How to Design, Build, Launch and Grow a Small Company with Michael E. Gerber: An EOFire Classic from 2021

0:02Who's ready to rock today, Fire Nation? JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire. brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals with great shows like The Hustle Daily Show. Today, we're pulling a classic episode from the archives and we'll be breaking down how to design, build, launch, and grow a small company. To drop these value bombs, I have brought Michael E. Gerber into EO Fire Studios. Michael is the author of the New York Times mega bestseller for two consecutive decades, The E-Myth Revisitive, and nine other worldwide bestselling E-Myth books concerning small business entrepreneurship, leadership, and management.

0:35And Fire Nation, We'll talk about the four personalities an entrepreneur is comprised of, the dreamer, the thinker, the storyteller, the leader, and oh, so much more. And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Michael and our sponsors. Success Story, hosted by Scott D. Clary, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Success Story features Q &A sessions with successful business leaders, keynote presentations, and conversations on sales, marketing, business startups, and entrepreneurship. A recent episode discussing the billion-dollar health secret with the founder and CEO of Whoop is a must-listen.

1:11Listen to Success Story wherever you get your podcasts. I have a question for you, Fire Nation. Do you feel like your life is optimized, or do you feel like you're leaving a lot in the table when it comes to health, wealth, and relationships? If you think you could use some personal guidance in optimizing your life, let me help. I've created a program called Optimize, where I will personally work with you one-on-one to get to know you, your life, your goals, and your dreams. If you want to learn more about this program, visit eofire.com slash optimize. Michael, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with.

1:51The most critical thing I could bring to bear on this conversation is the thing that I sent to you earlier. and that is you said niche down until it hurts and the truth is most people are willing unwilling to bear the pain of not getting what they thought they were going to get on the path to trying to get what they wished to get and because of that most people leave much, much, much too soon. So it is that, in fact, even in the picking up of your book, the vast majority of people on the planet who are told to read your book won't read it. And they won't read it because the thought of reading it is too damn painful for them.

2:51few people overcome their resistance to pain and that's the greatest obstacle on the way to their discovering a dream a vision a purpose a mission and going to work steadfastly in the process of designing building launching and growing a company that works i love how you put that It was very poetic, if I may say, and there's actually a book that I read kind of recently called The Pleasure Trap that talks really in-depthly about how human beings are always doing one of three things, if not two or three of these three things, which is we're seeking pleasure, we're avoiding pain, or we're conserving energy, or again, we're doing two or three of those things.

3:41But at all times, we're doing at least one of those three things. and it's those successful entrepreneurs that Michael's referring to, Fire Nation, that understands it's going to take maybe not even just a little bit of pain, sometimes a lot of pain to get to where I'm going to be and I'm willing to submit to the pain. I'm willing to incur the pain to get to where I need to be. And Michael, your E-Myth Manifesto breaks down how to design, build, launch, and grow small companies that then eventually grow into larger companies. Can you share with us what that manifesto is and why it's been so effective for so long?

4:27Well, thank you, John Lee. Yes, of course I can. That manifesto I call the Eightfold Path. And it merged out of the original e-myth book that I wrote and published way back then, so many years ago, it doesn't make any difference any longer. The path is absolutely critical. A dream, a vision, a purpose, a mission, a job, a practice, a business, an enterprise. And any single individual listening to us here must know that that's the process. It's the irrefutable process that one must go through if one, first of all, is going to awaken the entrepreneurial spirit within to the degree that we'll be able to sustain ourselves, hungry as we may get in that process to truly be moved as deeply as we must be moved in order for it to make what it is.

5:37determined to create a reality. And so that is a very fundamental understanding of this. When we talked about earlier pain, the truth is the entrepreneurial spirit, despite its desire to not experience pain is incapable of not doing what's necessary to be done despite the pain that comes with it. In short, we're driven. And it's a very important thing to understand that we're driven. Entrepreneurial spirit is driven. It's driven from within. It's driven from within with this notion that we're born in the image of God. It was said all those years ago, we're born in the image of God, which I then state that means we're born to create.

6:47If we're born in the image of God, we're born to create. And if we're born to create, we're born to create a world fit for God. and we're driven by that. We can't help ourselves. You, John, can't help yourself. You are driven. You can't explain it either in the midst of it. It's not something you think yourself to do. It's something you're compelled to do. So the question then becomes, and this is so, so critical, the question then becomes, so how do we instigate, inspire, drive, do whatever it takes to make that driven nature come a reality within our young people from the very beginning of their lives?

7:50from the very beginning of their lives, not when they get to be at a certain stage where now what am I going to do with my life is a question, but before they even have that question, what am I going to be in my life? That question is the question their parents must ask and then answer and pursue with a vengeance. In short, if our parents aren't driven to discover what driven means in a child, the child will rarely be driven unless or until someone comes into their life that inspires that to awaken within them. That's critical. that's absolutely critical and fundamental to the successful drive and the unsuccessful drive that awakens and inspires entrepreneurship there's so much that i love from that the eight fold path fire nation i mean so many value bombs and i can tell you what michael i was in the army for eight years as an officer so i know what it takes to motivate men and women even in a time of war and a time of combat.

9:15And I can tell you what you just shared right there makes me want to run through a wall. But I'm going to stay put. I'm going to stay in front of this microphone. I'm going to keep dropping the value bombs back at you. And I do love the phrase you used that I wanted to repeat, that we are born to create. And I love how you went on to say, we can't help ourselves because we are driven. We are compelled. So stop fighting that, Fire Nation. Let it just flow from you. And you believe, Michael, there are four hats of an entrepreneur. We're going to get to all four, but I want to start with the first two.

9:49Break down the first two hats of an entrepreneur. Well, let me share the first two, but I can't help but go on to the other two. There are four personalities that an entrepreneur is comprised of. The dreamer, the thinker, the storyteller, the leader. Nobody has ever truly defined entrepreneurship that way. But in the defining of entrepreneurship that way, we suddenly understand why the dream is critical, the vision is critical, the purpose is critical, and the mission is critical. The dreamer has a dream, the thinker has a vision, the storyteller has a purpose, and the leader has a mission. Let's start going through each one, one by one, to kind of really unpack what these look like.

10:40Perfect. Well, the dream is the big result, the great result we're here to produce. Everyone has a dream, but those dreams need to become fortified and formalized in a statement. My dream way back then in 1977, when we, my partner and I then, Tom Travissano, founded the Michael Thomas Corporation, which was, in fact, the very first business development firm ever created on this planet. We invented small business coaching way back then in 1977. my dream was stated explicitly to transform the state of small business worldwide. That was the great result we intended to achieve to fulfill in the founding of the Michael Thomas Corporation.

11:38The vision was the form that dream needed to take in order for it to become a reality. And our vision back then at the very beginning of this process was to invent the McDonald's of small business development services. McDonald's of small business development services. Now, when you unpack either of those statements, you go deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper within them. And of course, that's an essential part of the process. But understand when I say the McDonald's of small business development services, I'm speaking, of course, about the McDonald's franchise model, which I believe, in fact, is the most successful small business development model ever devised on this planet.

12:35The third is the purpose. And the purpose we stated way back then was that every small business owner on this planet who was moved by our dream and our vision could become as successful as a McDonald's franchisee. the very best of them and some a handful could become as successful as the founder of McDonald's was Ray Kroc who started McDonald's at the age of 52. You think about that absolutely unreasonable idea that he founded McDonald's at the age of 52 and he didn't even invent McDonald's, the McDonald brothers did. You begin to understand how truly remarkable this entire thing is. And finally, our mission.

13:37And our mission back then in 1977, when we stated our dreams, stated our vision, stated our purpose, our mission was to design, build, launch, and grow the business development system that would be absolutely essential for us to realize our dream, our vision, our purpose, and ultimately our mission. So I'm suggesting that every single small business owner, every single individual who might aspire to create a company of my own, every single one of them must, in order to start the process, discover their dream, their vision, their purpose, and their mission, and explicate them in language that would bring them to life and reality.

14:40That's the foundation for growth. That's the foundation for every small business. That's the foundation for what I call a company of one. that's the foundation for truly fulfilling the enterprise notion of creating a great growing company. I love that you keep talking about the foundation because I feel that so many people miss the importance of starting their business, their idea, their dream with the right foundation. And this is just emphasizing the importance, the facts, and also sharing that when is it too late? Never. I mean, 52 years old was Ray Kroc. And look what he did when he saw what the McDonald brothers were doing with their system.

15:33In one McDonald's restaurant, he saw the vision of millions of burgers being sold over the years to come. and he made that a reality. And Fire Nation, we have so much more of this type of great content when we get back from thanking our sponsors. If you're a marketer, then you know what it's like to feel like you're moving in a hundred different directions at any given time, like you're spread too thin. Between creating content, launching campaigns, generating and nurturing leads, and more, you barely have a moment to breathe, let alone do your best marketing. What if there was a better way? This is where HubSpot and Breeze, its new built-in AI, come in.

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16:49We've managed a lot of projects here at EO Fire, and one of the most impressive pieces of software we've seen to help you keep your workflow tight is Notion. We first discovered Notion thanks to one of our sponsors, and it made it so easy to track talking points, due dates, deliverables, and more. Every time we had a question about the sponsorship, all we had to do was check Notion and all the details were laid out for us. It made the entire process simple and straightforward. That's because Notion combines your notes, docs, and projects into one space that's simple and beautifully designed. And now it has the power of AI built right inside of it, which means you don't have to jump between your work and a separate AI power tool to make magic happen.

17:26Notion AI helps you work faster, write better, and think bigger, doing tasks that normally take you hours and just seconds. Try Notion for free when you go to notion.com slash john lee dumas that's all lowercase letters notion.com slash john lee dumas to try the powerful easy to use notion ai today and when you use our link you're supporting our show notion.com slash john lee dumas i have a question for you fire nation do you feel like your life is optimized or do you feel like you're leaving a lot on the table when it comes to health, wealth, and relationships. After interviewing over 4 ,500 successful entrepreneurs, I have found that every one of them have optimized their life to a high level.

18:08In over 12 years of running a multi-seven-figure-a-year business myself, while staying healthy and raising a wonderful family, I figured out how to optimize my life to an amazing level. It didn't happen automatically. There was a lot of struggles. But through mentorship from others and a lot of intentional work, I got there. And if you think you could use some personal guidance and optimizing your life, let me help. I've created a program called Optimize where I will personally work with you one-on-one to get to know you, your life, your goals, and your dreams. Then over a three-month timeframe, we will create a fully optimized life that will set you up for a lifetime of optimized health, wealth, and relationships based off your goals and your dreams.

18:50An optimized life does not happen automatically. It only happens through intentional work and guidance from someone who has reached that level that you are striving for. My goal is to turn you into a fully optimized human based off of your life goals. If you want to learn more about this program, visit eofire.com slash optimize. We'll jump on a call. We'll discuss the specifics of the program. And if we both feel to fit, we'll talk about next steps. eofire.com slash optimize. Michael, we're back and we have a couple of things to circle back on from what you were just sharing before the break. But I want to move right on to your current project, which is the Dreaming Room Online.

19:29I was checking this out. There's a lot of cool stuff going on here. So share with Fire Nation, where did this idea come from and what do you envision for its future? Well, the idea has come from the over half a century of work we've done with small business owners. You've got to understand and take that in, John Blayden. When I say a half a century of work that we have done with small business owners, I'm not talking about writing a book and hoping to promote it. I'm not talking about idly standing by and saying stuff to inspire people to do the impossible. I'm talking about working with small business owners on the street every imaginable way possible by coaching them, mentoring them, leading them, guiding them, teaching them, inspiring them, beating them up, pissing them off, everything you can imagine by the hundreds of thousands of them in every industry, in every kind of company, with every unreasonable expectation, and with every limitation that has been imposed upon every single human being on the street since human beings have ever done this.

20:51That's what the dreaming room came from. It came as a realization that, in fact, for someone to be able to truly plumb the depths of their uninspired moments, the uninspired hopes, the uninspired objectives. In order for someone to touch the heart of the entrepreneur who we call the creator within, something has to happen in an intense fashion for that to come to pass. And that intense fashion is what I designed the dreaming room to do. And so I started the dreaming room with the compulsion to meet with people in a living setting. And we did that in Lake Tahoe the very first time. And I believe there were about 30 gentlemen and ladies in that dreaming room, which I said to them at the very beginning of it.

21:59I have no clue what's about to happen here. All I know is that I'm driven to make it happen. And something absolutely extraordinary is going to awaken in every single one of us in the three days we're going to spend here together. And that was the original Dreaming Room. It was three intense days for hours each day, plumbing the depths, plumbing the depths, plumbing the depths. And I swear, John Lee, the stuff that came out of that very first dreaming room just blew my ever loving mind. I had never done anything like that before. I had no idea what, in fact, was going to come of it. If I were to do that, and it became the template, if you will, for the second one and the third one and then the fifth one, I did 63 live face -to-face dreaming rooms over that intense period of time.

23:0463 leading groups from eight people to 722 people. I did dreaming room after dreaming room after dreaming room after dreaming room to discover, in fact, what it would take to awaken the dreamer, the thinker, the storyteller and the leader within ordinary people doing it, doing it, doing it, busy, busy, busy in their lives, in their work, in their jobs, et cetera, and so forth. so that's what happened in the face-to-face what you might call the brick and mortar dreaming room well obviously in this day and age with all of the problems of bringing people together face-to-face we had to do the very same thing but we had to find a way to do it online and so the new dreaming room is simply that dreaming room done online.

24:04And we're having identically the same experience, John Lee. The experience of people suddenly pushed to the limits of their imagination, to the limits of their creativity, to the limits of their resistance to discover someone within themselves they've never met before. It's like they discover someone in themselves who wakes up and says, hey here I am, where have you been all this time? Why haven't you listened to me? And that's what it's like when the entrepreneur wakes up inside. We call him, we call her the new entrepreneur. We We call that individual the creator. We call that individual the one who's driven to discover the reason for being here on this planet, the reason for being born in the very first place.

25:08And imagine if that's not just my making this up, John Lee, that in fact every human being on the planet, this is the premise we're starting with, was born to create, born to create a world fit for God. And in this process here, from the very first beginning of our lives, our job is to discover who that is and to plumb the depths of that one to the point where that one is leading us forward toward the realization of our lives. purpose. And all of that is to be discovered, but it has to be plumbed to the very depths of it with an absolute conscious determination to not quit, not stop. Even if it gets to be painful, even if it gets to pissing somebody off in that moment, something real is going to come to pass.

26:17That I'm absolutely convicted of. Something very real is going to come to pass every single time. Michael, you have such a way of infusing such passion into your voice, which makes you such a great podcast guest. I know Fire Nation appreciates it so much because this is an audio-only format, and this is how we get emotions, is by hearing the passion in the voice of myself and in the guests. And you can tell, Fire Nation, Michael E. Gerber has passion around everything he's doing with the Dreaming Room online. So take it home for us, Michael. Give Fire Nation the one major takeaway that you really want to make sure that we get from our entire conversation today.

27:07Share with us how we can connect with you, any call to action you have for our listeners, and then we'll say goodbye. Wonderful, John Lee. Well, thank you. Thank you. It's always the delight to speak with somebody who in turn is impassioned to pursue exactly what you're here to pursue with entrepreneurs on fire. The Dreaming Room is not just something to do. The Dreaming Room is something to pursue with every bit of the energy you can muster. The dreaming room is an ingredient that you must add to your life. Every single last living one of you, if you say you to become someone you're not, if you say you're to possess something you don't feel, if you say you're unwilling to go one step further in your life without discovering who you are and why you're here.

28:10If all that's true, then the dreaming room, the new dreaming room is for you. And John Lee will provide you with a link to go to. Hear me, just enroll. Don't ask a lot of questions, just enroll. Don't question the idea of it, just enroll. Just know that you're born in the image of God, you're born to create, You're born to create a world fit for God. And to do that, you must become on fire. You must experience the fire within you. And you can't do that with your mind. You can only do that with your soul. Fire Nation, you know that you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with.

28:57And hello, you've been hanging out with MEG and JLD today. so you better be keeping up the heat. And when you go over to eofire.com and type Michael in the search bar, the show notes page is gonna pop right up where you're gonna have links to everything you need, specifically your call to action of checking out the Dreaming Room online. And oh, by the way, Michael's been a past guest as well, so you can listen to past episodes of myself and Michael. Always drop in value for you, Fire Nation. And Michael, I just want to say thank you for sharing your truth, your knowledge, your passion, dare I say, with Fire Nation today.

29:36For that, we salute you and we'll catch you on the flip side. Hey, Fire Nation. Today's value bomb content was brought to you by Michael. And Fire Nation, what can 3 ,000 of the world's most successful entrepreneurs teach you? How about how to achieve financial freedom and fulfillment? My first traditionally published book, The Common Path to Uncommon Success, is a revolutionary 17-step roadmap that will lead you to the lifestyle that you've been dreaming about. This book took me 10 years of accumulating the genius of the world's top entrepreneurs, and you can get it all in one place when you visit UncommonSuccessBook.com.

30:13I'll catch you there or on the flip side. Success Story, hosted by Scott D. Clary, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Success Story features Q &A sessions with successful business leaders, keynote presentations, and conversations on sales, marketing, business, startups, and entrepreneurship. A recent episode discussing the billion-dollar health secret with the founder and CEO of Whoop is a must-listen. Listen to Success Story wherever you get your podcasts. I have a question for you, Fire Nation. Do you feel like your life is optimized, or do you feel like you're leaving a lot in the table when it comes to health, wealth, and relationships?

30:51If you think you could use some personal guidance in optimizing your life, let me help. I've created a program called Optimize where I will personally work with you one-on-one to get to know you, your life, your goals, and your dreams. If you want to learn more about this program, visit eofire.com slash optimize.