I first read book, The E Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber and encountered his ideas on the Primary Aim when I decided to focus my consultancy and coaching business away from big businesses and towards business owners and entrepreneurs.
This introduced me to the idea that the business owner has a unique opportunity to design and build a business that can help deliver the perfect life.
It’s an opportunity many business owners never think about so they never get to grips with designing a business that really works for them.
Your Primary Aim
Your primary aim answers the question of what you want to do in your time on earth.
Not just in business but in totality.
What do you want to do for you?
For your family?
How Do You Find Your Primary Aim?
You need to ask yourself and answer some fundamental questions that you’ve never stopped to think about before.
- “What do I want from my life?”
- “What do I value most?”
- “What do I want to be remembered for?”
Michael Gerber suggests you imagine projecting your life forward and attending your own funeral.
A gloomy thought but “What do you want your eulogy to say?”
Deciding Where You Want To Go Gives You The Chance To Intentionally Design Your Life And Business
Answering these questions is your chance to intentionally design the life you want to lead.
Until you know what you want from your life, it’s not possible to design your business in a way that it will work for you rather than you working for your business.
Until you come up with your answers for what you want in your personal life, the insatiable demands of your business on your time and energy are likely to overwhelm your family life.
A business owner who wants to play a full active role in the life of his three children needs to design a very different business from someone who doesn’t want children or even to get married.
A business owner who wants to retire at 50 years old on the proceeds of selling the business, needs to be much more aggressive in the business building stage than one who can’t imagine retiring. Reducing hours yes but retiring no.
The Difference Between Ordinary People And Great People Is Living Intentionally
You can start seeing the difference between great people and ordinary people:
- Great people create their lives actively. They make things happen and live life to the full
- Ordinary people have their lives created for them. They passively wait for things to happen and then react in the best way they can.
Working On Your Primary Aim Will Help You Have A Great Life
If you spend the time to think about your Primary Aim, write it down and discuss it with the important people in your life, you can start to change and in future, live your life intentionally.
The advantages are that you will have:
- A clear purpose of the life you want
- A surprising amount of energy
- Renewed enthusiasm.
In his chapter of The E Myth Revisited, Michael Gerber shows that lives can change by discovering a purpose. He tells you his own story of how he drifted from job to job until he suddenly found his calling.
This is your chance to put the YOU back in your business.
What Is Your Primary Aim?
I urge you to take the time to write down to think about what you want to achieve in your life.
You can always change it in the future but please find clarity on what will make you happy and feel successful.
Fixing Your Business – Your Strategic Objective
Your primary aim feeds into what you need your business to do for you.
Just as employees have a contract that makes it clear:
- These are the responsibilities:
- These are the rewards
You need the same kind of statement.
What is your deal with your business?
The E Myth system calls this the Strategic Objective for your business.
For more information, click the link to
>>> Your Strategic Objective: Design Your Business To Be Right For You.
Learn More About The E Myth
I recommend that every business owner reads The E Myth Revisited at least once for these ideas about your primary aim and strategic objective. The writing style may not suit you but you should persevere.
You can buy the “E Myth Revisited” from Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com (affiliate links or see my review).
My Approach
I want to share with you the best ideas I’ve found for building a success business.
Sometimes this means leaning heavily on people who have influenced me like Michael Gerber.
I prefer to give credit where credit is due, rather than take the concept of your Primary Aim and turn it into your Ideal Life and claim to have thought of it myself.
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