E-Myth Mastery: The Seven Essential Disciplines for Building a World Class Company

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E-Myth Mastery

HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.

Chapter One

The E-Myth Point of View

"Begin as creation, become a creator.
Never wait at a barrier.
In this kitchen stocked with fresh food,
Why sit content with a cup of warm water?"

From Unseen Rain, Quatrains of RUMI
by John Moyne and Coleman Barks

And now we begin our journey together to find the entrepreneur, who he is, how he thinks, what he does, how he does it, how he moves mountains to make his dreams come true. Mountains on the inside of him, and mountains on the outside of him. Mountains of his imagination, and mountains with a stark overwhelming reality to them. What do mountains ask of the one who is determined to climb them? What preparation is in order? What role does your guide play in all this? How strong of mind and spirit does the one who would climb mountains truly need to be? You and I are going to ask all of these questions, over and over again. We will answer them, and then throw away those answers. We will discuss the harsh reality of them, and you will begin to understand them to be metaphors for something even bigger than the mountains we have set out to climb. Much bigger.

Tragically, few of thepeople who start their own business think like entrepreneurs, act like entrepreneurs, dream like entrepreneurs, or succeed and fail like entrepreneurs. Even more tragically, this is a crime against their very own nature. Most small business owners spend their entire small business journey in the foothills without ever starting to climb. And what's worse, they never realize what they've done.

By the time we're done with our journey, you will have learned, through your own experience, not only what entrepreneurship is, but what it is to you, what it is for you to take on the mantle of a true entrepreneur by doing work only true entrepreneurs do.

You will learn how to build a World Class Company.

You will learn how to create the extraordinary.

You will learn how to find magic inside of yourself, the kind entrepreneurs are famous for, and how to tempt it out. And then, how to be gentle with it, love it, nurture it, play with it, coerce it, cajole it, massage it, console it, cry with it, and be firm with it.

All of this, dear reader, you have inside of you. No matter who you think you are, no matter how you think you ought to think, this book can provide you with a completely new perspective on your life, and the business or businesses you create as you live it.

You will discover that entrepreneurship is not a trait, quality, or characteristic possessed by a rare and special few. It belongs to each and every one of us. It lives inside us all. It is a legacy, a birthright, which we are free to nourish or ignore, to claim or reject, to pursue or avoid, to develop or not, so help us God.

Entrepreneurship is, first of all, the power to create.

But creation is not something that you do.

Creation is something that is done through you.

Creation is like music. My saxophone teacher, Merle Johnston, used to say to me, "Michael, you don't make music. Music finds you. Your job is to practice to get yourself ready."

Likewise, your job is not to become an entrepreneur. It is not to create.

Your job is to commit to the process of becoming an entrepreneur and then to practice what entrepreneurs do so that entrepreneurship can find you when you've practiced enough to be ready.

Commitment and practice. Commitment and practice.

Because, just as I found the power to create music through the practice of music, you can find the power to create a World Class Company through the practice of entrepreneurship.

Understand, the power to create a World Class Company doesn't come from the practice. It comes from deep down within you. It's a calling, a potentiality; it's ineffable, unexplainable, and enormously exciting. It comes from your connection to your passion. Practice, I believe, is your signal to the power—to the passion—that you have taken it seriously. That you are committed. That you are earnest about the gift the passion will bestow on you. How do you know it will? Commit and you'll discover the trust over time. And even when you're completely unsure, as I'm certain many of you reading this are, even as I'm speaking to you, there's a knowingness in you, isn't there? That somehow you just know that entrepreneurship is your calling.

Unfortunately, the calling is insufficient on its own. Unless you commit to the practice of entrepreneurship, unless you get down to the study and the form and the skill-set of entrepreneurship, it is most likely that your entrepreneurial calling will turn into a nightmare of unbelievable proportions. You will be completely unprepared for what you are called to do.

I know. Because I've lived through that nightmare. I know because the coaches in my company have lived through countless nightmares with their clients. Nightmares about running out of money. Nightmares about losing an absolutely essential account. Nightmares about losing their marriage, or a significant relationship, or their kids, about not knowing what to do next as a catastrophe sits there on their doorstep just waiting to happen. I know about nightmares. And I know the toll they take on people who have been taken by the impulse to start a small business only to find out too late that they were completely unprepared for what it demanded of them. Nightmares are sweaty, painful, fearful, monstrous. They take your breath away. They put a bleak, flat, and hopeless face on reality that destroys any urge we might have had to create, to build a successful business.

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Excerpted from E-Myth Mastery by Michael E. Gerber Copyright © 2007 by Michael E. Gerber. Excerpted by permission.
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