One of the most transformative ideas I help business owners understand is the distinction between working on your business and working in it. But what does that really mean? Put simply, it’s the difference between strategic and tactical work.
As we enter the last quarter of the year, many businesses are in their sixth month of working from home, and many business owners are still struggling with the remoteness of their employees. Every day, they’re asking themselves, “What are they actually doing from home?” and strategizing ways to encourage engagemen...
If you run your own business, you know your role is just as personal as it is professional. You care deeply about the outcomes of your business—the impact it has and the results it creates—so the natural impulse is to put yourself at the center of the action. You work around the clock to ensure that your team is w...
Employee Development Meetings are the key to unlocking your team’s potential. Our free guide gives you the instructions and tools you need to get started.
As a business owner, you’ve likely never experienced a year like 2020. The challenges have been complex and unfamiliar. And to keep business running, you’ve needed to confront each one head on. So has your team. While you’ve been focused on how to pivot, generate revenue, manage a remote team, and balance work and...
Joe Dibbits grew up watching his steadfast father carry every role and responsibility in the excavating business he’d started with a leap of faith. “My father started with a used machine that broke down so many times,” Joe says. “He knew he either needed to buy a new machine and continue on with the business or ju...
If you’re feeling stuck in your business, then one thing must be true: Your business isn’t living up to the picture you have of what it could be. And that means you have a dream business in mind, which is good. But have you ever written it down?
As many teams are returning to work in some form, business owners are facing an uncomfortable realization. The old frustrations with your employees—the ones you’d forgotten about, or maybe only realized through that period of unprecedented space from your team—are still there. The things that weren't working befor...
At the best of times, business owners struggle to step away from running their company to focus on themselves, on the things that refuel them and clear their minds. But a pandemic—or any crisis, really—makes it that much harder. Right now, at the time of year when most of my clients would be taking a much needed b...
It was a warm Friday afternoon at the end of June when we spoke to Maren and Christopher of Boothby Therapy Services, their child therapy services company in New Hampshire that uses their surname. They’d prepared us for the fact that they might be a little late to our call. They needed time to dock their boat—chee...
Your business is a reflection of you. In every way, shape and form—from top to bottom—your business reflects your courage and fears. It reflects what you care about: your ideals, values, beliefs, experiences, knowledge and decision-making. This powerful EMyth Principle appears in the beginning pages of The EMyth R...
Managing a business partnership may be the only thing more difficult than managing a business. Partnerships are hard for the same reasons that any relationship is hard. It takes diligence and work to bring together personalities, communication styles, and ideals. And if you want your partnership to serve your busi...
EMyth Clients Scott Present and MJ Navara never expected to have their own events company. For years, party production was side work, a fun hobby that made them some extra money. But after college, both gravitated away from the corporate careers they’d prepared for and back to something they were passionate about—...
For the last three months, the world has been in a constant state of disruption. In one way or another, you’ve likely had to adapt to extreme change. Most business owners are adapting for this moment.They’re thinking about how to survive the changes they’re experiencing right now, not how to thrive going forward. ...
In the current economic downturn, small businesses everywhere are suffering and too many will tragically close their doors permanently. For many business owners, it’s been a sobering lesson: Ignoring the practice of reviewing your company’s financial metrics is a high-risk decision with serious consequences. Numbe...
It’s easy to run a business in default mode, to operate reactively instead of proactively. Many business owners do it. They allow systems to develop by happenstance in their business rather than designing them with intention; they keep their business afloat on referrals and word-of-mouth instead of developing a Ma...
As the world continues to change and uncertainty abounds, you may be facing the big question, “When should I reopen my business?” Or, if your business has remained open in some form during the pandemic, maybe you’re asking different questions like, “Should I continue this new social media campaign I started to kee...