I’m Molly Ruland. I live above Lake Arenal and I run retreats: for teams that need to reset, and for founders who need to build. Everything is planned, handled, and hosted by people who live here.
Corporate retreats in Guanacaste, at the lake, the beach, or both. Private villas, an executive chef, days that are actually planned, and a film of the week to take home. One price, zero logistics. My company, Costa Rica Retreat Co, runs it end to end.
One week in Costa Rica for four businesses, co-hosted with Katie Nelson of Sales UpRising. You bring the business. We build what it’s missing: a clear offer, a website that converts, payments and systems, a proposal engine, an SEO foundation, and podcast placements. You fly home with all of it running.
I left home at seventeen with a one-way ticket to Boston. I spent thirteen years in real estate finance and twenty running One Love Massive in DC: 160 artists, 18 employees, a three-story building. From the outside, it worked.
Then a diagnosis stopped me cold, and what I felt was relief. The life I’d built wasn’t one I could keep living. When the diagnosis was reversed, I didn’t go back. I closed the company on purpose and rebuilt around the work I love.
That work became Heartcast Media, the podcast agency I founded in 2018. We’ve produced more than 1,000 episodes. I’ve personally driven $3.5 million in sales and built my client base almost entirely through referrals, search, and repeat customers. Not social media.
Now I live above Lake Arenal. I’m an immigrant, not an expat. This is home, and it’s the best room I’ve ever found for doing real work.
I talk about building a business on relationships instead of reach, closing a company on purpose, and starting over in a new country. I’m also a #1 Amazon best-selling co-author of Speak Your Way to Sales.
Five acres above Lake Arenal, volcanoes on the horizon, and hand-laid mosaic on nearly every surface. It’s where the Accelerator happens and the flagship for Costa Rica Retreat Co. When your group is here, the whole property is yours.