What Happens When 12 Biz Besties Spend 1 Week Together

My loves,

I’ve just returned from my annual pilgrimage to my peer mastermind retreat.

Heart wide open, full of gratitude, the song in my heart singing:

How on earth did I get this lucky?

It feels like one of the biggest blessings of my life.

In this post, I’m going to be sharing allllll the deets including:

• how our peer mastermind works
• how we organised our retreat
• who came
• what we got up to
• the big insights that came up.

Plus all the photos… and a free DIY Mastermind Retreat Workbook I handmade for you!

Want to watch as a video podcast instead? Watch here.

Want to listen to this as a podcast instead? Listen on Spotify here or Apple Podcasts here.

But first, the beginning…

How did this all begin?

Our circle started more than a dozen years ago. That yearning inside me: I need to love and be loved by other women in business.

Being in business can feel like such a risky endeavour, out of step with those who live in the land of jobs. There’s blessings to being a business owner, of course… and there’s also so many challenges that others just can’t understand. So I really craved a space where I could be all of myself and bring all of the goodness and the hard, and normalise it all.

So I started inviting women I met who felt like a good fit into an online chat. Some years there was lots of participation rules, some years it was free floating. Some years it was super active, some years it got quieter. Sometimes women left when their journey took them in different directions. Sometimes I’d need to make hard decisions about removing members if they weren’t in alignment with the group’s intention, or if they were lurking and not participating. Being the space holder of a group is a little bit like being a gardener – sometimes you need to fertilise, sometimes you need to weed, sometimes new seeds need to be planted.

I think back to all the beautiful phases and cycles of the circle, and I’m so grateful for all of it. It was a gift to get to know every single soul in it, and throughout it all, it’s been the honour of a lifetime to get to share some of the journey with them.

The circle has continued to deepen over the years… so many of us have known and loved each other for 10-15 years now, and witnessed each other in so many eras. We’ve offered advice, shared when things get really hard, laughed a lot, sent each other memes, collaborated and supported…

A few years ago, a bunch of the group decided to take the chat offline, and meet up for a retreat. I couldn’t go… but I sure got a RAGING case of FOMO. So last year, when it was held again, I made sure I went. And now it’s just a non-negotiable part of my year… one of my very favourite weeks of the year.

What is a peer mastermind?

A mastermind is a group where people come together to brainstorm how each member can reach their goals. It’s a practice that’s been used for centuries.

Napoleon Hill in that ye ole classic “Think and Grow Rich” yaks about it quite a bit:

“The Master Mind principle: Two or more people actively engaged in the pursuit of a definite purpose with a positive mental attitude, constitute an unbeatable force.

Masterminds can be paid containers (like my Grow Mastermind) where a coach/mentor charges a price for the space, and anyone can apply to join. These tend to have more regular, formalised calls or structure.

They can also be peer run like this circle, where it isn’t paid, but is invitation-only to make sure that all members are the right fit, and are able to participate and contribute in a helpful way.

How do I choose people to invite?

Everyone in the mastermind has an established 6 to 7 to multi-7 figure business.

It’s also less about finding the ones with the biggest business, and more about finding people who are the right fit, ethics, values, spirit and alignment with the group.

Who came to this year’s mastermind retreat?

1. Tash Corbin – founder of the Heart Centred Business Conference which I spoke at twice. When I was living on the Sunshine Coast near her, we formed a local business women’s group and had the most incredible times together! She’s just so solid and good and as pretty as a Disney princess!
2. Brigit Esselmont – founder of Biddy Tarot, the world’s largest tarot website. Brigit was part of our Sunny Coast biz circle. She is this incredible mix of deep spiritual intuition and smart AF analytical business brain. I learn so much from being in a room with her!
3. Denise Duffield-Thomas – DDT is an icon and a legend in our industry. I’ve been lucky to be mates with her since 2012 when she came to stay in my rainforest home in FNQ for a retreat I ran. Her books and courses are phenomenal. But most of all, SHE as a human is phenomenal. DDT always impresses me with how much she walks her talk, and how committed she is to finding her blocks, healing them, and sharing what she learns with the world.
4. Kerry Rowett – my kinesiologist/intuitive business mentor. We’ve been learning from and coaching each other since 2008 (!!!) and are each other’s biggest hype girl.
5. Victoria Gibson – I met Victoria back in the olden days of the Aussie B-School forum, and she did my Facebook ad campaigns for the goals workbooks for years. She is an ads and marketing and human design GENIUS. Let me tell you though… nothing compares to Vic in person. She is just a wash of joy and love and fun!
6. Michelle Swan – I met Mich back in 2019 after she was recommended as a photographer by a website designer I was working with. It’s been mad love ever since, and we’ve done more photoshoots since then. Mich is not just an incredible photographer, but the sweetest human that’s ever existed. Plus I adore her husband too – Jacko is a legend!
7. Rebecca Saunders – I met Bec at Tash’s Heart Centred Business Conference a couple of years ago. She’s one of those geniuses who is good at everything who will say things like “Oh that feature film I produced ended up being nominated for an award” and “I decided to take over publishing a magazine as a hobby.”
8. Clare Wood – I was introduced to Clare through other business friends, read her book (and took lots of notes) before meeting her in person at Tash’s conference last year. Clare’s an ex-accountant who is a profit coach for businesses. She’s also hilarious and brilliant and says incredibly extroverted things like “Oh! I packed a cocktail dress just incase!” In a bizarre twist of faith, we discovered she was born in the same small town hospital I was born in, just a couple of months later. As I like to remind her regularly: her ancestors have definitely dry humped my ancestors behind the Proserpine pub at some point.
9. Lucy Aitken Read – I used to watch Lucy’s Youtube videos about her living offgrid in a yurt homeschooling her kids over a decade ago! So it was a joy to reconnect and see how her life and business journey has evolved over all this time. It was our first time meeting at this retreat, and oh my goodness, what an absolute darling of a human! Infectious joy incarnate!
10. Amanda Rootsey – oh my darling, dear friend. She’s the author of Shine From Within (published by Hay House) and SUCH a gifted youth mentor (and trainer of youth mentors). I interviewed her on my podcast here. Mandy is just an oasis of peace to be around. When we had a couple of hours spare, I said: “Want to come back to my room, snuggle in my bed and chat?” she said: “Of course!” So that’s exactly what we did.
11. Emily Osmond – I met Emily at Tash’s conference, and she was SUCH an impressive speaker. Not only was she super smart, but she so deeply cares about the humans around her. Ever since then, Kerry and I refer to her as “That Lovely Emily Osmond!” It was such a blessing to get to know her even more, what a gorgeous soul she is.

How much did it cost?

Because it’s a peer mastermind group, there was no charge for it. Everyone just paid for their own travel and accommodation.

Where did we stay?

Our retreats are always held around the Gold Coast, purely for ease of travelling. Quite a few people already live on the Gold Coast, and it’s an easy spot for everyone else to fly into from around the rest of Australia (and New Zealand).

Accommodation

Last year we stayed at The Star at Broadbeach on the Gold Coast, and even though the food options were great there, we didn’t want to stay there again. A lot of us found it difficult to sleep in skyscrapers, it felt really ungrounding. Plus it wasn’t great energy around the casino which was attached to The Star.

This time, we ended up going to Peppers in Kingscliff. It’s a smaller coastal town that’s much less busy than Broadbeach. It meant less food options, but the energy felt more nourishing. Plus we were so close to the ocean we could hear it from our rooms, and could go on beach walks.

I think next year we’ll stay in a spot like that again. We probably won’t go back to Peppers though, it wasn’t nearly as nice as other Peppers around Australia.

We all booked our own apartments to stay at – some of us had 1 bedroom apartments and some of us shared 2 bedroom apartments. We ended up using one of the 2 bedroom apartments as our commune for the week. We would have our mastermind sessions there, and lounge about, and have big communal take-out dinners.

How we set up our days

Last year we experimented with more of a structured setup to our days with timed hotseats for 2 days.

This year, we took a more flexible approach.

We began with an intention ceremony, and then Brigit led us in an intuitive tarot card pull for the week… that felt so potent and really set the energy for the week ahead.

Then we all went around to share a short update on their life & business & what they were wanting to get out of the week ahead.

We also had post-it notes that people could put questions and topics on. These were popped up on the wall, and then over the retreat, we would have rounds to discuss the topics – from finances to AI (including how some of us use it & also why some of us abstain) to team to parenting to long-term business sustainability.

One night, Denise leads us in a money forgiveness ritual. We all take it in turns to write down money mistakes, times we’d been ripped off, investments gone bad… to voice them outloud to each other… and place them in a bowl of water to be released. It was so fucking potent… on a cellular level. More of this please… what a miracle and a gift.

One afternoon, we booked out the spa and all of us lounged and sauned and hot tubbed and drank tea and laughed so hard. I felt like we were in some kind of Grecian temple… these goddesses draped all over the place, in utter receiving mode.

It was so luscious that a lot of us went and did the exact same thing the next afternoon. Ha!

We had plenty of talk talk talk time… and lots of spaciousness as well to spend however we wished.

People could drop in and out. Everyone was so good at communicating what they needed… from rest to introvert time to getting essential work/calls done.

It was also just an absolute ADHD Epicentre as well in a way that was completely glorious. We were late to everything, we forgot our shit, we couldn’t find our phones… plane trips were booked on the wrong days, people forgot to get visas, accommodation was incorrectly booked. And we’d all just cackle and say: OF COURSE. ME TOO! I love that this powerful group of women who have written dozens of books and taught hundreds of thousands of people and crafted incredible businesses… are Type B Hot Messes in my most favourite of ways. (Also: there was maybe two people who identified as neurotypical. Ha!)

Some nights we went out for dinner together, but we quickly realised most of us preferred just ordering food delivery and staying snuggled up together so we could gossip and giggle long into the night in one spot.

It was the kind of friends where I could say: “Hey, do you want to come back to my room, and we drink tea and eat biscuits in bed and snuggle and talk and be horizontal?”

And that’s exactly what we did, and it was yet another shining star of a moment in a week that was heaving with them.

If you asked me what the biggest takeway from this week was… what the big ground-breaking business breakthrough I got from it…

I would say: it wasn’t about extracting. It was about… marinating.

I think the biggest medicine of the week…. was just being around these beautiful, beautiful souls who I love so dearly. To be around women who I can talk about EVERYTHING with. I’m in a strange business, a strange industry… that not many people I meet IRL are in. And I fucking LOVE this weird, wild job of mine. And it’s such a GIFT to be able to talk it with friends who are just as much in it and in love with it as I am.

And it’s not just that we’re all in the same industry. Because there’s this deep kind of soul contract and connection between us. It seems like impossible odds that a dozen women from such different backgrounds, all with beautiful successful businesses in their own right… all of us so in simpatico, in deep soul alignment.

And last of all… it’s the miracle of women gathering, and circling. It’s a deep kind of soul nourishment. All of it, all at once.

And then… there was the ocean experience.

I barely know how to talk about this without it sound a little bit bonkers. Be warned: it’s about to get really, deeply woo up in here.

(I’d also like to clarify I was not on any mind-altering substances when this happened. Just my usual already-altered state of being Leonie. Ha!)

One day, I tell Kerry:

I think we’re supposed to go to the ocean for an energy cleansing this afternoon, just me and you.

Yes, of course, she says. Because Kerry is Kerry.

And that afternoon, after we’ve swanned about in the spa for hours, we walk down to the beach. And it is raining, and it is cold, and it is divine.

As we sit in the sand speaking our intentions for this healing, an enormous full rainbow opens up in front of us.

So bright and close and full, it is breathtaking. It looks like a portal to another world.

Kerry: I just don’t think I’ve ever seen rainbow like this before.

Me: Me neither.

Utter awe. We throw off our clothes and run into the ocean, shouting as we go that we’re ready to release all that no longer serves us, and for our energy to be cleansed, clear, pure and whole. The waves thrash over us, and the rainbow dances bold, and every wash of the ocean feels like another wave of healing.

Kerry grows cold, and decides to head back to dry off and warm up. I cannot leave though. I sit there at the place where the waves reach the sand, letting them wash around me, and I do not feel the cold. I just feel… aglow.

Suddenly I receive a strong vision. It is the land of Atlantis. I see my life there, and I see my husband was there too. And I’m overcome by how much I miss it and long for it, a deep sense of homesickness and longing and love. They tell me “It is time for you to bring what you learned in Atlantis into the world.”

I am humbled, unsure if I am up to it, or what it even means. But they assure me it is true. That I will be guided as I go along, but first I need to remember.

And remember I do. Tears in my eyes as I remember my home of Atlantis.

Rainbow in front of me, golden sunset behind me, I feel like I’m receiving the most divine light healing of colours.

When its time for me to return, I feel myself drop in the sand the large smoky quartz orb that I’d brought along with me. I look, but it is gone.

A worthy exchange. A crystal for an ocean.

(You can barely see the rainbow in this photo. It did nottttt look like that IRL.)

After I shower and dry off, I return to our commune apartment for cuddles and dinner. And then… a second extraordinary thing happened.

What happened when I left? asked Kerry.

I tell her.

Was I there in Atlantis with you? she joked.

And as she said it, I began to receive another vision.

They showed me the land of Lemuria where Kerry lived . They showed me how the lands of Lemuria and Atlantis worked together. How Atlantis was the land of wisdom keeping and practical knowledge, and how Lemuria was the land of energetic and hands-on healing. The visions were so clear and bright, and I told Kerry everything I was seeing. It was one of the clearest visions I’d experienced in a long, long time… and it was breathtaking.

Later, I researched Atlantis and Lemuria… and everything I’d shared with Kerry was accurate. I texted her what I’d found… we were both astonished.

Later, when I told my husband about it, I said:

I feel like I haven’t had such a strong vision like that since before we had our girls.

Him: I understand. I feel the same way. I feel like we have to be really here on the physical world to raise our girls, so that ability to see other worlds lessens. But it’s good that it’s coming back now.

That afternoon and night still feels like a beautiful miracle.

And I’m still aglow from the wonder of it all.

Photoshoot

Just like last year, a few of us did a group photoshoot with Mich.

I got my hair and makeup done with Mel from MJ Vegan. I used Mel last year as well and she’s an absolute crack up, gosh we have a damn good cackle together. We hired a shoot location and set up camp there for the day. Then we’d all take it in turns to get photographed, swapping in and out to put different outfits on.

Once you see the photos you’ll be like wow Leonie, you’re so hot, also where did all your colourful clothes come from? And the answer is a mix of Gorman, Camilla, Ruby Yaya and Lula Soul.

And then once that shoot was done… we did something a little bit wild.

You see, a few days before, I’d had an idea…

With Mich being up for the adventure, I joined a horse lovers Facebook group for the area we were in. And I put out a post:

See how many comments there are on that post?

I was soon to discover that I would get quite a lot of comments on that post. Because horse people LOVE to share photos of their horse. Even if they live four hours away and can’t travel. Even if their horse doesn’t meet the specifications. Even if they don’t even want to rent out their horse for a photoshoot. They STILL want to show you pictures of their horse.

It was like a barrage of unsolicited dic* pics, and it made me chortle most fervently.

After quite a few days of back-and-forward with a few horse owners, the day before the shoot I finally managed to lock one in!

AND BEHOLD!!!! I GOT TO TAKE PHOTOS WITH A UNICORN!!!

For the equine-interested: Lolly is an Arab x Quarter Horse. 14 hands high. The most stunning luminescent white – including blue eyes! I would have preferred 15-16 hands high as I’m a tall long-legged girly, but I’m still super happy that we even got to do this shoot in the first place!

There was so many things that happened that nearly stopped us from being able to do it… Not just the horsey gals that wanted to show me their horse pics then ghost me! Mich had broken her foot in the weeks before the shoot, so we knew we couldn’t photograph on the beach (one day though!) There was also torrential rain in the region in the days before the shoot, ruling out the other locations we wanted to use. We ended up making do with what we could, and shooting in a non-flooded park.

Lolly’s owner walked her down along with an emotional support companion horse. Tash and her darling bloke Davey came along to be the World’s Greatest Support Crew… we’d spent a lot of time together when I was living in Noosa near them, and I just adore both of them SO MUCH. Solid gold humans. Tash and Davey helped Mich hobble through the park on her sore footsie, and carry equipment, and hold up light shades, and take B-roll photos and just give ALLLL the encouragement and love. Davey gave me a boost to get up on Lolly bareback, and as I’m flailing about on Lolly’s back trying to get my seat in a goddess dress, I hear Tash say: “Oh Leonie Dawson, THE WOMAN YOU ARE.” And my goddess, get you a sisterhood of women who just think you’re the knees of the bees and tells you that every chance they can… I just felt so deeply loved and cherished and held up.

And the sun was setting, and the park was filled the most beautiful gums and neon grass, and I’m riding the most beautiful horse, and I’m surrounded by some of the most darling friends, and I just keep thinking: Can you even BELIEVE I get to do this? That I get to just make my dreams come true?

And at the end my feet are covered in mud from trolloping about barefoot, and Tash sits me down and WASHES MY FREAKING FEET for me… with such tenderness and care. And Lolly decides at this moment to escape her owner, and Davey saves her like the hero he is. And we pile into the car, laughing and dirty and tired and delighted at what we just made happen…

And my heart is so full of love and gratitude, it radiates in waves. And I tell them: I just can’t quite believe I get to have friends as beautiful as all of you. I just feel so LUCKY.

That night, the last remaining five of us huddle on the couch, exhausted and love-soaked. We watch my carefully curated collection of Tiktok videos of ancient hamsters and vomiting dogs and the white person culture of hot air balloons until we are breathless with laughter.

The next morning, I’m the last to be dropped off at the airport.

Fly back through the great portal of the sky, home to my beloveds… my husband and our two daughters.

My heart is so very full.

Do I accept invitations to join this peer mastermind?

Sorry, no. We’re pretty much at capacity with how many people we can squeeze into an apartment at retreat.

But if you’re feeling the calling to have something like this in your life… what a wonderful invitation to craft it for yourself!

(I also offer Grow Mastermind if you’re called!)