AS I told you earlier, I’m working through the book “E-Myth Mastery”. Here’s my first installment:

Becoming an entrepreneur is about finding the real passion that is made evident through the practice of entrepreneurship.

A statement from Gerber that really hits home has to do with the entrepreneur or really the technician that goes to work in his business doing everything possible investing his life, family, resources and future to:

“get something he never clearly identifies or defines”

The entrepreneurial frustrations described definitely mirror my experience. For three months or so, I’ve dreaded wednesdays. In fact wednesdays have brought the closest things to panic attacks that I’ve ever experienced. Well to be entirely accurate it’s not every wednesday, it’s every second wednesday. The day the payroll company takes money out of our account to pay our employees. In the few years that we’ve been operational, our payroll has become larger every two weeks than quarterly sales were in our first year. A few more weeks like this and I will have memorized the phone number of our account manager at the bank. Unfortunately she already knows my voice before I identify myself.

Having read the E-Myth several years ago, I thought that everything was about systems, but maybe I’ve gotten the proverbial cart before the horse. So that’s what I’ve worked on, but maybe the FIRST step is more about defining the LAST step clearly.

BUT… here is where my personal dilemma lies. I have never been very successful at writing a vision. Actually the more I think about this, the truth is I haven’t been very successful at creating a COMPELLING vision. O yeah, I’ve worked on a vision statement or two but nothing that really compels or encapsulates passion and with all the reading and research I’ve done, I can’t seem to grasp how to do that. No problem with getting a definition of what vision is.

I envy guys like Ben Yoskovitz who (at least from my perspective) do a great job of defining where they are going. A friend of mine who has started a successful church in San Diego talks about the simple vision that is a key to their success.

Are there some hints or suggestions that work for you? I’m sure several of you have successfully developed a vision statement or something that defines where you are going. How did you do it? Are there important steps you took? Would you share them with me and the rest of the readers? Let’s talk!