Master Mind Meetings, 2009–2025: A Record

Martial Arts Professional 4 hours agoLast Updated: October 28, 2026

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Between 2009 and 2025, martial arts school owners in one coaching programme met in person at least 27 times, at places that included West Point, the U.S. Naval Academy and the Navy’s diving school. This page is the dated record of those meetings, drawn from the programme’s own member archive. It is the index for this journal’s accounts of individual meetings.

Disclosure. These meetings were run by this magazine’s publisher, Stephen Oliver, for members of his coaching programme: Stephen Oliver’s Inner Circle and the NAPMA-era Peak Performers group, now Martial Arts Wealth Mastery. Grand Master Jeff Smith, who appears in the record, is that programme’s Chief of Instruction. The record is published as industry history, not as a recommendation of the programme.

The record

Dates are the meeting date where the archive names it, and otherwise the month the recordings were published to members. Places are given as the archive records them.

When	Where	What is on the record
March 2009	Location not recorded	Inner Circle and Peak Performers live meetings. Session audio survives.
May 2009	Location not recorded	Inner Circle and Peak Performers live meetings. Session audio survives.
October 2009	Location not recorded	Inner Circle live meeting. Session audio survives.
February 2012	Orlando, Florida	Peak Performers mastermind and an Inner Circle closed-door meeting, part of it spent on Disney’s approach to service. Read the account.
2012	West Point, New York	Inner Circle and Peak Performers mastermind at the United States Military Academy. A primer went to members in May 2012. Read the account.
February 2014	Location not recorded	Inner Circle mastermind, and an Inner Circle and Peak Performer staff development intensive. Video survives.
November 2014	West Point, New York	Two-day meeting at the Military Academy. The full session audio survives. Read the account.
Early 2015	Panama City, Florida	Tour of the Naval Diving and Salvage Training Center, led by its commanding officer, Commander Hung Cao. Read the account.
May 2015	Sterling, Virginia	Faculty: Grand Master Jeff Smith, Stephen Oliver and Chief Master Greg Moody. Attendees reported results afterwards. Read the account.
Late 2015	Clearwater Beach, Florida	Three parts of session video.
March 2016	Anaheim, California	Three parts of session video.
June 2016	Sterling, Virginia	Three parts of session video, plus audio.
August 2016	Colorado	Two parts of session video.
October 2016	Breckenridge, Colorado	Three days of session video.
January 2017	Clearwater, Florida	Two days of session video.
April 2017	Annapolis, Maryland	Three days of session video.
August 2017	Location not recorded	Mastery Conference: sessions on marketing, print advertising, the sales process and introductory-class role-play.
September 2017	Golden, Colorado	Session video.
August 2018	West Point, New York	Leadership event at the Military Academy, with Bernard Kerik among the speakers. Read the account.
October 2018	Estes Park, Colorado	Session video.
March 2019	Golden, Colorado	Session video.
November 2019	Estes Park, Colorado	Session video.
July 2021	Keystone, Colorado	Ten recorded sessions, including three on paid-in-full tuition, one on becoming an author and one on bully-prevention seminars.
September 2021	United States Naval Academy, Annapolis, Maryland	A tour of the Academy, then a two-hour address on leadership by Captain Hung Cao, days before his retirement from the Navy. Sessions on renewals followed. Read the account.
September 2022	Colorado	Three days. Sessions included a series on daily operating numbers, cost structure as a school grows, and moving a school from about $1 million to about $2.5 million a year.
February 2023	Clearwater, Florida	Live member event. Members’ take-aways were reviewed at the following weekly call.
May 2025	Evergreen, Colorado	Live member meetings.

What the record shows

The venues were chosen to teach something. Three visits to West Point, two to the Naval Academy and one to the Navy’s dive school put school owners inside institutions whose business is teaching hard skills to young people under pressure. That is the same business a martial arts school is in, with higher stakes and better documentation.

The subject shifted from marketing to operations. The 2009 to 2015 recordings are dominated by marketing and enrollment. The later recordings that carry session titles, from 2021 and 2022, lean towards staff, renewals, operating numbers and cost structure: the problems of schools that have already grown.

Colorado became the home base. Of the 17 meetings recorded from 2016 on, 9 were held in Colorado, in Breckenridge, Estes Park, Golden, Keystone and Evergreen. Colorado is where Stephen Oliver’s own schools, Mile High Karate, are based.

The record is a working record. Most items are raw session video or audio, posted for members within days or weeks. Very little of it was produced for an outside audience, which is what makes it useful as history.

Frequently asked questions

What were the Master Mind meetings?

They were in-person meetings for members of the coaching programme run by Stephen Oliver, publisher of Martial Arts Professional. The programme was founded in 2000 as Stephen Oliver’s Inner Circle, ran alongside the Peak Performers and Maximum Impact groups in the NAPMA era, and is now Martial Arts Wealth Mastery. Between 2009 and 2025 the member archive records at least 27 meetings and live events.

Where were they held?

At West Point three times (2012, 2014 and 2018), at the U.S. Naval Academy twice (2017 and 2021), at the Navy’s diving school in Panama City, Florida, in 2015, and in Orlando, Clearwater, Anaheim, Sterling in Virginia, and the Colorado towns of Breckenridge, Estes Park, Golden, Keystone and Evergreen.

Who spoke at them?

Stephen Oliver ran them, often with Grand Master Jeff Smith and Chief Master Greg Moody. Outside speakers on the record include Commander, later Captain, Hung Cao of the U.S. Navy in 2015 and 2021, and former New York City police commissioner Bernard Kerik at West Point in 2018.

Are the recordings public?

Not in full. Session video and audio are held in the programme’s member archive. This journal publishes accounts of individual meetings where they belong in the industry’s public record, and links them from this page.

Sources

Primary source: the member archives of the programme at martialartswealthmember.com and quickstartmember.com, and its current member community, checked in October 2026. Each row above corresponds to one or more archive posts carrying session video, audio, handouts or member notes.

Dating. Where the archive gives only a publication date, that month is used. “Early 2015” and “Late 2015” are used where the recordings were published across a span and no meeting date is recorded. We have not invented dates.

Corrections. See our editorial policy.