Business Guru, Best-Selling Author of "The E-myth Revisited" Helps Advance Chabad's Mission

Best-selling author Michael Gerber is a small business guru whose book The E-Myth Revisited has sole over 1,000,000 copies. His successful consulting firm has offered professional advice to roughly 50,000 firms around the globe to help them reach their potential.

Now Gerber has offered his expertise to Chabad free of charge. His goal is to define and standardize a set of best practices that can be implemented at local Chabad Houses worldwide, giving each Chabad representative an easy-to-use blueprint based on the collective wisdom of their colleagues.

As a result of Michael Gerber's efforts, the emissaries of the Rebbe will be able to serve their communities even more effectively -- and the organization as a whole will be able to expand more rapidly.

At the 2008 West Coast Chabad Kinus (convention), Gerber spoke about what drew him to Chabad, and what he hopes to achieve through this collaboration. The following is excerpted from his keynote speech:

I am 71 today, having gone through 31 years of never, ever truly believing I was a Jew. I want you to hear that. I'm the one that you keep calling on. I know I'm the on that you keep on calling, I know I'm the one who doesn't listen, I know I'm the one who doesn't look. I know I'm the one who frustrates you down to the depths of your soul because your soul is called by the Rebbe to do the work you've been doing with such passion, such commitment, such zealousness, such heart, such Jewish fever.

I was born a Jew. I was Bar Mitzavah'd. I lived in a Reform household. But you've got to understand that I never truly became a Jew until the day that I walked in to meet Chabad and suddenly came face to face with the soul, my soul, connected to your soul. When I suddenly thought, "I've come home."

I read about you, and I read about what was missing in my life. I read about you and what was missing in my life, but most of all I saw the face of the Rebbe. And when I saw the face of the Rebbe something said to me, "I know that man." Something said to me, "This is why I'm here." Something said to me, "This is what I've been doing all my life. I've been getting ready, I've been practicing. I've been practicing what I've been doing to bring that to life at Chabad."

I want you to know that I'm out talking about you. I want you to know I'm out talking about the Rebbe. I'm talking about the miracle of Chabad and the thousands of Chabad Houses around the world. I'm talking about a spirit that's missing everything I look, in every business I've every walked into. I'm teaching them how to crate great companies, but the thing that is missing is their heart. The thing that is missing gin their heart is G-d. And the thing that is missing in that place is everything you know to be true...

I've written eight books now. My first seven books were E-myth books. The E--Myth is the entrepreneurial myth, and it essentially says why all small businesses fail... Most small businesses die. Most small businesses are not businesses at all -- they are started not by entrepreneurs, but by technicians suffering from an entrepreneurial seizure.

A dream, a vision, a purpose and a mission are what's absolutely essential and what is absolutely missing in almost every business we've worked with. And we've worked with tens of tens of thousands of businesses in 145 countries around the world. There was no dream. There was no vision. There was no purpose. There was no mission. And I come here to Chabad and I suddenly discover the dream. Oh, what a dream! People who have a dram! People who have a vision! People who have a purpose! People who have a mission!

I'm here to commit my body and soul to this idea that Chabad will grow, and you will learn to grow it 10 times faster than you have ever grown it before.

I've been watching and I am here for only one reason... because you have moved. And I'm going to move heaven and earth to make certain that my dream, my vision, my purpose, my mission comes in service to the Rebbe, to Chabad, and to you.