What is the Castle Process?
This reflective, approach to life and career design helps you name what you truly want and why. Through guided reflections, you’ll gain language, clarity, and direction for your next chapter—without the pressure of “action plans.”
Explore our Dream Discovery Retreat to see how the Castle can fit into your journey.
Have you thought about what you really want?
An Invitation to Slow Down and Dream Again
The Dream Discovery Retreat is a thoughtfully designed experience for people at a crossroads — personally, professionally, or creatively — who sense there is more waiting to be uncovered.
This is not a goal-setting workshop.
It is not a productivity sprint.
It is a rare opportunity to slow down, reflect, and engage in guided discovery that brings clarity, language, and direction to your life and career dreams.
Through facilitated reflection, curated conversations, and intentional time away, participants reconnect with their Serious Dream, the deeper vision that has been waiting for attention.
The Dream Discovery Retreat (3.5 Days)
Hosted at The historic Graylyn Estate in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, this immersive 3½-day retreat invites participants to step away from the noise and focus on what’s next.
Set within elegant grounds and guided by certified facilitators, each day combines small-group discovery sessions, guided reflection, and meaningful conversations that reconnect purpose with direction.
What is our promise?
Participants leave with a deeper sense of direction, a shared language for their life and career possibilities, a supportive community of Partners, and the beginnings of a Serious Dream shaped from within — not from pressure, pace, or external expectations.
What can you expect?
- Three-and-a-half-day facilitated Life & Career Design retreat
- Private lodging at Graylyn Estate, Winston-Salem, North Carolina
- Breakfast, Lunch and Three-Course Dinner with AM/PM Breaks
- All workshop materials and proprietary Castle tools
- Guided individual reflection and small-group sessions
- Facilitated experience led by a certified Castle Consultant and expert facilitators
- All on-site program activities during the retreat
- Quarterly 1 on 1 sessions to honor your serious dream development
- One year of group/cohort follow ups and celebrations as serious dreams are fulfilled.
What’s Included After the Retreat?
One Year of Continued Support
Following the retreat, participants are invited into a private chohort community created to support continued dreaming, reflection, and intentional design.
Your year of access includes:
- Guided group sessions designed to support ongoing clarity and direction
- Facilitated conversations to continue exploring your dreams and priorities
- Space to reflect, recalibrate, and evolve your personal life-and-career design
- Connection with others who have completed the Dream Discovery Retreat
This community is designed to support you as real life resumes—helping you stay grounded in what became clear during the retreat.
Cost - $3,200.00 per person
Travel to and from Winston-Salem and to The Graylyn will be the responsibility of the participant.
*Guest/Companion Package rate option included
This entire Castle approach is designed to help you create your Serious Dream and it all begins by attending a 3.5 day Dream Discovery Retreat.
This Castle poster is the foundation for the approach we take to Life and Career Design.
What will I learn in the workshop?
This workshop helps individuals learn three lifetime skills:
- Identifying strengths and talents from your past.
- Setting priorities on your preferences.
- Dreaming and gathering all the possibilities about your ideal future to build your Serious Dream.
Your castle inspires you with towers soaring upward toward your dreams and your castle supports you with solid foundations grounded in reality. Here you'll begin prioritizing and reflecting, empowering you to chart your desired life path with clarity and purpose. Here we help individuals discover and realize their dreams.
Unlocking your full potential involves exploring your undiscovered or yet-to-be-realized dreams and visualizing the life you truly want to live. Discovering your passions and purpose requires introspection and exploration of pursuits that ignite your soul and bring you joy.
"I like the wonderful double image of castles. A castle is fantastic, dream-like, soaring upward AND a castle is also grounded on rock, solid as forever. That's why I see castles as a visual symbol of one of the wisest things I've ever said: A goal is a dream taken seriously." - Walt Hopkins, author of the Castle Process to Life and Career Design.
The Dream Discovery Retreat is provided in a live, facilitator-led setting, mulit-day format intended for small to medium sized groups.
Some groups that have found our Castle Process useful for the following purposes:
- Personal Growth
- Corporate Employee Development
- Career Transition
- Group Retreats
What will I learn in the workshop?
This workshop helps individuals learn three lifetime skills:
Identifying strengths and talents from your past.
Setting priorities on your preferences.
Dreaming and gathering all the possibilities about your ideal future to build your Serious Dream.
If you're interested in learning more, registering for a workshop or bringing a workshop to your group, please contact us below.