The Personal MBA: A World-Class Business Education

Book: The Personal MBA - Josh Kaufman

If you are reading this book, it may be because you want to do something important: start a business, get promoted or bring something new to the world. It is also possible that certain variables are preventing you from reaching your dream:

Business anguish The feeling that "you hardly know anything about the business world" and, therefore, you can never start your own business or take more responsibility in your situation. Better stay in the same place than face the fear of the unknown.  Fear of titles. The idea that "the business world is very complicated" is a topic that is better left to the "experts" of solid training. If you don't have an MBA or a similar and equally expensive degree, who are you to say you know what needs to be done?   Imposter syndrome. The fear of ending "with water to the neck" and thinking that it is only a matter of time before they unmask him and discover that he is an imposter. Who likes fake people?

The good news: we all suffer from these unfounded fears, and they can be quickly eliminated. All you have to do is learn a few simple concepts that will change the way you think about running a business. Once your fears are overcome, you can undertake any project.

If you are a business owner, designer, student, programmer or a professional who wants to master the rudiments of a solid business practice, this book is for you. No matter who you are or what you have set out to do, you will discover how to properly set up a business that will help you spend less time overcoming your fears and more to everything relevant.

It is not necessary to know everything Regarding the methods, there may be a million or more, but there are few in principle. The man who understands the principles is right by choosing his own methods. The man who is testing methods, ignoring the principles, will have problems.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, American philosopher

The most beautiful thing about learning any subject is the fact that one "does not need to know everything", only to understand some very important concepts that give him the essentials. When one starts from a solid foundation of fundamental principles, it is much easier to expand knowledge and make progress. Personal MBA is a set of business concepts, the cornerstone on which to build. Reading this book will give you a solid foundation of business knowledge that you can use to make things happen. When you master the rudiments, you will achieve the most difficult business objectives with surprising ease.

Over the past five years I have read thousands of books about the business world, I have interviewed hundreds of professionals, I have worked for a corporation that appears on the list published by Fortune magazine about the 50 most profitable companies, I have I have set up my own company and have been an advisor to others, from companies with a single employee to those that employ hundreds of thousands of employees, multinational corporations that bill billions of dollars in benefits. During all this time I have been compiling, debugging and polishing my findings until I gather the concepts I present in this book. Understanding these fundamental principles will provide you with reliable tools to make sound decisions in the business world. If you invest the time and energy necessary to learn these concepts, it will not be difficult for you to be among the privileged 1% of the population that already knows:

    How business really works.
    How to start a new business.
    How to improve an existing business.
    How to use business-oriented skills to achieve your personal goals.

Think of this book as if it were a filter. Instead of trying to absorb all the information about the business world that circulates around, and there is a lot of information circulating, rely on this book to learn the most meaningful and thus focus on what really matters: make things happen.

No experience required

People always overestimate the complexity of the business world. You don't have to be a genius to understand it; We have chosen one of the simplest professions in the world.

Jack Welch, former president of General Electric Don't worry if you're an absolute beginner. Unlike many other books on the business world, it does not require previous business experience or knowledge. I guess you are not the president of a large company that spends the day making decisions of several million dollars, (j Although this book would also work if it were!)

If it is the case that you have business experience, such as several of the clients that I have all over the world and that have an MBA degree issued by some prestigious school, you will find that the information contained in this book is more valuable and practice that everything you had to learn to get the title. Together we will explore 226 simple concepts that will help you conceive the business world in a completely different way. After reading this book you will have understood exactly what, in reality, companies "are" and successful companies "do."

Questions, not answers

Teaching is not the answer to the question. Teaching is the medium that allows you to find

Answer to all questions. Bill Allin, sociologist and education activist

Most books about the business world try to spread the idea that it is necessary to have more answers, and one goes from technique to technique, and from method to method. This book is different. It will not give you answers, it will help you elaborate your questions better. Knowing what is fundamentally significant in every business is the precondition for making good decisions. The better you ask the essential questions in your current situation, the sooner you will find the answers you need to move forward.

Mental models, not methods
The limits of my language are the limits of my world.
Ludwig Wittgenstein, philosopher. To improve your business techniques you don't need to learn from everything: it is amazing how far you can go if you master the rudiments. I will call these business concepts the cornerstone on which to start building, "mental models," which, taken together, create a solid and reliable framework from which sound decisions are made.

Mental models are concepts that represent our way of understanding "how things work." Imagine you are driving a car: What do you expect when you press the right pedal? If the car slows down, it would be surprised; The pedal is supposed to accelerate. This is a mental model: the idea that we form of how things work in the real world. Your brain forms mental models automatically when you notice patterns in your daily experiences. However, often the mental models that we form are not exact: we are people, and as individuals, our experiences and our knowledge are limited. Education makes our mental models more precise by internalizing the knowledge and experiences that other people have gathered throughout life. A good education helps you see the world in a different and more productive way.
For example, many people believe that «starting a business is risky», that «to start you have to design an impressive business plan and ask for a very high loan», and that «in business it counts more who knows what you know» . Each of these phrases is a mental model, a way of describing the functioning of the world, but these models are not exact. Correcting your mental models can help you reflect more clearly on your performances, and doing so will help you choose better.