet and Nasdaq, ASX, Paris and London stock exchange listed companies including Atlassian, L'Oreal, BUPA, Westpac, Specsavers, BAE, and Air Liquide.
5x bestselling author, including Me First and The Life List. Winner, Best General Business Book, 2023 Australian Business Book Awards, translated into Chinese. These are the two books this retreat is built on.
Kate's small-group retreat format (Bali, 7 days) sold out.
Kate applied this exact framework to her own life in midlife (the Palazzo, the surfing, creating a global community of women, and more) before ever teaching it.
In Her Words: Bali
"Taking a week away in Bali with Kate Christie was exactly what I needed as a founder and CEO, but what I didn't realise was how much Rochelle, the person behind the brand, needed it too. I came home full of ideas, with incredible clarity and a renewed sense of what I wanted, not only for my life, but for the business I had created.
I honestly cannot express how profound that seemingly innocuous week in Bali became. Three years later, I can still see the ripple effects everywhere. Personally, it gave me permission to think bigger about the life I wanted to create. Professionally, the clarity I came home with changed the way I led, the goals I set and what I believed was possible for Share the Dignity.
And here's the extraordinary part: every single goal I set for the business during that time has since been achieved.
That week taught me that sometimes the most productive thing you can do as a leader is actually step away from the noise long enough to think, dream, and create space for what's next. It wasn't just a retreat. It was an investment in me, in my leadership and ultimately in the business. Three years later, I am still seeing the return."
Rochelle Courtenay, Founder, Share The Dignity
It depends on when you cancel, since your payments go toward real costs (accommodation, catering, guides and transport) that Kate commits to on your behalf ahead of the retreat:
If we're able to fill your place with another guest, you'll be refunded everything you've paid, less a $250 administration fee.
In practice, the further out you cancel, the more you'll get back. Our suppliers rarely lock in costs that far ahead, so early cancellations are refunded in full the vast majority of the time.
The retreat requires a minimum of 5 guests to proceed. If that number isn't reached, the retreat is cancelled and every deposit is refunded in full, no exceptions.
Pricing is already set, based on costing for the properties Kate has in mind, so your investment won't change based on what accommodation Kate chooses. Kate is inspecting the properties in person in November 2026 and confirming availability before signing, the same care she'd apply to her own Palazzo. Full accommodation details, including room configuration, will be confirmed to all guests well ahead of the 90-day refund window.
This will be confirmed alongside accommodation in November 2026. If you'd prefer to share, let us know when you apply and we'll do our best to match you or negotiate a twin rate.
Accommodation, transport to and from Palermo airport, transport to and from all planned excursions, 3 group meals per day, entry costs, and all planned excursions and experiences.
Airfares, travel insurance, spending money, personal add-on excursions, travel or food, and alcohol beyond what's included at group dinners.
This isn't a technical hike. We walk the coastal trail in the Zingaro Nature Reserve, typically as far as the second cove, at an easy-to-moderate pace with plenty of stops to take in the view. No hiking experience is required.
No. The three coaching half-days are the core of the retreat and Kate is fully present for those. The rest of the week (excursions, yoga, dinners) is offered as a group experience by default, but nothing beyond the coaching sessions is compulsory.
Like you have died and gone to heaven.
No. You can, but it is not expected.
Respectful clothing: shorts, dresses and skirts should touch the knee. No crop tops or activewear.
Absolutely! Many guests do this.
You can spend the next 10 years doing what you've always done: running on autopilot, managing everyone else's priorities, and wondering 'what if?' Or you can step out of your daily grind, onto an island rich in history, and design your next decade, one that is truly momentous.