The Personal MBA A World-Class Business Education in a Single Volume

Excellent book Josh's writing style is simple, funny and right to the point. He explains many of these MBA concepts simply for all readers to understand.

I didn't quite know what to expect but it is has gone beyond my expectations! I will re-read it to have clarity on some things. Also, behavioural economics has been noticed in the book, quite genius.

Amazing collection of concepts, mental models, ideas and advice about business. The best part of it is that at least half of the concepts are valuable in personal life as well. I highly recommend everyone to read this book! [reading time: 14h30m]

The premise of this book is that business schools don’t teach you most of what you need to know. Master the basics by practicing the fundamentals of business: create something people want or need; tell them about it so they’ll buy it; deliver on the promised value and exceed their expectations so they’ll keep coming back; and make enough money to keep doing it long term. Why this is better than a real MBA: As to methods, there may be a million and then some, but principles are few. The man who grasps principles can successfully select his own methods. The man who tries methods, ignoring principles, is sure to have trouble. This good Emerson quote came up, "You don’t need to know it all. Instead learn a solid base of core principles." If you put the same amount of energy you’d spend on an MBA into doing good work and improving your skills, you’ll do just as well. In the end I decided to skip business school, but not business education. I can outthink people smarter than me because I’ve trained myself to be objective and multidisciplinary. Random cool thing: in March 2019 I found out that the author, Josh Kaufman is my "grand-coach" if you will. He was the first business coach to Akshay Kapur, my business coach. Cool beans! 😎

I liked the book's easily-digestible format, but I didn't find it terribly useful overall. Worth the read, though.