INTRO ANNOUNCER: Are you ready for an open discussion with the best of the best and the best of what's next? Welcome to The Tony D'Urso Show. Join in on a great conversation today with some of the world's great influencers, as they showcase great advice and techniques that made them the game changers they are today. Now, here's Tony D'Urso. TONY: Welcome. I'm your host, Tony D'Urso. Once again, I'm pleased to have you join us. At the time of this recording, we're at seventeen million listens throughout my entire podcasting career, and it's going so fast. I don't have the exact count today, but I do know that now that you're listening, we have one more. I owe it to you for faithfully listening every week and sharing with your friends. And I want to thank you again. We really make a very good team. And as you know, this is all designed to help you and your friends turn your vision into reality. And today we're chatting with someone at the top of their category, an elite entrepreneur. We're going to discuss the E-Myth Revisited with Michael Gerber. Now, wherever you are on the process or assembly line of getting out your company's products and services, if you're having success or you've read our books, you know how important it is to have a vision, a purpose, a goal, and a drive to get your creation out to the world. The intention to make that happen is very key, and I don't think it's talked about often enough. We also call that intention, which drive, our mission. Well, meet Michael E. Gerber. His company has inspired millions of new entrepreneurs over the past half-century to design, build, launch and grow small companies that work themselves into large companies utilizing his E-Myth manifesto worldwide. His book, which we're going to talk about a little bit here, The E-Myth Revisited, has been called the most influential business book of all time by The Wall Street Journal, and Inc. has named Mr. Gerber the world's number one small business guru. That says it all, everyone. Let's get into it. Hi, Michael. Welcome to The Tony D'Urso Show. MICHAEL: Hello, Tony. I'm choked up. I can't stand it. TONY: I understand, me too. I'm choked up. But I think if we do the Italian thing, start using our hands, we'll be able to start talking again because it is an extreme honor to have you on. I just love this topic. I write about this, I talk about it. I do interviews about it. This is just the essence of what we're going to talk about. It's the essence of entrepreneurship and making it. And we want to learn about the E-Myth and the E-Myth Revisited. I have a lot of questions about it, but Michael, just before we get into that, can we fill in your backstory and please, would you include the sax playing too?

INTERVIEW – PART 1 (BACKSTORY & THE FIRST CLIENT) MICHAEL: Well, I'd be delighted to tell you that story. I was in fact just ending one frame of my life, and I used the word "frame" carefully because I learned how to frame houses. I was a saxophone player who was a poet, who was a salesman of encyclopedias, and I was a framer framing houses. And once I learned how to frame houses down by where you lived in Anaheim, California—by the way, right by Disneyland, the place my brother-in-law created, Marty Sklar with Walt Disney himself. Think about that. He lived right there next door to you where you live. And I went down there to learn how to frame houses. I couldn't even begin to tell you why. I just thought I had to begin to work with my hands rather than with my mouth. So I was compelled to go and learn how to work with my hands. I learned how to work with my hands. I became a framer who fixed the mistakes that other framers made. And I moved to Northern California to get ready to start my own business as a framer. My brother-in-law said to me, "Michael, I'd like you to do me a favor." My brother-in-law had started his own advertising agency in Silicon Valley, and he said, "I'm having a problem with a number of my clients in converting their leads into sales. Would you help me by meeting with Bob? He started a brand new company. It's a high-tech company selling a high-tech product. We're creating a great number of leads for him, but he's finding it almost impossible to convert those leads into sales." And I said to Ace, that was my brother-in-law's name, and he still is my brother-in-law. God bless him and God bless my sister. I said to Ace, "Ace, I don't know what I would tell him, Bob. I don't know anything about business." And of course I didn't. "And I certainly don't know anything about high-tech." And of course I didn't. And he said, "Michael, I know you and you know more than you think you do. Just do me the favor. Meet with Bob and let's see what happens." So what can I say? Of course. And we did. Ace introduced me to Bob and Bob asked me, "So, Michael, what do you know about my business?" And I said, "Nothing, Bob." And Bob looked a little discomforted and he said, "Well, if you don't know anything about my business, what you know about my product?" And I said, "Less than that, Bob." And Bob said, "So, Michael, if you don't know anything about my business and you don't know anything about my product, how in the world can you help me?" And I said, "I haven't a clue, Bob, but Ace thinks I can. Ace just took off. He's not going to be back for an hour, so let's find out." And with that, I began to ask Bob questions. Now you gotta understand, I started out that conversation with Bob, having just learned how to frame houses, having created a new life working with my hands, not with my mouth. And suddenly I was in a conversation that I had absolutely no knowledge of with a person I believed had the kind of knowledge that he presumed I had. After all, he owned a small business. He certainly must know what a small business is, what a small business does, how a small business does it. I started my conversation with Bob, thinking to myself, I don't know anything about business, but Bob must. So begin to ask him questions and find out what he knows. Well, let me tell you, as I asked Bob questions, and as Bob began to respond to the questions I asked, the more questions I asked, the more it became absolutely transparent to me that all of Bob's answers were anecdotal. In short, I learned Bob didn't know anything about business, but he owned one. And suddenly I discovered I did know something about business. As I asked Bob more questions, I came to the realization I understood that selling is a system. And of course, that's what we're there to talk to Bob about—that selling is a system. Unfortunately, Bob didn't know that. Bob hired sales engineers for two reasons. One, they're engineers, so they understood his product. And two, they had sales experience. So they understood sales. Well, the fact of the matter is they didn't understand either. "Bob, you don't have a selling system." "Michael, can you create one for me?" "But of course, Bob." Ace picks me up and he said, "What happened, Michael?" I said, "Well, the strangest thing happened. Bob hired me as a consultant to build his selling system." And Ace looks at me like I'm out of my freaking mind. "Michael, you don't know anything about business. You don't know anything about Bob's product. How in the hell are you going to create a selling system for Bob?" And I said, "Don't ask me, Ace. I just know how." And that's what I did. And I did it for Bob. And I did it for Mary. I did it for Judy, and I did it for Jim. And I did it for Fred. And I did it for Frederick. Every single one of these clients Ace had who didn't know how to convert leads into sales by creating a selling system. And that was the birth of E-Myth. Think about it. Bob also didn't have a management system, a marketing system, a financial system, and so forth and so forth and so forth and so forth. And the more I worked with Bob, the more I worked with Mary, and the more I worked with every single one of Ace's clients and came to realize that none of them truly understood what a business is. A business is a system designed to produce a predictable result. To the degree that system doesn't do that, you're completely out of luck. As I began to discover, all small business owners were at the very beginning of this massive reality that I was introduced to accidentally by my brother-in-law. By the time I figured out what the problem was, I began to realize that he had identically the same problem in his advertising agency, and he couldn't bear to hear it. So I said goodbye to Ace, and Ace sent somebody in to take my place, and that guy's name was Tom Travisano. And when I said to Tom, "I'm leaving," he said, "Where are you going?" I said, "I'm going to start a company to do what I've learned how to do here." And Tom said, "I want to go with you." And he did. And we created the Michael Thomas Corporation, the first business development firm of its kind on the planet, providing business development coaches for small businesses—a function that never existed before we created it. And that's the beginning of the story.

SPONSOR BREAK – VIDYARD TONY: We're talking with Michael E. Gerber about the E-Myth Revisited, and you can find him at MichaelEGerberCompanies.com. This is The Tony D'Urso Show where you can learn from the wisdom and success of others to help you move on your vision path. Just ahead, the chat continues about The E-Myth Revisited with Michael Gerber. But first, it's time for us to take a short break. See you back here in just a moment. Vidyard is an easy-to-use yet powerful video solution that makes it simple to create videos, host them ad-free, share them with others, and track their performance. That's V-I-D-Y-A-R-D. Whether you're recording a video for one person or sharing it with the world on your website, it's easy to manage your video content. Our solution is built for business with robust analytics, integrations with top enterprise tools and customization options that answer business's unique needs. Vidyard is sharing a free guide to help everyone master video. The Complete Guide to Video Production will help you produce incredible videos in-house and on a budget. Now you know email isn't dead, but it sure is boring, and you can use Vidyard to record and send videos to connect with prospects, convert opportunities, and close deals. And you can put a face to your name with video. Record your face, your screen, or both for prospecting videos, follow-ups, product demos, and more. You can upload or create videos and embed them into email campaigns, landing pages, and blog posts to generate and engage more sales-ready leads. And you can use interactive video elements and video personalization to boost viewer engagement, accelerate the buyer journey, and convert viewers into pipeline. Record your screen, webcam, or both. From product demos to customer testimonials to live-streamed Q&A's, anyone can create their own videos in just a few clicks. And you can use video analytics to measure how each video impacts revenue and how they perform across your website, email marketing, prospecting campaigns, and more, all from one central dashboard. And it gets better. Sign up for Vidyard free today by going to Vidyard.com/Tony. And just like you guys, the team at Vidyard can't keep up with all these promo codes on podcasts, so they're making signing up as easy as possible. So no promo code needed, just go to Vidyard.com/Tony to start using Vidyard completely free. And as a bonus, get their State of Virtual Selling Report. And remember, Vidyard is sharing a free guide to help everyone master video. The Complete Guide to Video Production will help you produce incredible videos in-house and on a budget. And I'll spell that—V-I-D-Y-A-R-D dot com slash T-O-N-Y. All right? Check it out and tell me how you like it. Vidyard.

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INTERVIEW – PART 2 (THE EIGHTFOLD PATH – FIRST FOUR STEPS) TONY: All right, we're back on The Tony D'Urso Show, where you can learn from the wisdom and success of others to help you move on your vision path. Today's show is The E-Myth Revisited with Michael Gerber. And now let's get back to the chat. Michael, I've been laughing. I just can't believe this is such a great story. And I can tell immediately by the type of character you are that you put your heart into it, you really worked it and you got very good at it and you started helping all the clients that he had. And I get that. And you're very good at it. Somewhere along the line, as you mentioned, you decided you're going to open up your own business. You saw how this worked. You saw big gaping holes in businesses. Why did you want to continue on doing this? Was it rewarding? Was it fun? Did you—was this your calling? Why are you doing what you're doing on this? MICHAEL: Well, think about it. The world of business is small business. And if what I discovered in that very beginning experience with Bob was true about Mary and Jim and Jack and Judy and Fred and Frederick and so forth and so forth and so forth and so forth, that if effectively I could discover the secret underlying the failure of all these small businesses—understand all these small businesses, we're talking about millions upon millions upon millions of new companies every single year throughout the world. If I had discovered, in fact, the secret, the solution to that problem, I could truly transform the state of economic development worldwide. That's what I saw in those very first months with Tom Travisano when we went to work on the question, "So why are we doing this, Tom? So why are we doing this, Tom? So why are we doing this, Tom?" And it was during those conversations that Tom and I began to have the conversation about our dream, our vision, our purpose, and our mission. The first four steps of what I've come to call the Eightfold Path. And the Eightfold Path is the secret, the solution to what, in fact, is absolutely fundamental and critical to starting up any company, no matter what the product, no matter what the service, no matter who is starting that company or why they're starting that company, they must say it clearly to love it clearly. As the founder of Apple said, "You've got to love it. You've got to love it. You've got to love it," Steve Jobs said. "You've got to love it if you're going to do it. Otherwise leave it behind." And if you love it, it then becomes your dream, your vision, your purpose and your mission. What is your dream? I ask every small business owner. What is your vision? I ask every small business owner. What is your purpose? What is your mission? And in the process of walking them through that engagement, of discovering that they don't have a dream, they don't know what the great result is they're there to produce, we suddenly become enmeshed in the question, "So if there must be a dream, what must it be?" And in the process, they begin to discover it. TONY: Michael, it does. It all starts with that dream. It all starts with that vision. You have something called the Dreaming Room. Is this where it starts? Is this the embryo for that? Or could you explain that for us? MICHAEL: Absolutely. It starts in the Dreaming Room. And the Dreaming Room is in fact, constitutes the first four steps of the Eightfold Path. Let me define the Eightfold Path. Let me define why the dream, the vision, the purpose, the mission. An entrepreneur is really four different personalities. An entrepreneur is a dreamer, a thinker, a storyteller and a leader. In order for that dreamer to begin to function, he or she must possess a dream. That's the great result they're there to produce with the company they're to create. So what is that great result? In our case, Tom and mine, I defined that great result—to transform the state of small business worldwide. That's the reason the Michael Thomas Corporation is founded. That's the great result we set out to produce. Our vision then was to invent the McDonald's of small business consulting services. The McDonald's of small business consulting services. Why McDonald's? Because McDonald's was the most successful company of its kind on the planet. The perfect system for producing an absolutely predictable result in the hands of kids at minimum wage doing it, doing it, doing it, doing it. "Let me show you how it works. Let me show you how it works," Ray Kroc said. "Now you do it. Now you do it, now you do it, now you do it." He had a dream. He had a vision. He had a purpose. Our purpose at the Michael Thomas Corporation was that every small business owner on the planet could produce a company as successful as a McDonald's franchisee by simply pursuing the model we provided them to work on it, not in it. We said, "Work on it, not in it." We said, "Have a dream, have a vision, have a purpose. And what's your mission?" And our mission was to invent the business development system that would enable us to realize our dreams, realize our vision, and realize our purpose. Those were the first four steps. And within those first four steps, we had constituted what we called the Dreaming Room. The Dreaming Room is a process we deliver to small business owners by the tens of thousands to give them an experience of discovering their dream, their vision, their purpose, their mission. Those are the first four steps of the Eightfold Path. I'll go on and describe the next four steps so you understand how the enterprise is born and grows. TONY: Absolutely amazing. And those are the first four key steps for any business start-off. And it sets the stage for success. And it's part of that. I do want to hear the other four steps, but I'm also very interested in how you see entrepreneurship. How do you define it? How do you see where businesses should go and what they should be all about? Basically, how do you look at entrepreneurship? MICHAEL: Well, entrepreneurship is the critical key to creating a company that works. Entrepreneurs are creators. It said, "We're born in the image of God." It said, "We're born to create." And if we're born in the image of God, in other words, born to create, then we're born to create a world fit for God. Entrepreneurs have created a world fit for God. Their presumed passion is the passion for creating great results to produce great life and vitality. Produce methodologies that make it possible to replicate those great results again and again and again in the hands of ordinary people who haven't a clue how to produce those great results. But once learning how to produce those great results through the utilization of a system that produces those great results, are then fortified in the process of doing that. What an absolutely profound experience to go to work in a small company and to learn how to become effective at skills you never thought you would possess, because the person who has led the way to create that methodology has made it possible for you to perform at a level far beyond anything you ever imagined before. That's what our great entrepreneurs have done. Every great entrepreneur on this planet has done it in his or her own way. All we have done is to find the process by which one grows a small company into a significant enterprise. And that process is what we call the Eightfold Path.

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INTERVIEW – PART 3 (THE EIGHTFOLD PATH – NEXT FOUR STEPS) TONY: All right, we're back on The Tony D'Urso Show, where you can learn from the wisdom and success of others to help you move on your vision path. Today's show is The E-Myth Revisited with Michael E. Gerber. And now let's get back to the chat. Let's finish up on the Eightfold Path and tell us more about the process, its importance, its success and everything. MICHAEL: We have everything—our computer, our lights, our wall, our building—everything has been carried on the backs of entrepreneurs and has brought these products and services to us. Literally everything we have, we have because of entrepreneurs. We have everything we have because of entrepreneurs. What Walt Disney called Imagineers? Our entrepreneurs are our Imagineers, our creators who have seen opportunities that the rest of us hadn't seen, and then persisted in the process of discovering how to produce those opportunities in ways that we hadn't even imagined. And so that is a process, a developmental process. First, I have a dream, which is a picture of the great result. Second, I have a vision. It's the form my company must take in order to produce that great result. Third is the purpose—the process that will enable us to realize the form. Fourth is the mission—that that process will take. Fifth is the system. Applying this methodology for growing that dream, that vision, that purpose, and that mission toward the evolution of an enterprise. The evolution of an enterprise starts with the fifth step. And the fifth step is called your client fulfillment system. The job we go to work on our small company to create—the job. The job is the client fulfillment system. The client fulfillment system is who we are and what we do, how we do it. It's the product at the heart of our great growing company. Once we have designed that system, that client fulfillment system, the way we deliver what it is we're here to bring to bear on the marketplace, we go to the next step in the process, which is called the practice. So we now have completed the job and the client fulfillment system. This is who we are. This is what we do. We're now going to create the practice with lead generation, lead conversion and the client fulfillment system, which is our franchise prototype. The practice is our franchise prototype—lead generation, lead conversion, client fulfillment. The three core systems of every great growing company. We go to work on the practice, turnkey the practice and get ready to create a business out of the practice. So think about this. Imagine that you're in the chiropractic services. So your practice is the methodology through which you generate a lead, convert that lead, fulfill that lead by delivering your service from your very first chiropractor. The business now comes into being by replicating that chiropractor up to seven times. The business is that chiropractor service delivered up to seven times in the hands of seven chiropractors with lead generation, lead conversion and client fulfillment, plus a turnkey business management system. So think about the first business is replicating that chiropractor, replicating that accountant, replicating whomever, whatever that service is that you're bringing to bear on the marketplace, replicating that restaurant, replicating whatever that might be up to seven times. Why seven times? Because that's the perfect arena for control. So we're now building our business. Seven chiropractors, each and every single one of them delivering the absolutely perfect turnkey capability that our chiropractors are noted for, and the management system that enables us to be assured that, in fact, that chiropractic service being delivered in identically the same way that our brand says it will. We're now ready to grow our business into an enterprise. In fact, in the creation of an enterprise, we now have to create a leadership system. And that leadership system is for the purpose of replicating the business seven times. Replicating the business seven times. Meaning forty-nine turnkey practices with management, with leadership, with orchestration exquisitely designed to enable us to invent our McDonald's again and again and again and again. And using that Eightfold Path, what we have discovered is that the application of that Eightfold Path to every kind of company on the planet, we've been able to literally transform the state of small business worldwide. And so when you ask me, "So why did I persist with this?" Who can imagine doing anything more inspiring than being able to literally transform the performance of millions upon millions upon millions of entrepreneurs throughout the world in over one hundred and forty-five countries, as we've done. There's nothing that can quite equal that in my mind's eye. TONY: That is brilliant, because every small business in the world can use this system and become a big business. It's absolutely brilliant. You really got to get your mind around it. It's almost like getting a new level of reality. It's a whole different ball game. I really liked it.

INTERVIEW – PART 4 (WHAT IS THE E-MYTH?) TONY: And before we get a little bit further, I would be remiss if I didn't ask because not everyone has read your book, which they should read, but people are probably wondering by now, what's the E-Myth? Where does that fit in and why is it revisited? So perhaps we could cover that to make sure that we do that in the time that we have. MICHAEL: I'd be delighted to. So the E-Myth is the entrepreneurial myth. And essentially it's what I discovered when I went to work in Bob's little business that, in fact, the vast majority of people who own and operate their own business aren't really entrepreneurs at all. They're what I've come to call technicians suffering from an entrepreneurial seizure. Most small businesses are started to get rid of the boss. In short, you're working for somebody else. You can't stand the job. You say to yourself, "I got to do something for myself. I got to do something for myself. I can't bear this idiot anymore." And so they go out and they start their own business. To do what? To do what they know how to do. What do they know how to do? What the technician does. So the chiropractor starts a chiropractic practice in which he or she is delivering their chiropractic service in their small company. Or an accountant, or an attorney or a restaurateur or an HVAC contractor. You name it. They do what they know how to do, and they do that every single day. Completely absorbed in the process of the technical work they have mastered doing. The problem is they've never learned how to build a business to do that. And as I said to you about Bob, Bob didn't understand the logic of the need for a selling system. Bob had never been taught that a selling system was critical if he was ever able to be able to replicate the results any one of his salespeople were capable of producing. He needed to be able to take in that capability that the very best of his salespeople possess and package it. And by packaging it, I mean incorporating it into step one, step two, step three, step four. The profound methodology that exists at the heart of every brilliant system. In short, just like at McDonald's, "This is how we do it here." And so I learned that the very first experience I had attempting to fix the problem in Bob's business began to see what the problem really was in Bob's business. And the problem wasn't that there was an absence of a system in Bob's business. The problem was, Bob. Bob was the problem in Bob's business. Bob's belief system was the problem in Bob's business. Bob's need to be the center of attention in Bob's business was the problem in Bob's business. I had to fix that problem, which meant I had to fix Bob. And in the process of fixing Bob, I had to discover a way to communicate with Bob so Bob could suddenly address what his problem truly was. "Bob, the reason your business doesn't work is because you haven't learned how to design, build, launch and grow it to work. That's what I'm here to teach you how to do."

SPONSOR BREAK – SHOPIFY TONY: This is The Tony D'Urso Show, where you can learn from the wisdom and success of others to help you move on your vision path. Just ahead, the chat continues about The E-Myth Revisited with Michael E. Gerber. But first, it's time for us to take a short break. See you back here in just a moment. I love that sound. That's the sound we've all grown up with. That indicates a sale. Some of us may remember the old cash registers that require you to input the amount of the sale on that big machine, and then you pull a handle. When the handle is pulled, you get that bell sound and the cash drawer opens up and it's the sound of another sale on Shopify. The all-in-one commerce platform to start, run and grow your business. That's S-H-O-P-I-F-Y. Shopify gives entrepreneurs the resources once reserved for big businesses, so upstarts, startups, and established businesses alike can sell everywhere, synchronize online and in-person sales and effortlessly stay informed. Scaling your business is a journey of endless possibility. When I first started podcasting, I didn't have much to sell. Now I provide podcast marketing services, consulting, and of course, I've written a few books. And with Shopify, the sky really is the limit because you can sell a myriad of items. You're an entrepreneur. So what do you have to sell? Custom watches that you made? Shoes with unique logos on them? Clothing items? Go ahead and search for what to sell on Shopify and you'll be amazed at the suggestions. Perhaps that will stimulate you to create another great selling product. Because success is a million milestones on a forever-evolving path. And I love how Shopify has the tools and resources that makes it easy for any business to succeed, from down the street to around the globe. Like mine, Shopify powers over one point seven million businesses. From first sale to full scale, you reach customers online and across social networks with an ever-growing suite of channel integrations and apps including Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest, and more. And synchronize your online and in-person sales. And you gain insights as you grow with detailed reporting of conversion rates, profit margins, and beyond. It's more than a store. Shopify grows with you. This is possibility powered by Shopify. Go to Shopify.com/Tony, all lowercase, for a free fourteen-day trial and get full access to Shopify's entire suite of features. Grow your business with Shopify today. Go to Shopify.com/Tony right now. Shopify.com/Tony. That's S-H-O-P-I-F-Y dot com slash T-O-N-Y, all lowercase. Try it today and tell me how you like it. Shopify.com/Tony.

SPONSOR BREAK – TALKSPACE TONY: Here's a topic that we probably didn't take too seriously many years ago, but now it's a completely different world. The world is full of fear. It's on our media, radio, magazines, newspapers, you name it. There seems to be so much fear going around that it just oozes out in the air. How did that happen and what do we do about it? Let's talk about something that you may not have given much thought about in the past, but now it's a necessity. That topic is mental health. Yep. Mental health. It's time for you to get a therapist. Yeah. A therapist. You know, meeting with a therapist should be as ordinary and judgment-free as going to the dentist or getting a personal trainer. I love that Talkspace makes it easy to connect with a therapist privately and lets you message whenever you need to. It's all the benefits of therapy without the hassle of setting appointments and waiting a week or more between conversations. If you've wondered about therapy but aren't sure where to start, you need to check out Talkspace. That's T-A-L-K-S-P-A-C-E. At Talkspace, your privacy and security are their number one priority. The app puts you in a private room with just you and your therapist. You can send messages twenty-four/seven and get replies throughout the day. No need to wait for a weekly appointment. Talkspace encryption and added security features keep your conversation fully protected. Let's do this. Join Talkspace today and start moving forward with a single message. Just visit Talkspace.com and get one hundred dollars off your first month when you use promo code Tony at signup. That's one hundred dollars off at Talkspace.com, promo code Tony. That's T-A-L-K-S-P-A-C-E dot com, promo code T-O-N-Y. All right, check it out today and tell me how you like it. Talkspace.com, code Tony. ANNOUNCER: This is the Voice America Influencers Channel. Be inspired. ANNOUNCER: You're listening to The Tony D'Urso Show with special VIP guests. Now back to Tony and his guest.

INTERVIEW – PART 5 (WORK ON YOUR BUSINESS, NOT IN IT) TONY: All right, we're back on The Tony D'Urso Show, where you can learn from the wisdom and success of others to help you move on your vision path. Today's show is The E-Myth Revisited with Michael Gerber. And now let's get back to the chat. Michael, at the beginning, you mentioned how Bob asked you to help him with the business and he was bringing in leads. He had clients, but they weren't converting them. Is that the thinking process that someone just gets caught up in that they can't see the whole thing? They have something that works for them. They have an idea, they get it going, but it's not necessarily complete. The way I see it, it's not the full way. And I'm thinking about, well, how is Bob really a problem? Because statistics tell us most businesses fail. It's absolutely astounding how many businesses we're told statistically just aren't around anymore. Why are we blocking that? We have the idea. We put it together. We sell a product. We sell a service. What is that block? Is there—we haven't gone to an upper level. I'm just trying to think with this a little bit more as well. Perhaps you can help fill that in. MICHAEL: Well it's very, very simple really. The reason Bob started his business was in fact, the antithesis of what Bob needed to think of to start his business. Bob didn't go to work on his business. Bob went to work in his business. Bob was an essential gear within the machine of Bob's business. Take Bob out and the business was out of business. There was no business without Bob, meaning there was no business with Bob. Bob was simply a mechanic working inside the machine. His presence was absolutely critical for that machine to continue doing what Bob intended that machine to do. Bob fashioned a job for himself, not an opportunity for himself. And so every single small business owner does identically the same thing. They build a business based upon their own personal skill. My message to Bob was, "Get the hell out of there. Get the hell out of there. Look at your business, at this opportunity from a distance, from afar." So I had to bring them up to the top of the company to look down upon the company so they could have a vision of the company in such a fashion that they could suddenly see an opportunity that they could design, build, launch and grow. A business, a great company is, for all substance of reasons, an idea. That idea is critical to the life force of that company. The problem was when Bob was so intrinsically tied into the work of that business, it no longer was an idea. It was a job. It's what he had to do every day just to survive. And so I had to bring him to see that. "Bob, together, we're going to go to work on the company apart from you, not a part of you in such a manner that we can design it to work in the hands of ordinary people, using a system that will design, build, launch, and grow together. Let's watch that happen, Bob." Unfortunately, Bob did allow that to happen and the result was stunning. TONY: That's brilliant. That's the process we have to replicate ourselves because as you say, if we stop working for any reason or go on vacation, the solopreneur, the entrepreneur, everything kind of stops in a way, unless we replicate ourselves with the process and keep the business going. So process is really key here, am I right so far on that? MICHAEL: Process is critical. Process is critical. For example, your show right now, us doing this depends upon Tony to do it, to do it, to do it, to do it. So Tony's created a job for himself and it's called The Tony D'Urso Show. And here's Tony at the heart of the show. If Tony gets hit by a car tomorrow, there is no more show. Hear me, Tony. There is no more show. So then the question becomes, so what to do about that? And that means suddenly you approach it in a completely different manner. So making it personal, making it personal, Tony, is the most effective way in the world to make the point. And I'm making that point to every single person who owns their own small business right now as they listen to us. And I'm saying, so what does Tony do when Tony can't be here tomorrow? The show stops. Just like with every other entrepreneur that builds a job around themselves. It's a great job. They can make good money. TONY: You got it, you got it. But they go on vacation, something happens. Then what do you do? MICHAEL: There you go, Tony. Painful. Painful, isn't it? TONY: It's absolutely painful. When you rise up and take a look at it. How does the show keep going for me to take off, or for anyone, for any entrepreneur out there to take off, take a break. But of course, you have to build and replicate it seven times. MICHAEL: Yes. Think about it. You have to invent a system and you let that system do the work. When Tony's not here, the system works, the system works, the system works. And in fact, you've done a great deal of that because it doesn't take Tony for the recording to be delivered. The recording's delivered no matter where Tony is. Folks, the millions of people who listen to your show don't have to have Tony there because Tony's able to replicate the show technologically. So the show shows up at every specific time of the day and the week of the month and so forth and so forth and so forth. So effectively, the technology does it for you. So that's how we break free, Michael. That's how you break free, Tony. TONY: Very interesting concept there for a podcaster where the audience is used to that host and that host's style perhaps, but that could still be replicated as well. The style, the show, the format—that could all be replicated. Very, very interesting. The only thing holding us back would be a false assumption or a consideration, or some sort of internal blockage that would make someone afraid or not quite afraid or just uncertain that they could actually pull that off and replicate what they do in their business. MICHAEL: Afraid. Afraid that I can't. Afraid that it won't. Afraid that if I'm not there, what'll happen? Afraid that if it loses me it won't be the same. Afraid that, afraid that, afraid that. And effectively, fear is what drives most choices in most small businesses constantly. Because the technician lives at the heart of doing it, doing it, doing it, doing it, doing it. Busy, busy, busy, busy. And all I'm saying is you have to overcome that fear. And the only way you can overcome that fear is to understand the logic of the story that I'm sharing with you. Understand? Ray Kroc created McDonald's. Ray Kroc wasn't there in the store. Ray Kroc didn't build the store around Ray Kroc showing up every day. McDonald's had an office down the street. Ray Kroc didn't turnkey the first store delivering hamburgers that Ray Kroc made. It made the burgers that McDonald's made. It made the fries that McDonald's made. It made the milkshakes that McDonald's made. It made it, it made it, it made it, it made it. It was McDonald's. Ray Kroc wasn't. That's an absolutely critical thing to understand—that the entrepreneur isn't the company. The company is the company. And the entrepreneur is the inventor of a company that works to produce a consistent result. That absolutely, predictably extraordinary result it intended to produce to shape its brand. This is who we are. This is what we do. This is how we do it. This is why we do it that way. That's why they call it a Big Mac, not a Big Murray. In fact, that's the point of the whole thing. TONY: The brand. Just to go off on a little tangent. When I was traveling through the south of France a few years ago, and I was looking for a place to eat and I saw McDonald's. I don't usually eat at McDonald's in the United States because I know all the restaurants. I know my choices. But I went to that McDonald's in southern France. I got myself a Big Mac and I'm very serious. I knew exactly what it was going to taste like, so I bought it. And I have to just say, it literally tasted just like the McDonald's down the street. I was very impressed. That is the system, the process, the whole thing. And that's what we need to do to take our small business up, up and up. You've expanded my realm myself. You know, here I am podcasting. I've built a good show. I've got, you know, I call it my empire. I've built it very good, but nothing like nothing like that whatsoever. And so that's now my next task, and I appreciate that you've opened up my eyes and ears and brain, and I hope you've done—and I believe you've done that for every single one of our people listening. I am so appreciative of all this knowledge, Michael.

OUTRO & SPECIAL OFFER TONY: And if there's anything else you'd like to mention before we end off, I would love to. MICHAEL: I want to keep doing—I want to do a series on this. This is such important thing. This is why I podcast—is to help entrepreneurs. And I just love what you're doing on this. TONY: Well, let's do this, Tony. I'm making an offer to you right here on the air. Let's put on a Dreaming Room. Tony D'Urso and Michael E. Gerber. Let's put on a Dreaming Room for all of the folks who join you and take them through the process of discovering their dream, their vision, their purpose, and their mission. We'll do it online—an online Dreaming Room. You can sponsor it, I'll deliver it, and we'll bring that to bear to everybody who you speak to constantly and literally transform the way they think about what they do. TONY: I would love that. That would be absolutely inspirational if we were to do that. I love that that follows my purpose line in helping entrepreneurs and small business growth and so forth. Absolutely. We're going to do it. So stay tuned because we're going to announce a Dreaming Room and we're going to go into your vision, your purpose, your objectives, your mission, your drive. We're going to help really open this up and really take it to another notch. Michael, I just have to thank you again. This has been really great. And yes, we're going to do that. MICHAEL: Thank you. I love it, my delight. And then I'll talk to you about how to replace yourself, Tony, and expand your show to include so much more while you're creating, creating, creating, creating, creating, creating, creating. TONY: Absolutely stunning, I love it. Thank you for joining me. Thank you for bringing me here. Thank you for having the time and the attention to really take it in. It's quite moving to me. MICHAEL: Thank you again. The honor is mine and we will talk again. TONY: Thank you so much, Michael. TONY: Thanks for hanging out with me while I featured an elite entrepreneur who took his vision to reality. What a great chat full of entrepreneur wisdom. The E-Myth Revisited with Michael E. Gerber. We talked about so many things—in no particular order, we discussed, well, it starts with your dream. Then you create your vision. Following that is your purpose and then your mission, your drive, your intention. And in my book, in my Vision Map book, that translates into setting about to accomplish your objective. It's so synchronous, it just fits and merges so well into that. We talked about practicing perfection, creating the same process, and repeating it over and over and over. Talked about the Dreaming Room, where it starts, and we're going to do something on that. I'll talk about that a little bit more in just a moment. We talked about how he defines entrepreneurship and the process, and its importance and use for success. And that's really how we break free—by replicating ourselves. All right. You have a great business. You're a consultant. You wrote a book, you provide a service, a product. That's great. You're selling it. That's great. You're making some money. That's great. But when you take a vacation or when you go off, then what? This is a whole new mindset to that. How do you break free? This is how you do it. We talked about false assumptions that one may have that get in the way and block and just really impact this. We talked about what is the E-Myth, the entrepreneurial myth and why we're revisiting that and what makes it so important. You know, entrepreneurs are responsible for everything you see that you eat, that you wear, that you drive, that you use—everything. And with that, stay tuned for some news on the Dreaming Room with Michael E. Gerber. I'm going to host and present that. I'm going to sponsor it. We're going to put that out and we're going to help you turn your small business into big business. So stay tuned for some news on that. And please remember supporting this show with a nice review and or some comments on the video platforms. And of course, you can go to TonyDUrso.com/Review for some instructions and some help. And if you have Apple Podcasts, I would love a kind review there. That would be really cool. And this is important—share this with a few friends to help them too. All right. Use this and let's help you move on your journey to success. Thanks. And remember, just take action. Success awaits those who persevere and remain steadfast despite the odds. So sow good seeds, do good deeds. And join me on the next episode of The Tony D'Urso Show. ANNOUNCER: We hope you've enjoyed this week's edition of The Tony D'Urso Show with his key influencers. Be sure to tune in again next Friday at 5:00 PM Eastern Time, 2:00 PM Pacific Time on the Voice America Influencers Channel.