MASTERCLASS
Stop Chasing Happiness. Start Making Something.
A Heroine’s Journey Masterclass with Peter de Kuster
Of the 5,000+ creative professionals whose stories Peter has collected, the women with the most vivid, most enduring happiness had one thing in common:
They stopped waiting for happiness to arrive.
They stopped waiting for the right moment, the right recognition, the right relationship, the right revenue. They stopped treating happiness as the reward that would come after the hard part. And they started making — the work they had been deferring, the story they had been editing before they told it, the creative life they had been qualifying with someday.
The moment they started making, the happiness came. Not before. Not after. During.
Peter describes this as the return — the moment the heroine comes back from her descent not to the life she had before, but to a life she has made. The making is the happiness. The making is the return.
This masterclass is the Heroine’s Journey applied to the only happiness question worth asking:
What are you making — and what is stopping you from making it?
What You Will Discover
In three hours together, we will work through the story structure of creative happiness — using the Heroine’s Journey framework, the 7 basic plots, and Peter’s 20 years of collected stories from women creative professionals across the world’s great cities.
You will leave with:
— A clear picture of which heroine archetype is driving your current story, and whether it is aligned with what you are making
— An understanding of what the Heroine’s Journey calls the descent — and whether you are in the middle of one right now, without knowing it
— The one-sentence description of what you are actually making, or what you are postponing making, written in the language of the Heroine’s Journey
— A personalised story generated by Peter’s AI tool: your archetype, your current plot, your dramatic situation, and your happiness insight — written specifically through the heroine’s lens
— The next chapter of your story — what the heroine does when she returns from the descent
The Three-Hour Journey
Hour One — The Chase and the Descent
We examine two stories that keep women creative professionals from their happiness: the story of chasing it (the belief that happiness lives just beyond the next achievement) and the story of the descent (the belief that the difficult period means something has gone wrong). Both are lies. Both are remarkably common. Both are recognisable in the stories of every heroine in every great city Peter has visited.
Hour Two — The Making
We look at the stories of women creative professionals who stopped chasing and started making. Coco Chanel, who made an entirely new language of elegance from scratch. Simone de Beauvoir, who made the intellectual life she was told was not for women. Julia Child, who started making food for joy at 49 and created a cultural movement. Georgia O’Keeffe, who made paintings in the desert for decades in radical solitude. What they made, how they made it, and what happiness looked like for each of them.
Hour Three — Your Story
We turn the lens on you. Using the Heroine’s Journey questionnaire, Peter reads your story — your archetype, your plot, your dramatic situation. And together we identify what you are making, or what you are postponing, and why returning to the making is the only happiness practice that has ever worked for the heroines in Peter’s collection.
Who This Is For
This masterclass is for the woman creative professional who suspects that the happiness books are not the answer. Who has tried the practices, built the habits, done the inner work — and who still feels that something essential is being deferred.
If you are a writer, a filmmaker, a consultant, an entrepreneur, an artist, a coach, a designer, or anyone who does creative work for a living — and you have spent more time planning your happiness than inhabiting it — this masterclass is for you.
It is especially for you if you have ever said:
“When this phase is over, I will finally do the work I really want to do.”
“I will be happy when I have proved myself enough to deserve it.”
“I will start making the real work when I feel ready.”
The Heroine’s Journey has a name for this. It is called waiting at the threshold. This masterclass opens the door.
About Peter de Kuster
Peter de Kuster has spent more than 20 years collecting the stories of creative professionals — men and women — who make money doing what they love. He has gathered more than 2,500 stories across the world’s greatest cities and built a framework for understanding the story structure of creative happiness that draws on Peter’s The Hero’s and Heroine’s Double Journey, his The Seven Stories of Your LIfe, and his The 36 Conflicts in Your Life Story.
The Heroine’s Journey project has published hundreds of real women’s stories — filmmakers, artists, consultants, entrepreneurs, coaches, writers — from Amsterdam to Paris to London to New York to Melbourne. Every story is proof that the making is the happiness. Every story is an invitation to start.
Practical Information
Format: Live online masterclass — 3 hours with Peter de Kuster
When: 06 september 2026
Where: Online — Zoom link sent on registration
Price: €495 per person
Included: The Heroine’s Journey questionnaire, a personalised AI story (archetype, plot, dramatic situation, happiness insight — written through the heroine’s lens), and the digital Heroine’s Journey workbook
Maximum participants: 20 — to allow personal attention from Peter
Language: English
[BOOK YOUR PLACE — €495 →]
Maximum 20 participants. Once it is full, it is full.
Questions? Write to peterdekuster2023@gmail.com
This masterclass is part of The Heroine’s Journey — The One Great Story About Making Money Doing What You Love.
You are the storyteller of your own life and you can create your own legend — or not!