Introduction

This article is semi-sponsored by The Viomati Co, a business retreats company, for which I was tasked to review their retreat that I attended in March. I met the founders, Robin Steyvers and Manon Jongejan, a fun-loving couple, for the first time in person at a digital nomad event last year, The Nomad World Fest in Portugal, though I’d been following their content already for a while. Getting to know them a bit more in person and also watching their talk has solidified that I’d like to go to one of their events, and thus, here we are!

The Viomati Co runs a couple of different types of events – business retreats and road trip workations. After having a discovery call with Manon, she suggested that I’d be best suited to the business retreat, for deep connecting with other entrepreneurs and learning and working on my business. So that’s the one I went for.

This was the first time they’d done a 5-day retreat, after previously doing 10-day long ones. They’d had feedback from prospective participants who said they loved the concept but couldn’t get enough time out of their schedule to attend for 10 days. And so, Manon and Robin listened and put on this new offer for a shorter-length retreat, which had a great take-up. The price is really reasonable, too. Manon also suggested taking time off my usual work to attend this retreat, so that I could fully focus on the programme without the overwhelm and distraction that can come with trying to balance work. It’s only 5 days, so no problem!

First Impressions: Arrival and Settings

Robin and Manon used to live together in Marrakech, so they know it quite well and love to come back to host their retreats there. They hosted the retreat in a lovely riad on the edge of the city – a bit of a distance away from the hustle and bustle, whilst still being still close enough to easily walk to when we needed to. The surroundings were so beautiful that I just had to film my Nomad Gossip Magazine promo there! There were a few tortoises roaming around in the courtyard – they’re cute, but watch out that you don’t step on them! They had booked the whole riad just for our group, which was exactly what we needed. Rooms were available to stay in by yourself or shared with another person. I chose the sharing option – partly to save money, and partly because it can be a good networking opportunity. I was in a room with an American life coach called Freedom, whom I got on really well with and learned lots from.

This was my third time in Marrakech, though I’d previously never spent more than one day there, so this was a great opportunity to get to know the city a lot better, which indeed I did!

Attending this retreat were a good number of participants, 10 of us, hailing from different parts of the world, though most of us happened to be from Europe. It was a great vibe of people that Manon and Robin managed to gather a great vibe of people together, who were all really friendly and helpful, just like them. It makes a difference who you can get at these events, as it can really make or break the experience for you. In fact, since I’ve been to quite a few digital nomad gatherings by now, I’m starting to pleasantly run into some of the same people – it’s quite a community! At this Viomati retreat, asides from Manon and Robin, I’d also met Louise here for the second time after previously meeting her at the same Nomad World event, and also Federico, who I’d met at The Nomad World as well as previously at The Nomad Escape and MINOMA (plus, we did our own collab together). And of course, I met a bunch of great new people too at this retreat. If you’re after a like-minded community of people from around the world, then coming to things like this is one of the best ways, in my opinion!

At the start of this retreat, we were all given The Viomati Co-branded notebooks, beautifully designed covers and illustrations throughout. What made these notebooks special, though, were the prompts inside for guiding our thoughts each day of the retreat, as well as pages to write recommendations for books and other resources – I thought those were really useful. Other freebies we received were stickers and fabric patches, and pens.

Daily Flow: What the Retreat Included

There was a good schedule of activities each day – enough to feel we were receiving value while still having enough time for downtime.

Masterminds. A great opportunity for each person to sit in the hot seat and pose a business query for ours to everyone to help with.

Skillshares. Another great peer support opportunity, this time, to teach each other about a useful skill or topic that we had good knowledge of and could share with other participants. My one was on LinkedIn, which I managed to present on with no tech – I drew a mock LinkedIn profile on the whiteboard and then talked through what I recommended to add to it.

Gym session. Co-host Robin is a fitness instructor, so of course he would take us all to the gym on one of these days! He led us through a great workout, which taught me a few new moves that I wasn’t aware of before. I love how Viomati Co is another of these retreat hosts and recognises the importance of keeping fit, in keeping up holistic health and doing well in your business, so they incorporated this quite well.

Tour of Yahya Art Gallery and talk by the founder, also called Yahya, about his fascinating story. At first, I thought this was just going to be a purely leisurely thing. Me being a big fan of art and galleries, though, I was excited nevertheless. I didn’t expect what we actually got – to have the founder and artist of all these works himself not only show us around, but give us a bit of an autobiography of his story and how he got to be where he is today. He’s originally from London and moved to Marrakech. Despite being told by a teacher at school that he couldn’t do art, he managed to become an artist and come up with his own unique style that’s copied by many other vendors in Marrakech, bought by rich people from all over the world, and was even featured in a Hollywood film – Mission Impossible 5. It just goes to show – don’t let one person’s “no” stop you from chasing your dreams and experimenting your way to success.

Expert class by Ruben D’Hooghe, focus workshop trainer. He was brought in for one morning to teach us a strategy workshop. It was a highly interactive session that involved everyone writing sticky notes on the windows to help us work out planning, organisation and priorities in our businesses.

Moroccan cooking class. This activity was a bit more leisurely and chilled, and not so much about business. It was a great opportunity, though, to learn more about the culture where we were and about the local cooking practices. I was surprised to discover the proper ways to make couscous and why the tagine has that “hole” on the lid.

Indoor rock climbing. This was another more leisurely activity. We had fun doing rock climbing and helping each other out. The venue even had a coworking space, which I took a bit of time out of climbing to use for a bit and do some work on my laptop.

Group meals. We had all our breakfasts and many of our other meals at our riad, which were delicious and included options such as Rfissa and tagine. We also went out for lunch and dinner a few times, which was a great opportunity to try out other restaurants and see more of Marrakech.

Final Thoughts

I had such a lovely experience on this business retreat. It was like a great blend of focusing on our business development, deep networking in a small group, whilst fitting in some good exercise and fun in there too. The programme was structured with plenty to do, but with enough downtime to take breaks when we needed to. The founders, Manon and Robin, are brilliant hosts and facilitators who have done a great job at not only crafting a well-rounded business retreat programme, but also curating a great group of participants who share their same positive energy. I’m really glad to now be a part of The Viomati Co’s community, and I’d totally recommend attending their retreats!

Check out The Viomati Co’s retreats at www.theviomati.co and be sure to let them know that Toks Travels sent you!

Professional photos by Stephen Bonroy: https://stephenbonroyphotography.com/