First Lines of Michael Gerber's "The E-Myth Revisited"

 "The E-Myth is the myth of the entrepreneur. It runs deep in this country and rings of the heroic. 

Picture the typical entrepreneur and Herculean pictures come to mind...

The legend reeks of nobility, of lofty, extra-human efforts, of a prodigious commitment to larger-than-life ideals. 

Well, while there are such people, my experience tells me they are rare."

- Michael Gerber, "The E-Myth Revisited"

Recommended as an excellent summary of what it means to work ON a business (as opposed to working IN a business), Gerber's book is extremely enlightening for someone who is trying to start his own business. Amongst a ton of insights, the most valuable one for me (so far) are the three integral business personas needed to be successful:

1. Entrepreneur. The one with the vision, that dreams of what the business could be.
   
2. Manager. The one that takes care of the tactical nuts-and-bolts of making the business run.
   
3. Technician. The one that does the work, that creates the product or deliver the service.

Many small businesses are started by technicians who dream of being their own bosses. But without cultivating the other mindsets, such people may be doomed to ever-increasing workloads without achieving the goals they set out for the business.