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The Entrepreneur As Dreamer

Written by: Michael Gerber

Article Overview: I have written so many words on this subject, but it never seems enough. How to describe in a way that you can feel it, what it means to dream an enterprise into existence?

The Entrepreneur As Dreamer

I have written so many words on this subject, but it never seems enough. How to describe in a way that you can feel it, what it means to dream an enterprise into existence? Not a business, mind you, not a practice, but an enterprise. For after all, that is the dream of the E-Myth Entrepreneur, to grow an enterprise. A substantial, expansive, world class company that touches many millions of people. For that is what an enterprise is: it is a world-class company that touches millions of people. It is a world-class company that does what it does in such a profoundly brilliant way, that people are drawn to it, excited by it, in ever-increasing numbers, to the point where it has become a leader in what it has chosen to do.

Please don’t be put off by this hyperbole. You may not have such vivid dreams as a Sam Walton did. Or a Bill Gates. Or an Anita Roddick. You may not think of yourself in such grand, expansive and impossibly large terms. You may not even feel comfortable in pursuing this subject with me, given how out of the ordinary it is. How beyond the pale of normal it is. How inconsistent it is with your every day experience, your every day sense of self, your every day getting up in the morning and going to bed at night, hoping to make a passable living in between. It may in fact seem to be a pipe dream to you when I speak of such entrepreneurial giants as Bill Gates and Sam Walton and Anita Roddick. I hope that’s not the case, but I’ve found it to be the case with tens of thousands of business owners, would-be entrepreneurs, the self employed, the unemployed, the wish-they-were- employed-by-somebody-else-folks who think woefully to themselves when accosted by such big thoughts, overblown ideas, grandiose expectations as the ones I’ve started this column out with. On the other hand, it may be that your discomfort with reading this column is not really discomfort at all, but simply that you’re ill at ease when I propose that there are bigger things in store for you than the ones you have chosen. If you’re open to what I’m about to propose, that is. Much bigger things. Much, much bigger.

Which is what I mean after all when I say that Entrepreneurs are Dreamers.

Entrepreneurs dream, otherwise they are not Entrepreneurs.

Entrepreneurs live in their imagination, fused to their imagination by their passion for creating great, extraordinary, unimaginably striking companies.
Entrepreneurs like Henry Ford, and Walt Disney, and Westinghouse and J. Paul Getty. Entrepreneurs like the man who designed the Golden Gate Bridge, and the Eiffel Tower and the Pyramids and the Great Wall of China. Entrepreneurs dream. They dream of a world which does not exist today. They dream of a world of unimaginable splendor. They dream of huge machines, of huge buildings, of structures that defy the imagination. And yet, somehow are only created within the imagination, within the entrepreneurial mind, within the heart of fire that lives in every true entrepreneur’s breast.

Which is to say that you too dream.

Which is to say that dreaming is something every human being on the face of the earth does, whether in the privacy of his or her mind, whether in the public venue, whether you dream aloud or quietly to your self…dreaming it is, and dreaming it will always be, for as long as your feet touch the face of this earth. You will dream.

Isn’t that remarkable? Isn’t it an astonishment? That you and I were put here on earth to dream, to imagine, to evoke through your God given inspiration, a vision, a picture, a reality that no one else has yet seen?


So, now, ask yourself this question: What is my dream? What do I imagine? What is my purpose here on the face of this earth?

And when you do, I say, listen. Listen to the answer. Listen to what comes forth from you. Listen, and then listen again, and then listen again. And then, smile.

See you next time. Let me know what happens.

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Article Tags: anita, bill gates, business mind, business owners, e myth, entrepreneur, existence, expansive world, giants, grandiose expectations, hyperbole, pipe dream, sam walton, sense of self, tens of thousands, vivid dreams, world class company



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