The Personal MBA: Master the Art of Business

When you consider what else you can do with the $15 or so it costs to buy this book, the value proposition feels downright ridiculous. For $15 you can buy 3/5ths of a baseball cap, order a round of watered-down drinks or pick up a 1/3rd of a video game. Or, for the same price you can get over 350 pages of clearly explained, entertainingly presented, essential business concepts that will directly and meaningfully enhance your knowledge of business. If you're new to business, it will take the stark raving terror out of the process. If you're a veteran it will help you focus and enhance any venture you're working on and likely inspire more profitable ideas.One of the many stories Josh tells in the book is of a hospital that incorporates simple checklists to prevent infections from developing in patients. These checklists include basic things like reminding doctors to wash their hands. Though almost laughably simple and obvious, the mere act of incorporating the checklists lead to the complete elimination of infections at this particular hospital. The Personal MBA book is the ultimate checklist for all business decisions - as an entrepreneur, investor or even as someone running your own career and household financial system. Anyone who reads this book will have a practical guide to avoiding financial catastrophe and identifying the most promising opportunities. If I had this book a decade ago I would have saved myself from a very unfortunate business experience that cost me over $50,000 in losses and limitless wasted energy.Josh, who is stunningly still under 30 years-old, has a wisdom far beyond his years. He is fiercely intelligent and despite a very pleasant demeanor as a writer, he is a rebel in the best sense of the word. His tone is always moderate, respectful and his arguments are always meticulously researched, expertly and passionately presented. He talks softly but he carries a big intellectual stick. Make no mistake about it. The title of this book is not a gimmick. He thinks business school is a terrible investment and clearly has walked the talk, building a successful career without it. He has a gift for simply articulating complex concepts and has a deep-seated passion for analyzing systems, particularly the workings of the human brain. His tone is never cloying, condescending, egotistical or obnoxious - as so many heinous business and management book titles are. He presents his views with an inspiring confidence that will fuel your business or business-to-be. While reading it I constantly had to put the book down to jot down new ideas.Think of it this way. After absorbing what Josh calls the "mental models" in this book you will find the world of business presenting you with opportunities everywhere you go. It is a lot like buying a car and then seeing that model everywhere. As you adopt the mental models into your own thinking you will feel a shot of inspiration and be empowered to act thoughtfully, and confidently. I recently interviewed for a job and couldn't help but notice interactions that were playing out exactly as described in the book. You know that scene in The Terminator, where Arnold Schwarzenegger sees a menu of options scroll down before his eyes? And he chooses his response from that list? This book is like having a long list of useful ideas to pull from as you make decisions.The concepts articulated in The Personal MBA helped me make progress as an entrepreneur (launched a Website that made a modest profit last year), landed a job in a completely different field that I enjoy and moved to a city better suited to what I really want. I highly recommend making the Personal MBA (both the site and the book) a major part of your studies. The risk is you spend $15 and sell it for say, $8, and lose seven bucks. The potential reward is you create a business you love, earn massive profits, increase your opportunities, avoid disaster and contribute something meaningful to the world through your business. If there's a better risk/reward profile for a $15 investment, I'd love to see it. The Personal MBA: Master the Art of Business

This book has been essential in my business training and helped me learn how to use my own brain effectively.

"You dropped 150 grand on an education you could have gotten for $1.50 in late charges at the public library." Matt Damon in Good Will HuntingIn The Personal MBA Josh Kaufman makes a very compelling case (as does Will Hunting) that for people considering an MBA, the economics aren't that great. For many graduate students (not just Business majors), it feels like a Casino: everyone takes the tests, and gets primed, then takes out a huge loan from the bank (often a six-figure amount) hoping that when they come out the other side, there will be an awesome, high-paying job waiting for them. It's a financial transaction, not really an educational one. In fact, much of the education gleaned from an Master in Business Administration is theoretical and marginally updated from the projects and Case Studies done in Bachelor of Business and Economics programs; after all, how can you possibly sit in a classroom and `learn' how to be a Manager, or an Executive? Of course you can't. But the schools are more than willing to let you try, as long as the cheques clear.Provided those cheques do clear (in many states in the US, the juice, as they say, is running the day you take your first class, not after you graduate), students can expect a marginally better income (in this economy? yuck) awaiting them on the other side; it turns out they're getting a crash course in finance after all! Ouch.In the beginning of The Personal MBA, Kaufman reveals something striking: research shows there is little evidence that getting an MBA has any correlation with long term success in Business. Top tier Business programs make sure that they only accept brilliant students, which is why many go on to greatness. Business schools make it their business to take credit for other people's work-namely, your undergraduate degree, and your having studied for the GMAT. In a perfect world, you'd be better off, studying for the GMAT, applying to Harvard Business, getting accepted, and then refusing to attend (and pay the exorbitant tuition, and 2 years of your life), then bragging on your CV that you were accepted at Harvard, and applying for a plum job with a Fortune 500 company, ready to put you through the Management training program.Why doesn't anybody do that? Because the MBA itself acts as a signal to help simplify the recruiter's job: he or she doesn't want to read 5,000 CVs. Reading 50 is a lot faster. It's that simple. Which 50 get the job doesn't really matter. When the eventual 20-something is hired, he or she will proceed to the actual training program, and begin to be molded into the perfect Hewlett Packard / Cisco/ Apple/ GE/ Nike/Starbucks Manager. That's right: real companies don't hire college grads and just plop them in a management or executive role. They have training programs. They have quarterly reviews. They promote you based on progress, not based on your GPA.Where else did you think you would learn how to be a Manager?Unfortunately there's no way around it. Since MBA students are required to pass the GMAT first, a fundamental understanding of business and finance is required before you set foot on a real campus. If the Personal MBA (book, and accompanying website) is going to attempt to replace an actual MBA, they must put the reader through the paces of very fundamental Business Concepts.Business and Finance majors (like myself) will find much of this familiar, but that shouldn't take away from Kaufman's impressive achievement here. He's taken 2 years of Education and compressed it into a fantastic 400 page reference material. Kaufman will hold up the six-figure MBA and declare that by buying this book you're effectively saving $99,982, but of course, you're not getting a piece of paper either.So for anyone who didn't graduate in Economics of Business,this book is a great summary of the definitions and concepts that took us about 4 years to get through. And it's pretty much the same material (minus countless case studies and Powerpoint presentations) you'd get from top-tier business programs.So what do I suggest for young career-minded readers?The point of an MBA, traditionally, was not for a 19 or 20 year old to `train' to be a manager (whatever that means) but for a middle-manager to train to be a leader in his current company. An ideal situation would be to get a job (any job) with a great company and work your way up, and eventually have your boss pay for your education. The company will consider the investment in human capital worth it if they see potential in you, and will also have you promise to stay with the company for at least a few years upon graduation, so they can benefit from their investment.Education is great. If I didn't believe that, I sure wouldn't have started a blog about it. But so is avoiding foolish six-figure debt. Consult your boss, and consult this book before proceeding.(PS. Yes, I've graduated from a post-secondary International Business program. That one came with a five-figure student loan, not six.)More reviews like this on 21tiger

I’ve had this book for 4 days and I can already tell I will need to use two highlighters throughout the duration of my reading. I cannot overstate how VITAL this book is if you are an entrepreneur and want to find out the steps to launch your business for success. The tone of this book is informative and encouraging, yet realistic to the core. It will tell you how to fail and how to succeed, so choose your hard. I have never read so much value in a condensed amount of time for only $15. But this book if you’re ready to change your life and are ready to propel yourself into entrepreneurship. This book is the Master Plan Blueprint to success but ONLY if you follow the steps. Deviate at your own risk.