Two fantastic sources for entrepreneurs are The E-Myth Revisited¹ by Michael Gerber and Rich Dad's Cashflow Quadrant² by Robert Kiyosaki. Gerber's book is accurately sub-titled: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It. He examines the small business and the entrepreneur, and his results are intuitive but important.
As Gerber says, "The technical work of a business—and a business that does that technical work—
are two totally different things!"
Take the general contractor as an example: Building a house requires a far different skillset than advertising a business and keeping the books. That's not to say the contractor shouldn't go into business for himself, but rather that he must put on his businessman's hat when he's working on his business. The same is true for any profession.
Kiyosaki goes further by dividing the enterpreneur from the business owner. He believes that while being one's own boss may seem preferable to being someone else's employee, still better is to have
no boss, but rather to own the business and be able to go on vacation without the business suffering.
When the self-employed electrician gets sick, his business stops. When he wants a vacation, he doesn't get paid time off. He
is the business, rather than the business
owner.
The "Business Owner or Self-Employed" quiz that Kiyosaki offers is just one question: Can you walk away from your business for six months, and come back to have it running as well as, if not better than, before? If not, you're technically just an employee of your own business.
The freedom that comes from working for yourself is just the first step towards true financial freedom. If that's as much your dream as it is mine, I hope we can help each other along the way.
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