Michael E. Gerber 8:42
Well, you have to understand that oftentimes, my statements are stronger than they need to be. Oftentimes, as well, they’re not strong enough. But an understanding, take that, quote, working for a lunatic, and you might change it to be working for an idiot. And it’s that idiot that I attempt to transform. And the only way in the world that idiot is going to be transformed, is if he or she doesn’t persist being that idiot in the way they think about who they are, why they do, what they do, what they’re there to create, and how it’s going to be created, if in fact, they grow beyond their immediate good. So it’s a master Master Master position to take Josh, in short, just strenuously understand that while you’re not in a people development business, in short, that’s not the intent. You are. You get what I mean by that while you’re not in a people development business. is you actually are everyone is. But the question then becomes what is people development? And how does one approach people development at the very outset. And that is in the positioning of who you are and what you do. So the most critical process in what I describe how many of you have read beyond the E-Myth? Yes, I’ve read it. Well, congratulations, Josh, folks. pick the book up. It’s beyond the E-Myth, the evolution of an enterprise from a company of one to a company of 1000. And if the heart of that book is what I described as the eightfold path, the Eightfold Path is crucial to the process of becoming who you intended to be. Let me describe the eight steps the eightfold path, I have a dream, I have a vision, I have a purpose. I have a mission. I have a job. I have a practice. I have a business. I have an enterprise, a dream, a vision, the purpose, the mission job, the practice, the business, the enterprise, the Eightfold Path is the process for growing a company of one to a company of 1000 is the process of maturing, from doing it yourself, doing it doing it doing it doing it to create an enterprise that does it in great measure, with a great number of individuals who are in fact, instilled in the process of understanding and appreciating what a dream is, what a vision is, what a purpose is, what a mission is. How many of you are familiar with the dreaming room. So the dreaming room is a program that I developed to take one through the first four steps to discover your dream, your vision, your purpose, your mission. If you fail to discover your dream, I’m saying you’ll never discover your vision. If you fail to discover your dream, I’d say go to never discover your purpose. You follow me and follow me first, then that then that then that. So there’s a process, Emad process, through which you grow in maturity. You grow in eloquence, you grow in ability to literally become the one you can’t even imagine becoming at the very outset of this process. My dream way back then in 1977. Wow, that’s a long time ago. My dream was to transform the state of small business worldwide. My dream was to transform the state of small business worldwide. My vision was to invent the McDonald’s of small business development services. My mission was that every small business who in fact, accepts this process. And indeed, realize the outcome I’m describing here. And my mission is in was in 1970, he said that I can invent the business development system that will make it possible for me to realize my dream, my vision, and my purpose. Did that make sense?
Josh Hadley 14:18
Makes a lot of sense. And I love those eight steps in that process that you go through because it truly is like an evolution of growing and developing.
Michael E. Gerber 14:26
It’s an evolution. It’s an evolution, but it’s not based upon evolution. It’s based upon something significantly more compelling than evolution. Right? That’s what’s so critical about it. Yeah,
Michelle Prince 14:45
gosh, I had a different question. But now I want to kind of segue a little because, well, first of all, 14 years ago, I started my business and about a year in somebody gave me the E-Myth revisited. And it changed my life and I would not be in business today had I not read that book and I’m understand the importance of systems and, and process and all the things that I kind of
Michael E. Gerber 15:08
see each of you say what you’re saying? It does, it touches my heart. Because of course, that’s the sole reason I’ve been doing what I’ve been doing and to hear is in such a compelling way, in such an authentic way, is very, very moving to me. It’s so thank you, when you say years ago, years ago, years ago, years ago, and here you are evidencing in the shine on your faces, in your hearts. how meaningful this was to you. It’s very, very compelling to me. Thank you. Well, it’s a pleasure to be able to
Michelle Prince 15:49
tell you that because it really is true. And it’s interesting when you start talking about the people development. And this is where my question change. So I came from in my background is in people development, I worked with Zig Ziglar. And when I started my business, I thought that’s all I really needed. And that’s why the E-Myth really helped me because I realized I needed more than just my passion more than just those skills. I needed the systems. But what I’m hearing you say with the beyond the E-Myth, it’s really, it isn’t one or the other, it is both. But what what is, what is something a brand new business owner can do to implement that quicker? Because I know for me, I wish I would have been able to implement this earlier, to take that dream mission vision and then transfer it into the systems and processes. Is there another way? Is there a faster way is there a better way than what people are doing today, because I see a lot of business owners who have even read it still struggle, and I’ll raise my hand and that sometimes to
Michael E. Gerber 16:47
faster doesn’t work in my world. But it doesn’t work in yours either. And it’s simply a product of our time. Faster, faster, faster, faster, everybody wants faster, when in fact they can even do slower. And so I’m suggesting that first thing you can say to every single person in the room. Don’t talk faster to me, faster, never has worked. And if it has, it’s an accident. If you attempt to emulate faster, you’re attempting to emulate stupid. Because what you’ll discover at the end of faster is you haven’t gotten there. You only thought you had and the problem is it’s going to kill you faster than you can even imagine. It’s slower. The Zen of it. It’s slower. It’s slower. Speak to me slowly. Measured, measure your words, as you speak to me slowly. Take this in smugly. Practice it slowly, definitively, honestly, earnestly, with all of your being. As you go into the martial arts, there is no you get there faster. Stupid. It’s impossible to understand you got to do this 1000 times you’ve got to do this 3000 times. And you’ve got to do this 3000 times artfully. So artfully that you can’t even conceive of how you got to this point of doing this 1000 times 10,000 times. The gentleman who’s one of my co authors told me that he reread the E Myth revisited 39 times. Hear me he reread it 39 times that he never would have been able to do it so artfully, had he not reread it 39 times you say that to somebody who’s in a hurry. You found a job. Yeah, Michelle, you follow me? Again, I do understand that you’re not actually attempting to teach them how to do it faster. you’re attempting to get it faster yourself. Because they’re making a demand on you faster, faster, faster, Michelle. And because you’re concerned you’re not going to be able to sustain your relationship with them. Unless you respond to them in kind. You’re forced to look for faster. Hear me be the artful one who looks for slower. Every single thing that you do be the art full one who looks for slower, and speak it more slowly, more definitively in contradiction to their requirement for you to go faster. That’s the best thing I can say.
Michelle Prince 20:44
No, that’s great advice. Thank you,
Michael E. Gerber 20:46
thank you for that. Idea, you have absolutely no idea, the profound impact that will have on the people who work with you, as they slow down. As they give themselves up to the pace of art. You don’t get our done quickly. You do it, you do it, and you do it and you do it. And you’re doing you’re doing and you do it again, you do it, and you do it and you’re doing and you do it and you do it and you sell a slob. You still a jerk? You’re still a beginner. So you must turn to everyone who says that and say you’re a beginner? Moron. You’re a beginner? Don’t you dare ask me. For a quick solution to become an artist. Don’t you dare ask me for something it’s impossible to give. Now, let’s all slow down. And you set that pace, you can feel that pace being set as you set that pace. Follow me as you set that pace. You sit there arts. And if you set their hearts appropriately, you set their imagination appropriate when you surround yourself with individuals who are there for the long term, who are there for the long term? Can you imagine your students being there for the long term? Can you feel the difference that makes? So imagine your martial arts class and follow me. You’re all martial art leaders, gurus. Imagine your martial arts class slowing down. As you begin to see that everything changes.
Tom Foster 23:25
Michael, that is fantastic. And, man, you’re such an inspiration. You are the foundation. Like everybody just has copied you for the last since you wrote the book. Everybody’s just copied you and had some kind of version of what you came up with. So I’ve got a couple of questions. One is, how are you inspired to do it in the first place? Did you have a business that you were like, I’m an idiot, I gotta help other people where you want observing others friends or your your family or what inspired you to go write the book in the first place?
Michael E. Gerber 24:11
Well, I wasn’t inspired to write the book until I did the work. So working for 20 years, with small businesses at the request of a very close friend of mine who had an advertising agency in Silicon Valley. And he has small business clients. And he told me about his problem with one particular client and he asked me if I would come visit that flying to help him fix the problem he was having. And I said to my friend and my friend’s name is Ace Remus, an Asus So a friend and he’s my, my sister’s husband. Pretty good. And he said he as I don’t know anything about business, I have no idea how I can help. He said, Michael, you know more than you think you do. Just come with me. Let’s be the guy. And that’s what it’s so be the agreeable, agreeable start. And I left when I say that being the agreeable sort that I am so okay, sure, let’s go. So I sat down with a guy and Ace them immediately said, Guys, I’m gonna take off and we get to know each other. We’ll be back in an hour perfect, Michael. First thing the guy asked me, um, as he looked at his watch.
So what do you know about my business? Michael? Nothing? Because I did. And I wasn’t interested in asking ace, anything about the business?
And he said, Well, what do you know about my product? And I said less than that. And you really look discomforted? Well, if you don’t know anything about business, and you don’t want to make the my product out of the world, can you help me as an admin a clue?
I told me is that he said he thinks I can. And we’re here to meet to find out how to the best way I know to do that is to get to ask you questions, and the first set of the answers that you give me. So let’s get started. And that’s what we did. I began to ask him questions. And he began to answer them. In gradually, over a very short period of time, it became obvious to me why the guy had broken the guy at it wasn’t that I didn’t know about his business. It wasn’t that I didn’t know about his product. It said he didn’t know. It became so transparent. In any case, that’s how this all started. And I saw that guy’s problem. And he asked me to meet with a second client and then a third client. And that’s how I got into the business on it. Very good. Because I began to realize that ace didn’t know what business he was in. He didn’t understand his product. Because ace in the advertising business, was selling something that he shouldn’t be selling. Because he was selling it to people who needed something completely different. And completely different is what I set out to create. Michael,
David Nilssen 28:27
I have a question. You said something a few minutes ago, that just was really dummy thinking. First of all, I will reiterate.
Michael E. Gerber 28:33
David, I want to Tom had several questions it wanted to conclude. So you do.
Tom Foster 28:43
Thank you. I. The other question I had is you’ve written several many books. And and it is amazing to me. How do you stay inspired? How do you keep your brand so fresh? Over all of this time, and state how have you done that? How have you had the mental? How have you done it? It’s just incredible. I have I’d like my hat is off to you, how have you done that been able to keep that brand so strong and so fresh?
Michael E. Gerber 29:22
Well, you have to appreciate the question we became immersed in with the show that the problem is so difficult to solve because the problem represents a problem with the development of human life. Yeah, every aspect of human life beyond anything we’ve ever addressed before So it’s not about how do I stay interested in it? It’s how does it stay interested in me sufficiently to keep me alive and working on it to the degree that’s needed. Because Tom, let me say that my greatest problem is that the problem is bigger than any one of us. And that’s what has arisen in the work that I do the problem is bigger than any one of us, I can’t even begin to challenge the weight, the size, the measure of the problem, to the degree called for, I simply don’t have it within me sufficiently to uncover the complexity of it. And to approach it in the simplified way goes for demands. That what I’m dealing with is an art form. Can’t be better described the net, an art form. That’s beyond me. And because it’s an art form that’s beyond me, beyond you beyond any of us. It represents a challenge. The challenge that I welcome every single human being on the planet to engage with. And that’s what has kept me connected to it. It’s that, Oh, my God, no, it’s not that it’s this. Yeah. Oh, my God, it’s not this. It’s that, Oh, my God had stopped this and that it’s that and this and that. Right? Who’s got the time? Who’s got the energy? Who’s got the wherewithal, who’s got the intelligence? Follow me. So the job is bigger than any of us? Yeah. We solve that problem. We, we sitting here, we solved that problem, we transformed the state of human life worldwide, not just in the thinking about it. But in the actual practice of it. So I want you to imagine your job. That’s what we’re engaged in transforming the practice of being human.
In everything we do. It’s called Holy shit. You mean, we can do that? That’s what’s calling every one of us. Whether we’ve come to the realization of that or not, is another question. But that’s what’s calling each and every one of us. Massive, massive, massive question. Transform the state of humanity worldwide.
David Nilssen 33:49
Let me ask your question. You’re talking about transforming humanity. I want to just talk about the transformation of an individual entrepreneur. And you actually brought this up a minute ago with the beyond the E-Myth, you said one to 1000. And I think about the transformation or the evolution that an entrepreneur has to go through during that time period as being massive, because in the very beginning, we are chief cook, and bottle washer, and everything does depend on us. And as we grow, we have to learn how to trust our team, delegate, build our team, all those things. What advice would you give someone who is sort of in the middle there, they’re starting to make that transition? And finding it difficult like all of us?
Michael E. Gerber 34:32
Quit? Do you say quit, quit, start. Start over again. We’re going to start at the beginning. Start over and your business is not going to succeed anyway. You’re not going to succeed anyway. Quit Start at the beginning. And when I say that I understand how harsh that is, in one respect, because hope, hope and need and all the things that live in that question says, Oh, come on, come on, come on. I’m saying stop, quit, start a new, we’re going to start working on you as a human being first. Long before we ever get to becoming an entrepreneur. First you as a human being, David as a human being. And that’s what we’re gonna do. That’s the work. Now, where we did discover, then, where we do applications to that, where we do design, build, launch and grow that something absolutely miraculous would occur. So I’m saying if we were to start this whole thing with high school kids, the very first day of high school freshman, sophomore, junior senior from the very first day of high school, we would begin to design, build, launch and grow our people. To a degree, we never have an awesome weekend to do that. As a freshman, sophomore, junior, senior, graduated from high school, enjoy a new engagement. Have for years. Now we’re working on our human being for eight years. In an intelligent, extraordinarily devoted way, can you imagine the person we’d be facing for years after graduating from high school? You can’t. You can’t even begin to imagine who that person would be. If that were me, but only then would they be ready to begin. But I’ll guarantee you, significantly fewer of them will begin to be entrepreneurs. Thank God.
Josh Hadley 38:05
Michael, on that note, you know, one of the things as you begin to scale a business and as you go from one to 1000 to an enterprise, you’re going to have to work with people, right? And we talked about people development in your decades of experience. Do you have any advice or tips when it comes to finding and hiring a level talent
Michael E. Gerber 38:27
for your business? Well, that’s obviously a system. Obviously, how you select the people you hire, what you put them through before you ever bring them aboard? them how you determine their make up before you ever bring them aboard. Create a method for that madness. And the people you bring aboard will be immensely different than the people you’re bringing aboard today. What is that military group? The elite military, Navy Marines. US Navy SEALs. Okay, they’re really not okay to think about US Navy SEALs for the moment. The SEALs put people through doing hell before they ever get to become the beginning beginner, a Navy SEAL. And yet 90% of those who become a Navy SEAL drop out before they become a Navy Seal 90% drop out before they become a Navy Seal and the ones who be come beginners had been through an immense amount of development before they’re ever qualified to go through the first stages.
And then the Navy SEALs put them to limit the handle. Put that down to living Hill challenging, challenging, challenging, challenging, challenging, challenging, challenging, challenging. Follow me, that you draw. Yearly. How do you expect them to become stars? Challenging, challenging, challenging, challenging.
So that’s the process. It’s so far beyond anything we do. So far beyond anything anybody expects you to believe they need to do once to do because none of the people in your organization ever ever been through it. Challenging, challenging, challenging, challenging? How do you expect them to bring aboard people who will do it, they won’t. Why would then challenging, challenging, challenging, challenging, you understand the danger that creates for your people. So you’ve got to start this over here. See where I’m putting my, you got to start this over here. There are two organizations within your organization, every single one of you, there is old code, and there is new code. You’re not here to grow old code. You’re here to grow new code. And new go ne W, capital CO, old go. Ol W, capital Co. All CO is the past. New goal is the future. Here to design, build, launch and grow new code. That’s your navy seals. The question then is you have the measure in you to design build, launch and grow your navy seals. Hear me that’s not an easy question to answer. Unfortunately, it is because we don’t really ever address it. Give me a break or be a break. I don’t even want to create a navy seals in my business. But that’s what it takes. That’s what it takes to work on no go while you go to work on Home Depot. And you’re going to work on I’ll go to keep it from family. But it’s not the future.
Josh Hadley 43:23
Yeah, Michael, I think it’s an important mindset shift that the listeners take of, you know, with your analogy of Navy Seals and your that’s the type of talent that you need to be developing for your business in order to grow it to that new coke. So I really appreciate that. And I hope our listeners go back and re listen to that. That’s a huge mindset shift that business owners need to have when they begin to hire talent.
Michael E. Gerber 43:49
Yes, but hear me it’s a huge mindset and soul set. So you U L so set for you. Don’t you dare tell that story until you set your soul to it. And please be careful about telling yourself that you’ve set your soul to it. Because if you hadn’t set your soul to it, it’s going to chew you up and spit you out. Because you’re not going to match it. And the last thing I want to do is to put you into the grinder, the soul grinder that will put you in so you’ll stay one day Kerber the day you told me that story was the day and went out of business. Michael, I have a question. I’m
Michelle Prince 44:51
curious. So we all know you because we’ve read your books, books and how has been a published author when you first set out how as being a published author helped to build your authority and really helped to establish you as the expert and follow on to that, would you recommend that other business owners follow that same
Michael E. Gerber 45:09
path? My books have set the soul for our business. Without question, my boss upset the soul for the creation of our business, for the development of our business, for the activation or clients, for our business, for the communication of our business, our books have set the soul for the soul of our business. So yes, without a doubt, and I didn’t write my book until 10 years into my business, the following? What was the further end of that question? What
Michelle Prince 45:54
would you recommend that other business owners because that’s really opened up so much opportunity for you? Would you recommend other business owners as they’ve evolved and grown into their business learning things that they share that also in a book and leverage,
Michael E. Gerber 46:06
you see that everybody has? There’s no question about it, that you look at those other guys who have, in quotes copied me, they’ve copied me by writing their version of my book. Now, please, again, that’s not my narcissism, pasting. It’s just true. They’ve copied me by grabbing their version of my book. So I can only say that, yes, writing a book about that, I believe is a critical piece of the puzzle. Because the means to which you communicate to a larger and larger and larger audience. And then doing that through podcasts, as we’re doing now, enables you to share that message, open that marketplace, read the book, stupid, read the book, stupid, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And of course, the book says, then what to do next? Obviously, so yes, I would recommend that and have recommended that wins functionary 10 Most people write a bad book. Most books fail. But most businesses fail. It’s much easier to fail writing a book than it is failing writing business. Because you don’t see the business fail in time for you to get ready for. The book fails. So obviously, the average book sells fewer than 250 copies. And that was a lot of work. Got it? Got it. Yes. Thank you,
Jeremy Weisz 48:09
Michael. I just wanted to be the first one to thank you really appreciate your time and being here with all of us and sharing your message with anyone listening. I want to point everyone to all of your books, you know, E-Myth then E-Myth beyond and also Michael E. Gerber. companies.com, the checkout everything that you have going on and just want to thank you for everything you’ve done for all of us over the years.
Michael E. Gerber 48:32
My delight, thank you. And might I say, you might be clearer in your description of your guest and what you expect of your guest as compared to what you expect of your audience. And that will help grandly.
Jeremy Weisz 48:58
Thanks, Michael. Thanks, everyone.
Tom Foster 49:00
Thank you so much, Michael. It’s such an honor to meet you. I wish you the best luck.
