Ten years ago Debra, a close friend of mine, set up a small catering business. She had just spent three years working for one of the country's top chefs, and felt it was time to break out on her own. Her first customers were neighbours and friends of the family. Knowing her customers wanted high-quality service as well as high-quality food, Debra made sure she was present at every single event, from start to finish.

Within a year, stories of her commitment to quality and her talent for innovative cooking spread, and she found herself with more customers than she had ever dreamed of. To her joy, she also found that her clientele had no problem paying her the above-market prices she was charging.

Fast forward ten years, and many things had changed in Debra's life. She got married, had two children and became renowned as one of the best chefs in the country. Business was strong, despite a recession, and Debra was planning to launch her own line of pastries as well as a café bearing her name.

One thing, however, hadn't changed: Debra was always there. From early in the morning till late at night, regardless of how many events she had per week, Debra never failed to stay with the customer until the end of the event, even if it meant going through one or more sleepless nights in a row.

What's going on here? Why is Debra finding that instead of having more time for herself and her family, she has to spend more time working than when she was someone else's employee? Why can't she find a way to keep on giving her customers great service without having to be present at each event? Why, to put it simply, is it so hard for entrepreneurs like Debra to get a life?

The answer lies in what Michael Gerber calls "The E-Myth": Most people who start businesses aren't actually entrepreneurs. They're technicians - accountants, chefs, florists, and doctors - people who are very good at their craft. One day, they decide they're good enough to start their own business. Sometimes, they even name it after themselves: "Andy's Bike Shop" or "Anita's Bakery".

Then they wake up from their dream to discover that the entrepreneur in them has all but disappeared. All that is left is a technician who's working harder than ever before.

The E-myth says that if you understand the technical work of the business, you understand the business that does that technical work. Unfortunately, those two are completely different things, as anyone who has ever started, or even worked in a small business knows.

The answer lies in transforming your business into a system. A system that can function without you having to be on site 24 hours a day. A system that enables you to take three months off, return, and find the business in as good, if not better shape than before you left.

To make such a transformation requires stepping back and thinking through three basic questions:

1. Why did you start the business in the first place?
Was it to have a more flexible life? To make more money? To have more responsibility?

2. Where is your business today?
Have you achieved your objectives? Have they changed since you started the business? What would be lost if you closed your business tomorrow morning?

3. What accounts for the difference between your initial dream and today's reality? Are you as good a manager as you are a technician? Are you capable of giving your employees enough responsibility? Do you secretly fear becoming less important for the daily functioning of the business?

The next step is to take the answers to these questions and create a vision for the future of your business. Then you need to take action by translating your vision into a pragmatic plan.

If this sounds too easy, you're right. The fact is, changing the way we do business is difficult. Very difficult. But unless we stop every once in a while and ask ourselves some tough questions, we might never get a life.

--> Read the first chapter of Michael Gerber's "The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It"