Most entrepreneurs are merely technicians with an entrepreneurial seizure. Most entrepreneurs fail because you are working IN your business rather than ON your business.
Interpretation
Entrepreneurs often focus too much on daily tasks instead of strategic planning, leading to failure.
In this quote, Michael Gerber highlights a common pitfall among entrepreneurs: they become consumed by the technical aspects of their business instead of steering it towards growth and innovation. This 'entrepreneurial seizure' can lead to their downfall as they fail to spend enough time on strategic planning and development, ultimately compromising the long-term success of their venture.
In practice
This quote can be used during a business workshop to emphasize the importance of strategic thinking.
The only choice that leads small business owners to real success in their endeavors is the one that requires real thought. Understanding and building the systems they need within their company to afford them a framework of organization that can scale the business from a company of one to a company of one thousand.
Quit being 'busy' and start actively owning and operating your company, and you'll be able to understand where the money is coming from and how to make more of it.
Most people who go into business for themselves and, therefore, believe they are entrepreneurs, are doomed to struggle because they don't have a true Entrepreneurial Perspective. They have a Technician's Perspective.
The entrepreneur rarely thinks in terms of what he or she wants, but dreams about results - always results and nothing but results - that can solve someone else's problem or contribute to making someone else's life better.
Here's the problem with phones - they are a ready-made diversion from the considerably harder work of growing a business.
Your goal as an entrepreneur is to understand not only what your business does but the clients that it serves. If you really have your pulse on their needs and wants, then your 'absolute' failures are always going to have limits.
First gain the victory and then make the best use of it you can.
What defines 'success' - answering that question - is so important when you're growing up as an athlete. Success for one kid is different than for another kid.
The only certain means of success is to render more and better service than is expected of you, no matter what the task may be. This is a habit followed by all successful people since the beginning of time. Therefore I saith the surest way to doom yourself to mediocrity is to perform only the work for which you are paid.
I never started in boxing to be a British champion or a world champion. There are loads of world champions in Britain, and if you mention them to someone out there on the street, nobody knows who they are.
I've argued this with a lot of people in my life. When people say God blessed me with a beautiful jump shot, it really pisses me off. I tell those people, 'Don't undermine the work I've put in every day.' Not some days. Every day. Ask anyone who has been on a team with me who shoots the most. Go back to Seattle and Milwaukee and ask them. The answer is me -- not because it's a competition, but because that's how I prepare.
Stealing bases was put to me almost as a prerequisite for staying in the game. They didn't give me a handbook on how to do it; they said do it. Under those conditions you go out and develop your own handbook.
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