How 22,000 Mentors Helped Grow My Business

In this series, professionals thank those who helped them reach where they are today. Read the posts here, then write your own. Use #ThankYourMentor and @mention your mentor when sharing.

I can honestly say I never would have grown my business to where it is today without having the Young Presidents’ Organization (“YPO”) by my side. When I started my company in 1984, I was a 27-year-old lawyer who really didn’t know how to run a business, let alone a small travel agency that, at the time, was in a fierce struggle to survive against much larger and better financed competitors.

It was actually my mom who first told me about YPO, and their mission of “becoming better leaders through education and idea exchange” really appealed to me. To be honest, I wasn’t accepted the first time I applied, since my company didn’t yet meet the minimum requirements. But after a few years of growth, I applied again and was accepted. For 23 years and counting, membership in YPO, and its larger network as a whole, continues to be invaluable (I am now a member of the successor organization, WPO, since I turned 50 a while ago.)

From the start, YPO was a revelation to me, because here were all these other entrepreneurs and presidents and CEOs of companies, and here was an environment where you can get together on a regular basis to share feedback. Each person is part of a Forum of roughly 7-12 people; there’s no magic number but it can’t be too big or too small. The beauty of it is that every Forum member is representative of an industry that is not a direct competitor of any other forum member. For example, you don’t want to have two people in the travel industry. Anything that presents an obstacle to being completely candid and sharing would really inhibit dialogue, so it’s very important that everyone is in a different field.

I am currently the moderator of my own Forum, which I’m proud to say I founded with a couple other members, and has been together in various forms for roughly 15 years. There’s one member that’s in a hedge fund, another is in the private equity field, and yet another is an internet entrepreneur. The diversity of industries is really wonderful, as it creates opportunities for fresh perspectives and learning best practices.

We meet once a month, and it’s usually for 4 hours with a similar structure each time. First, we do a one-word open where everyone expresses how they are feeling at that particular moment. Then, we clear any issues that may exist within the group so everyone can be comfortable and speak openly. Then we go around the room and everyone provides updates on three areas of their lives: personal, family, and business. Out of those updates, we talk about something that may be a burning issue. As the moderator, I may say something like, “You should present on that.”

So after the updates we have one or two presentations. You give an extended period of time to a member, and they delve into an issue that’s bothering them or that they need help with or feedback on. Someone may say, “I have this challenge in my HR department and this is what the problem is…” Everyone provides feedback, and invariably, someone has had a similar experience that they share so the rest of the group, or the individual presenter, can learn from it.

But it really is larger than just business issues, because YPO also believes that if you get together with a group of other leaders, you can create a safe environment where you can share issues about family, or about personal issues you may be going through. I’m the oldest member of the group so they like to ask me questions. For example, other members have very young children and mine are grown so we talk about issues that affect children and work-life balance. Everything is on the table for discussion.

YPO also has “Only-in-YPO” educational events for larger groups — I’ve heard speakers anywhere from Jack Welch (former chairman and CEO of General Electric) to President Bill Clinton, to the President of Pakistan — each one a unique, educational opportunity.

Once, we had an “inside the board room” with Barry Sternlicht (founder, chairman and CEO of Starwood Capital Group) and I’ll never forget how he talked about running a big hotel company and his management philosophy. I also remember going to see Jamie Dimon (chairman, president and CEO of JPMorgan Chase) speak. Somebody asked him — I actually think it was me — to recommend his favorite book about business. He talked about a book that was very important to me when I first started my business. It was Double Your Profits in Six Months or Less, by Bob Fifer. I’ve shared that with all my Forum mates over the years and everyone agrees that it’s one of the most transformative books on business ever written. It’s very simple and really based on common sense, and it takes about an hour to read.

Another book that was very influential for me is Topgrading, by Bradford D. Smart. It likens business to a ball team, and discusses how the business with the best players — like the best ball tea — wins. You constantly need to be “topgrading” your leadership team and to make sure you have the best people in each position, and that’s how you ensure business success. That book has really informed my leadership philosophy of hiring and trusting the best people in the business, and it was recommended by my fellow YPO members.

These are just some of the ways YPO has supported me over the years. When we went through 9/11 and we had no revenue coming in, my YPO group was indispensable to me in that period, as well as during the global financial crisis, which was another existential challenge for my business. Any time there has been a catastrophic event that has affected us, I have looked to my YPO group to provide support, guidance, and feedback.

The bottom line is that you never say to someone: “This is what you should do.” That’s not YPO protocol. What you do is share experiences that other people have had. We do goal setting sometimes about what you want to achieve in the next year, or 5 years, or 10 years, both professionally in your business and on a personal level. That’s also a very valuable exercise. We’ve all gotten to know each other very well so we don’t have to reinvent the wheel each time. It’s like having a group as a coach. You can listen to the advice and act on it or not; you can really take what you want and you get what you put into it. Each of the members of my group has strengths and weaknesses and contributes feedback that has helped guide me to become a better leader and help me to grow my business. While I may not have one specific mentor, I am lucky to have a group of them!