The Grit Lab
Offsites That Don't Suck
Help your team find its next gear, and give your clients a reason to never forget you.
events
Transform Teams &
Deepen Client Connections
Getting into nature and outside comfort zones has a near miraculous effect on teams and client relationships. We've watched it happen.
Combine outdoor challenges and skill building with an assessment that actually works, and you have a transformation that sticks.
Right-sized events for every team or client outing, all done for you.
Tangible Team Impact
Step away with actionable strategies, shared grit and a renewed sense of common purpose.
Breakthrough Insights
See your team with new clarity: surface hidden dynamics, leverage Kolbe strengths, and overcome what's holding you back.
Sustainable Change
Develop practical habits, strategies, and frameworks that support ongoing growth and resilience.
Authentic Connection
Experience new perspectives through fun, shared challenges that reshape how your team works together and your clients bond with you.
Sound Familiar?
You've Been to the Forgettable Version
You've hosted the steak dinner and sat through the breakout rooms, and nobody remembers which year was which. Get people outside trying something none of them has done before, and they'll remember it (and each other) for years.
FOR YOUR TEAM
Find Your Team's Next Gear
Build team resiliency, grit, and connections through shared experiences. Learning outdoor skills no one's done since summer camp allows colleagues to see each other from a new perspective and connect in a way just not possible in a conference room. We incorporate their Kolbe insights, so you can understand team dynamics and get strategies that elevate performance when you get back to the office.
"Working through challenges together and learning new skills side-by-side; builds real trust, both in each other and in ourselves, and that trust is the foundation for everything else the organization achieves."
Heather L.
For Your CLients
Make Client connections that count
Move beyond the dinner table. Forge genuine, lasting partnerships with clients by tackling challenges together in nature. You’ll leave as friends, not "clients". (Nobody forgets the people they chased chickens with, or the dinner they shared in a glamping tent!)
"This was an incredible experience of being able to do things I have never done before."
Lisa Z.
The Kolbe Difference
Transform How Your Team Works
Kolbe measures how each person instinctively takes action, which is different from the personality tests your team may have taken before. Your people see each other's wiring play out in the field, and afterward you get a team analysis showing where you're strong, where the gaps are, and how to fill them.
Teams with the right mix of Kolbe instincts have proven as much as 225% more productive. (Source: Kolbe Corp.)
"In the Kolbe exercise we watched the group dynamics play out as predicted. That really solidified for me that the instincts are accurate!"
Angie K.
How to Work With Us
Three ways to Experience The Grit Lab
Whether you already have an event on the calendar or you're starting from a blank page, there's a version that fits.
The Add-On
Already planning a retreat, offsite, or client event? We'll open it, punctuate it, or close it out with a few hours of badassery, at your venue and on your schedule. We'll make it an unforgettable part of the experience you're planning.
Turn-Key Day Event
Bring your group to Project 1490 HQ, an easy train ride from the city, for a full Day of Badassery. We'll build the day around your goals. Activities from outdoor skill building to an Amazing Race, to evening experiences from the rustic to refined.
Multi-Day Bespoke Experiences
We source the venue and program an entire custom event around your group, from the first spark to the last toast, so the only thing on your list is showing up. We can plan anything from an afternoon to a multi-day retreat with expert coaches for both the activities and the workshops.
"It reminded me that growth requires discomfort, that new challenges are healthy, and that it is perfectly okay not to be good at something right away."
Heather T.
Let's Talk
We Customize Every Event
Tell us your goals and we'll design a made-for-you experience.
Book a call or share a few details below.
"You did such an amazing job organizing and curating this retreat. Everything flowed so well. I enjoyed every moment."
Lizzie B.
In Good Hands
Meet Sarah Dale
I started out in events and marketing, for FORTUNE, and then moved to Montana at 24, where I spent seven years learning to bow hunt, brand cattle, and build a house, and ran an events business taking NYC ad clients into the backcountry.
I learned first-hand the power of trying gritty things outside a comfort zone, and witnessed the connections people make out in nature.
Back in NYC came the rest of a 30+ year career in advertising, including a decade in senior leadership at The Wall Street Journal and four years as Chief Revenue Officer of Nativo. I’ve led teams and hosted client events the whole way through, many of which people are still talking about, especially the ones in Montana.
FAQs
Got Any Questions?
Nobody needs any experience, because everything is taught from scratch and done in small teams. The physical demands are light (think gathering sticks rather than scaling anything), there's always a real role for someone who'd rather direct than build, and we talk through your group's needs on the first call so we can plan around them.
We bring and set up all the equipment, every activity starts with a lesson, and fires are built in metal pans so they stay contained and the landscape stays untouched.
Those measure personality and preference. Kolbe measures conation, how a person instinctively acts when they're going after something, which is why it's so good at explaining what a team will actually do (and where it's likely to get stuck). If you'd like to dig into the research, kolbe.com is the place to start.
Everyone keeps their own Kolbe results and analysis. Beyond that, we can deliver a full team analysis through Kolbe, which shows where your team is strongest, where the gaps are, and specifically how to fill them, plus individual reports with strategies built around each person's specific work and initiating mode. That's the part that keeps paying off long after the fire's out.
At your venue, at Project 1490 HQ in Croton-on-Hudson, or at a venue Sarah finds for you. We've run them in the Hudson Valley, Catskills, Berkshires, and Montana!
Recent groups have run from about eight people to forty and we can accommodate more with our arsenal of trainers and venues.
We make it easy with one package price, custom built for you. Book a call, and we'll get a proposal to you.
No. Project 1490 is for women, and The Grit Lab is its co-ed version, built for companies, their clients, and their teams.