InnovaBuzz Episode #54 – Michael E Gerber: Beyond E-Myth

Michael E Gerber: Beyond E-Myth

In this episode, my guest is Michael E Gerber, the author of the E-Myth series of books.  Michael shares with us his passion about Beyond E-Myth. Michael’s Mantra is “Every life a legacy, every small business a school.”; he points out that an entrepreneur is a creator, who is here to create in order to serve the world, and he challenges us on this interview, to develop what he calls NewCo, with a blank piece of paper and a beginner’s mindset.. Listen to the podcast to find out the details.

Listen to the Podcast

Show Highlights

Some of the highlights of this episode include:

• Most so-called entrepreneurs are a “Company of One” – in other words, they won’t function without the founder.
• The goal of every business creator, right from the outset, is to prepare the company for sale.
• Beyond E-Myth is based on the eight step Hierarchy of Growth. This involves The Dream, The Vision, The Purpose, The Mission (these four steps comprise the Dreaming Room), The Job, The Practice, The Business and The Enterprise. The Job and The Practice must be turnkey. The Business is up to seven turnkey Practices and a turnkey Management System.The Enterprise is up to seven turnkey Businesses and a turnkey Leadership System.
• Michael’s mission: to transform the state of business worldwide and to transform the way every single individual makes a living and the way every single individual steps out and takes complete responsibility at the grass roots of where you live,to take people around you beyond where you are – the only way to do that, is to begin by doing it yourself. The Economy of One.
• The Dreamer should be challenging every thing that you do!

The Buzz – Our Innovation Round

Here are Michael’s answers to the questions of our Innovation round. Watch the interview to get the full scoop.

• #1 thing to be more innovative – Ask: What is missing in this picture? This question should be alive in you all the time. And Critical is to have a picture of the Outcome in your mind. Innovation is improving what IS. Creativity is pursuing the unknown.
• Best thing for new ideas – Read Mystery Novels, frees my mind to follow various paths and ideas come to me. I practice creating all the time and ideas come to me, things happen that I never anticipated.
• Favourite tool for innovation – Other people are better than me at that – as long as they make it easy for me. I’ll make it easy for others to build a great company. OR – (metaphor alert!) Take your thumb out of your ear!
• Keep project / client on track – Keep reminding them why they are doing it, and have a system for doing that. I call it the System of Five Essential Functions: Inspiration, Education, Application, Implementation and Continuous Improvement. There is a methodology and mindset that is critical to all this.
• Differentiate – Don’t focus on how YOU differentiate, focus on YOUR CUSTOMER, that will differentiate you. And be GOOD!

To Be a Leader

Make a difference!  You must take it on individually, take it on personally, to pursue your mission to grow and create.

Reach Out

You can reach out and thank Michael via his websites Michael E Gerber Companies and Beyond The E-Myth

Suggested Guest

Michael suggested I interview Rodger Ford who is an entrepreneur and CEO of ReliantHeart on a future InnovaBuzz podcast. Michael spoke very highly of Rodger and his entrepreneurial and leadership capabilities, but also shared with us that Rodger is a champion rodeo rider (we’ve never had a rodeo rider on the podcast!). So, Rodger keep an eye on your inbox, for an invitation from me to the InnovaBuzz podcast, courtesy of Michael E Gerber.

Links

• Michael E Gerber Companies
• The New Dreaming Room
• The E-Myth IQ Test

Books

• Michael E Gerber: Beyond The E-Myth – The Evolution of an Enterprise: From a Company of One to a Company of 1,000
• Michael E Gerber’s E-Myth Books

Full Transcript

Click to Read…

Intro:
Hi, I’m Jürgen Strauss from Innovabiz. Welcome to Episode No 54 of the InnovaBuzz Podcast – designed to help smart businesses with an interest in innovation become even more innovative.

In this episode, my guest is Michael E Gerber, the author of 28 E-Myth books and the person who has already transformed the state of small business worldwide.

Michael talks to me about his passion today, which is devoted to launching “Beyond The E-Myth: The Evolution of an Enterprise: From a Comapny of One to a Company of 1000!” It is a revolutionary process which prepares a small company for acquisition, by designing it in such a way that it can scale.

Michael’s Mantra is “Every life a legacy, every small business a school.”; he points out that an entrepreneur is a creator, who is here to create in order to serve the world, and he challenges us on this interview, to develop what he calls NewCo, with a blank piece of paper and a beginner’s mindset.

So, without further ado, let’s fly into the Hive and get the Buzz from Michael Gerber.

Interview:

Jürgen:
Hi.! I’m Jürgen Strauss from Innovabiz and it’s a great privilege to have here with me today on this episode of the Innovabuzz podcast, all the way from Carlsbad California, Michael E. Gerber, who’s the author of the E-Myth Book series. Michael, welcome to the podcast! It’s a great privilege to have you here.

Michael:
Thank you Jürgen. I’m very very much looking forward to it.

Jürgen:
First of all, can I start by saying ‘Thank you.’ You’ve made such a big difference and had such an impact on so many businesses and so many people in their lives, including me and all of my audience so for that, Thank you Michael.

Michael:
Thank you very much. My delight.

Jürgen:
Just by way of statistics, putting things in perspective, now the E-Myth was named by the Wall Street Journal in 2011 as the #1 business book of all time. It has sold millions of copies, translated into at least 29 languages and taught in over a hundred universities and business schools.

But Michael you have still a burning passion to continue to make a difference in people’s lives and people’s businesses so this is what we’re going to talk about today and it’s called
Beyond the E-Myth.

Michael:
Absolutely

Jürgen:
Yeah. So tell us a little bit about the “Beyond the E-Myth”. I think this is really exciting and I’m quite privileged to have the opportunity to be part of this journey that I think is going to continue to make such a huge impact on people’s lives and businesses.

Michael:
Thank you for asking that question because you’re the first to actually ask it that way.

And the way you asked is really is the heart of it and after everything I’ve done all these years, you know I’ve been working on this path for forty years now. I just celebrated my eightieth Birthday.

Jürgen:
Happy birthday!

Michael:
Thank you. It was a surprise party. My wife was insistent upon getting a party for me. The extraordinary thing is it was positioned as a speaking event, so I thought it was a paid speaking event.

Jürgen:
Alright. Very good.

Michael:
That’s why I went there to speak to this audience. There’s this audience, 220 people in this lovely setting and I did my speech thinking I was speaking to somebody’s audience not knowing that it was mine.

Jürgen:
[laugh]

Michael:
And we had, (and I didn’t know this either), we were doing this streaming video. I don’t know whether you attended, but we had 83,000 people live at that event.

Jürgen:
Wow

Michael:
On streaming video. And it was a departure because in fact we’d been working on a NewCo, I call it rather than persisting with an OldCo. I think of OldCo as E-Myth, ironically. And so we were working on Beyond the E-Myth because it was time for me to go beyond. And I thought it was time for everyone to go beyond it.

Jürgen:
Mhmnnnn..

Michael:
So to me and to all my work and all this time, these 40 years E-Myth has been essentially the expression of a problem. The entrepreneurial myth – that we believe people who own and operate small companies are entrepreneurs but in fact they’re not.

Jürgen:
Yeah.

Michael:
They’re technicians suffering from an entrepreneurial seizure, and they go out and start their own job and continue doing it, doing it, doing it, doing it, doing it. Now you’re well aware of that. You’re very familiar with that because the vast majority of people doing whatever they’re doing are
doing that.

Jürgen:
That’s right.

Michael:
I finally came to the realization in my 80th year [that] it was time for me to step out and go beyond it. And so literally ”Beyond the E-Myth” is my step beyond the past.

Jürgen:
Mhmmnnn..

Michael:
Literally a step beyond the past. Past has been our work, fixing broken businesses. So you might say over a hundred thousand clients we have served through our E-Myth mastery process, we’re really working to fix what they created that was broken – broken because it still just depended upon them meaning if they don’t show up there is no business. Right?

Jürgen:
Yeah.

Michael:
Now I’ll say this in place. Take this in the spirit in which I’m saying. If you don’t show up, there’s no business.

Jürgen:
That’s right.

Michael:
Jürgen is the digital marketing guru.

Jürgen:
Yeah, that’s exactly right. We are working on fixing that but I really like your approach which is let that run to keep the cash coming in and start something with a blank piece of paper and a learning attitude. Which I love!

Michael:
You’re so great! You are such a great because you got it. What I’m saying it’s beyond dentistry; it’s beyond chiropractic; it’s beyond law; it’s beyond consulting; it’s behind coaching; it’s beyond leadership; it’s beyond anything and everything that we have accepted as our rote path in life. It’s time to go beyond it, because until we go beyond it, we’ll never be free of it. And until we’re free of it we’ll never be liberated to the point that we each and every human being on the planet deserve.

So I envision Beyond the E-Myth is literally that – it’s a statement beyond the past.

Jürgen:
Yeah

Michael:
You got it?

Jürgen:
Yeah. And your modeling it right.

Michael:
We’re doing it. We’re modeling it. We’re launching it. We are growing it. So we’re doing that first by speaking it. And so I’m speaking it to you right now.

And everyone who’s listening is essentially being challenged by it.
Because for everyone who’s listening right now, they’re not interested in letting go. They’re interested in getting better at what they do.

Jürgen:
That’s right. That’s the trap we all fall into.

Michael:
Yeah. ‘Help me I get better at what I do Jürgen. Help me get better at what I do Michael. Help me get better at what I do Jerry, Jim, Judy, Jack and all the multiple coaches and mentors and executive coaches in business. You see them across the planet. They’re saying, ‘Help me do this better than I’m doing it,’ and that’s what they all step up to do. Well I’m not stepping up to do that anymore. I’m saying, ’Screw it.’ Don’t do it!

Jürgen:
Yup

Michael:
I’m saying that’s OldCo. OldCo is Jürgen as the digital marketing coach, expert guru,whatever, whatever. I’m saying now we must discover why I’m really here and that’s NewCo.

I’m saying to everybody who’s listening to us is take OldCo. Set it over there. Keep on doing it, doing it, doing it because you’ve got to make a living. But making a living and following a calling are two different things.

Jürgen:
Mhmmnnn

Michael:
I’m saying every one of us are called but we have to open our minds our hearts and our spirits to hear it.

Jürgen:
That’s right.

Michael:
If this might sound like a personal growth. Forget it. It’s not.

Jürgen:
[laugh]

Michael:
Personal growth is outcome of an epiphany, an outcome of an understanding, [and] an outcome of an experience. I want to provide everyone with that ability to begin NewCo in a way that they never thought to begin it before.

Jürgen:
Yeah it’s fascinating. And you said something on one of the other podcasts I think around, there’s a dream within all of us and we just need to let it out and discover it and then having discovered that dream, we have the capability to achieve things that we never thought would be possible before that. So that’s kind of where this is coming from, isn’t that?

Michael:
Well it’s coming from that. It’s also coming from – Jürgen you’re senior.

Jürgen:
Mhmmnn

Michael:
Maybe you’re older than forty.

Jürgen:
Yeah

Michael:
You may be older than fifty.

Jürgen:
Just a little bit. [chuckles]

Michael:
Yeah. And then I’m older than seventy. So I’m in my 80’s now. Now my wife tells me I’m going to live to a 126 years old. I don’t know. But what I really know for a fact, and this is really important, is that creator, that imagineer, as Disney calls Disney Imagineering – that’s where all the good stuff happens. That Imagineer is really in the child in us, meaning when we were kids, there were no limits.

Jürgen:
That’s right.

Michael:
We didn’t learn limits until we stepped out to try something and then we got hurt. We burned our finger or we broke our toe. So we learned it by negative experiences. And our world taught us through negative inferences. There’s the tall poppy syndrome in Australia.

Jürgen:
Yeah, it’s really bad.

Michael:
So “cut it off, cut it off.” That’s what we learn from and unfortunately we learn exactly the opposite of what we are here to learn.

Jürgen:
So we learn to fit in.

Michael:
We’re here to learn is not how to fit in. What we’re here to learn is how to grow. And growth is the unknown. And the unknown is terrifying.

Jürgen:
It’s outside of the comfort zone.

Michael:
Yup out of the comfort zone. So my job has been all this time to drag people screaming out of their comfort zone but unfortunately or fortunately because it has worked, to fix their broken business but mainly to
fix their yet to be broken mind!

Jürgen:
[chuckle]

Michael:
Because until we break free of this we’re never going to discover what we never discovered before and it’s that discovery that you began to discover when you started using a camera – I remember you love photography. When you started using a camera and you suddenly began to learn. Holy Moly! I didn’t know you could do that.

Jürgen:
That’s right.

Michael:
Remember that?

Jürgen:
Yeah absolutely. I still have that every day but, yeah, it’s that excitement but instilling that into everything and I was reading something the other day and I can’t remember who this quote came from but it was along the lines of our greatest fear is not failing, our greatest fear is that we’re actually powerful beyond imagination and so our greatest fear is that we’ve got to step out of our comfort zone to actually realize that and grow into what we can be and what we’re capable of being.

Michael:
We’re terrified of it. And I meet that every day, every day, every day, and even in these podcasts I meet that.

Jürgen:
[laugh]

Michael:
Because the podcaster/interviewer wants it to be something that he or she is expecting because they prepared themselves by reading my book or whatever or so. And then I talk about something completely different and they go “God, what is this?”

Jürgen:
Exactly. [laugh]

Michael:
So I’m challenging the podcaster to go beyond.

Jürgen:
[laugh]

Michael:
But you see, I’m challenging myself to go beyond. How do you let go of your credentials at 80 to enter into the unknown without any ability to see what’s going to happen when you Do. Because you can’t.

Jürgen:
Yeah that’s that’s pretty inspiring really. That’s very inspiring!

Michael:
Well, thanks! It’s inspiring except when you do it.

Jürgen:
[chuckles]

Michael:
So when you do it, you’re completely, continuously moving into the unknown. That’s the whole nature of this. My experience has told me in my real life that until I do that, I don’t get anywhere. The only place I get when I don’t do that is where I’ve already been.

Jürgen:
Yeah.

Michael:
So I keep on repeating where I’ve already been. Perhaps, fine tuning it, fine tuning it, fine tuning it. But I’m not going anywhere. I’m not climbing the mountain. I’m simply in the ballet, doing it, doing it, doing it, thanking God that I got what I’ve got. We’re not here to thank God for what we’ve got. We’re here to thank God for what he’s given us so I’d like to say, if we’re born in the image of God and in Judaism which is my born religion that is what we heard. If we’re born in the image of God, I’m saying we were born to create. God is the ultimate creator and if we’re born in God’s image we’re born to create so how do we do that? We have to create out of where we are. Otherwise, it’s not creating.

Jürgen:
Yeah. It comes back to your point of growth isn’t it? Growing and learning happen outside the comfort zone. I have times when I’m feeling a bit uncomfortable I think, ’Gee this is tough.’ And I think, ‘Hang on, I’m learning.’

Michael:
Yeah, hang on, I’m learning, supposedly!

Jürgen:
You might not be might not know what you’re learning right then and there but that it helps to take a step back and say, ‘What is the lesson here?’

Michael:
So the book “Beyond the E-Myth” does just that. It takes the reader who is the smallest of the small, so my audience today and forever on, will be the smallest of the small. It’s a lady, it’s a guy doing it, doing it, doing it, busy, busy, busy, it’s a chiropractor; it’s an architect; it’s an attorney; it’s a programmer; it’s a digital marketer; it’s an internet marketer; whatever. You name it. And it’s the person doing that work. They’re essentially self-employed.

Jürgen:
Yeah

Michael:
So I don’t call them solopreneurs. I don’t call them lifestyle businesses. That’s all bullshit! You understand that?

Jürgen:
Yeah.

Michael:
That’s just what internet marketers have created to make everybody comfortable with where they are. That’s called pandering to the mindset.

Jürgen:
Yeah. [chuckles]

Michael:
Yeah. We’re not doing that.

Jürgen:
That’s right. I think you said in your intro audio for the book where you talk about pandering to the stupid, but you want to pander to the intelligent or pander to the exceptional.

Michael:
Well and the exceptional lives in every one of us.

Jürgen:
Yeah.

Michael:
So you understand that the exceptional lives in every one of us. My passion is for touching the exceptional in every one of us and playing the game together. And the game that we’re playing I’ve spelled out literally, not figuratively. Step by step by step by step in Beyond the E-Myth. There’s a path to take.

So I’m inviting every single littlest of the little on the path with me, joining me to go beyond where you are, what you think about it, what you feel about it, what you’ve done to get where you are ,what you name it, what you call it, what you believe it to be, your comfort, your disability,whatever it might be. Join me and let’s take a step beyond it.

Jürgen:
Yeah

Michael:
And that step is in Beyond the E-Myth which you will read and relish and it’s step one, step two. So the first four steps are what I call the Dreaming Room and that’s really the platform for growth.

And in order to move into the platform for growth, you have to get rid of everything you believe to be true. So I call that a blank piece of paper and beginner’s mind.

And the first step is to Discover the Dream. The second step is to Discover the Vision. And the third step is to Discover the Purpose and the fourth step is to Discover the Mission. The Dream of NewCo, The Vision of NewCo, The Purpose of NewCo and The Mission of NewCo have nothing to do with what you’re doing right now.

Jürgen:
Right. Yeah.

Michael:
You got it? It doesn’t mean, you have to stop being a digital marketer?

Jürgen:
No

Michael:
It doesn’t mean that at all. It doesn’t mean you have to stop being a guy or whatever, however old you are. It doesn’t mean you have to move out of your house. Is just simply means, you gotta do what Ray Croc [did]. When he went to work on McDonald’s, he didn’t make hamburgers. He didn’t make french fries. He didn’t make malteds. It did. He went to work on the prototype to perfect it.

He literally went out of his way to create NewCo and NewCo might also be in the digital marketing arena.

Jürgen:
Of course yeah but I was just going to say you’re not talking about reengineering what’s there.

Michael:
No

Jürgen:
You’re talking about taking a totally blank piece of paper and taking a completely new approach to this whole company.

Michael:
You got it.

Jürgen:
Whether it ends up doing digital marketing later on or the
system does digital marketing later on or not is irrelevant at this point.

Michael:
Just as Walt Disney did at Disney imagineering. And as Disney imagineering does every single day. Walt would say to the imagineers, ‘Were about to step out into the unknown. We have no idea what it looks like but I can absolutely assure you, you’ve never seen it before, you’ve never done it before; you don’t know how to do it; you don’t even know why to do it! And that’s the only thing you can bring to me, is something I’ve never seen before, have no preparation for, can’t even imagine right now, to truly invent a new world. That’s what you’re called to do. If you fail to that, you’re out of here.’

Jürgen:
[chuckles]

Michael:
If you fail to do that, you’re not a Disney Imagineer. So can you imagine that calling and that’s what I’m calling everybody to do.

That’s what I’m calling you to do. That’s what I’m calling every guy who interviews me to do. I’m just driving him crazy. I’m saying it’s going to go beyond anything we believe to be true and discover something new and I happen to be gifted with the ability to exacerbate that.

And people who are open and willing to play the game to me, when that
happens we’re all going to discover something we’ve never discovered before. Is that cool?

Jürgen:
That is absolutely cool and I really love the way you’ve outlined that in the book. I’ve had the privilege of reading seven preview chapters that is aviable for information for everybody beyondemyth.com (Ed note – corrected).

Michael:
Wait. Wait.

Jürgen:
Sorry I’m stealing your thunder? [laugh]

Michael:
No. No. No but you said it wrong.I’m sorry, it’s beyondemyth.com.

Jürgen:
Sorry. It’s beyondemyth.com

Michael:
It’s beyondemyth.com. It’s not Beyond the E-Myth. It’s not beyond the book.. It’s beyond the idea.

Jürgen:
Okay. That’s important for two things. It’s important to understand that it is beyond the idea but also if you choose the link that I mentioned first you’ll end up at the wrong place.

Michael:
You got it. [laugh] That’s good for perfect – It’s perfect for good reason, right?

Jürgen:
[laugh] That’s right. But we’ll have links to that in the show notes, so that all you need to do is click on that and you’ll find out more information.

Michael, tell us more about the next four steps because I think those first four are so exciting. But then to see the whole picture of the process and see that this whole thing can actually be made into a process. That that is the thing that really touched me.

Michael:
Wonderful. Let me also say that this is going to be the process for preparing your company, your digital marketing company, in some fashion or form, for sale. So understand the endgame of all this, for every single creator [and] for every single company on earth, is the ultimate sale of that company.

And in order to prepare your company for sale, you’ve got to think like the buyer of that company. Not like the creator of it, but the buyer of it.

Jürgen:
And that’s a challenge isn’t it? Because it’s my baby! So I’m attached to it. [laugh]

Michael:
Yeah but you gotta understand that these are the key indicators for that buyer. One, that it doesn’t depend on Jürgen. Period.

Jürgen:
And of course, the buyer doesn’t want me there!

Michael:
And it has to demonstrate that it doesn’t depend upon Jürgen. Just like McDonald’s didn’t depend upon the founder of McDonald’s, Ray Kroc.

Oh by the way did you know a movie’s coming out in December?

Jürgen:
Yes. I saw the trailer. That’s really good timing, isn’t it?

Michael:
I mean is that a gift from God or what?

Jürgen:
[laugh]

Michael:
The whole story is right there.

Jürgen:
Yeah

Michael:
I haven’t seen.

Jürgen:
It’s compulsory viewing the, what is it called?

Michael:
The Founder.

Jürgen:
Yeah, The Founder. So it’s the story of McDonald’s and Ray Kroc.

Michael:
It’s the story of you. It’s the story of me. It’s the story of everybody listening to us, if you dare to reach out to that part of you – that is The Founder.

And so here is the process. The Dream, the Vision, the Purpose, the Mission – that’s the platform. Now I’m presuming and that once you go through the process, you’ll understand what your dream is Jürgen, what your vision is, what your purpose is, what your vision is for NewCo. Now you’re going to go work on NewCo to get it ready for sale.

Jürgen:
Yeah

Michael:
And that’s a four step process and they are The Job, The Practice, The Business, The Enterprise. The Job is your client fulfillment system. It’s the product. It’s the service you’re selling. Your job as the founder is to go to work on the client fulfillment system to turnkey it.

So it suddenly becomes a product your company can deliver consistently, consistently, consistently to every single customer, who is your most important customer.

So you have to consider in your dream, your vision, your purpose, your mission who you are central demographic model customer is. In my case it’s the smallest of the small, it’s a guy – a company one and I define a company one as a company that depends upon the owner.

So Jürgen has a company of one. Now it may be, you might say yes, that’s just because it’s Jürgen here right now and I’m saying it’s not because of that, it’s because it won’t work without you. You could have fifty contractors. But if you have to be there, you’ve got a company of one. So I want everybody listening to us to ask yourself the question do I own a company of one or a company of many and it can’t be a company of many until you’ve completed the first step.

That means you have to turn key your client’s fulfillment system – the product, what you’re selling, what you’re delivering.

Jürgen:
Yeah absolutely.

Michael:
That’s before any digital marketing takes place. Digital Marketing doesn’t take place until you get to step two, which is the Practice. And the Practice is the three-legged stool. The Practice is lead generation, lead conversion [and] client fulfillment, that’s your franchise prototype.

So now that you’ve created your client fulfillment system, – ‘this is how we do it, this is how we do it, this is how we do it – now you’re able to have somebody else deliver it, not you. That’s the key indicator. It can be delivered successfully by a non-expert, but a master of your system.

Jürgen:
That’s right and not only that. That next person can teach other people with system as well.

Michael:
Not yet.

Jürgen:
Not yet? [chuckles]

Michael:
No, because you need to have a system through which they can do that.

Jürgen:
Exactly

Michael:
So you need to think a bit functionally.

Jürgen:
Yeah

Michael:
That person is a technician. They are able to replicate the technician in your company. That’s the first step.

Jürgen:
Okay.

Michael:
Technician delivers the client fulfillment system. That technician maybe a chiropractor. [He] maybe an attorney. [He] maybe a digital marketer. That technician maybe, whatever the hell that technician is.

But the system they deliver is the system of law as we deliver it. The system as digital marketing as we deliver it. It’s a product. It’s turnkey. Anybody can do it who has been taken through apprenticeship, craftsmanship and mastery. You got it?

Jürgen:
Yep

Michael:
Now you have you the ability to produce masters of the system. Now you need to produce the client acquisition system that will enable each of them to work to optimal performance.

Jürgen:
Mhmmnnn

Michael:
So your client fulfillment system is ready. It’s the ballgame. It’s the heart of the art. And the second system is client acquisition. Now you’re gonna turnkey it. Now we have a turn key client acquisition system can fill to capacity technician number 1, technician number 2, technician number 3. Now you’re ready to grow.

Jürgen:
Yeah.

Michael:
The third step is a business. And a business is defined by “Beyond the E-Myth” as nothing other than up to seven turnkey practices plus a turnkey management system.

So now you’ve got the client fulfillment system and you can teach somebody to use it, teach somebody to use it, teach somebody to use it, [and] certify them, certify them, certify them, you’re now able to deliver your hamburgers exactly the same way every single time not by an expert but by a master. The difference is key. He isn’t the expert. The system is.

Jürgen:
Yeah

Michael:
You follow that?

Jürgen:
That’s the beauty of this whole thing and I think even today people that have read the E-Myth still stumble with the whole concept.

Michael:
Of course they do.

Jürgen:
Yeah

Michael:
That’s why I’ve written this new book, so that it will be impossible for them to stumble with the concept. Now what it might do is create enormous backlash. Yeah, ‘but not me, not me, not me,’ and I’ll say goodbye. What can I say? Everybody do this.

Jürgen:
Yeah. Well if you want to be a company of one, that’s your choice, right? But now you something there that will take you beyond that if you choose to take up the challenge.

Michael:
The alternative – you just bought a job and it’s the worst job in the world, because you are working for a lunatic!

Jürgen:
That’s exactly right.

Michael:
And that lunatic is living in his or her comfort zone.

Jürgen:
Yeah

Michael:
Entrepreneurship is beyond comfort, whoever said that our reason for being alive is to be comfortable. The guy who climbed Everest said he climbed it because it was there. I’m saying, we’re climbing it because it’s there and it’s there for every human being on the planet, every one of the 7 plus billion people on the planet. Once they are aware that such a system exists, they have no choice, other than to retire.

Jürgen:
Yeah

Michael:
They have no choice other than to ignore it.

Jürgen:
Yeah

Michael:
But I’m going to be so noisy. And you are too Jürgen!

Jürgen:
Yes absolutely.

Michael:
Why would we do anything other than this? Once we know it’s there.

Jürgen:
Yeah exactly. And I like what you said somewhere in one of the podcasts. [It’s] about that we all have a responsibility because with things that are changing so dramatically in the world today, in terms of artificial intelligence and automation and so on, traditional jobs, as we know them, where somebody would work on a production line and do manual labor and there would be hundreds or millions of people around the world that derive their income from that, those jobs are disappearing and we have politicians telling us all they can fix that by doing various bits and pieces. But you said something that really has encapsulated this sentiment – that it’s up to every single one of us to actually make that change because the politicians really can’t dictate anything there, that’s going to bring those jobs back or create new jobs.

Michael:
No. Government doesn’t create jobs. People do. If we create the wrong job, while it may seem like better than the other option, and become self-employed, I’m saying that’s just simply the first step. That’s the first step in a process and to not go to the second step is a sin. I’m simply saying for anybody listening to me right now, just accept it. I’ve at least earned that credibility. If in fact I’ve succeeded at what I’ve done, and I have, beyond belief, then I’ve earned at least the credibility that will allow you to say, ’Perhaps he knows something I don’t.’

Jürgen:
Mhmmmmnnn

Michael:
And if I do know something you don’t and I’m willing to share it with you wholeheartedly here in my 80th year, then you have no choice but to let go of your resistance and just listen to me, because I have no other reason than to transform the state of small business worldwide and to transform the way every single individual makes a living.

And the way every single individual steps out, and takes complete responsibility at the grassroots of where you live, to take people around you beyond where you are. The only way you can do that is to first do it yourself, an economy of one where you are. That’s the conversation.

Jürgen:
Yeah

Michael:
That’s the exciting part about it.

Jürgen:
Yeah it is exciting.I love the concept of the economy of one and you talk also about finding greatness within each of us, that great people are everywhere. It’s just bringing out those dreams and bringing out that understanding to the fore, so allow them to actually get out of their own way, get out of the way of the dreamer up to bring that to that fore.

Michael:
Yeah. Allow him, allow her to speak. And he and she will say things that are completely incongruent with the way you’re leading your life. No matter what you might think. Because if he isn’t, it’s not the dreamer. It’s the artifice. If he isn’t saying something that’s challenging, everything you do and the way that you do it then he’s not who you think he is. He’s the devil incarnate. Don’t listen to him. Don’t listen to her. If she is saying that you’re great and everything’s fine, and you’re just absolutely beautiful and wonderful, forget it. He is the devil. He’s speaking lie after lie after lie. Because you’re not fine.

Jürgen:
Yeah. Just stay on your comfort zone and you’ll be good. [laugh]

Michael:
Okay, yeah. So let me say that the business is up to seven turn turnkey practices. Chiropractor 1,chiropractor 2, digital marketer 1, digital marketer 2, digital marketer 3, attorney 1, attorney 2, attorney 3, you got my point, up to seven of them; client acquisition 1, client acquisition 2, client acquisition 3 and the system works, we know it will work [and] will keep the chiropractor optimally productive. Every single one of them, up to seven, so the business works.

And we have a management system to make sure certain that we’re working on it continuously. Continuous improvement is the key. So it’s never a static thing. It’s a dynamic thing. We never stop growing. We’re always growing. Why? Because the world is always changing.

Jürgen:
Yeah.

Michael:
And our job is to be a head of it not behind it.

Jürgen:
Yeah. Lead the change.

Michael:
Let’s not lead from behind, it’s lead from above.

Jürgen:
Yeah

Michael:
So that’s our job which takes us to the enterprise. The enterprise is the end product of this process and the enterprise is nothing other than up to seven turnkey businesses plus a turnkey leadership system.

So you begin to see, it’s like Lego blocks. And that’s what’s so exciting about it. It’s like Lego blocks. It’s an absolute methodology for growth that no one has ever taught anybody how to do. When Ray Kroc did it, he made it up; when Starbucks did it, they made it up. When Subway sandwiches did it, they made it up. All you have to do is look at Subway sandwiches. You’ve seen Subway sandwiches in Australia?

Jürgen:
Oh yeah we’ve got them here.

Michael:
It’s a production line. It’s a manufacturing line. It’s a manufacturing plant. They’re manufacturing a sandwich, “Which one? Which one? Which one?’ It’s a sandwich. There’s no one great behind that counter.

Jürgen:
[Laugh]

Michael:
Just a guy doing the to work, doing the work, doing the work.
You say, ’But I don’t want to create a company like that.’ I’d say, ‘You would, if in fact, the outcome of that is prodigious.’ You’re not limited by McDonald’s, you’re not limited by Subway, you’re not limited by Starbucks, you’re not limited by Apple, you’re not limited by Microsoft, You’re not limited by Mary Kay Cosmetics, you’re not limited by what they have done. But you are blessed because they’ve done it. And so because they have done it, they have demonstrated it. You can do this anyway, in any kind of practice, in any kind of marketplace, with any kind of consumer, with any kind of product or service, anywhere, any how, that’s what I’m bringing to you with Beyond the EMyth. That’s why it’s such an exciting thing for me.

Jürgen:
Yeah. It is really exciting and I think we can see that Michael is really excited by that. I love your passion. And I love your enthusiasm and energy behind that.

So Michael this has been really fabulous. I hope you’ll indulge me. We love to ask our guest a series of short questions about innovation and I think this ties in really well with what we’ve been talking about.

So you know we’ll head into that into our Buzz which is our Innovation Round.

What’s the number one thing anyone needs to do to be more innovative?.

Michael:
You have to think out of the box which everybody says. But here’s the question. The question that’s core to innovation is “What’s missing in this picture?”. The question “What’s missing in this picture?” has to be alive in you all the time and it’s “What’s missing in this picture?” where I’m sleeping right now, “What’s missing in this picture?” Where I’m having lunch right now, “What’s missing in this picture?” as I’m driving to work, “What’s missing in this picture?” as I’m having this conversation. “What’s missing in this picture?” about everything and anything, and that continuous inquiry is the core seedbed for innovation.

Now the same time, what has to be a corollary of that, is what I’ve already described – a dream, a vision, a purpose and a mission. Unless I’ve created an outcome in my mind [and] in my imagination, that’s critical. Unless I’m thinking like Walt did about Disneyland. Unless I have a standard that I’m establishing, called GreatCo, the great growing company or whatever it might be, then innovation has no energy to it.

Jürgen:
Yeah

Michael:
Unless it’s being called a rise above the ordinary, it’s not innovation. It’s just making things different.

Jürgen:
That’s right.

Michael:
Innovation is improvement. It is improvement of what is. Creativity is pursuing the unknown, at the point at which we can then begin to innovate. Innovation isn’t the clear departure. Creativity is.

Jürgen:
Okay, yeah.

Michael:
But creativity isn’t implementable, only innovation is. So effectively you’re caught in this trap. And it’s like [what] Disney said to the guys in imagineers,‘We’re going to be doing stuff you’ve never done before, for a reason you’ve never thought of before to come up with something you never thought possible before,’ that’s called creativity. Imagineers are truly in an unending process of creativity. Innovation is really the alteration of what is. Creativity is the creation of what isn’t.

Jürgen:
Ok. Great answer! It’s probably the best answer we’ve ever had – distinction between innovation and creativity and what you need to do. So ask the right questions and be curious all the time. I love it Michael.

What’s the best thing you’ve done to develop new ideas?

Michael:
I read mystery novels. I don’t read business books. They just bore the living, whatever out of me. I read mystery novels and my mind then is free of anything on the outside. And I’m just following this path and this path is always a surprising path or not.

Jürgen:
So you have ideas when you’re following a path?

Michael:
I wake up in the middle of the night with ideas. Ideas come to you. It’s like my saxophone teacher used to say, ’You don’t make music Michael. Music finds you. Your job is to practice.’

So I practiced music, practiced music, practiced music, which means now I
practice creating, I practice creating, practice creating and something happens. So something always happens. That’s the important thing for everybody to understand. When you practice creating, something always happens and it’s always something you never anticipated.

So I woke up maybe three weeks ago and this voice – and when I say this voice, it’s my inner voice. And it said, Every Life a Legacy. Literally that, not sort of that. Now my wife has been speaking to me about my legacy, about my legacy, about my legacy and I thought, shine it on, shine it on, shine it on.. and she’s determined that my legacy will live forever. And so yeah, I got that!

Jürgen:
[laugh]

Michael:
But I woke up with this immediate seeing. This is what I call seeing. It’s ready. It’s where you can suddenly see it, meaning you could hear, see it. It comes to you. And it came as an expression “Every Life a Legacy”. If you’ve gone to my website, michaelegerbercompanies.com, or if you’ve received any emails from us, you’ll see a phrase that says “Every small business, a school”. So that came to me in exactly the same way that “Every Life a Legacy” came to me.

So today it says “Every Life a Legacy; Every Small Business a School”. Now it’s complete. So I’m saying, Jürgen, your life is a legacy. Then you get to choose what it is. You follow me?

Jürgen:
Yeah absolutely. I saw those two together and I thought that’s just beautiful and it so encapsulates everything you do with “Beyond the E-Myth”, for me.

Michael:
Yes, your life is a legacy, which changes the nature of the energy that you pour into. That’s what moves me! It’s the sudden seeing, as I call it, of something that I had not seen before.

I didn’t sit there and manufacture, “Every Life a Legacy.” It came to me. Now I could say, it came to me from God. I could say it came to me from this, but I’m already talking about it. Forget about from where, because all I know is it came to me.

Jürgen:
That’s right.

Michael:
Luz Delia tells me this little tale of the blind man speaking. He said, ‘Before I met Christ, I was blind. Once I met Christ, I could see. I don’t know how that happened. I only know that that happened.’

So it became a really powerful message for me. I don’t know how that happened. I only know that that happened. I could tell all kinds of tales about it. All I know is a I woke up about 3:10 in the morning with this voice and I could have written down or not, I almost didn’t, but had I not written it down, I wouldn’t have it today. I would have lost it.

But if my life is a legacy, then I have to look upon those things that come to me as a critical voice, speaking to that. I’m obligated to write it down. I can’t just shine it on. So I did and now it’s a living part of what we do. Every Life, a Legacy; Every Small Business, a School… and if that’s true, that means mine, yours, his and hers, every single one on the planet. And what would that mean, if in fact every life is a legacy? That means, you must take your life seriously.

Jürgen:
That’s right

Michael:
Beyond your comfort. Beyond yourself. Because the dream isn’t a personal dream. It’s an impersonal dream.

Jürgen:
That’s right. And I love that you expressed it somewhere, I think it might be in the book, around having that servant’s heart. You had that sentiment there and I think that ties in with this message of “Every Life, a Legacy. Every Business a School” because that brings it back to, you’re not doing your business for you, you’re doing it for others.

Michael:
Yeah. That’s my calling. That’s your calling. That’s what you were born to do.

Jürgen:
Lovely. Great answer!

Do you have a favorite tool or system for improving productivity and allowing you to be more innovative and come up with creative ideas?

Michael:
No.

Jürgen:
Maybe, it’s just the pen and the paper by the bedside?

Michael:
I’ve already done it, done it, done it and done it. I’ve already worked on that one to death. It’s called the tools, the technology, the mechanics, etc. And I leave that up to the so many people better suited to that. All I’m saying it must be there. If it must be there and if that’s your calling, then your calling is to make it easy there. So I must do it in a way that everybody can do it. So their calling is that everybody can build a great company.

So I need a great way so everybody can do it. Now I’ve created a way for everybody to see it and to do it. And anybody who says, “Yes, but. Yes, but, Yes, but,” you’re out of here. I’m just not interested in having that stupid conversation. It’s not because you’re stupid. It’s because you’re unwilling to let go of this reality, which is so true. I mean it’s a universal truth and it’s so absolutely true that anybody who stands there argues with me, I’ll say “What are you arguing about? White is white, black is black, red is red. What are you arguing about?’ Well because….. I don’t care about. White is white. Red is red. True is true. And let me show you how it works. If it works, wouldn’t it be absolutely, profoundly important that you utilize it?

It’s like sitting there with your thumb in your ear, and saying “I can’t hear you, I can’t hear you, I can’t hear you!” So I say “take your thumb out of your ear!” and you’re saying “I can’t hear you!” So I take your thumb out of your ear and you put it right back and say, “wait a minute, I’m a guy with a thumb in his ear!” And I say “Yeah, but you can’t hear me!”. So it’s that simple.

Jürgen:
For somebody that didn’t have an answer to that question, that was a great answer!

Michael:
So I’m going to say to everyone listening to this: “Take your thumb out of your ear!”

Jürgen:
What’s the best way to keep a client or project on track?

Michael:
Well, just keep on reminding them why they’re doing it. You have to go back to beginning every single time and you have to have a system for doing that.

That’s called system of five essential functions – inspiration, education, application, implementation [and] continuous improvement. Inspiration is for the purposes of discovering an epiphany. Education is for understanding. Application is for direct experience. Implementation is for enhancing that direct experience so that you continually apply it for the purposes of gaining more experience and continues improvement because staying static where you are is the death of growth. Yeah. It’s very very critical to understand there’s a methodology, a mindset, that’s critical to all of this.

And that’s where you keep it alive. You have to keep on going back to inspiration, education, application, implementation, continuous improvement. ‘Did you do that? Did you do that? Did you do that?’ ‘No? Well let’s find out why you didn’t do that and let’s now go and try to see what we can get out of your way so you can do that and now that you’ve done that, you see why it was so important? You see you had this problem and we wanted to get rid of that problem? And so we went to work on it in a way systemically that we could then avoid getting into the same box we were in before and the reason you wanted to do that was because the problem was keeping you from having the experience that you would wish you could have and that lack of that experience meant we all enter into this travail of frustration continuously. That’s why we are doing this.

So let’s go back again and start anew and see how we can refresh your mind so that you are able to refresh this purpose underlying everything we’re doing.

Jürgen:
Fantastic. Michael just answered that question with a complete system for being more productive in keeping clients on track. I love it.

What’s the number one thing anyone could do to differentiate themselves?

Michael:
Stop trying to differentiate yourself. That’s the most important thing you can do. Stop thinking about it! When you focus yourself on the customer, not on what you want, which is what we’ve been doing here all the time focusing on the customer, the customer who doesn’t want to, the customer who doesn’t want to, but really wants to. When you focus on the customer you’re going to find a way to do it. And as you begin to focus on the customer, it’s going to differentiate you because you’re demonstrating how you CARE about your customer not about being differentiated. So stop thinking about it.

Jürgen:
Great. So that’s that’s quite special advice. Stop trying to be different. Just focus on the customer. I love it.

Michael:
Stop trying to be different. Just be good.

Jürgen:
Excellent. All right Michael, this has been absolutely wonderful. Before we wrap up, I invite you to tell us a little bit about the Dreaming Room event that you’ve got coming up, because that’s kind of the launch pad for this whole movement of “Beyond E-Myth,” isn’t it?

Michael:
Oh it’s absolutely is. Thank you for asking me about that. I’ll just say this.

That if you have gotten anything from this conversation. I don’t mean you, Jürgen, but people listening to this, if you got anything from this conversation at all. You know that both Jürgen and I are earnestly determined to make a difference not be different.

And we’re determined to do that with everything that lives within us. It’s because there’s nothing better on the planet to do than that. That’s what I’m launching in the ”New Dreaming Room.” What I’m launching in the New Dreaming Room” is the experience that I’ve been speaking to here. And that means that over two and a half days, I’m going to do something with you that’s going to awaken the spirit of investigation, opportunity and creativity, unlike anything that’s ever happened to you before and I know that because I’ve done that, done that, done that. It happens every single time. The only difference is this time, we’re not doing it from an E-Myth perspective. We’re doing it from Beyond the E-Myth. Once you’re done in the Dreaming Room, we’ll then take you Beyond E-Myth to discover your Dream, your Vision, your Purpose, your Mission in earnest so that you can put it to work as the platform for NewCo. Every single one of you deserve to go to work on NewCo because you’ll never experience yourself as more alive that you will when you begin to do that. So this is a continuing process.

The end of this process is the transformation of economies worldwide. Literally an economic development process unlike anything that’s ever been done. Like you said Jürgen, you can’t fix the grassroots from the top down. Government cannot do it. Only you can. But you must take it on individually. You must take it on personally. Nobody can do this for you.

I can’t create a dream for you. Oh, I could. I could sell you a franchise, and you could buy my dream, but then you wouldn’t be an entrepreneur would you?

Jürgen:
No

Michael:
So my job is to awaken the entrepreneur in every single human being who is ready and willing to let go of everything they believe to be true, just in the case that they might discover something bigger than they ever imagined before living within you, and my job is to make that possible.

So what happens on December 9, 10 and 11? It happens at a beautiful hotel in Carlsbad, California. It was formerly the Four Seasons Hotel. It’s now the Hyatt Aviarum, and all you have to do if you want to find out more about it is you go to www.beyondemyth.com . And when you do, there’ll be a link that will lead you to enroll in that first ”New Dreaming Room.”

And here me! I may be 80, but you’ve never had anyone challenge you, the way I’m going to challenge you, when we do that two and a half days together!

Jürgen:
I can imagine that would be absolutely awesome, to be challenged by you in person, Michael! Your passion and energy is so evident on this interview. So listeners, visit that link www.beyondemyth.com and you’ll find all the details there. Thank you Michael.

So before we wrap up, Michael, I’d like to ask, who would you like me to interview on a future InnovaBuzz Podcast and why?

Michael:
Rodger Ford is the one guy you must have on. Rodger is the most brilliant entrepreneur I’ve ever known, the most brilliant Chief Executive I’ve ever known; he has successfully designed, launched, built and grown 7 infamously famous enterprises. He is now doing that with a company called ReliantHeart. That’s an extraordinary company, when you get Rodger to come on the show to talk to you, you’ve never spoken to anyone like the man before, ever! He’s in his seventies, this is his last enterprise. While he’s doing this, he also rides rodeos! Walks away with No. 1 belts! Rodger is amazing!

Jürgen:
Wow, thanks for that suggestion. Rodger Ford, I’m coming to get you on the InnovaBuzz podcast, courtesy of Michael Gerber!

Michael, this has been absolutely wonderful, I’ve really enjoyed this and learned a lot, there’s a lot to go away and think about. Thank you so much for today’s interview, for everything you’ve done for small business around the world, on behalf of my audience. All the best for the launch of Beyond E-Myth and the Dreaming Room event, let’s stay in touch.

Michael:
Super! Take care.

Jürgen:
Thanks.

Michael:
Bye bye.

Jürgen:
Bye.

Wrap Up:
I hope you enjoyed meeting Michael as much as I enjoyed this interview and are as inspired by his energy, his passion and his message for every small business, as I am. I’m certainly excited to come on this journey with Michael and invite my listeners to join me.

All the show notes for this episode will be at innovabiz.com.au/michaelegerber, that is M-I-C-H-A-E-L-E-G-E-R-B-E-R, all lowercase, all one word, innovabiz.com.au/michaelegerber All of the links and everything we spoke about in this episode will be there for you to easily find.

Michael suggested I interview Rodger Ford, CEO of ReliantHeart on a future InnovaBuzz podcast. Michael spoke very highly of Rodger, and I’m looking forward to meeting him. So, Rodger keep an eye on your inbox, for an invitation from me to the InnovaBuzz podcast, courtesy of Michael E Gerber.

Thank you to you my audience for listening. Pop over to iTunes or Stitcher or Pocket Casts and subscribe so you’ll never miss a future episode. While you’re there, you might leave us a review, because reviews help us get found and your feedback helps us improve. If there is anything you’d like us to cover, or questions you want answered on a future InnovaBuzz podcasts, please send them to us.

Until next time, I’m Jürgen Strauss from Innovabiz.

Remember, if you don’t innovate, you stagnate, so think big, be adventurous and keep innovating!

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