It’s not dodge ball, but it reminds me of it!  Stay with me, you’ll get it too!

We’re on our final day of reviewing Michael Gerber’s E-Myth Mastery.  In a couple chapters he talks about wrestling with a stranger and the purpose of purpose.  So, let’s look at the wrestling with a stranger option first.  What happens when someone wrestles?  It is physical, hard and challenging.  Each move you do, there is often a counter move the react – and with that counter move, comes another move from you.  Why would one want to wrestle?  To challenge themselves?  To know they are the best in the circle?  Why wrestle in business?  So you can defeat someone?  Or so you can become stronger?  Find someone to wrestle with in your ideas, so that you can come out of the circle stronger!  Find the counter moves that can take you down and learn what you can react with.  This doesn’t come easy.  Don’t find someone who can be easy on you, find someone who will challenge you, even possibly defeat you in the match.

What is the purpose of that?!  What is the purpose of possibly being defeated?  It is where you will be tested the most. It is where you will be challenged the most, just like in business and in your passions.  People often tie their passions with a purpose?  I share Gerber’s ideology that passion is separate from purpose, but it is understandable that people end up linking the two.  We need purpose in what we do, to determine if it is cost effective, reasonable or even just.  So when we spend time on our passion, we decide we must find a purpose for it.  But do we?

And now, dodge ball – it’s a game – a simple game.  It is a challenge and often an unfair challenge, depending on your team.  Like many games, what is the purpose?  What is the return on investment for it?  What is the reason we play the game?  Because at the end of it we are different.  Not extremely, unless you’ve been able to win the Dodge ball championships which are aired on ESPN – the Ocho.  But you are different afterwards.  You have been challenged in the game and you have more than likely enjoyed the experience.  Could be purpose for dodge ball really is as simple as this: it was a way to enjoy the time?

Could the experiences you seek, be as simple as a good way to enjoy the time?  Could your entertainment be as simple as that?  Chances are those who you entertain are looking to pass the time. They are looking for you to challenge them in forgetting the challenges of the day and just find a good way to pass the time.  Chances are those who you entertain are looking for you, to be their dodge ball.

Ready?  Dodge ball!

We’re back today with the latest chapters of our E-myth Mastery, by Michael Gerber.  Now, we look at the need to create room to create!  As we look at our own passions and our own desires to continue to be creative, do we often set time and opportunity to do this?  How are you most creative?  Why are you most creative?  Are you entertaining people when they ask you to?  Are you only entertaining after the curtain goes up?  How do you create, from a blank canvas to a colored picture?

We must set not only time up for this but more-so opportunity.  How can we create new, when we are stuck on yesterday’s plans?  How can we succeed today when we’re only thinking of tomorrow’s ideas?  The answer is in the balance of all this.  The book tells about a great story where a woman was a little girl who would go into her room at the end of the day to draw or write.  She would lock everything from the day out of her room and just go to her blank piece of paper.  The girl would create ideas and dream.  Imagine if she only stayed in her room and did this all day every day.  There would probably be concerns of this?  Imagine if she always held the stresses of the world with her every waking moment of the day, when would she find strength to recharge?  Do you recharge?  Do you create?

Find the time in the day, where you can create again!  Find time in the day when you can allow yourself to be creative and opportunities where you can dream, with no goal, no deadline and no requirements.  That is creation.  Creation doesn’t come with guidelines; it comes with nothing and ends with everything.  Whether you are in business or entertainment – or the entertainment business – having time to create for yourself can allow you to be reminded of things once forgotten and be introduced to what has never been, yet.

We continue our study of Michael Gerber’s E-Myth Mastery in our blog.  Are you a reluctant entrepreneur?  Did you once have passion for something but it has fizzled?  Was it too hard?  Was it not what you expected?  Where there too many other distractions from the original passion that you couldn’t remember what you loved about it?

Here’s a match, let’s talk.

A great point made by Gerber is that in each one of us, is an aptitude for striving and our passion is what fuels that.  The key for us is to understand our passion and what makes it work, including when it ignites and when it fizzles.   How do you understand your passion?  Do this exercise with me, to find out the unsubtle and subtle shades of your passion.  Take out a blank sheet of paper – don’t do this in your head…see your passion.  Take out a sheet of paper and write out the answer to these questions….

1. What is your passion?
2. What do you do right now to feel that passion?
3. What clouds your passion (causes it to fizzle)?  What do you often have to do, even though you don’t enjoy doing it, to do your passion?
4. When you are in the fizzle stage of the passion, how long does it stay away?
5. What can you change in those causes of fizzle, to keep your passion ignited?
6. What is your passion?

Walk through this exercise.  After you read your answers, you may see there are parts to the process that are not needed.  But most importantly, don’t forget your passion.  Also did the definition of your passion change, when you wrote it the second time?  Hmmm?

Here at NATECo, we are taking some time to study, E-Myth Mastery by Michael E. Gerber.  Since “we bring fun ideas to life”, we often like to understand how we can do that better and how we can make NATECo a stronger, better company for our clients to succeed with is.  The teachings of Gerber in his E-Myth books are always entertaining and insightful for any business, large or small!

So for the next couple weeks, we thought we might translate soem of Gerber’s teachings and concenpts in his E-Myth books about business, with the business of bringing fun ideas to life!

The first of our postings is about Passion, Purpose and Practice.  Gerber explained in one of the first chapters how passion is the life force that drives what we do.  This is true for NATECo.  We are a company with the goal to make people smile.  Whether this is for entertainment, education or just a brighter and more successful day.  Our passion is performance!  But to be able to perform, whether in business, on a stage, on a court or anywhere else – it takes practice.  Consider the example of the 9th inning.  Any Yankee fan will smile when they think of how many times their beloved Yankee hitters have stepped up to the plate in the bottom of the 9th, with the winning run at the plate and the end result is a playoff win for the Yankees!  *Noted, any non-Yankee fan like myself has probably just shut their computer off.  And to the Boston fan reading this, my appologies for causing you to throw your computer!

That success from the pin-striped athlete doesn’t come from just luck or natural talent.  At that level, at any level it comes from practice.  This goes for the same thing in businsess and certainly performing.  This is even more true for a mascot performer.  Some can get in the suit and entertian.  It comes from the first rule I will always say, “have fun”.  It’s clear when the performer is having fun.  But when the level of ability moves from having fun, to true and consistant entertaining, that comes from practice.

Finally, comes the pupose.  What is the reason you are doing what you are doing?  Performing, working?  It is driven by your passion.  This passion can be directly related to your current work or it could be another passion – family, free-time, etc.  But your passion drives the purpose inwhich you practice and finally perform.

If you would like more tips on how to tie your passion with a purposeful practice, contact us at NATECo.  We bring fun ideas, to life!