Why a Peer Mastermind Became the Best Decision in My Business
Here's something nobody warns you about. The more your business grows, the lonelier the big decisions get.
You hit a point where the people in your life can't really help with the hard calls. Your partner is proud of you, and your friends think what you do is great, but they don't run a business like yours. Most of them are in a 9 to 5 job, or even stay-at-home moms. So when you're staring down a real decision, you're mostly staring at it alone.
Kill the offer or keep it. Raise the price or hold it. Go up-market or stay where you are. These are the calls that keep you up at night, and most founders make them by themselves. I did that for years and figured it was just part of the job.
Then I joined a small peer mastermind. Eleven women, all running real businesses. And it became the best thing I've ever done in my business. Not the best course or the best tool. The best thing, full stop. I want to tell you why, because it's not what most people think.
The thing about who you sit with
Jim Rohn used to say you become the average of the five people you spend the most time with. Most creators hear that and think about mindset, but at this stage it's less about mindset and more about information. The people around you set what you think is normal, what you think is possible, and what you'd never even try.
Put yourself in a room of people playing bigger than you, and your own ceiling moves whether you mean it to or not. You hear what they charge. You watch how they handle a launch that flopped. You see them make a call you'd have been too scared to make, and it works.
That's what a good room does, but only if it's the right room. That's the part that matters most, and I'll come back to it. First, here's what actually changed for me.
What you really get from a room like this
The benefits aren't a list of features. They build on each other, and each one goes a little deeper than the last.
1. You stop making the big calls alone
This is the one I felt first. Before the room, every big decision lived in my own head. I'd turn it over for weeks, make a call, and then spend the next month wondering if I'd gotten it wrong.
Now I bring those decisions to people who have actually made them. Should I sunset this offer, is this price too high, is this the right time to move up-market. The difference is that I'm hearing from people who have stood exactly where I'm standing.
The decision still belongs to me. But I'm not guessing alone anymore, and that changes everything about how it feels to run the business.
2. The whole room gets into your business
A few times a year, it's your turn in the hot seat. You put your business on the table, the funnel, the offer, whatever you're stuck on, and the whole room goes to work on it for an hour.
You can't do this for yourself, because you're too close to it. You've looked at your own funnel so many times that you stop seeing it. A room of sharp people looks at it fresh and spots the thing you've been walking past for months.
I've walked out of those sessions with a single sentence that changed my whole next quarter. You don't get that from a course. You get it from people who are in it with you.
3. You can finally say the real thing
This one surprised me. When something big happens in your business, good or bad, who do you actually tell?
Most people in your life can't fully meet you there. A big win sounds like bragging to anyone who doesn't get the climb, and a scary month is hard to explain to someone who's never had one. So you end up carrying a lot of it by yourself.
In the room, you can say the real thing. The number that terrifies you, the win you've chased for two years, the doubt you'd never post anywhere. The people there get it because they've been there too. For a lot of founders, it's the first place they've ever had that.
4. You walk away with people for life
Here's where it all lands. You don't just walk away with strategy. You walk away with people who cheer for you, check on you, and stay in your corner for the long haul, in business and in life.
The strategy was great. But two years in, the strategy isn't the part I'd cry about losing. The people are.
"The strategy you can buy a lot of places. The room of people who truly get it, you can't."
— Dr. Destini CoppWhy none of it works without curation
Now back to the part that matters most, because everything I just described only happens if the room is right.
Get the room wrong and you get none of it. You get a group chat that goes quiet, one person teaching while everyone else listens, advice from people who haven't actually done the thing. So the real product was never the calls or the agenda. It's the curation, the question of who gets in.
And here's where most people get it wrong. They assume curation means everyone has to do something different, with no two people in the same niche. That's not it at all.
Some of the most useful people in my room do work that's close to mine, and that's exactly why they get it. They understand my problem on the first try. They've already run the experiment I'm about to run. The overlap isn't a threat, it's often the gift.
Curation is about something else entirely. It's about level and character.
The right room is chosen for who people are, not what they sell. Established operators, past the basics, who show up, tell the truth, and give as much as they take. Same niche or not. That's the bar, and that's the whole product.
When you get that part right, the rest takes care of itself. The decisions get pressure-tested, the hot seats go deep, people say the real thing, and the friendships form, because the right people were in the room to begin with.
If it feels like a lot, read this
A room like this costs more than a course, and the first objection in your head is probably the same one I had. I should be able to figure this out myself.
And you can figure most of it out yourself. You've proven that already, so that's not really the question. The question is what it costs to keep deciding alone. One offer you should have killed sooner. One launch you'd have run differently if someone had warned you. One year spent stuck on a call a good room could have helped you make in an afternoon.
That's the real price, and it isn't the membership fee. It's the mistakes you make in a room of one. The loneliness has a cost too, it's just harder to put a number on.
The room I wanted to exist
I believe in this so much that I built one. The Creator's MBA Council is the room I wished existed for creators at this stage. A small, hand-selected group of established operators, in each other's businesses every week, with me in the room as the strategist and two in-person retreats a year as the high points.
It's curated the way I just described, for level and character rather than niche, because that's the part that makes a room worth being in. If you're past the figuring-it-out phase and tired of making the big calls alone, that's who it's built for.
But whether you join my room or find another one, the real takeaway is simpler than all of that. Stop trying to do it all by yourself. Go find your people. It might turn out to be the best decision you make in your business too.
Want a room like this of your own?
The Council is a small, curated room of established creators, in each other's businesses every week, with me in the room as the strategist. Founding cohort applications are open now. See who it's for and apply.
Learn More and Apply →Frequently Asked Questions
A curated mastermind is a small group of business owners hand-selected to be in a room together. Instead of letting anyone pay to join, the host picks the members for level, fit, and how they show up. The point is that the room is right. Everyone is established, everyone contributes, and everyone gives as much as they take.
For an established business, a mastermind is often more valuable than a course. You already know how to grow. What you need is a room of peers to pressure-test the big decisions, catch your blind spots, and tell you the truth. The return shows up as mistakes you avoid and calls you make with more confidence.
A course teaches you a skill. Coaching gives you one expert's guidance. A mastermind puts you in a room of peers who advise each other. In a course, you are the student. In a good mastermind, you are also an advisor. The value is the people in the room, not the curriculum.
Look at who else is in the room. The right mastermind is full of people at your level who run real businesses and show up to help. If the members are early-stage, or nobody contributes, or it is really just one person teaching, it is not the right room. The members are the product.
Curation. A peer mastermind works when the room is chosen for level and character, not niche. Established operators who tell the truth and give as much as they get. It does not matter if two members do similar work. What matters is that everyone is past the basics and everyone shows up.
