Last week I had the privilege of being on a conference call with
Michael Gerber.
He is the author of several books including the E Myth Revisited mentioned later in this newsletter. He talked with us about his new 2.5 day program called the Dreaming Room.
He was a great fan of Walt Disney and followed his lead in using this name.
The Dreaming Room is a place where entrepreneurs can practice a new kind of dreaming--Intentional Dreaming®--which has nothing to do with problem solving and everything to do with transforming your whole life and business in a radically creative and strategic way. The surprising reason that most small businesses fail is not because their dream is too big, but rather too small, too realistic-it isn't big enough to sustain more life!
Michael is also writing a new book, Awakening The Entrepreneur Within.
If his passion on the call is any indication of how powerful the book is, I'd say it is a winner! You can hear his commitment as he speaks. Michael Gerber is about to have his 70th birthday and he is certainly not retiring!
Michael is well known for his book The E-Myth Revisited.
The E-Myth Revisited
Michael E. Gerber
Michael Gerber dispels the myths surrounding starting your own business and shows how commonplace assumptions can get in the way of running a business.
Next, he walks you through the steps in the life of a business - from entrepreneurial infancy, through adolescent growing pains, to the mature entrepreneurial perspective, the guiding light of all business that succeed - and shows how to apply the lessons of franchising to any business, whether or not it is a franchise.
Finally, Gerber draws the vital, often overlooked distinction between working ON your business and working IN your business.
After you have read The E-Myth, you will TRULY be able to grow your business in a predictable and productive way.
Below is an article I wrote for my Exuberant Productivity Journal on this subject:
Are You Working On Your Business or In Your Business?
Suzanne Holman, MAEd
"How did it get to this point? Why am I working, working, working with my head down in my business and feeling as though I don't have a moment to think ahead?"
You probably started your own business to have freedom of choice, to have freedom to create and to have freedom to have limitless income without the constraints of a salary.
You may have left a J.O.B. and now you are feeling as though you are once again at a J.O.B. with your worst boss ever......YOU!
Generally, businesses are started by someone who has a particular skill. You may have done great work with the finances in a corporation so you decide you'd like to have your own financial services company.
Just because you have the skills to do the technical work of a company doesn't mean that you can be a successful entrepreneur. Anyone who has gone through this transition would agree. There are so many different skills needed to run a business!
Until you are ready to delegate the tasks that are not your specialty, you will not be able to fully utilize your best talents.
Creating a system that others can run without you can give you that freedom that was your goal to having your own business. This takes discipline and careful attention to all the details that you are presently handling.
Oh, how tempting it is to think you can handle it all!
Maybe you think you need to get bigger and have more profit before you deserve to have the support you need?
It may seem risky to be paying for the support when your funds are tight, but without the support in place you are apt to stay stuck where you are.
You are also a perfect candidate for overwork and overwhelm. When you are overworked and overwhelmed, the passion that drew you into the business starts to shrivel and die.
Ask yourself, "How many hours am I actually working in my business each week?"
Would you ever have worked that many hours in ANY job you've ever had?
I didn't think so.
The challenge facing most business owners is how to come up with the time to work ON the business so that they can improve the function of their company. Now it's time to look for the time wasters that steal some of your valuable time away.
Is it email? That is a problem for many of us. How easy it is to get sucked into checking email and then get distracted by any number of interesting topics. Disciplining yourself to check email only at certain times of the day could free up some valuable time for your business planning.
Another roadblock to our productivity can be avoiding something (like business planning) because it seems too major of a project. If you can break the project down into smaller segments, it will be easier to fit the work on one of the segments into any free time that you have.
Actually creating appointments with YOURSELF for a change would be a way to create time for this business planning. And keep that appointment!
Show yourself and your business as much respect as you show the rest of the world.
If you have problems in disciplining yourself into making some of these changes and creating a business plan, it may be the time to think about hiring a business coach.
A business coach would be able to support you in getting through this transition into a systemized business structure that will allow you to grow profitably and to have the freedom and creativity you wanted in the first place!
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