Author: Margaretha Montagu

Or, why your calling begins at home. With the person who lives there.

In one of my previous posts, I announced that I had had quite enough of life lessons for 2026, thank you very much. After a year that seems to have mistaken me for a particularly enthusiastic student in an advanced course in adversity, I decided that what I really needed was to press pause.

I’ve been thinking about what I actually do want to spend my time on. Because it’s all very well deciding what you’re no longer prepared to put up with, but eventually you have to come up with a plan for what you do want to do.

And I think I’ve got an idea.

Hospitality.

It’s something that has been part of me for as long as I can remember. I love welcoming people, making them feel at home, feeding them, sharing stories, and creating the sort of atmosphere in which people can finally put their feet up and stop pretending they’ve got everything under control.

(You’d be amazed how many people are secretly longing to do precisely that.)

For years, I’ve welcomed guests to Maison Meraki, my old farmhouse in the sun-drenched southwest of France. I’ve watched people arrive carrying the invisible baggage of busy lives, demanding jobs, difficult decisions and worries they haven’t had the time or space to think about properly. And I’ve had the privilege of seeing them gradually relax into the slower rhythm of life here.

There’s a great deal to be said for a place where you can simply be.

And yet, somewhere along the way, I managed to overlook a rather important person in all this business of making people feel welcome.

Me.

Yes, me. The woman who lives here.

The hostess. The cook. The person who knows where the spare towels are, what needs doing in the garden, whether there’s enough coffee, and exactly how much time is left before the next guests arrive.

I suspect I’m not alone in this.

Many of us are rather good at looking after other people. We notice when someone is tired, hungry, worried or in need of a little encouragement. We make the coffee, prepare the meal, remember the birthday, offer the spare bed and ask whether there’s anything else we can do.

We can be wonderfully attentive to everyone else’s needs.

Our own? Not so much.

I’ll have my coffee after I’ve finished this. I’ll sit down when the kitchen is tidy. I’ll take a proper break once everything is done.

And, of course, everything is never done.

There’s always another cupboard to organise, another email to answer, another little job that will apparently take only five minutes and somehow devours the next forty-five. If you’re particularly gifted in this department, you can even invent new tasks while completing the old ones.

It’s an awesome talent, really. Entirely useless, but awesome.

I’ve spent much of my life being capable and dependable. As a doctor, I was accustomed to looking after people, often while working punishing hours. Eventually, I learned that one should not keep going at the cost of one’s own wellbeing.

You’d think that particular lesson might have stuck.

But old habits are remarkably persistent. Even when you know better, you can still find yourself treating your own needs as an inconvenient administrative duty.

And hospitality, which ought to be a pleasure, can become another duty. The house must be ready, the food must be good, the guests must be comfortable, and the hostess must somehow manage all of this without looking as though she’s just completed a marathon in high heels.

Hospitality begins at home

Here’s what I’ve been realising: if hospitality is my calling, then perhaps I need to start by extending some of it to myself.

Not because I intend to become a better hostess through a complicated programme of self-improvement. Heaven forbid. I have officially retired from compulsory personal development for the foreseeable future.

But because I want to enjoy the life I’m creating, not simply maintain it for the benefit of everyone who comes through the front door.

I want my home to be a place that nourishes me, too.

Fortunately, I live in a 200-year-old farmhouse in Gascony, surrounded by the sort of countryside that makes you want to put the kettle on, sit down and stare out of the window for a while. There are vineyards, woods, orchards, fields that change colour with the seasons, and those glorious skies that seem to go on forever.

It would be rather ungrateful not to enjoy them occasionally.

And yet, how easy it is to be so busy doing things in a place that you forget to enjoy being there.

I want to change that.

I want to make my home feel welcoming without turning every arrival into a military operation. I want to cook food I enjoy cooking, set a table that makes me happy, and create spaces where people can settle in without feeling that they must behave like visitors.

I want to light a candle because I like the light it gives, not because a home-styling expert has informed me that candles are essential to creating an atmosphere.

I want to put flowers on the table because they’re beautiful, not because the table looks insufficiently photogenic without them.

And I want to sit down and enjoy my own coffee while it’s still hot.

The small things are not small

I’m beginning to think that taking care of ourselves doesn’t always require grand gestures, expensive treats or a weekend at a luxury spa where someone tells us to breathe while charging us the equivalent of a month’s groceries.

Sometimes it’s much simpler.

It’s making a proper coffee in the morning and drinking it without simultaneously answering emails, checking the weather, planning supper and mentally rearranging the furniture.

It’s having a house that feels pleasant to live in, rather than maintaining an imaginary standard of domestic perfection that nobody has actually asked for.

It’s keeping a favourite book within reach. Having something delicious in the cupboard. Going for a walk because the day is beautiful, or because the day is dreadful and you need to get out of the house before you start arguing with the washing machine.

It’s noticing what makes you feel more like yourself and allowing a little more of it into your days.

I don’t think we talk enough about that.

Self-care has become such a heavily marketed concept that it can feel like yet another responsibility. Apparently, we must optimise our sleep, perfect our morning routines, regulate our nervous systems, practise mindfulness, eat seventeen varieties of vegetable, and maintain a journal in which we record our gratitude for having achieved all the above.

I’m exhausted just thinking about it.

What if we made it a little less complicated?

What if we simply asked ourselves, What would make today feel a little happier?

Perhaps the answer is a phone call with a friend, a good lunch, an afternoon with a book, or an evening in which absolutely nothing useful gets accomplished.

Perhaps it’s saying no to something you don’t have the energy for, without writing a dissertation explaining why.

Or perhaps it’s giving yourself permission to leave the house slightly untidy because the sun is shining and you’d rather be outside.

The world will not stop turning. The dust will not disappear. I can personally vouch for the astonishing resilience of dust.

And if the dust doesn’t approve of your priorities, it can always go and live somewhere else.

A calling, not another job

I’ve spent years creating retreats at Maison Meraki, welcoming people who need a little breathing space from the demands of their lives. There are walks on the Camino de Santiago, time in nature, books, conversations, and the quiet presence of my horses. There are meals around the table and the simple pleasure of staying in a real home, rather than somewhere that feels as though a committee of interior designers has been instructed to remove every trace of human existence.

And I want to create that atmosphere in a way that is sustainable for me, too.

That means being a little more thoughtful about how much I take on, how I use my energy, and what I actually enjoy doing. It means recognising that a welcoming home doesn’t depend on its hostess running herself ragged. It means making room for my own life alongside the lives of the people who come here.

Perhaps that’s what returning to my calling looks like: not doing more, but doing what matters with greater care.

Not becoming endlessly available to everyone, but offering genuine hospitality when I can do so wholeheartedly.

And what about you?

Perhaps you don’t run retreats in France. Perhaps you don’t have horses, vineyards or a 200-year-old farmhouse that occasionally requires you to negotiate with its plumbing.

But I suspect you know something about putting yourself last.

Perhaps you’re the person everyone calls when they need help. The one who remembers, organises, supports, encourages and quietly gets on with things. Perhaps you’ve become so accustomed to looking after everyone else that you’ve stopped asking what you need.

Or perhaps you’ve simply been so busy getting through life that you’ve forgotten to make time for enjoying it.

If so, I’d like to offer you a small invitation.

You don’t need to reinvent yourself. You don’t need a new morning routine, a grand five-year plan or a notebook full of inspirational quotations.

You might simply begin by treating yourself as someone whose comfort matters.

Make the coffee. Sit down while you drink it. Put the flowers on the table. Read the book. Take the walk. Invite a friend for lunch without feeling obliged to produce a banquet worthy of a royal wedding.

Because a home isn’t made welcoming by the absence of dust, the perfection of the cushions or the number of courses served at supper.

It’s made welcoming by the feeling people have when they’re there.

And that feeling begins, at least in part, with the person who lives in it.

After all, if I’ve learned anything from the year I’ve just had, it’s that life is far too precious to spend all of it preparing for the moment when we finally get to enjoy it.

Why bother figuring out your life purpose at all? Because a life without one runs on autopilot. Every decision, from which job to take to how to spend a Tuesday, starts to feel arbitrary, and that’s exhausting in a way that’s hard to pinpoint. You end up making the same choices over and over, not because they’re right, but because deciding anything else feels like too much effort.

Purpose doesn’t necessarily mean discovering one grand, lifelong mission. It can simply mean becoming clearer about what makes your life feel worthwhile and where you want to direct your time, energy and attention.

Some of the most meaningful benefits are:

1. Greater clarity about what matters
   Purpose gives you a way of distinguishing between what is genuinely important to you and what you’ve simply been conditioned to pursue.
2. Better decisions
   When you know what matters, decisions become easier. You can ask, “Does this move me towards the life I want, or away from it?” That can be particularly valuable during major life transitions.
3. A stronger sense of direction
   Purpose provides a kind of internal compass. You may not know exactly where you’re going, but you have a better idea of which direction feels right.
4. More motivation
   We tend to have more energy for things that feel meaningful. Purpose can turn “I have to” into “I want to.”
5. Greater resilience
   Having something that matters to you can make difficulties easier to navigate. It doesn’t remove adversity, but it can give you a reason to keep going through it.
6. Less susceptibility to other people’s expectations
   A clear sense of purpose can help you stop measuring your life primarily by conventional markers such as status, income, achievement or other people’s approval.
7. A greater sense of meaning
   Purpose connects the everyday things you do with something larger than the immediate task. Even ordinary activities can feel more satisfying when you understand why they matter to you.
8. More satisfying use of your time
   Once you know what you value, it becomes easier to notice how much of your life is being spent on things that don’t actually matter to you—and to make different choices.
9. A stronger sense of identity
   Particularly after retirement, divorce, burnout, children leaving home, career changes or other major transitions, purpose can help answer the uncomfortable question: “Who am I now?”
10. Greater wellbeing
    Research generally associates having a strong sense of purpose in life with better psychological wellbeing and, in many studies, better physical health outcomes as well. The important caveat is that purpose is associated with these outcomes; it isn’t a magic prescription for health.

How purposeful and meaningful is your life, right now? Take the quiz.

Perhaps the biggest benefit of finding your life purpose

I would put coherence at the heart of it.

A purposeful life tends to make more sense to the person living it. Your values, choices, relationships, work and use of time begin to fit together rather than feeling like a collection of unrelated obligations.

And purpose doesn’t have to be grandiose.

It might be:

I want to make the second half of my life quieter, more meaningful and more fulfilling.

Or:

I want to create a life in which there is time for the people Ilove and the places I still want to see.

That can be every bit as much a purpose as “I want to change the world.”

In fact, for people who have spent years achieving, performing and meeting expectations, finding purpose can sometimes be less about discovering what more they should do and more about discovering what is actually worth doing now.

The Life Purpose Pivot Challenge

Unlike your grandparents, nobody’s handing you a purpose anymore. No village, no tribe, no fixed role waiting for you at forty, fifty, sixty. You have to construct it yourself, from scratch, in the middle of a life that’s already fully underway. That’s either terrifying or the most freeing thing you’ll ever do, depending entirely on whether you have a map.

My Purpose Pivot Challenge is such a map, and it doesn’t stop at insight. Seven modules, structured on the same path that’s carried pilgrims for a thousand years, walking you from acknowledging where you actually are, through processing what’s ending, finding your own inner compass, rebuilding your relationships around who you’re becoming, surviving the doubt that shows up right on schedule, and finally translating all of it into a concrete blueprint you can actually live. Twenty-one journaling prompts. Seven practical exercises. Real stories from people who’ve done exactly this, from a former COO to a former elite triathlete rebuilding a shattered identity. Optional 1:1 mentoring if you want a hand to hold along the way. All of it, self-paced, for a one-time €39.

A year from now, time will have passed either way. The only real question is whether you’ll be further along the path, or still standing at the same crossroads, asking the same question.

Enrol Now → The Purpose Pivot Challenge, €39

If you love walking, you may have come across the term walking retreat and wondered how on earth it differs from an organised walking holiday. After all, both involve beautiful countryside, well-worn walking shoes, fresh air and a few days away from everyday life. There may even be a backpack involved, although hopefully not one containing the entire contents of your bathroom cabinet.

So what is the difference?

The simplest answer is this: an organised walking holiday is primarily about the walking, while a walking retreat is about what the walking gives you the opportunity to discover.

A walking holiday might take you through spectacular landscapes, historic villages or famous long-distance trails. You may have a carefully planned itinerary, a guide, a group of fellow walkers and a target number of kilometres to cover each day.

A walking retreat can include some of those things, but its purpose is different. The walking becomes a way of slowing down, creating mental space and reconnecting with yourself.

And sometimes, when life has become complicated, that is exactly what you need.

What is a walking retreat?

A walking retreat combines walking with time for rest, reflection and personal renewal. Rather than simply travelling somewhere because you want to walk through a beautiful landscape, you are deliberately stepping away from your normal routine to create some time for yourself.

That might mean walking through vineyards and woodland in southwest France, following a section of the Camino de Santiago, practising walking meditation, journaling, reading, sitting quietly or simply allowing your mind to wander.

There is no requirement to arrive with a five-year plan for your life. You don’t need to have a dramatic crisis, either. And you certainly don’t have to leave as a completely transformed human being who has discovered their life’s purpose somewhere between lunch and afternoon tea.

A walking retreat can be much quieter than that.

You might simply need time to think. Time to breathe. Time to sleep. Time to make a decision. Or simply time to hear yourself think without somebody asking what you’re doing next.

If you’re wondering whether a walking retreat might be the kind of pause you need, you may also find my article on why a retreat can be particularly valuable during a major life transition of use.

What is an organised walking holiday?

An organised walking holiday is usually designed around the experience of walking through a particular destination. The route and the places you visit are often the main attraction.

You might walk part of the Camino de Santiago, explore the French countryside, hike in the mountains or follow a coastal trail. Depending on the type of walking holiday you choose, your accommodation, meals, luggage transfers, transport and walking routes may all be organised for you.

There may be a guide or a group of other walkers, and there may be a satisfying sense of achievement involved in completing each day’s walk.

The emphasis is generally on exploring, experiencing and walking.

And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. If your idea of bliss is discovering a new landscape, challenging yourself physically, completing a particular route or sharing an adventure with other people, an organised walking holiday could be exactly what you’re looking for.

A walking retreat simply has a different intention.

Walking holiday or walking retreat: which one is right for you?

The difference becomes much clearer when you think about what you actually want from your time away.

On an organised walking holiday, you may be thinking about the route, the destination and how many kilometres you are going to cover. On a walking retreat, the questions may be rather different: How am I feeling? What have I been avoiding thinking about? What do I actually want now? Why have I been saying yes to things I really want to say no to? And when did I last have a whole afternoon without somebody needing something from me?

One experience is not better than the other. They simply answer different needs.

• If you want adventure, exploration and the satisfaction of covering a beautiful route, a walking holiday may be perfect.
• If you are looking for rest, reflection and a little breathing room in which to work out what comes next, a walking retreat may be what you need.

Sometimes the difficulty is that we don’t realise which one we need until we arrive.

What if you don’t want to walk in a group?

This is one of the questions people sometimes hesitate to ask. Can you go on a walking retreat without having to interact with others?

Absolutely.

For some people, the idea of joining a walking group sounds delightful. They enjoy the conversation, the camaraderie and the shared experience.

For others, it sounds suspiciously like work.

They don’t want to spend five days making conversation with strangers. They don’t want to walk at somebody else’s pace. They don’t want to feel guilty because they’d rather eat their lunch quietly than participate in a lively discussion about where everyone comes from and what they did before breakfast.

And there is nothing wrong with that.

A solo walking retreat can offer something that is surprisingly difficult to find in ordinary life: genuine solitude.

You can walk alone. You can stop when you want. You can take photographs, sit beneath a tree, write in your journal, have a coffee, or simply stare at the landscape for ten minutes without feeling that you ought to be doing something more productive.

There can still be companionship and conversation when you want it. But solitude isn’t treated as a problem that needs fixing.

For many people, that is precisely what they came for.

I’ve written more about the unexpected ways walking can create connection and conversation in “Difficult Conversation Coming Up? Talk While Walking Together”.

Why walking is so good for reflection

There is something about walking that makes thinking easier.

Perhaps it’s the rhythm. One foot follows the other. The landscape changes slowly. Your breathing settles. Your attention gradually moves away from the endless stream of emails, notifications, responsibilities and decisions.

You aren’t sitting at a desk trying desperately to solve your life. You’re walking.

And somehow, thoughts that have been stubbornly stuck can begin to move.

You may start thinking about a conversation you’ve been avoiding, a decision you’ve been postponing, a career that no longer feels right or what you actually want now that your children have left home. You might be wondering what retirement is going to mean, what comes after divorce, how to begin again after bereavement or simply why your life no longer feels quite like yours.

That feeling of suddenly not recognising the person you’ve become can be particularly powerful during a major life transition. I explore this in more depth in “Paralysed by an Identity Crisis in Times of Transition”.

Sometimes an answer comes immediately.

More often, it doesn’t.

And that’s perfectly fine.

A retreat isn’t a machine for producing answers. It is an opportunity to create enough space for the questions to become clearer.

Walking meditation: when the journey becomes the practice

Walking retreats can also incorporate mindful walking or walking meditation.

Unlike traditional meditation, you aren’t required to sit cross-legged in perfect stillness while attempting to empty your mind of every thought you’ve had since 1987.

You simply walk.

You notice your feet, your breathing, the movement of your body, the sounds around you, the landscape and the changing light. You notice the sensation of being outdoors. And when your mind wanders, you notice that too.

The point isn’t to stop thinking. It is to become more aware of what is happening while you are thinking.

That makes walking particularly valuable when you are feeling overwhelmed or when life has become so busy that you’ve lost touch with yourself.

There is something wonderfully simple about it. You don’t need special equipment, an app, a subscription or a mat that costs more than your first car.

You just need to walk.

Alistair thought he was coming on a walking holiday

One of my favourite examples of the difference between a walking holiday and a walking retreat came from a guest who arrived at the farmhouse thinking he was coming on a walking holiday.

He liked walking. He liked the idea of being in the French countryside. He liked the idea of several days away from home. So when he booked, that’s how he thought of it.

A walking holiday.

He was slightly surprised when I explained that he would be walking alone. He had a route, he had everything he needed, and he could stop whenever he liked. He could take as long as he wanted. There was no group waiting for him at the next turning and nobody keeping track of his progress.

He looked at me as though I had perhaps omitted a fairly important part of the itinerary.

“So I’m really walking on my own?”

“Yes.”

“For the whole walk?”

“Yes.”

And off he went.

When he returned several hours later, he was noticeably different. Not dramatically transformed. He hadn’t discovered the secret of eternal happiness somewhere between two French villages. He had simply had several hours without anyone asking anything of him.

Apparently, that was exactly what he needed.

Over the next few days, the walking became less important than the space it created. He thought. He noticed things. He considered decisions he had been putting off. He began to think about what he wanted the next chapter of his life to look like.

Towards the end of his stay, he laughed and admitted that he had arrived expecting a walking holiday.

He now realised that he hadn’t really come for the walking.

He had come for the thinking.

And that, in a nutshell, is the difference.

If you’d like to hear some of the other things guests have discovered while walking the Camino, I’ve collected them in “10 Powerful Life Lessons My Retreat Guests Learned While Walking the Camino de Santiago”. It’s a rather good introduction to what can happen when you put one foot in front of the other and give yourself permission to think.

You don’t have to come for a life-changing experience

There is another misconception about retreats worth clearing up.

You don’t have to want to change your entire life. You don’t have to have a five-year plan. You don’t have to discover your purpose. You don’t have to make any major decisions at all.

Perhaps you simply need a few days away from your normal environment.

Perhaps you’re exhausted.

Perhaps you’ve spent years looking after everyone else and have forgotten what you actually enjoy.

Perhaps you’re approaching retirement and aren’t sure what comes next. Perhaps your children have left home and the house suddenly feels strangely quiet. Perhaps you’ve been through a divorce or another major life change and need some breathing space.

Or perhaps nothing is particularly wrong. You just know that something needs to be different.

A walking retreat gives you permission to explore that without pressure.

You don’t have to fix yourself.

You aren’t a broken appliance.

You simply need some time and space to listen to yourself again.

A walking retreat isn’t about how many kilometres you walk

One of the biggest differences between a walking holiday and a walking retreat is the relationship with achievement.

On a walking holiday, there can be a satisfying sense of accomplishment in completing a route. Ten kilometres. Fifteen kilometres. Twenty kilometres. Another stage completed. Another destination reached.

On a retreat, the number of kilometres may matter much less.

Perhaps you walk ten kilometres. Perhaps you stop halfway because you’ve found a beautiful place to sit. Perhaps you spend twenty minutes looking at a field of sunflowers. Perhaps you become absorbed in your thoughts and take a completely unhurried lunch.

The point isn’t to prove anything.

The point is to give yourself time.

Time that isn’t measured in emails answered, appointments attended, tasks completed or kilometres walked.

That can be the ultimate luxury.

You may not return transformed. You may simply return clearer.

I rather like the idea that a retreat doesn’t necessarily have to transform you.

Transformation is a rather grand word.

Sometimes clarity is enough.

You might return home knowing what you need to do next. Or knowing what you don’t want to do. You might realise that you need to say no more often. You might remember something you used to love. You might finally acknowledge that you’re tired.

You might make peace with the fact that you don’t yet know what comes next.

Or you might simply feel rested.

Sometimes that’s more valuable than another ten-point plan for reinventing your life.

So, what is the difference between a walking retreat and a walking holiday?

Ultimately, it comes down to intention.

A walking holiday asks:

Where shall we walk?

A walking retreat asks:

What might become possible if I give myself time to think while I walk?

A walking holiday takes you somewhere.

A walking retreat can help you find your way again.

And that can be particularly powerful when you are standing at one of life’s crossroads.

Perhaps you’re asking yourself, What now?

Perhaps the old version of your life no longer fits, but the new one hasn’t quite taken shape yet. Perhaps you don’t need advice. Perhaps you don’t need another book, podcast, productivity system or inspirational quote telling you to become the best version of yourself by Tuesday.

Perhaps you need to get away from the noise.

Put on your walking shoes.

Step outside.

And walk.

Not to escape your life. Not necessarily to change it. Just far enough away from the noise to see it clearly.

Because sometimes, somewhere between one footstep and the next, you begin to hear something you’ve been unable to hear for a very long time:

your own voice.

And perhaps that is what a walking retreat is really for.

Not to take you away from your life, but to give you enough space to decide where you want to take it next.

Ready to find your way again?

If you’re beginning to suspect that what you need isn’t another ordinary holiday but a few days in which to slow down, walk, think and reconnect with yourself, you may be ready for a different kind of Camino experience.

My Camino de Santiago Walking Retreats in southwest France combine sections of this ancient pilgrimage route with time and space for reflection, rest and perspective. They are deliberately small and intimate, with no forced bonding, no pressure to have a breakthrough and no requirement to prove how many kilometres you can conquer.

Just beautiful countryside, a little time away from ordinary life, and the opportunity to discover what becomes clearer when you stop rushing.

Explore the Camino de Santiago Walking Retreat in southwest France →

Perhaps you don’t need to walk all the way to Santiago.

Perhaps you simply need to walk far enough to find yourself again.

AI has revolutionised online learning in ways we could never have imagined.

These days, you can ask AI to create a course on almost anything—from astrophysics to how to keep your houseplants alive—and it will hand you a neatly structured programme in seconds. Want six modules? No problem. Learning objectives, worksheets, quizzes, reflection questions and suggested reading? Done.

The smarter your prompting skills, the slicker your course.

AI-generated courses are now popping up everywhere, at every price point imaginable. And, quite honestly, much of the information available in paid online courses can now be found—or generated—for free.

Which raises a perfectly reasonable question.

So then… why are people still buying online courses?

And, more specifically, why are my courses still selling?

The answer is surprisingly simple: I don’t just hand you information. I help you do something with it.

Because information, however brilliant, does not automatically change your life. Knowing what to do is not the same thing as actually doing it, and that is where most of us get stuck.

Welcome to the Digital Graveyard of Half-Finished Courses

I must confess.

I have bought online courses that I was absolutely convinced were going to change my life. I enrolled enthusiastically, downloaded the workbook and watched the welcome video. I may even have completed Module One.

And then life happened.

The course disappeared beneath emails, appointments, shopping lists, family responsibilities and whatever unexpected drama decided to arrive that week.

Sound familiar?

Most of us have a digital graveyard of half-finished courses gathering virtual dust somewhere. There are courses we meant to complete, courses we were genuinely excited about and courses containing perfectly useful information. Yet somehow, we never made it to the end.

It isn’t necessarily because the course was poor. It isn’t because we are lazy, and it certainly isn’t always because we didn’t want the outcome badly enough.

The problem is that information alone is rarely enough.

When you are trying to make significant changes in your life—particularly after a major disruption—you often need more than another video to watch. You may need encouragement when your motivation disappears, help working out how a general principle applies to your particular circumstances and somebody to ask the slightly uncomfortable question:

“That’s all very well, but what are you actually going to do about it this week?”

Sometimes, you simply need somebody in your corner.

AI Can Give You Answers, But It Cannot Live Your Life for You

Please don’t misunderstand me: I think AI is an extraordinary tool, and I use it myself. It can help us research, brainstorm, organise ideas, explain complicated concepts and generate possibilities at breathtaking speed.

But there is an important difference between having access to an answer and being able to integrate that answer into your life.

You can ask AI how to find your purpose and receive an excellent list of exercises. You can ask how to become more resilient and receive a thoughtful explanation of stress management, emotional regulation, boundaries and self-care. You can even ask how to reinvent yourself after a major life change and receive pages of useful suggestions within seconds.

But eventually, somebody has to close the laptop and ask what all this means for them.

What am I actually going to change? What am I ready to let go of? What am I afraid to admit? Which advice fits my particular life? What should I do first?

And perhaps most importantly, what am I going to do when my enthusiasm evaporates next Tuesday?

That is the point at which information has to become implementation. And implementation is where the real work begins.

The Missing Ingredient in Online Learning: Accountability

I recently did a little market research into how people are using AI and how this is changing the online learning industry. The picture is interesting.

More people are undoubtedly turning to AI instead of automatically purchasing an online course. After all, why pay for information when you can ask a question and receive an instant answer?

But there is something people still value enormously: human support, particularly when they are trying to complete something that requires sustained effort, personal reflection and meaningful change.

People may not need another person to tell them everything they could theoretically find on the internet. But they often appreciate someone who can help them stay focused on what matters, make sense of what they are learning, apply general ideas to their own circumstances and identify the obstacles that are getting in their way.

They also value accountability.

Most of us know considerably more about what we should be doing than we actually do. Knowing that exercise is good for us doesn’t necessarily get us out of bed on a cold morning. Understanding the importance of boundaries doesn’t automatically make it easier to say no. And buying a course about finding your purpose does not, unfortunately, mean that you wake up three weeks later with your entire life mapped out.

Sometimes we need somebody to help us keep moving, especially when our motivation disappears. We may need encouragement, perspective or simply somebody who notices that we have quietly abandoned the very thing we said was important to us.

And occasionally, we need someone to ask:

“That’s all very well, but what are you actually going to do about it this week?”

Which is exactly the kind of work I most enjoy doing.

Which Is Why I (Now) Call Them Challenges

The word course can sound rather passive. You enrol, consume the content, tick off the modules and, if you’re particularly diligent, make it to the end.

But that isn’t really what I want for the people who work with me.

I don’t want you simply to complete a course. I want you to engage with a challenge.

A challenge implies movement. It suggests that you are going somewhere and acknowledges that there may be obstacles along the way. More importantly, it implies that you are expected to do something rather than merely absorb information.

My challenges are designed to give you a structured pathway through a particular stage of change, but you don’t have to do all the work in isolation. When you enrol, you can add as many coaching conversations as you need. These are structured, supportive conversations designed to help you turn what you are learning into something useful in your real life.

Think of them as personalised guideposts. You may know where you want to go and even have a reasonably good map, but every now and then it helps to have somebody beside you who can say, “Yes, you’re still on the right road,” or perhaps, “I think we’ve discovered why you keep getting stuck here.”

And sometimes the most useful question is simply:

“Wonderful insight. Now what are you going to do with it?”

From Information Overload to Permanent Transformation

I have never been particularly interested in selling people vast quantities of information. The world already has plenty of information. What interests me is what happens when somebody takes an idea and begins to weave it into their everyday life.

That is the difference between knowing that boundaries are important and actually saying no to something you don’t want to do. It is the difference between understanding that stress affects your wellbeing and making meaningful changes to the way you organise your life. It is the difference between recognising that your old identity no longer fits and having the courage to begin creating a new one.

It is also the difference between buying a course about finding your purpose and actually making decisions that move you towards a more meaningful life.

Information may inspire transformation, but implementation is what makes transformation possible.

That is why the coaching element of my challenges matters so much to me. Sometimes you don’t need more content. You need space to think, somebody to listen and a little perspective. You may need encouragement, support and, occasionally, a gentle but unmistakable nudge.

Because there is an enormous difference between understanding something intellectually and actually changing the way you live.

The Radical Renaissance: A Structured Pathway Through Change

My online challenges form the backbone of my Radical Renaissance Program. They were previously known as the Post-Crisis ReConstruction Protocols, and although the name has evolved, the underlying philosophy remains the same.

Life can change suddenly.

A relationship ends. A career disappears or no longer feels meaningful. Your children leave home. You retire and discover that freedom is rather more complicated than you expected. You move country, experience a significant loss or find that your health has changed the way you see your future.

And sometimes nothing dramatic has happened at all.

You simply wake up one morning and think:

“Is this it?”

These moments can leave us feeling overwhelmed, disoriented and uncertain about who we are and what comes next.

A Radical Renaissance is not about pretending that the past never happened, nor is it about throwing your entire life into a skip and reinventing yourself as a yoga teacher in Bali. Although, naturally, if that is genuinely your dream, I am not here to stop you.

It is about taking what life has given you—the good, the difficult, the unexpected and the downright inconvenient—and asking where you go from here.

How can you weave your past and your future into a meaningful present? How can you use what you have learned rather than simply being defined by what happened to you? And how can you build a life that feels more purposeful, meaningful and fulfilling?

That is the journey these challenges are designed to support.

A Clear Pathway Through the Chaos

The Radical Renaissance ecosystem offers a structured, step-by-step pathway for people who are navigating significant change. It is designed to help you move from feeling overwhelmed and disoriented towards creating a life with greater clarity, purpose and fulfilment.

You don’t necessarily have to start at the beginning. Life is not a neatly organised curriculum, unfortunately.

You may already feel reasonably stable but have no idea what you want next. You may know exactly what you want but lack the resilience or confidence to pursue it. You may be ready to focus entirely on your future, or you may need help simply getting through a particularly turbulent period.

Each challenge can stand alone, but together they create a powerful pathway through the different stages of reconstruction and renewal.

Starting by Surviving the Storm

Sometimes the first task is not to discover your purpose or create a magnificent vision for the next ten years.

Sometimes the first task is simply to stop feeling as though your life has been turned upside down.

The Survive the Storm Challenge is designed for periods of major transition and upheaval. It helps you create greater stability, regain a sense of perspective and begin moving forward when everything feels uncertain.

When you are in the middle of a storm, you don’t necessarily need a detailed ten-year plan. You need to know where to put your next foot.

This is where you begin.

Finding or Refocusing Your Purpose

Once life begins to feel a little more stable, many people find themselves facing a different question:

Now what?

The purpose-focused challenges are about rediscovering what matters to you and deciding where you want to direct your energy.

Sometimes we lose our sense of purpose because life has changed. Sometimes the purpose we once had no longer fits, and sometimes we have spent so many years doing what was expected of us that we have forgotten to ask ourselves what we actually want.

Finding your purpose is not necessarily about discovering one magnificent sentence that explains your entire existence. It can be much more practical than that. It is about understanding what matters enough to you that you are willing to organise part of your life around it.

Purpose gives direction to your decisions. And direction can be extraordinarily helpful when you have spent a long time feeling lost.

Becoming Rooted in Resilience

Purpose is wonderful.

Unfortunately, purpose does not protect you from difficult people, unexpected bills, disappointing news or the occasional complete disaster.

That is where resilience comes in.

The Rooted in Resilience Challenge is about developing the inner resources that help you cope with stress, setbacks and uncertainty. Not by becoming invulnerable—none of us are—but by learning how to recover, adapt and continue.

Resilience is not necessarily about bouncing back into exactly the same life you had before. Sometimes the point is to bounce forward into something wiser.

Accelerating Your Growth

There are times when you don’t want to work through a process entirely on your own. You want individual attention. You want somebody to help you connect the dots between where you have been, where you are now and where you would like to go.

You want to be able to say:

“This is where I am. This is where I want to go. How do I get from one to the other?”

That is where more intensive mentoring and coaching can make a real difference.

The Radical Renaissance Program brings the various elements together into a more personalised journey. It allows us to look not only at what you are learning but also at how you are applying it to your particular circumstances.

Because your reconstruction will not look exactly like anybody else’s.

And it shouldn’t.

Building Firm Foundations for Your Future

Eventually, the emphasis shifts.

You stop asking only, “What happened to me?”, and begin asking, “What do I want to create next?”

The Firm Foundations for Your Future Challenge is future-focused. It is about creating a clearer picture of the person you are becoming and the life you want to build.

Not a fantasy life that looks fabulous on Instagram and collapses the moment reality intrudes. A life that actually fits you.

A life with stronger foundations, shaped by your values, your experiences and your evolving understanding of what matters.

Why Storytelling Is at the Heart of Everything I Do

I am a writer. I have written eight books so far, so perhaps it isn’t surprising that storytelling plays an important role in my work.

We human beings understand our lives through stories. We tell ourselves stories about who we are, what happened to us, what we are capable of and what is possible.

The difficulty is that some of these stories become rather limiting.

Perhaps you have begun to see yourself as the person whose marriage failed, the person who made the wrong career decision, the person who got ill, the person who was betrayed or the person who missed their chance.

But those are events.

They are chapters.

They are not necessarily the entire book.

One of the things I most enjoy doing is helping people look at their stories differently. Not by pretending that painful things were wonderful, and certainly not by putting a motivational quote on top of a tragedy and calling it healing.

Instead, I am interested in what happens when we place difficult experiences within a larger and more meaningful narrative.

What did you learn? What survived? What changed? What strengths did you discover? And who might you become next?

Your story is still being written.

You Don’t Need to Do It Perfectly

Another reason I prefer the idea of a challenge is that challenges acknowledge reality.

You may start enthusiastically and lose momentum. You may miss a week. You may discover that one particular exercise makes you uncomfortable. You may suddenly realise that the future you thought you wanted is not the future you want at all.

Excellent.

That is not necessarily failure. It is information.

The purpose of these challenges is not to turn you into the world’s most efficient personal-development student. You do not receive extra points for having colour-coded notes and completing every worksheet with military precision.

The purpose is to help you move forward.

Sometimes quickly. Sometimes slowly. Sometimes after taking two steps forward and one rather spectacular step sideways.

But forward nevertheless.

So, Yes, AI Can Create a Course

AI can create a course in seconds. It can give you ideas, explain concepts, generate worksheets and produce an impressive amount of information at extraordinary speed.

And I suspect it will continue to change online learning in ways we cannot yet imagine.

But I don’t think that means human-guided learning is disappearing. If anything, the sheer abundance of information may make discernment, support and accountability even more valuable.

Because the question is no longer simply:

Where can I find the information?

The question has become more complicated.

What information do I actually need? How does it apply to my life? What should I do with it? And how do I keep going long enough to create meaningful change?

That is where I come in.

I don’t want simply to sell you a collection of videos and hope you find them useful. I want to create challenges that help you engage with the ideas, think about them, question them, adapt them and, most importantly, use them.

Because sometimes you need more than content.

You may need somebody in your corner who can help you stay focused. Somebody who can help you see possibilities when you are stuck staring at the problems. Somebody who reminds you why you started.

And somebody who asks, with great kindness but absolutely no possibility of escape:

“So… what are you going to do next?”

Ready for Your Own Radical Renaissance?

The challenges that make up my Radical Renaissance ecosystem are designed for people who are navigating major change, questioning what comes next or simply feeling that the life they once knew no longer fits quite as comfortably as it used to.

You can choose an individual challenge that reflects where you are right now. Or, if you would like more personalised support, you can explore the Radical Renaissance Program and work through the process with mentoring and coaching along the way.

You don’t have to have everything figured out before you begin. You simply have to be willing to take the next step, and then the next one.

Sometimes that journey is easier when somebody is walking alongside you.

“Weave your past and your future into a meaningful present.”
Margaretha Montagu

The Purpose Pursuit Challenge – if you want to discover your life purpose, this course will provide you with the clarity, motivation and direction you need to manifest your next chapter – in both your personal and professional life. Get immediate access

The Purpose Pivot Challenge – drawing inspiration from the Camino de Santiago, this transformative course guides you through a proven framework to recalibrate your authentic purpose and create a meaningful and fulfilling next act. Get immediate access

Ready for a retreat? Do you dream of escaping your stressful life to raise a herd of goats or grow sunflowers in the south of France? Then you may be ready for an Esprit Meraki retreat. Get access to this “very serious” quiz to help you figure out how urgent your need for a change of scenery is when you subscribe to my monthly newsletter.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed, exhausted, or on the edge of burnout, you need immediate support. The Road Map to Resilience: Burnout to Brilliance online course (with the option of adding coaching sessions) is designed for exactly that: a practical, step-by-step course to help you regain control, rebuild your energy, and find clarity in the chaos. This isn’t a quick fix—it’s about proven strategies to calm your nervous system, shift your mindset, and create sustainable resilience. No need to cope with this on your own—let’s get you back on track.

“I am an experienced medical doctor – MBChB, MRCGP, NLP master pract cert, Transformational Life Coach (dip.) Life Story Coach (cert.) Stress Counselling (cert.) Med Hypnotherapy (dip.) and EAGALA (cert.) I may have an impressive number of letters after my name, and more than three decades of professional experience, but what qualifies me to excel at what I do is my intuitive understanding of my clients’ difficulties and my extensive personal experience of managing major life changes using strategies I developed over many years.” Dr M Montagu