Awakening the Entrepreneur Within

How Ordinary People Can Create Extraordinary Companies

Michael E. Gerber

• Publisher: HarperCollins e-books
• Year: 2009
• ISBN:
  9780061738487
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Entrepreneurship
• Index: Business

"No business author has touched me as deeply as Michael Gerber has."

—Jack Canfield, co-creator of the Chicken Soup for the Soul bestselling book series

The legendary Michael Gerber—founder of E-Myth Worldwide and author of such multi-million copy bestselling classics as The E-Myth Revisited and E-Myth Mastery —shows you how to go from dreaming about having your own business to actually doing it in Awakening the Entrepreneur Within. A highly in-demand keynote speaker whose company boasts over 52, 000 business clients in 145 countries, Michael Gerber is THE name in small business—and now he demonstrates "How Ordinary People Can Create Extraordinary Companies." Making your dreams real is the first step to creating a successful business—and Gerber's Awakening the Entrepreneur Within provides the key.

PART ONE

THE PREPARATION

1

A Conversation with My Mother Leads to the Dreaming Room

All the influences were lined up waiting for me. I was born and there they were to form me, which is why I tell you more of them than of myself.

—Saul Bellow, The Adventures of Augie March

My mother is ninety-six, lives an active life, looks to be no more than sixty, and has a wonderful sense of humor about it all. “One day I won’t be here,” she says with a twinkle in her eye, “but don’t give me up for dead yet!”

My mother loves to talk, and she loves it even more when I talk. She loves it when I visit her and share my life with her. She eats up all my stories when I tell them, which I usually don’t because I can’t bear to hear them since I’m living them. She has read every one of my seven books, which amazes me since she has no interest in business.

She puts it this way: “Your books are you, Michael, and I get to experience you when I read what you’ve written. I love your books,” she says, her eyes going deep when she says it, “because I love you. You’re a remarkable man, Michael. I know I’m your mother, and that’s what mothers are supposed to say and feel, but, please know that I mean it; even if I weren’t your mother, you are a remarkable man.” It’s always difficult for me to hear that when my mother says that because I don’t feel like a remarkable man. I just feel like me, which is not remarkable. But don’t we all feel that way?

So, in 2005, my mother asked me, “So, what’s going on in your life, Michael?”

“I’m feeling lost, Mom,” I said. “I’m sixty-nine years old and I’m feeling like I used to feel when I was a kid. I don’t know who I am anymore, or where I’m going. I feel disconnected from my company and disconnected from myself. I want to do something new but I don’t know what. I feel at a loss, disconnected from the past and the future, and not doing very well in the present, either. I don’t even know how to say it.”

My mother smiled, “Michael, if there’s one thing I know about you, you’re never at a loss for words! Tell me what you would tell me if you did know how to say it.” She sat there with that lovely enigmatic smile of hers.

“It’s just that, for the past twenty-nine years, I have been so immersed in creating my life, my books, my company, the world I live in, the speaking—all of it. It’s been my passion. And while it’s been difficult at times, it’s also been extraordinary beyond belief. I have been someone, have done something that few people have ever done, have come to this place in my life knowing that I’ve had a positive impact on millions of people in the world, and yet…”

I paused, feeling that I was missing the point somehow, but continued to push through it.

“Oh, God, that’s not really it, Mom; it’s something much less obvious. It’s that, yes, all that is true, but at the heart of it something is missing in all of it. I have been so consumed with the path I was on I stopped looking at where it was taking me. It’s like the path became the purpose. But the path I was on…still am on…is simply that, one path among many. And it could have been a million different paths, had I paid attention somewhere along the way; it could have been anything. I could have done anything, other than what I have done. And I’m feeling the loss of the many paths not chosen because of the one I did take. I have committed myself to becoming ‘Mr. E-Myth’ and I don’t know how to disengage from him now that he’s become such a reality to so many people, and to me. I guess what I’m saying is that I need to find a new path, and, at sixty-nine, I feel foolish and lost because I don’t know how, or even why, I want to do it.”

My mother said, “Michael, pardon me if I don’t take what you’ve said seriously. You’ve never been at a loss for ideas. You’re one of the most imaginative people I know. So, we both know it’s not that you can’t figure out what to do. It’s that somehow you’re not really dealing with the problem. Somehow you’re avoiding what’s really eating at you. What is it? What’s making you feel so off?”

I suddenly knew what it was. It came to me so quickly, so immediately, so sharply, and clearly, that I was amazed I hadn’t seen it until that minute.

“I’m afraid, Mom. I’m afraid to start something brand-new. I’m afraid that I won’t have what it took me to start E-Myth all those years ago. That I could actually create something new that is as powerful as E-Myth has been. I’m afraid I’m too old, too used up, too stuck in my E-Myth rut. And, at the same time, I’m afraid to let go of E-Myth for fear that all the work I’ve done, all the life I’ve put in it, will simply lose force and die a slow and ugly death. I’m afraid that the people I’ve left it to won’t cherish it as I do. Won’t respect it as I respect it. Won’t honor it the way it deserves to be honored. And, if that happens, then none of what I’ve done will really matter. It will end up being just a book. One book among millions of books, but what it has done for tens of thousands of people will stop. And I would hate that.”

My mother had not stopped smiling during my rant, but her smile softened to a sadness, which was reflected in her pale eyes as she looked at me.

“Michael, I feel your pain. I do. I can only imagine how difficult it would be to have to start all over again. But, of course, you don’t have to. You could do anything you wish to do now. The only reason you feel so conflicted is because you’re coming awake to energy in you, the same energy that has been bubbling and bursting and playing inside of you ever since you were a little boy. Just let it, Michael. Stop thinking. Just let it bubble and burst and play inside you, and see what happens. It’s telling you something. It’s telling you that that little boy I love so much is just aching to come out. He’s the one who is making such a ruckus in you. He’s the one who created the E-Myth when everyone told you that you were crazy. He’s the one who still wants to play, no matter what time it is, no matter what anybody has to say. Michael, you’ve always been like that. Let go, and let it do what it does. I have a feeling everything will change. It feels like it’s time for something new to come into your life, Michael,” my beautiful mother said. “Isn’t that exciting?”

It was exactly at that moment when “In the Dreaming Room” was born in earnest: when an entirely new phase of my life began; when my inner entrepreneur was awakened, and a flood of new impressions catapulted me out of my lethargy and drew me to places I had never been before; when the inventor in me woke up and thought, “I’m awake!”

This was really good! It had been so many years since I had felt like this. As the entrepreneur within me began to see and feel and think. As the entrepreneur within me began to say, “What if?” and “Why not?” and “Why doesn’t anyone know about that?”

All of that happened in the few weeks following my conversation with my mother, and it was more intensive work than I had done in the previous thirty years. But, in the thirty years prior to this epiphany—this moment of seeing clearly, this awakening of the entrepreneur within me—I had done everything I needed to do to prepare me to write this book. I was now ready to take millions of people—those who want to wake up the entrepreneur within them and discover an independent life—closer to their dreams than I had ever believed I could.

That is what this book is about. It’s that process, the awakening, that I want to describe to you.

Before I do that, let me set the rules of the game straight. The rules for playing the Game of the New Entrepreneur. The rules for inventing a new life out of nothing other than the most delightful, most remarkable and miraculous thing of all…your imagination.

Let’s look at the Five Realities of the Entrepreneur.

2

The Five Realities of the Entrepreneur

I believe there are two ways to look at a blank sheet of paper. The first way is that the blank sheet is the most frightening thing in the world because you have to put down the first mark and figure out what to do with it. The other way is to look at it and say, “Wow, I’ve got another blank piece of paper. This is the greatest opportunity in the world because I can now let my imagination fly in any direction and I can create whole new things.” I have spent a good part of my life convincing people that the blank sheet is the greatest opportunity in the world and is not frightening at all.

—Marty Sklar, Executive Vice President/Imagineering
Ambassador, Walt Disney Imagineering

REALITY #1

An entrepreneur is an inventor, although few inventors are entrepreneurs. An inventor sees the world through alert, wide-open eyes. An inventor lives asking the question, “What’s missing in this picture?” and then answers it by inventing the missing piece that makes the picture whole. He can’t help himself, it’s just what he is called to do. What an entrepreneur does next, however, is what makes the difference between him and all other inventors.

An entrepreneur invents new businesses. All other inventors invent new products. To the entrepreneur, the business he or she invents is a product, a unique product that stands out in a world of ordinary business products and, through its uniqueness, captures the attention and imagination of the people for whom it was invented: its customer, its employees, its suppliers, and its lenders and investors.

To the degree a business does not achieve that uniqueness, that originality, from the very beginning, it is not an invention. To the degree a business is not an invention, it is not an entrepreneurial business. While being an entrepreneurial business is not a guarantee of success, failing to be an entrepreneurial business is a guarantee of failure.

REALITY #2

Entrepreneurs do not buy business opportunities; they create them. While business opportunities such as franchises are more likely to guarantee the success of the person who buys them, they are only successful to the degree the buyer suppresses his or her inclination to invent—suppresses his or her entrepreneurial passion. Therefore, entrepreneurs who buy business opportunities are doomed to disappointment, no matter how successful the business is. The passion of the entrepreneur is not to run a successful business—not to run a business someone else invented—but to invent a unique business that becomes successful.

Business opportunities are invented for technicians or managers to run who have no aspiration to be entrepreneurs—who have no aspiration to create anything of their own other than a successful job. Ninety-nine percent of business opportunities are actually jobs for the people who buy them. They may be better jobs (most actually aren’t!) than the ones the buyers had before, but they are still jobs, not true business opportunities. A true business opportunity is the one that an entrepreneur invents to grow him or herself. Not to work in, but to work on. That’s the work of an entrepreneur.

REALITY #3

Invention is contagious. People love to experience an original business idea that has been successfully manifested in the world. So, the entrepreneur’s passion comes not only from inventing a new business but also from basking in the delight of other people as they gladly experience his or her invention. The entrepreneur, in this sense, is no different from a performer whose love for what he or she does is dramatically increased by the enthusiastic response from the audience.

For the entrepreneur, there is nothing more satisfying than when the audience applauds the performance. Every customer who buys from the entrepreneur’s business and then comes back for more is applauding the entrepreneur’s originality, brilliance, and successful performance. The entrepreneur loves accolades, lives for the successful manifestation of the invention, and finds joy only when the audience and the business truly come together as originally envisioned.

Once the business has achieved that level of success, sustaining it becomes the primary focus of the entrepreneur. The more significant the invention, the easier it is to sustain its success. The less significant the invention, the more difficult it is to sustain its success.

REALITY #4

To an entrepreneur, the success of the invention—the business—is measured by growth. The faster the business grows, the more successful is the invention. The slower the business grows, the less successful is the invention. To an entrepreneur, slow growth or no growth is death. To be caught up in a slow-or no-growth business is to be doomed to show up every day to perform in a show nobody enjoys.

On Broadway, shows that nobody enjoys close quickly. Businesses that nobody enjoys should close quickly so that everyone can go out looking for an experience they love.

Unfortunately, most businesses don’t close soon enough. They just linger on and on and on, surviving as best they can. Entrepreneurs should never create a business simply because it can survive. To do so would be to commit oneself to daily dying. Entrepreneurs create businesses that thrive. To the entrepreneur, “There’s no business like show business!” It’s always, “Let’s get on with the show!”

REALITY ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• FOREWORD
• PREFACE
• INTRODUCTION
• PART ONE: THE PREPARATION
• PART TWO: THE DREAMER AND THE DREAM
• PART THREE: THE THINKER AND THE VISION
• PART FOUR: THE STORYTELLER AND THE PURPOSE
• PART FIVE: THE LEADER AND THE MISSION
• EPILOGUE
• Backmatter page
• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
• About the Author
• PRAISE FOR MICHAEL GERBER AND AWAKENING THE ENTREPRENEUR WITHIN
• BOOKS BY MICHAEL E. GERBER
• Credits
• Copyright
• About the Publisher