I just finished the book The E Myth Revisited for the second time. It's a great book about small businesses. It dives into all of the issues that make most small businesses fail, and talks about how to avoid them, or fix them if you already have problems.

The author, Michael Gerber, tells a story about himself in the book that was so eye opening for me. He talked about his experience in life with business. He tells of a time when he got a job in Silicone Valley. He had a brother in law that was in business consulting who got him the job. After Michael got the job, "He was dumbfounded by the magnitude of his ignorance. And yet, something called him to stay. They asked him, 'How can you help me?' He answered, 'I don't know.' They asked him, 'What do you know about my business?' He answered, 'Nothing.'

Michael said that it was at this time in his life that he realized something big. "The curtain lifted between the world that was theirs (the business people) and the world that was his...It was then that he realized with a suddenness that make him giddy that, while he didn't understand their business, neither did they!" He goes on to say, "No one knew what he had believed they knew. That everything was just like he had thought it was, a mystery, but that he wasn't the only one who didn't know what was going on. What he learned in Silicon valley is that no one knew what was going on! It was completely open to interpretation."

I really believe that is one of the things that holds people back from following their dreams. We believe that so many people around us have it all figured out. And that's crippling to us. It's crippling because of the fear that someone around us who has it all "figured out" will see us fall on our face while we're trying to chase a dream. It's crippling because we don't view other people in the reality that they live in. We lift them up on a pedistal. The Donald Trumps and Warren Buffets, we think they're superhuman. But in reality, they started in the same place that we are or have been. They started with fear of failure, being crippled by the curtain in front of their eyes, thinking that they didn't know as much as the others around them. But somehow they got past that fear, and no doubt defied what most of the people in their life would call impossible.

The book closes with this paragraph, "The curtain is your Comfort Zone. And your Comfort Zone has been the curtain you have placed in front of your face and through which you view the world. Your Comfort Zone has been the tight little cozy planet on which you have lived, knowing all the places to hide because it's so small. Your Comfort Zone has seized you before, and it can seize you again, when you're least prepared for it, because it knows what it means to you. Because it knows how much you want to be comfortable. Because it knows what price you are willing to pay for the comfort of being in control. The ultimate price, your life. So if this new path, if living with your spirit, means anything to you at all, if you truly care about it, then guard it with your life. Because Comfort overtakes us all when we're least prepared for it. Comfort makes cowards of us all."

Gosh that's good. That last line, "Comfort makes cowards of us all." I whole heartedly believe that. It's a book about business, but it can be applied to anything we do in life, with business, relationships with God, relationships with friends and family. Comfort paralyzes us. Comfort makes cowards of us all!