A friend of mine, Gary Tuerack, was the first person to tell me about the Entrepreneur’s Organization (EO) as a support group for people who have built businesses from the ground up. He didn’t just talk about it, he raved. So once my previous company, Red Rover, was qualified, I jumped in and joined EO.

EO is a non-profit and totally volunteer run. Fellow members told me that for every hour I put in, I’d get two back in many areas of my life. So, trusting their words, I quickly got involved in the leadership levels of EO. First as a Moderator for my Forum, then as a member of the NY board.

Three years later, I can say wholeheartedly that for every hour I put into EO, I’m easily getting two hours back. From business strategy, to personal development, to once in a lifetime experiences, EO truly has lived up to its hype.

I want to keep expanding my leadership experience within EO and the next level was to accept a nomination to become the President Elect Elect for the NY chapter. Three people, in total, were nominated this year, which I was excited about because I didn’t want to get the position by default, but rather by merit. I wanted to get the position because the board thought I was the right person at the right time.

After giving my speech to the board tonight, and them making me sweat it out a bit, I was officially voted in as the President Elect Elect! Not only was I voted in, it was a unanimous vote. Even someone else who was nominated, voted for me.

It’s a real honor and something I’m super excited about doing as EONY is the largest chapter in the world in an organization that is filled with almost 100,000 top notch entrepreneurs from around the world!

It’s also a lot of work, so the clock is ticking from now until I officially take my seat to set everything up in my life to be able to give my all to the role and gain the most value out of it as possible.

In a series of brainstorming conversations with a fellow NY EOer we attempted to outline ways to increase retention within the NY EO chapter. After several rounds, he and I seemed to not be looking at the situation the same way. To figure out where the disconnect was, I drew the outline below to demonstrate what my approach would be like if I were working with one of our client schools.

To further explain my chicken scratch…

1. The conversation with a school usually starts in the middle with the idea of increased student engagement and involvement.
2. But one has to take a step back and ask why increased student engagement and involvement is important? Most of the time the answer is higher retention rates. Beyond intuitively making sense, there is research (Astin/Tinto) that draws the line between how engaged/involved a student is to fellow peers and his/her retention rate from year-to-year.
3. The next step is to list out all the tactics that an institution is currently doing to increase engagement and involvement.
4. By attaching a measurement/point system to each tactic we can then build an Engagement Dashboard that tells us who a school’s most involved, and least involved, students are.
5. If the data from the current tactics isn’t enough, then we need to brainstorm new tactics that we can create, measure, and plug into the Engagement Dashboard to get better results.
6. The end result is a dashboard that gives us a clear visual of who a school’s most involved, and least involved, students are. With this information schools can focus their energy on celebrating the engagement/involvement of the top third while putting their limited resources into supporting the bottom third who are at the highest risk of dropping out.

For schools, being able to target the bottom third is huge because they are the most at risk. From an administrator’s perspective, each student’s tuition from year-to-year makes an impact on the bottom line of the school.

Bringing the story back to EO…

After I laid out this Engagement Plan, my brainstorming partner quickly went, “Ah-ha! I got it. Unlike a school where there is a real desire to support the bottom third and keep them in school. EO is an exclusive organization and if you aren’t up to carrying your own backpack, then we don’t want you because we only allow so many members at a time. So with our Engagement Dashboard, we are going to put all our energy into celebrating the top third.”

Makes sense. And the more I thought about it, the more I realized that not all communities want to keep increasing their numbers and retain as many members as possible. Some communities, like EO, are built on an exclusivity model.

As you build out an Engagement Dashboard for your community, make sure to be clear on if your goal is to be an exclusive or inclusive community.

After an EO event last night, a small group of us went to Suteishi in the financial district for dinner as a treat from the owner. As a vegan, they indulged me to some wonderful non-fish sushi and appetizers. Based on my experience, Suteishi now ranks among my top five favorite vegan friendly sushi places (the eggplant appetizer is AMAZING!).

At the end of the meal the waitress brought out some mochi ice-cream balls. Thinking they were rice based, I reached for one in excitement. The manager then paused me to say I can’t have them because they were actually milk based. I smiled and thanked her for letting me know.

When I talk about being a vegan and eating food, I never say I can’t eat something, because it implies that some authoity beyond myself is dictating, with rules, what I’m allowed to eat and not eat. Or as if I have some allergies in which I can’t eat certain foods. In reality, I could eat anything I want. I don’t have food allergies, have a quick metabolism, and have a pretty tough stomach. It’s not that I can’t eat certain foods, it’s that I don’t want to. There in lies the difference between rules and principles. Rules are dictated from OUTSIDE yourself and set by an authority on you in which you don’t have control. Principles are dictated from WITHIN you and it’s up to you to uphold your principles or not.

Being vegan is just a tactic I use to uphold one of my principles that humans have a responsibility to be caretakers of this earth and all within it.

Tonight I attended an EO Huddle about creating great teams featuring uber successful entrepreneur Amilya Antonetti.

Right out of the gates, Amilya’s strength and conviction around what she does and how she does it showed through. Below are some of the highlights I scribbled in my moleskine:

• Her green cleaning business arose from a personal experience with her son almost dying after birth which gave her a very clear sense of WHY her business mattered. Her company’s narrative, or backstory, is so strong, it’s impossible not to get emotionally connected as an employee or consumer.
• The team is the light, energy, and heart of a company. Treat them as such.
• Companies that are…
  • $0-5mm > can operate with just one hero
  • 5-30mm > the hero needs to die
  • 30-50mm > the team makes this happen
  • 50-100mm > all about cultivating/maintaining multiple teams
• A CEO can only go so far on their own, everything after that is up to the team.
• Key person to the CEO’s right should always be a “yeah maybe” person that can challenge the assumptions and ambitions of the CEO’s.
• Real learning and growing should hurt and each person should have someone around them (boss, board, mentor, advisor) that pushes them to a greatness they don’t know they don’t know yet. However, this person should be only a few steps ahead of you on the success wall.
• She works her team like dogs. But on the flip side, she takes care of everything outside of work for them so when they aren’t at work they are 100% dedicated to their families. Everything? Yes everything. She takes care of food shopping, laundry, car care, lawn care, house repairs, etc. 
• She doesn’t give raises but instead raises lifestyles. 
• Above each desk are two clocks, one that is the real time and one that is where they want to go on vacation next. Vacations are mandatory.
• The people on your team and around you want to be the heros in your life, you just have to let them by setting them up for success.
• The hardest thing she’s had to do in growing a business is letting go of her Round 1 hires to make way for her Round 4 hires.
• She once flew to one of her offices just to have dinner with a key executive and his wife in an attempt to save their marriage. She asked the wife for 90 more days in the marriage and in the end she saved the marriage by paying for them to go away together and re-connect outside of work. In her words, “oh hell no were they going to get divorced. Do you know how much that would have cost me to loose a key executive?”
• Employees want to be part of the business not BE the business. 
• Each department sets the salaries for the other departments and the whole company sets her salary which always ends up being more than what she would’ve paid herself.
• All her hires come from referrals from key employees from within the company
• If someone comes into your world with a great attitude and gusto, make a position for them with their name on it so you can hire and keep them.
• Everyone shares equally in bonuses. She wants the receptionist to work as hard as her sales team.

Every EO Huddle also includes an experiential component, so after Amilya was finished we were treated to tequila tasting from Gabriela’s Resturante. My two favorite take aways from the tasting were

1. Wet your month with a little tequila before you try and down the whole thing (which isn’t recommended anyways).
2. Sniffing tequila from the top of the glass vs the bottom will give you a truer sense of its ingredients instead of just the liquor smell.

Last night I interviewed with a potential EO Forum that I was really excited about joining because of the make up of its members. After my interview, which was a combination of me telling my story and them ‘fire squading’ questions back, I left for the night and they discussed/voted on my fit within their Forum.

Today I received a call from the Forum president to let me know they really liked me and are inviting me to join if I also felt like it was a good fit. I eagerly accepted while simultaneously celebrated!

Whether board of directors, support coaches, or circle of amazing friends, I feel like this opportunity is coming at the exact perfect moment in my life both personally and professionally. Personally Annie and I are moving towards kids and professionally Red Rover is gearing up for an explosive growth year.

I told Annie over IM that I feel like joining this Forum is going to be a moment in my life that 10 to 20 years from now I’ll be able to point to and say, ” that’s what got me here.”

If success is like rock climbing, joining EO and this Forum is like putting a safety hook in the side of the mountain that will allow me to climb even further.

Today was my first full day training with EO NY. The training was focused on all the foundational knowledge needed to join and participate in an EO Forum.

Part of the ground work training was an overview of how an individual can further participate in EO because it is almost entirely a member driven community. Some are positions I could do right away based on my experience and others take several years of EO experience before I’d be allowed.

As a self motivated person, I’m excited to take it all on now and if offered, probably would open every door just so I can know what’s behind it. But by restricting my access to only a select few, while still letting me see the long term possibilities, I’m hooked for a longer term.

Video games will often do this. I’m into a ping pong iPhone app right now that tells me there are four levels of competitors, but instead of telling me any information about them, all they give me are lines of question marks that get unlocked based on my total points scored. Had they of given me all the information about every level up front, I’m not sure I’d be as hooked as I am.

I love how game theory is officially creeping into all aspects of our lives. Which got me wondering if there is a Game Theory for Business book out there?

In my EO class today, the facilitator told a story about a group of runners who would give each other a bag of their running equipment at the end of each run. Each person was then responsible for showing up the following week, because if they didn't, both themselves and the person who's bag of running equipment they held for the week wouldn't be able to run. Wow! Thinking about how I can apply this idea of accountability to other situations.

This morning I attended my first EO event in NY. It was an entrepreneur panel discussion at the Bloomberg main offices which, by the way, are pretty ridiculous (see images below). 

From the moment I walked in and heard the conversation and types of questioning like "what's the best advice you've learned about hiring?" or "how did you keep going when your business wasn't?" I knew I was in the right spot and these people were speaking my language. And best of all, unlike other meetups I attended in NYC, to be a member of EO, you already have to be running a pretty successful business. I'm excited for my first full day event coming up on Thursday.