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The Book That Taught Me I Was Doing Entrepreneurship Wrong
Michael Gerber’s ‘The E-Myth’ helped me understand why I was struggling as an entrepreneur
This is part of the Marker series “Read Like a Boss,” where founders, CEOs, and leaders in business reflect on books that revolutionized their thinking, framed their career, or aided them in a crucial business decision.
When people ask what book has inspired me the most in my entrepreneurial journey, the first to come to mind is The E-Myth, by Michael Gerber (or The E-Myth Revisited, as the 2004 revised and updated edition is known).
There are thousands of popular business books out there, many of them aimed at entrepreneurs, so what’s so special about E-Myth?
For starters, E-Myth debunks the idea of the entrepreneur as a lone, heroic figure who is an expert in a specific field and builds a business on the basis of that expertise. Gerber says that if you’re an entrepreneur who sees yourself this way, you’re making a fatal mistake: assuming that “if you understand the technical work of a business, you understand a business that does that technical work.” So, the musician thinks they are qualified to run a music store; the hairdresser thinks they know how to run a successful hair salon.
