Lessons from E-myth...

Alright, I've returned to reading the E Myth, which is obviously the classic on systems on strategic systems on the entrepreneurial role within a business.

And I've really been enjoying it speaks of how most businesses are begun by technicians, someone who knows how to do a particular thing.

And this is both the benefit that they believe it can be done.

But they don't realize that they're about to take on two jobs, one of being the technician that does the work of the business, but also doing the work of business, which is typically something that they have not done before.

And this leads to a world of pain, essentially, toward a pain either, it never works in the first place, they never get through the infancy stage that's referenced in a myth, or they enter into adolescence where they start to bring on team bring on people, but they don't realize that they also have to then become the manager, and critically, the entrepreneur.

And so as things get too chaotic for them, they end up with three outcomes.

One is that they return back to a smaller business, but remembering that already had a problem that forced them to grow.

So eventually, the business dies.

The second is that it grows chaotically and just grows and grows and grows and grows until its own growth tears apart.

Or the third stage is the grind, where you just grind it out in a business that essentially doesn't work.

And the interesting thing that Michael Gerber presents at the transition between the problem business and the entrepreneurial business, is the idea that a mature business is grown from its beginning with a clear vision of what it will become this is the entrepreneurial role.

This also referenced in the Eos system as the visionary role.

And then the integrator does all the management.

But this idea that there must be a final version of what the business will look like, this is the difference between a business that is a technician that is just doing the work trying to make a business work versus a a successful visionary business, which is hey, this is the target.

This is where we're going.

One of the interesting things in reading Gerber is that almost sounded like a secret.

I mean, it was it was out there in terms of I was reading this chapter is like the business that works, the entrepreneurial business has the vision.

And then it's looking at what is going on today.

And then merging those two is basically like, here's where we're going, I can visions that and then we're going to bring look at where we are today and merge those two together.

And so that business continues to evolve towards that vision.

And so there's two critical things here that I'm taking from it.

One is that final vision must be there.

And ideally, that would be created without you, as the entrepreneur actually in this business that could run without you that has a serious number of benefits, as opposed to trapping you in the business where it's totally reliant you on you, it extracts its pound of flesh from you.

It means you're working late means not having relations with your wife or your husband.

Your kids are like Who are your stress daddy brain and you have no time for thinking.

And it is interesting, if you're a fan of Keith Cunningham, one of his major recommendations is scheduling thinking time to think about, hey, what's going on.

Once a business becomes chaotic, and it's and it's growing, but systems aren't in place becomes very hard to get that time to actually stop and go hey, what is going on here? But let's say that we do have that vision we've we've bought into Michael Gerber's idea that yes, a business should know where its final destination is then the next step is to look at where you are today.

What's going on today.

Good, bad, ugly, awesome.

what's working, what's not working, establishing where you are.

This is just like Google Maps, like you might want to go on a journey.

If you're not locked down.

Like we are in Australia right now.

Thanks so much everybody.

Um, of course, the death rate is astronomically high if you're not morbidly obese and under 75.

According to the CDC, at least and hopefully their figures are accurate.

But no, you should look that up.

If you're worried about it and check it out, you know, it's got the death rates and stuff, you can look it out.

It's not smallpox.

I mean, now smallpox was, that virus knew how to get around one in three dead.

That was worth vaccinating everybody against like, what a miracle miracle that vaccinating against smallpox represented, horrendous, horrendous, horrendous stuff.

I was born in 77.

So I might I didn't even know about smallpox that it didn't, that we didn't, I didn't get vaccinated against smallpox because it was eradicated from Australia.

And then And then around that time, it goes and gets eradicated from India.

And I mean, just, I mean, one in three.

That is that is an impressive death rate.

But I digress, I digress, I digress.

Let's come back to looking at where you want to be.

You want to be heading, you've established that vision for the business.

But the next bit is to establish where you are, you must know where you are, in order to make the journey because if you don't know where you are, how are you going to take the right steps.

If you let's use Australia, if I want to go to Byron Bay, and I live in, I don't know, let's say Lenox head, that's a very different journey than if I'm in Melbourne.

That's a very different journey.

If I'm in Tasmania, in Hobart, that's a very different journey.

If I'm in Perth, it's a very different journey if I'm in New Zealand, like they are all very different journeys.

And so even though all of them wanted to get to Byron Bay, that's the target one move to Byron Bay looks like pretty good place.

Chris is there.

You know, he's like, I mean, four lives here.

It's pretty cool.

But if you're in Linux head, it's about a 10 minute drive.

If you're in Sydney.

Don't leave right now.

If you if you've got to not wait for the next lockdown to end and then get up here.

If you're in Melbourne again, and wait for the lockdown to end and get up here for New Zealand.

Wait for the lockdown to end and then come here, like you've got some major problems, you've got significantly higher logistical problems.

In fact, even in Linux head right now, that's probably about 12 kilometers, instead of 10.

So technically, you can't come from Linux either.

So eventually, though, all of these lock sounds will end you'll be able to get to Byron Bay.

But those journeys are still different.

How are you going to get there like it it makes very little sense.

Perhaps it does.

If you have an extraordinary large amount of money to catch a helicopter from Linux, it but from Sydney, you might fly Melbourne, you might fly, you might choose to drive if you've got to bring a lot of stuff.

If you're in New Zealand, where you could catch a boat, it's going to be slower.

You could catch a plane.

Any of these things, any of these options, there's multiple ways there's almost always multiple ways to get there.

Even from Linux, you could ride a bike, you could walk, you could hitchhike, you could paddleboard, you could sail.

But the critical thing for you as the business owner is to not only know where you are going, but also know where you are establishing where you are, this is a critical skill.

And this involves being able to truthfully look at what's going on facing the facts ugly as they are ugly as they are beautiful as they may be.

It's a lot easier to look at good things, but it is required in business to have the capacity to look at what is truthfully going on.

What are the facts of where you are now? Because only in that, can you make the decision to go.

Okay, that's our target, how we're going to get there.

All right.

That's all I got for you today.

I hope you enjoyed it.

I certainly enjoyed presenting for you.

We're continuing on this journey into establishment over the next couple of episodes.

I hope you'll join me for that as we continue to explore the power of systems creating results.

I'll see you then.