Entrepreneurial life is not only about success, it’s also about becoming a better businessperson. During your entrepreneurial journey, you will experience challenging moments that will afford you deep insights into your personal, private and business environments. Many of you share these experiences in your EO Forum meetings, and the information shared serves as educational tools for other EO members. We learn to become better entrepreneurs through the challenges we face; challenges that can have a deep impact on our emotions, life balance and entrepreneurial energy and passion.

The EO Netherlands chapter is working on a book that captures these challenges and uses them to help other entrepreneurs learn and grow. The forthcoming book, titled “Ouch!,” is currently in progress, but the chapter has certain needs to finalize the project. Up until now, they have interviewed 40 Dutch EO members, and they’re looking to connect with other global members to record their “ouch” moments in business. Death, divorce, shareholders fights, strategic failure, rapid expansions (and failures), and many other challenges could be subject to an interview with former EO Netherlands chairman Paul van Katwijk or current chairman Stephan van Gelder. The interviews are 15- to 30-minutes monologues via Skype. The interview outline is as follows:

1. The challenge
2. The significance and emotions 
3. The insights
4. The experience

The interviews are anonymous in order to secure your safe environment. The goal of these interviews is to help other entrepreneurs understand that when something challenging occurs in business, they’re not alone; that others met the same challenges, and their insights may help others avoid or overcome difficult situations. If you’re interested in helping EO Netherlands with their book, please e-mail Stephan van Gelder, and he will set up an interview via Skype!