Consciousness and Conscience are similar in their respective spheres, one being in the Intellectual Center, the other in the Emotional Center. Consciousness is Knowing all together; Conscience is Feeling all together.
—Maurice Nicoll, Psychological Commentaries
I’m sure that countless businesses in this country have responded enthusiastically over the past several years to the clarion call for a return to those worthwhile puritan values of service, excellence, and caring. To the creation of “vision statements” and “mission statements,” and “values,” and the nurturing of their “corporate culture.”
You know who you are.
Unfortunately, I’m also sure that, despite the initial fervor such clarion calls create, most of these businesses operate the same way today as they did before the flag was raised, with equally slipshod service, mediocre performance, and as greedy and self-serving a mind-set as ever.
That’s because neither service, excellence, nor caring can be produced by executive fiat, or by wishing it so.
Tom Peters and other such gurus can rail all they want. It won’t make any difference.
The adoption of service, excellence, and caring as strategic options—as slogans—to revive a dead or dying business is not only antithetical to the true meaning of those words, but as cynical as anything our Machiavellian minds can produce. In short, it won’t work.
Service, excellence, and caring are not something you can do anything about. They are a state of mind.
When a business is bereft of such qualities, it is because its founders, its owners, and its managers are bereft of such qualities.
They don’t care to serve.
It doesn’t bother them that their performance is less, by far, than excellent.
They don’t care about the business because they simply don’t care at all.
That’s why such words fail to work for them, indeed for most companies that attempt to adopt them for their own purposes, to their own strategic ends.
Because the cynical use of true human values always produces exactly the opposite of what was intended.
True human values cannot be adopted for the expedient or the pragmatic. They are not “tools” with which to develop a “management style.”
They are values. They are beliefs. They are how one views the world. They are either a part of us, or they’re not.
They cannot be tried on like a suit, the right color, the right shape. They are not there to be used. They can’t be. They won’t tolerate it. There is something fundamentally obscene about even trying to.
So, to create an E-Myth Enterprise, you—the founders, the owners, and the managers of companies everywhere—must already possess an E-Myth Perspective.
And if you don’t already have one, you’re in deep, deep trouble.
Those who possess an E-Myth Perspective are what I would call pragmatic idealists. They are never happy with anything less than perfection, but they measure perfection by its unparalleled ability to produce practical results in the world.
Pragmatic idealists are not sentimental.
They are driven.
They are not patient.
They are often unkind.
Pragmatic idealists do not pander to the comfort zone in people. They do not make it easy for people to get by.
My saxophone teacher was a pragmatic idealist. He lived in a world of perfection, but he practiced achieving it in this world. He could hear the perfect tone in his head. He could imagine the perfect scale.
I doubt that he ever was satisfied, however, with any of his students, or with himself. Yet he loved what he did and what they did. It was his passion and his paradox.
He would listen to Charlie Parker with awe, yet he could hear every flaw, every inarticulate statement, every failure to touch the sublime, the perfect, the absolute.
And as much as he held Charlie Parker in awe, Merle could not forgive him for his indifferences, for his lassitude, for his unwillingness to give it his all.
That is the dark conflict—that exquisite yet tragic tension between the possible and the impossible—that lives within pragmatic idealists.
They are hopelessly stuck in a less than perfect world, in a world in which most people quit long before pragmatic idealists even get started. Yet it is not other people who drive pragmatic idealists to desperation, who are continued disappointments. It is they who disappoint themselves most of all. They are forever lost in their own failings.
As good as they are, they are never good enough—never smart enough, never disciplined enough, never sensitive enough. Yet, in their minds, they are always on the edge of something—a breakthrough, a discovery, a find of existential importance.
Pragmatic idealists in business know what the drive for excellence is all about. They invent it. They are its slaves. They cannot imagine any other way to live. Excellence is not a word to them. It is not a strategy, but a feeling, a passion—a profound idea. It courses through their veins.
I’m talking about tough stuff.
I’m suggesting that great companies become great companies because they are headed by great people who don’t feel their greatness, and never will.
Great companies, E-Myth Enterprises, are headed by great people who are possessed by a burning hunger to create something perfect in the world that they can’t find in themselves.
And they can’t help themselves.
It’s not something they do out of choice.
They are completely possessed.
They are caught up by an idea that continually eludes them, that hovers tantalizingly just out of reach, that can’t be perfectly seen or apprehended, but that promises to reveal itself at any moment if the seeker will just extend himself or herself one step more.
In other words, the E-Myth Perspective, the desire to create a great company, or a great saxophonist, or a great automobile, or a great garden, is not for the fainthearted, the weak, or the sentimental.
It takes everything one has, and more.
It is both a blessing and a curse.
Understand, I’m not talking about heroes here.
Most often, these people are unbearable to be around.
If they are impeccable in one thing, they are often disasters in another.
They are walking contradictions.
Rink Babka, for over two decades one of the top ten discus throwers in the world, told me that his coach, Dink Templeton, one of the most brilliant coaches the world has ever known, “smoked like a chimney, drank like a fish, and swore like a trooper.” Yet when it came to the sport, there was no one more dedicated, more possessed, more committed to perfection for his boys.
It is no secret that Walt Disney was a dope when it came to business finance. If it had been left up to him, his business would have failed a dozen times.
It is no secret that Ray Kroc held permanent grudges, insulted his people, and was known to throw fits of temper like the worst adolescent.
It is no secret that Steve Jobs controls every aspect of the so-called Apple Experience, from the clean, crisp, no-nonsense design and layout of Apple stores, to the urgent “open me” (yet environmentally sound) sense and simplicity of the packaging of products, to the elegant and utilitarian design of the products themselves.
Yet, while all these things are true, there is brilliance about such people—a vital edge that distinguishes them from everyone else. You can—or could—see it in their eyes.
That vital edge comes from the fact that they are driven by ideas.
Ideas reside at the heart of the E-Myth Perspective.
Those who are possessed by the E-Myth Perspective are driven by ideas.
Ideas are the food by which such people are nourished, revitalized, and given the life they crave—ideas of such awesome size, temper, and quality, that they are compelled to re-create them, to give them physical form, to give them presence, to give them substance, to give them reality in this world.
Discussing his novel A Good Day to Die, author Jim Harrison explains that the title was borrowed from Indian lore:
That comes from the Nez Perce saying, the whole idea you have to be morally and spiritually, as a warrior—whether you’re a writer or businessperson—you have to live so correctly that you can wake up in the morning and look out and say, “Today is a good day to die.” One very rarely is in that kind of shape, but it’s a tremendous thing to be able to say.
How many of us have lived “morally and spiritually as a warrior”?
How many of us have lived so correctly, that we could, if faced with death, let go of our lives without regret, completely empty, devoid of shame, regret, longing?
What does it mean to live correctly?
What would a warrior businessperson, a warrior merchant, be?
It’s not the business at all.
The whole idea falls apart if it’s tied down by a business.
The whole idea becomes unthinkable if it’s tied down by the idea of Cheez Balls, or Ritz Crackers, or Jell-O.
The whole idea of the E-Myth Perspective isn’t tied down to the commercial reality of what our business is doing; it exceeds it.
It raises it up.
An E-Myth Enterprise doesn’t make Cheez Balls.
Because Cheez Balls are not something a person can feel good about.
No matter how hard he or she tries.
And if he or she could feel good about Cheez Balls, it’s already too late.
No, if there could be such a person as a warrior merchant (and we’re just pursuing possibilities here), I would imagine that he or she would be able to discriminate between Cheez Balls and other more worthwhile things.
An essential component of the E-Myth Perspective is that what a business creates—the commodities or products it sells or chooses to develop for sale—is critical to the values inherent in the business itself.
Because making Cheez Balls has no inherent value, and is of value only because of the money it creates, and because creating money by making Cheez Balls must ultimately degrade one’s dignity—one’s sense of personal human value—the warrior merchant we are speaking about (if there could be such a person) could not live in such a state. He or she would not wish to be found by death in such a state. It most certainly would not be “a good day to die” if that were the case.
How could anybody choose Cheez Balls as their intentional fate?
I’ve watched an iron man win the Iron Man contest.
I’ve watched a slight, wiry woman climb straight up a mountain.
I’ve watched a monster of a man win the heavyweight title by soundly whipping a man-sized monster.
I’ve watched a whip-fast master defeat another whip-fast master with one stroke in karate.
I’ve watched a master violinist hold an audience in thrall.
On the other hand, I’ve watched Marino Santos use more of himself, while touching more people more permanently than any one of these five ever did or ever could.
Yet, to the world, any one of the five might be considered nobler than Marino Santos, because their efforts would be considered to be more worthwhile.
I disagree.
I believe that Marino Santos invented a new paradigm of service for the world.
I believe he heroically exceeded the limits imposed by the existing paradigm and, in the process, by being diligent, conscientious, interested, deliberate, and intelligent, holds the potential to positively affect—if all else goes right—the emotions, standards, behavior, and quality of life of millions of people by his example of doing ordinary work in such an extraordinary way.
I believe he took more of himself to task than most people ever will. He extended what he found to the outside world, creating a new model of behavior, a new rigor of attention, a new level of consciousness, both intense and relaxed at the same time.
I know in my heart that Marino Santos would never make Cheez Balls.
You know it, too.
There must have been a moment in time at the beginning of the free market system, when the human mind and the human heart were asked, “Cheez Balls or not, what do you think?”
And the human being responded, “Screw it, Cheez Balls it is.”
This was a moment when something inoffensively trivial inserted itself into the human equation as significantly more important than it was; when something much less trivial—something so big in us we couldn’t get our arms around it—found no justification for hanging around, so we sat down on the sidelines stuffing Cheez Balls into our faces instead. They were so easy, so available, so tasty—so dead.
What is it about us that makes it so easy to be so self-indulgent?
What is it about a free market system that seems to breed Cheez Balls like flies?
What is it about us in a free market system that never grows tired of yet another variation on the Cheez Balls theme, whether we’re poets, philosophers, mathematical giants, computer programmers, dentists, doctors, college professors, truck drivers, or poodle clippers?
In a free market system, somehow “Pass the Cheez Balls, please!” always wins the day.
But, wait a second, Cheez Balls aren’t the problem!
It’s this thing about dying.
It’s this thing about always being prepared to die today.
It’s about having lived so impeccably, having lived so correctly, having carried oneself with such presence, such dignity, having lived with such awareness, such inner vitality, such grace, such intensity as if “a fire were raging in your hair.”
It’s our choice of being that’s the problem.
It’s that which separates the E-Myth Entrepreneur—and Enterprise—from all the others.
It’s the warrior merchant’s penchant for living in a state of grace.
I know a man who can sell anything, and has. I’ll call him Murray, but that’s not his name. (He knows who he is if he is reading this.)
There is something about Murray that disturbs me.
He has the eye of a pirate. You know what I mean: it has a certain slant to it. It shines like a hard black stone caught just right in the sun—as if you could walk the plank for all he cares; it has nothing to do with him.
Yet Murray believes he is exactly the opposite of that.
Murray believes in himself and what he does.
Murray is all business, and business is all Murray.
As I said, he can sell anything, and has.
To Murray, there is no difference between things.
He is totally devoid of values.
But he doesn’t believe that about himself.
He believes he has values; he talks about them all the time.
He believes that he is a scientist and that he truly understands what people want.
He believes that he is a scientist of the passions.
He has made a study of them. He has discovered the words to use to provide people with what he believes they want. He has discovered the way to provide people with the illusion that they’re getting what they want. He has found a way to believe that what he does is important. Murray is a magician.
He sells this service to people. He calls it marketing.
Murray doesn’t care what they do with it, so long as it interests him. That is one thing that’s interesting about Murray: although he will sell anything, he won’t sell anything that doesn’t interest him. It has to present a unique problem, it has to be difficult to do, it has to present Murray with a real challenge, and it has to have the potential of making Murray an awful lot of money.
If it won’t make an awful lot of money for Murray, it doesn’t matter how big a challenge it presents.
To Murray, everyone has to be someplace. It really doesn’t matter where, as long as it’s worth Murray’s time.
Murray sits in a big fat chair at the heart of American business.
These words won’t let me go.
Attention, concentration.
Intention, discrimination.
Balance, organization.
Excellence, innovation.
Touching the world, communication.
These words are values; these values are words.
They are at the heart of the subject at hand.
Although you might think I’m taking a circuitous route in dealing with the issues of what makes a great business, I’m simply not doing it in a businesslike way.
But that’s just the point. I have never seen a great business that does things in a businesslike way!