The World I Didn’t Know Existed

By Ivanka Menken

I don’t really know what it’s like to run a business without EO.

I started my business in 2000 and joined EO in 2006. So there’s only a small window where I was doing it alone and everything since then has been shaped, in some way, by EO. Which makes it hard to separate what’s “business growth” and what’s “EO transformation.” But when I really think about it, there are moments that changed how I see the world entirely.

Falling Down the Rabbit Hole

Not long after I joined, I went to my first EO University in Delhi. I remember standing on a dance floor at a private estate in the middle of New Delhi (it was a 20-acre property owned by a member whose wife used to helicopter in just to go to the gym). It was surreal.

There were entrepreneurs from all over the world, casually talking about running companies worth billions and there I was, running a $2.5 million business, thinking I was doing pretty well.

I felt like I’d fallen down the Alison in Wonderland, rabbit hole. It was one of those moments where your entire frame of reference shifts. Where you realise there’s a whole world operating at a level you didn’t even know existed.

And once you see it… you can’t unsee it. That moment didn’t make me feel small, it made me feel expanded and best of all it showed me what was possible.

Seeing What’s Coming

Another moment came at another EO University, this time in Singapore. There was a panel on global finance and they were talking about something happening in the US that was starting to ripple into Asia. They called it the Global Financial Crisis. 

At the time, in Australia, no one was talking about it. It wasn’t in the media and it wasn’t on anyone’s radar. But I remember coming home and saying, “We need to prepare, we need to build an emergency fund, there is something is coming.”

So we did and you know what, six months later, it hit. Because of EO, we weren’t reacting, we were ready.

More Than a Network

That’s the thing about EO, it’s not just a network, it’s not just learning, it is perspective. It’s being in rooms all over the world, where you’re exposed to ideas, experiences and ways of thinking that you simply wouldn’t encounter otherwise.

It stretches how you think, it expands what you believe is possible and sometimes, it helps you see what’s coming before it arrives.

I Don’t Know Business Without It

After nearly 20 years, EO isn’t something I “use” in my business. It’s part of how I operate.

It’s shaped how I make decisions, how I assess risk, how I think about growth and how I understand the world beyond my own market.

I often think back to that moment in Delhi, standing there, slightly overwhelmed, completely inspired but realising there was so much more out there than I had imagined.

That moment changed something in me and since then, EO has continued to do the same thing, again and again.

It shows you a bigger world and once you see it… you start building differently inside it.