This week-long retreat is designed for creative thinkers who want to turn their passions into viable business opportunites. While initially designed for artists, this workshop has proven valuable to sorts of folks like hairdressers, writers, chefs, yoga teachers, massage therapists, teachers, and all kinds of business owners.

If your ideas (dare we say dreams!) seem lofty, out of reach, or has even languished for awhile, this retreat will help you renew and nurture your vision in ways that empower you, as you learn the action steps required to take an idea and make it real.

This is business strategy designed especially for creative thinkers. All of the information is artfully experienced in a dynamic left brain/bright brain approach Lisa Sonora Beam has developed over the past 20 years. We will employ expressive art and writing techniques to discover the essential tools of business-and how to use them like a pro. You will leave the workshop empowered with new information, as well as strategic planning tools for yourself and your business, all documented in your own Creative Entrepreneur Journal, which will be your companion and map for your creative business journey.


In The Creative Entrepreneur Retreat you will learn:

• A unique creative process for developing and testing ideas
• The three top reasons for creative business failure and how to diagnose and prevent them
• How to easily assess business ideas to see if they will work before you invest time and money in them
• Why most goal-setting fails and the key action steps you can take right  now to ensure your achieve the goals you set
• How to develop a personal and business strategy to get the results you want
• How to develop a positive and productive relationship to the creative process that is essential to business viability and success
• Ways to competition-proof your business
• How to capitalize on opportunities and and avoid the obstacles particular to your business
• How to harness the power of difficult (and commonly experienced) emotions that can sabotage your plans (such as envy, jealousy and feeling overwhelmed) to make them work for you, rather than against you
• How to build and maintain a business support system to prevent isolation and burnout
• Critical information on how to take what you learn at the retreat and consistently apply it your life and your business
• Practical tools that bolster courage and confidence designed to help you move forward on your creative dreams—whatever they may be

The Creative Entrepreneur process developed by Lisa Sonora Beam, is a visual, project-oriented, step-by-step approach to business development for creatives from all walks of life that demystifies how to make a business work successfully.

Throughout the retreat, participants create their own Creative Entrepreneur Journal that becomes a map and guide to their own step-by-step approach to creating their own right livelihood.

 “Although I’m familiar with many business planning concepts, I’ve never combined them with visual journaling before.  The process is enlightening. You'll take away new tools that will exponentially accelerate the growth of your business.”

Do you ever wonder why some people make successful business ventures and others don't? Have you struggled with bringing your ideas to fruition? Do you begin creative projects and then find them languishing? Do you sometimes wrestle with doubt, self-criticism, or even sabotage? Are you aware that these struggles are really a natural part of the creative process and that there are ways to harness those challenges to get what you really want?

Most other courses on developing a successful business focus on a selection of tactics that address outer solutions (such as: setting goals, how to write a business plan (ugh!), set aside time for marketing, or how to hire a rep). What they don’t address are the underlying internal issues unique to creative types—and how to practically address them. These internal issues manifest as emotional/psychological blockages, faulty thinking about their work and ideas, and lack of practical knowledge regarding how to make the business side of their life work.

Without addressing the underlying issues that cause artists to remain business-challenged, no amount goal setting or knowledge of savvy business tactics will help. Once these inner aspects are addressed, participants are introduced to a unique combination powerful business and leadership tools (some little known or used except by the most skilled managers) presented in a visual and engaging way that appeals to the way creative types think, learn and process information. That is the magic of The Creative Entrepreneur approach that really works, even for those who think they can’t succeed as a creative or a business person.

“If you are having trouble jump starting or taking your business to 
the next level, this is the class for you. Even the every day challenges of life improved for me with the tools this class provided. I came away clear as a bell on my objectives and super charged with creative ideas like never before!

Lisa Sonora Beam is a dynamic and engaging facilitator who really knocked my socks off! Years ago, well before the current megatrend of art journalling came in to fashion, she was already a journaling fool. As a therapist at psychiatric hospitals the 80’s, she developed art journalling processes for teens and adults in recovery, then went on to teach creativity workshops worldwide.

In the past decade I have been just about everywhere and taken art related classes with just about everyone, aggressively learning technique up technique, know with a deep certainty that I was headed somewhere with all of this knowledge but not entirely sure where.

After attending The Creative Entrepreneur Retreat, I came home revved up and ready to make big changes in my life, feeling clear headed and totally focused on possibilities that I had never before imagined. Jettisoning all the dead weight from my work space, committing to a clear set of objectives, and using my newly learned skills, set me on the right path to a major expansion of my business!

Using many of the resources suggested in the workshop, I expanded my mailing list by a thousand percent! I took my business from a low simmer to a high boil in less than six months.

The amazing thing about this material is that it helps every part of your life, not just your business. I am now dealing with the natural stumbling blocks life has a way of placing in our paths in all new and creative ways. Everyone should have these tools!
This amazing clarity is more valuable than gold. If you are making your way towards a dream, Lisa Sonora Beam is just the person to help you reach it.”

The Creative Entrepreneur Retreat takes you on an inner journey of creative exploration to discover how to make their dreams of creative livelihood real, as you craft your own Creative Entrepreneur Journal.

This workshop is for artists, crafters, and creative individuals from all walks of life who have not yet found a way to make a livelihood from their creative work, or who possibly have achieved some success, but don’t know how to replicate it or move to another level of accomplishment. If you have a passion you want to turn into a viable business, you’ll love this experiential “arts of business” workshop.

If you're mystified and possibly frustrated by how to make a business out of- your creative passions - you're not alone. It is a myth that artists cannot succeed at business and creating right livelihood. It is a tragedy to go on suffering because you can't figure it out yourself. Ordinary business courses don't know how creatives work, think and act.

The Creative Entrepreneur Workshop helped me to think like a business person, which is something they don’t teach you in art school. I learned how to become more methodical and to think from a realistic and logical standpoint, while keeping my higher purpose in mind.”

This is not boring "business as usual" stuff you've heard before. Instead, you can expect to gain a working knowledge of the most important ingredients business strategists use to guide business decisions in companies large and small every day-while having fun in a creative environment bursting with inspiration!

This retreat is suitable for all creative types, whether you are just beginning explore ways to turn your ideas into products or services, or you are already involved in a business that needs to go to another level.

“I left with the enthusiasm and courage to promote my work in a larger world.”

“If you want to participate in a truly fabulous, stimulating and exciting class with fantastic kindred spirits and experience the joy of spending time with an energized, creative, articulate and very smart marketer--this is for you!”

About Lisa Sonora Beam

Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, Lisa Sonora Beam is a business and marketing strategist, writer, and visual artist. She consults with corporations and conducts seminars on creativity and business internationally.

She is the author of The Creative Entrepreneur: A DIY Guidebook for Making Business Ideas Real, (Rockport publishers, Novemeber 2008) based on the workshops she designed especially for individuals who want to turn their passions into viable business opportunities.

In 2003, she founded Digital Hive EcoLogical Design, the first marketing communications firm to specialize in promoting green initiatives. She has developed and taught courses in Green and Social Marketing for Dominican University's Green MBA program.

She has a Bachelor of Music in Music Therapy from DePaul University in Chicago, and an MBA in Sustainable Enterprise from New College of California.


“For me, The Creative Entrepreneur workshop solves this ... I want to be a writer.  I've always wanted to be a writer. But I'd start thinking about the possible things i could write—books, scripts, treatments, for television for films, songs and become overwhelmed and stalled ... INERT...

Partially because I have such a big dream I couldn't see the first steps clearly. I couldn't see how to support myself on day to day while working from the small to get to the big. I couldn't see how to build a portfolio of work that would give me the foundation to make me a desirable hire as a writer.

While this may seem obvious to anyone outside the situation, my vision was obscured by my passion. Lisa Sonora Beam’s work allows the artist to look beyond the murky veil of emotion, by offering realistic steps that can be taken while still honoring the overall artist's dream.

After brainstorming and really looking at my objective --  to be a writer -- strategies and tactics, I realized there were more possibilities (strategies) for writing than I had previously realized.

Not only can I write scripts, but i can write blogs and freelance articles and brochures and other journalistic and publicity materials. And those smaller steps will help me both generate income, gain confidence and increase my visibility as a creative.

In essence, this workshop demystifies a heretofore nebulous process of making a dream come true. It gives the artist the tools to examine her desire from a pragmatic standpoint. Approaching a dream practically makes the possibility of it coming to fruition more likely. 

In fact, it almost guarantees success for those who are willing to use their brain and do the work and have the patience to realize that small steps every day will eventually lead to achieving the dream. Since business tools grow sharper when they are used, successes can be replicated, failures can be learned from - either way the artist who is willing to apply them wins.”