Breaking Into a New World

Michael E. Gerber

I’m 71 years, going on 72.  In the past two years I have launched six new companies and am in the process of launching my seventh.  Daunting, perhaps, especially if the idea of starting your own company in this time of your life has never occurred to you.  But, if your clients are in as much need as mine have been over the past 35 years of my entrepreneurial life, then you cannot even begin to understand what a gift the work you could  be doing on their behalf would mean to them.

That new work is what I call entrepreneurial work.  In its purest form, financial advising is not entrepreneurial work; it’s what I call the work of a technician.  Of course it is important work, even essential work, but as a rule, it is not what entrepreneurs do.  Entrepreneurs invent new companies.  They invent new companies to produce results that aren’t available to their chosen clientele or customers.  Essential results.  Results that are important.  Results that are meaningful.

For example:

In 2005, I launched a company called In The Dreaming Room LLC.

Its purpose was to serve as an entrepreneurial incubator to awaken the entrepreneur within anybody who was having trouble inventing a new life, a new world, a new company.

In the 35 Dreaming Rooms I have held since December 8th, 2005, I have experienced miracles occurring in the participants of those Dreaming Rooms.  Lives moving in completely new directions.  New business models being invented out of nothing more than “a blank piece of paper and beginner’s mind.”

New lives emerging with such joy and renewed energy that would have been unimaginable to the people who were living them.

There are four dimensions of the entrepreneur I have discovered:  The Dreamer, The Thinker, The Storyteller and The Leader.

The Dreamer has a Dream, just like Martin Luther King did.  The Dream is expressed as a Great Result.  What is the Great Result you intend to produce in the world?  For whom do you intend to produce it?  Why is that important?  What will it look, act and feel like when it happens?  These are all questions The Dreamer asks and then answers.

The Thinker has Vision.  In my case, my Dream at the founding of my company E-Myth Worldwide in 1977 was to transform the state of small business worldwide.  My Vision was to invent The McDonald’s of small business consulting.  Turnkey.  Gloriously effective.  Producing predictable results for every small business client.  Every time.  On time.  Exactly as we promised it. 

The Storyteller has Purpose.  Mine was to transform the lives of every single person who decided to go into business.  I knew how transformational a result that would be if we could do it.  Just imagine the economic impact of such work if we could indeed provide every new business owner, no matter what kind of business he or she created, a formula–a business model–that would work as perfectly as a McDonald’s franchise every single time.

My Mission was to build a turnkey consulting system that I could train any novice to use with impunity to apply to every small business client at less than the cost of a minimum wage kid to produce the Dream, the Vision and the Purpose I’ve already shared with you here.

It would be unbelievable.

And yet, that’s exactly what we did.  And that’s exactly what my company, E-Myth Worldwide does today…again, with impunity.

Yet, at the outset…I didn’t know anything about business!

That’s impossible you might say.  But, as it turns out not only was it not impossible, it was exactly the formula we have applied to help anyone who wants to do the very same thing to do it.

Imagine each of your clients.  Imagine being able to bring this knowledge to them.  Imagine the impact this could have on their options. Their opportunities.  Their lives.

Imagine the impact it can have on you!

For more information, go to Awakeningtheentrepreneur.com, Amazon.com or Barnesandnoble.com to find out more about my new book, Awakening The Entrepreneur Within: How Ordinary people Can Create Extraordinary Companies (Without any experience to guide them).

Looking forward to further conversation.  

Michael Gerber is the author of best-selling E-Myth books including The E-Myth Revisited with over a million copies in print, as well as Awakening the Entrepreneur Within.  He has taken his methodology and message on the road, addressing business audiences throughout North America, the Pacific Rim, Europe and beyond about how to start their own personal revolution. Since the 1970s, Michael has served as keynote speaker, telling his compelling story to a variety of corporations, organizations, professional associations, franchises and independent business owners.  His organization, E-Myth Worldwide, brings low-cost, high-impact consulting to the small business owner, and is the pioneer in long distance "telecoaching."