For funds and platform teams
The Bearing is a device-free leadership development retreat for founders, held by the Bashakill wetlands in the Hudson Valley, about 90 minutes from Manhattan. Funds and platform teams use it to send a portfolio founder, or a cohort of founders, for 3.5 days of hard thinking and real rest. Each founder leaves with a handwritten 90-day plan, measured again at day 90.
This page is for platform leads and talent and operating partners at venture firms that hold a founder-development or leader-development budget. You are responsible for founder support across a portfolio, and you want the money spent on leadership to show up in how founders decide and lead.
The founders who fit are often at an inflection point: a hard round, a co-founder change, a first executive hire.
Founders are isolated and rarely say so. Coaching and peer programs help, but they live in the gaps of a full calendar, so the phone wins. And when a partner asks what the leadership budget produced, the answer is often satisfaction scores, not a change you can point to.
Founders and operators come alone and join a curated cohort of 6 to 10. Phones are surrendered on arrival and returned at departure. The days combine physical challenge, ancestral skills and facilitated dialogue, and end with a written plan the founder carries home and a peer cohort that meets again on a virtual check-in at day 90.
It works as a leadership coaching retreat without being another series of calls. Root Astro is led by co-founders Lee Arthur, author of Hard: Building Your Inner Citadel, and Marsha Prospere, who runs an executive coaching practice.
You tell us who you have in mind, and we tell you what fits. Send one founder into an open cohort, several across the season, or ask about a cohort built around your portfolio. Every place begins with an application that Lee and Marsha review personally.
Every founder takes the same six-dimension reading three times: before arrival, on the final morning and at day 90. The dimensions are Presence, Connection, Capability, Clarity, Resilience and Reverence.
The 90-Day Bearing ties the readings to specific commitments, so the day-90 comparison shows what changed in practice, not how the retreat felt. Before arrival, we agree with you and the founder what the fund sees; the founder's plan stays theirs. More on measuring leadership retreat results.
The Bearing is $7,600 per seat, all-inclusive: private lodging, chef-prepared meals, facilitation, every guided element, the handwritten 90-Day Bearing and its journal, and the virtual cohort check-in at day 90.
First cohorts begin May 1, 2027, with 2027 dates on the calendar. Compare in our 2027 executive retreat costs guide.
Yes. Funds and partners can sponsor one founder or several, paid from a leader-development budget. The founder still applies, and Lee Arthur and Marsha Prospere review each application personally, because the mix of people in a cohort is part of how the leadership development retreat works. You handle the introduction; we handle everything after it.
Only if you want them to be. Most sponsored founders join an open cohort of 6 to 10 founders and operators from different companies, which makes candor easier. If you would like to send several portfolio founders together, tell us early and we will advise on whether a shared cohort or separate dates would serve them better.
That is agreed before arrival, with you and the founder together. The founder's 90-Day Bearing and private reflections belong to the founder. Readings are taken before arrival, on the final morning and at day 90, so there is a clear before-and-after to discuss. Keeping the founder's trust is what makes the retreat worth sponsoring.
Executive coaching is ongoing and conversational. The Bearing is an immersive executive retreat: 3.5 device-free days on the land, physical challenge, a peer cohort and a written plan, followed by a virtual cohort check-in at day 90. The two work well together: the retreat gives ongoing coaching sharper material to work with.
Root Astro is on a nature-based campus in the Hudson Valley, New York, by the Bashakill wetlands and the Shawangunk Ridge, about 90 minutes by car from Manhattan. No flight is needed from New York City. The exact location is shared with confirmed participants before arrival.
Tell us who you are thinking of. We will tell you honestly whether The Bearing fits, or what would.
Start a conversationDispatches from the field of human renewal. Irregular essays on leadership, nature, and the practice of becoming human again.
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