I am Maya Lamberti, and professionally I am a lawyer and mediator. But my story did not begin there, and it certainly does not end there.
A few years ago, I chose to stop. To leave behind what was familiar and safe, move to Athens, and start from zero. Without knowing exactly what I would do or what the future held for me. I knew only one thing: I wanted to wake up in the morning and do something I truly enjoy. Something with passion, meaning, and real value for people.
I had to understand what that meant for me. What the place was where I truly wanted to be.
Over time, the answer began to become clear. I understood that my passion lives in the meeting point between people, experiences, and production. In the ability to take an idea, a dream, or a need, and turn it into a retreat or an event that feels precise, connected, and leaves a mark. One that does not end the moment people return home, but continues to resonate long after.
I remember the first moment I understood it. I was sitting in a cafe in Athens, looking at a group of people sitting together after a workshop. They were talking, laughing, and there was something between them. Something that does not exist when you are only passing each other on the street. It was connection. Presence. People truly seeing one another.
I thought to myself: this is what I want to create. Not just events, not just logistics, but spaces that allow people to pause, breathe, connect, and grow.
The business I built was born from a love of people and from a desire to create experiences for them that stay. Whether it is a professional, experiential, or organizational retreat, for me it is not only production. It is a complete process. Listening, precision, personal guidance. Understanding what the client needs, even when they themselves are not sure.
I believe a good retreat is not measured only by the location or the content, but by the feeling it leaves in the heart. By the moment when someone returns home and feels different. A little more connected to themselves, a little clearer about what they want, a little more belonging. And if I managed to help a person or a group experience change, connection, or inspiration, even from one retreat, then I have done my part.
There is something special about seeing how people arrive with anticipation and leave with an experience. How a group of strangers becomes a community. How someone who arrived tired and tense leaves with a smile and a feeling of lightness. It does not happen by itself. It happens because someone pays attention. Someone cares. Someone thinks about the small details that turn the experience into what it is.
My path until here was not simple. There were days of doubt, days when I asked myself whether I had done the right thing. But then I remember the messages I receive after a retreat, the photos, the thank-yous. And I know that yes, it was right.
IN ZEN is not just a beautiful name or a designed logo. It is the purest expression of who I am and what I believe in. It is the place where I can take what I learned as a lawyer and mediator, the precision, responsibility, and listening, and connect them to something that feels alive. That feels real.
And that is exactly what I continue to do. To create spaces where people can be with themselves, with their group, with what they truly need. Not from a template, not from what should be, but from real listening to what is right for them.
So if you are reading this and asking yourselves whether this is the time to create a retreat, whether it is possible, whether it is for you, I will tell you something: if you have an idea, if you have a vision, if you have something you want to give your people, it is possible. And I am here for that. Not only as a producer, but as someone who understands the path, because I have walked it too.
Maya.