When should I start building a peer support circle as a leader?

Build the circle now, before you need it. Kris Kluver, in The Dysfunctional Family Office, gives this advice to Gail Mitchell at the retreat, not as motivational language but as a warning from someone who has watched leaders break under the weight of doing it alone. The leaders who already have a tribe when crisis hits are the ones who navigate it. The leaders who try to build a tribe in the middle of crisis don't have time to develop the trust the tribe requires. Trust takes repetitions. Multiple meetings. Tested confidentiality. People who have shown up for each other in smaller moments before the big ones arrive. Most founders wait until they're already in trouble to start looking for peers. By then it's too late. The right time is now, when you don't think you need it, because that's the only window where you have the bandwidth to do it well.