Educating Today

Many people who think they want to go into business for themselves have been working for someone else. Most likely, they do technical work and are very good at it.

Technical work covers a wide range of occupations:

• Carpenter
• Mechanic
• Machinist
• Bookkeeper
• Dog trainer
• Hairdresser
• Computer programmer
• Doctor
• Dentist
• Technical writer
• Graphic artist
• accountant
• Plumber
• Salesperson

The list can go on and on. These people are good at what they do, but they’re doing it for someone else.

When these people decide to go into business for themselves, it’s not because they have figured out how business works. It’s usually because something irritated them at work such as a feeling that their boss doesn’t appreciate them.

Maybe it’s because of the stage of life in which they find themselves–”Hey, if I’m ever going to do anything different, I better do it now.”

They start thinking about the independence they would have. They like the idea of being their own boss, setting their own hours, being the one in charge.

They have the romantic belief that businesses are started by entrepreneurs, and if that’s the case, they must be one.

But being an entrepreneur is a whole different mindset of understanding business.

You can learn more about what it means to be an entrepreneur at http://MyHomeOfficeHelp.com.

Michael Gerber, in his book The E Myth Revisited, talks about the average picture of an entrepreneur. 

Typically, we think of an entrepreneur as:

• A man or woman who stands along
• They are windblown against the elements
• They courageously face overwhelming odds
• They climb steep sides of dangerous rock

Why does someone do this? So they can capture their dream of growing a business of their own.

Are there really people like this? Yes, but they are rare.

Gerber says of the thousands of business people that he has known and worked with, very few were real entrepreneurs.

What really happened to these people and their vision?

• Climbing the dangerous rocks became something to cling to instead of conquer.
• They were exhausted from dealing with their business instead of exhilarated by it.
• They were no longer driven by their dream.

For these people, the entrepreneur mindset only briefly existed, and then it was gone.

We have a misunderstanding about entrepreneurs, and that misunderstanding is what Gerber calls “the e-myth.”

Go to http://MyHomeOfficeHelp.com to find the right way to start your own business.

Look for the “Join Today” box in the upper left hand corner. You can get the first month’s membership for only $1. I belong to this group of business people and they’re wonderful.

“To live through an impossible situation,

you don’t need to have the reflexes of a Grand Prix driver, the muscles of a Hercules,

the mind of an Einstein. You simply need to know what to do.”

Anthony Greenback, The Book of Survival

We all have situations in life that can give us set backs or make us think our plans have all been in vain. But after awhile “we pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and start all over again.”

In The E-Myth Revisted, Michael Gerber talks about a concept called The Business Development Process. It is a process that can be systematically applied in a step-by-step method that becomes a predictable way to produce results and vitality in any small business whose owner is willing to give it the time and attention it needs to flourish.

Michael Gerber says that your business is nothing more than a reflection of who you are. If you are sloppy, your business will be sloppy; if you are disorganized, your business will be disorganized. If you are greedy, your employees will be greedy; giving less of themselves and asking for more.

So to make a business work, you have to change how you think and how you act. The first change you need to make has to do with what you think a business really is and what it takes to make a business work.

Take some time to mull this over.

What do you need to change about how you act and how you think?

Next time we’ll talk about something called an entrepreneurial seizure.

Talk to you soon,

Susan

Who thinks this book is great!