Excerpt: Small business guru Michael Gerber will help you become a successful entrepreneur. These quotes from The E-Myth Revisited will get you going.
Book Overview: E-Myth \ ‘e-,’mith\ n 1: the entrepreneurial myth: the myth that most people who start small businesses are entrepreneurs 2: the fatal assumption that an individual who understands the technical work of a business can successfully run a business that does that technical work. Small business consultant and author Michael E. Gerber 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 businesses that succeed—and shows how to apply the lessons of franchising to any business, whether or not it is a franchise. Most importantly, Gerber draws the vital, often overlooked distinction between working on your business and working in your business.
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Post(s) Inspired by this Book:
“We are an ‘out there’ society, accustomed to thinking in terms of them against us. We want to fix the world so that we can remain the same. And for an ‘out there’ society, coming ‘inside’ is a problem. But now is the time to learn how. Now is the time to change. Because unless we do, the chaos will remain. And we can’t afford this kind of chaos much longer. We’re simply running out of time.”
Michael Gerber, The E-Myth Revisited (Page 261)
“We can’t change the world ‘out there.’ And fortunately, we don’t have to; we can begin much slower to home. We can begin ‘in here.’ In fact, if we’re to succeed, we must. Because the chaos isn’t ‘out there’ in everyone else. It’s not ‘out there’ in the world. The chaos is ‘in here’ in you and me. The world’s not the problem; you and I are. The world’s not in chaos; we are. The world’s apparent chaos is only a reflection of our own inner turmoil.”
Michael Gerber, The E-Myth Revisited (Page 260)
“We’ve fast become a world of things. And most people are being buried in the profusion. What most people need, then, is a place of community that has purpose, order, and meaning. A place in which being human is a prerequisite, but acting human is essential. A place where the generally disorganized thinking that pervades our culture becomes organized and clearly focused on a specific worthwhile result. A place where discipline and will become prized for what they are: the backbone of enterprise and action, of being what you are intentionally instead of accidentally. A place that replaces the home most of us have lost.”
Michael Gerber, The E-Myth Revisited (Page 207)
“The business is a place where everything we know how to do is tested by what we don’t know how to do, and that the conflict between the two is what creates growth, what creates meaning.”
Michael Gerber, The E-Myth Revisited (Page 201)
“The customer is not always right, but whether he is or not, it is our job to make him feel that way.”
Michael Gerber, The E-Myth Revisited (Page 201)
“The work we do is a reflection of who we are. If we’re sloppy at it, it’s because we’re sloppy inside. If we’re late at it, it’s because we’re late inside. If we’re bored by it, it’s because we’re bored inside, with ourselves, not with the work. The most menial work can be a piece of art when done by an artist. So the job here is not outside of ourselves, but inside of ourselves. How we do our work becomes a mirror of how we are inside.”
Michael Gerber, The E-Myth Revisited (Page 200)
“Autograph your work with excellence,” has become a sort of mantra that I live by. Whatever I set out to do, I always try to give it my absolute best shot. And it doesn’t matter what it is. It could be something important like writing these articles or something that might be considered more menial like vacuuming the rug. The underlying idea is that all work that gets done always gets done with an autograph attached to the work. And that autograph, that work, as Gerber points out above, acts as a reflection of the person who did it. The question that you then have to ask yourself is, what does your work say about you?
Read More »Michael Gerber Quote on How The Work We Do is a Reflection of Who We Are“You need to be very gentle with your spirit. It needs to be free, but it also needs you to direct its attention. Too much of one, and not enough of the other, and your spirit will take off like a wild horse. That’s how you need to think of your spirit, like a wild horse. Part of it is there to serve you, and another part to serve itself. The thing you need to learn is which part is which. If you put it behind a fence, you will kill it. But if you leave it to come and go as it pleases, you will never understand it.”
Michael Gerber, The E-Myth Revisited (Page 158)
…And it’s not until you understand your spirit that can ever tame and unite forces with it. This is critical to understand because your spirit is one of the most powerful driving forces in your life. It’s only when your actions are backed by the power of your spirit that you can only ever realize your true potential and capability as a human being.
Read More »Michael Gerber Quote on Being Gentle With Your Spirit and How To Unite Your Spirit and Mind“Nobody is interested in the commodity. People buy feelings. And as the world becomes more and more complex, and the commodities more varied, the feelings we want become more urgent, less rational, more unconscious. How your business anticipates those feelings and satisfies them is your product.”
Michael Gerber, The E-Myth Revisited (Page 155)
“I believe it’s true that the difference between great people and everyone else is that great people create their lives actively, while everyone else is created by their lives, passively waiting to see where life takes them next. The difference between the two is the difference between living fully and just existing. The difference between the two is living intentionally and living by accident.”
Michael Gerber, The E-Myth Revisited (Page 139)
“Great people have a vision of their lives that they practice emulating each and every day. They go to work on their lives, not just in their lives. Their lives are spent living out the vision they have of their future, in the present. They compare what they’ve done with what they intended to do. And where there’s a disparity between the two, they don’t wait very long to make up the difference.”
Michael Gerber, The E-Myth Revisited (Page 139)
“The master is connected to the apprentice as though to her past. As you are to your childhood. The master knows that the process of growing, of change, of transformation, is always moving, never still. It is in the face of the apprentice that the master sees herself anew. It is in the face of the craftsperson that the master renews her pilgrimage and finds the beauty of giving herself up to work. It is in the face of the work that the master discovers anew why she is so enraptured and, in so doing, brings her rapture to the apprentice to start all over again.”
Michael Gerber, The E-Myth Revisited (Page 131)
“A business that looks orderly says to your customer that your people know what they’re doing. A business that looks orderly says to your people that you know what you’re doing. A business that looks orderly says that while the world may not work, some things can. A business that looks orderly says to your customer that he can trust in the result delivered and assures your people that they can trust in their future with you. A business that looks orderly says that the structure is in place.”
Michael Gerber, The E-Myth Revisited (Page 103)
“…most people surveying the world around them today see only chaos. They suffer a sense of personal powerlessness and pointlessness. Individuals need life structure. A life lacking in comprehensive structure is an aimless wreck. The absence of structure breeds breakdown. Structure provides the relatively fixed points of reference we need.”
Alvin Toffler, via The E-Myth Revisited (Page 103)
“The key is to plan, envision, and articulate what you see in the future both for yourself and for your employees. Because if you don’t articulate it—I mean, write it down, clearly, so others can understand it—you don’t own it! And do you know that in all the years I’ve been doing this work with small business owners, out of the thousands upon thousands we’ve met, there have only been a few who had any plan at all! Nothing written, nothing committed to paper, nothing concrete at all.”
Michael Gerber, The E-Myth Revisited (Page 65)
“What makes people work is an idea worth working for, along with a clear understanding of what needs to be done.”
Michael Gerber, The E-Myth Revisited (Page 4)
“Contrary to popular belief, my experience has shown me that the people who are exceptionally good in business aren’t so because of what they know but because of their insatiable need to know more.“
Michael Gerber, The E-Myth Revisited (Page xiii)
