In this YouTube monologue, the speaker—an experienced CEO—explains that the single most impactful decision in his career was joining a CEO peer group. He defines a CEO peer group as a curated collection of fellow CEOs and business owners who act as a virtual board of directors, offering feedback, accountability, and shared learning. Drawing on a decade‑long personal journey that began in 2013, he details how regular participation in these groups reshaped his mindset and business outcomes, leading to multiple‑fold growth. The speaker outlines seven key transformations he experienced: (1) conquering imposter syndrome and becoming braver; (2) embracing humility and coachability, avoiding the “smartest‑guy‑in‑the‑room” trap; (3) developing deeper gratitude through perspective‑shifting conversations; (4) adopting systems‑based thinking that standardizes and scales operations; (5) amplifying ambition and competitive drive; (6) overcoming the profound loneliness of solo CEOs by building a community of peers; and (7) cultivating mindfulness by stepping back from day‑to‑day drama. He also mentions a sponsor, Employer Flexible, and recommends two peer‑group options: the established in‑person Vistage network (with a link to his chair Tom Cuthbert) and his own virtual program, Scalepath, aimed at $500k‑$5M revenue companies. The speaker urges viewers to research, trial, and, if needed, exit groups quickly, emphasizing the high ROI of the right peer group. The video ends with a call to subscribe, comment, and support his channel.
Chapters
If I look back on my career in business, one decision has made a bigger impact on my success than anything else, and it was joining a CEO peer group. I have businesses that have grown 4, 5, or 6 times just because of the things I've learned in a peer group. Let's talk about what a CEO peer group is. What it is, is a group of peers, other people that are CEOs or business owners. If you're at a big company, you potentially have a board of directors, but if you're a small business CEO, you don't have any of that. A lot of times you're the only person that is both the board of directors, the CEO, and in charge of everything. And so what a CEO peer group does is bring an organized way to supplement all that for you and create a virtual board of directors, people you can bounce ideas off of, get feedback, and who are on the same journey as you. My peer group story starts back in 2013. That's just over 10 years ago. And frankly, at the time, I didn't know what a CEO peer group was. I had just been about 6 years as a CEO of a business. I also knew that there were a lot of things out there I didn't know. And I got introduced one day to the current leader of my peer group, Tom Cuthbert, and he talked about this concept of what you can get from a peer group. And he I was also just starting out at the time as well. So look, I'm a pretty dubious person. You tell me something and my initial reaction is, is that true? Because that's just the way I'm wired. I went to go investigate it myself and I went to talk to other people I knew. I asked them about, hey, what is your experience with peer groups? Have you heard of Vistage, EO, TAB, all these different ones that are out there? And asked around and I heard some really interesting things from people. There was a group of people that totally loved being in a CEO peer group and I would ask them like, what made the difference for you? And what I learned about them was they went into the peer group totally open and invested in trying to make themselves matter. When you're considering joining a CEO peer group, be ready to grow, be humble, be coachable, be open to feedback, and truly lean into what's going on in the room, because that's the only way you're going to get maximum return both on your time but also in the money that you're going to spend being one of these groups. And I started to see that each group and each individual organization, they had their own personality. And for me, I liked Tom's groups, and the reason was is I wanted to go into the most exclusive and hardest charging group that would take things very seriously. So after I got referrals, I checked references, paid the money, and started to show up for my first meeting. So let me go through some of the things that have changed in me over the past 10 years and explain how that happened solely through the magic of being in this room each month. Number one thing with me is if I look back into my 20s and even into my 30s, I wasn't as brave as I should have been. I suffered just like many people do around imposter syndrome. I just didn't think I was necessarily good enough. And I've learned now that imposter syndrome is the thing I gotta get rid of in my system. I just ignore it and I just keep pushing forward. One of the things I learned through osmosis of being in this room with other CEOs, hearing them talk about their problems in our peer group is I saw them demonstrating the types of behavior that I wanted to actually emulate. And for me, it made me so much braver because I knew if they could do it, I could do it too. So let's talk about Michael in his early 30s. That's 10 to 15 years ago. Look, I have the smartest guy in the room problem for a number of years. And the smartest guy in the room is kind of a jackass, right? They're people that probably have some pretty good insights. They think they know the answers and they're gonna totally tell you about it. And for me, I would totally do that. And it was bad. It was bad with my employees. It was bad with my peers. And look, I probably still do do it some. This is why I'm recording videos and stuff, but I try to do it less now and I try to be more humble and understand, look, I'm going to be right a lot, but I'm also going to be very wrong a lot. And it's impossible to be in a CEO peer group and do it right without humility and coachability. You can't go in there and be closed-minded because eventually two things will happen. One, you'll get frustrated because you won't be getting anywhere. And two, a good group will probably run you out the door. And we've done that in our group. People who show up and aren't coachable, eventually we have to ask them to leave. And it's sad, but this isn't right for everybody. Today's sponsor is Employer Flexible, and what Employer Flexible does is really function as a fractional HR department for your company or business. I've used them numerous times in putting together my companies. I've used them when I've bought companies. I've used them when I started from scratch. And for me, I love working with them for numerous reasons. One is I know the owners and a lot of the staff, and they've always treated me super good. And then the second thing is I hate HR. Like, I don't enjoy it at all. And this way I can know it gets done right. You can find their contact details details, locations of their very off— various offices, as well as more details on how they will help your business by going to employerflexible.com. And again, that's employerflexible.com. And thanks to them for sponsoring today's episode. Being a CEO of Kuppier Group totally increased my level of personal gratitude. And here is the dumbest and backwardest way it happens. Look, if you're in a group of 18 or 20 CEOs and you come into a meeting and you spend all day in a room together, everybody's going to be coming in with some problems. And almost universally, every single meeting, I into that room and I feel like my problem is the biggest, nastiest thing in the world. And every single time I come in, somebody else has a problem that is just as bad or it's worse. And so the inverse of that is you see that kind of stuff happen and it immediately gives me perspective when I'm in the room with other people. I can't help but feel increased gratitude for how good I have things when I see this relative thing that is so real and my friend is going through in the room there and describing it to us. And because of that gratitude, I am a happier, healthier person now because every month I go in and I leave with increased gratitude just based on getting getting exposed to things that put in perspective what's going on in my life. A CEO peer group done right teaches you a ton of stuff. Education is part of what's going on. You're doing informal education by listening to what your peers are saying, but then there's also structured things that come in. The biggest transformation I've made in that room has been around systems-based thinking. And to me, that's the idea of whenever there's a problem, my first inclination now is to take a look at it and say, is there a system I can deploy here that will automate and streamline what we're trying to do? And if you look at the way I talk about business, now, everything is about this lens. How do I do hiring? How do I do strategy? How do I do sales? All of that kind of stuff is based around how do I first look at what kind of systems are out there and then utilize the best of breed in order to transform that. And when that's enabled me to do as well is standardize my whole environment and everything I'm involved in. We use the same systems and allows me to scale greater than I ever could before. And so for me, I've transformed over the past 10 years. The other thing I got from my CEO peer group is increased ambition. The reality is, and this will come to no surprise to any of you. I'm actually a very competitive guy. I like to win. I like to race. All of that is very fun. You would say, why do you like to do that? I don't know. I just like it and I want to win. And the reality is, when I'm in that room with other CEO peers, we are friends and I am there for them. But deep down, like, you can't stop me from not wanting to win. I want to produce more than the next person there. And I see stuff happening and I realize this is an opportunity for motivation for me. Is that healthy? I think it is. Could it be unhealthy? Yeah, probably not. But look, for me, this desire around competition, I translated into positive things in my life. And being in a room with other people that are peers and seeing them achieve stuff has made me want to achieve more. And I work harder because I'm in a CEO peer group. Being in a CEO peer group transformed the feeling of loneliness I had before I was in one. And here's the reality: the CEO job of running a small business is the loneliest job in the world because you have zero peers with you on the field. You You can't treat your employees like friends. You can be friendly to them, but you can't be their friend. You have nobody else who's going through what you're going through, and you are removed from them as the CEO. And the reality is being in a group and a set of peers who are also on that same journey and are lonely inside their companies was transformative to me. It removed this feeling of loneliness I had running a business, and I suddenly had other people that were on the same journey as me. They felt like we were peers. They felt like we were one. And for me, I have this great sense of community as being part of a group. And frankly, that's part of the power of why these CEO peer groups are so sticky you come for the learning, you come for the personal development, you stay for your friends. And for me, I've created lifelong friends through my peer group, and I couldn't imagine leaving them. From my CEO peer group, I've gotten an increased ability to be mindful. So mindful is thinking about your thinking. And so the best thing about a CEO peer group, and this is a quiet little thing, you go get away from your organization for a day and you go sit in a room and you have to suddenly be out of the business of doing your business and be able to think about what's going on inside your business. And the reality is what's going on that particular day when you're in the business seems like the most important thing in the world, but then you're able to step back and think about what's going on in the business and potentially change it for the better. That's transformative. And for me, it's created this habit. I now am able to understand what it feels like to slow down, truly think, get outside my business and try to work on making things better without being stuck in the drama of what's going on in the day to day. So I'm sure there's some benefits of being in a peer group that I haven't really thought about and haven't talked about here. This is of why I'm such a fan of doing these types of groups. They've been transformative for me. And the reality is there is no class in college or MBA that teaches you how to be a CEO, but this type of peer group can really help with all of that. And there's really two groups that I recommend very strongly. One is Vistage, and I'll put a link to Tom Cuthbert's email address below. He's my Vistage chair. If you're interested in doing an in-person group anywhere in the United States or globally, connect with him. He can put you in touch with a chair who runs and facilitates groups across the world and help you check out what that's like. Secondly, if you're interested in, in your smaller business and you're interested in doing something virtual, Scalepath is a company I founded earlier this year precisely because there are companies who are not ready for Vistage or other in-person groups. And it's for $500,000 to $5 million a year companies who are interested in scaling. And the cool thing about Scalepath is it's affordable and it's also entirely virtual and it's run by me and my business partner Sam Trumps. Sam's the CEO and I support him and I'm a strong part of that community. So you can learn more about Scalepath by going to joinscalepath.com or I'll put Sam's email address below as well, and you can reach out to him if you're interested. But I encourage you to talk to both of these and explore them, like go truly check them out, do your due diligence, try them, and if they're not working, get out quickly and go find one that does. There are so many different ones out there that you can't not find a good one that'll fit for you. And trust me that this has been transformative for me. It seems like a lot of money, a lot of time, but the ROI is immense. And hopefully you can see the same benefit from doing this. That I did. Thanks for watching this video here on YouTube. Having a ton of fun making them here on Girdley World. Help me grow this show if you enjoyed this. I really spent a lot of time on it. And then what you can do is click the notification button, be sure to subscribe, and if you have thoughts about what I said, reply in the comments below. Definitely interested in what you have to think, and I appreciate your help in growing here on YouTube. Uh, it is a new platform for me and I am excited to kill it here. Thanks for watching.
