Himself mba kaufman. Experience is not needed. Why we decided to publish this book

01.11.2019

Josh Kaufman

My own MBA. Self-education 100%

Published with permission from Portfolio, a division of Penguine Group Inc.., and Andrew Nurnberg Literary Agency

This book is well complemented by:

My first business

James Caan

Startup management

Katherine Kathleen and Jaina Matthews

Let's break away

Cameron Herold

Vocation

Ken Robinson

From a publishing partner

My grandparents were real businessmen in those distant pre-war, military and post-war years. They were peasants and did not know the word "business". Their education consisted of two stages: Primary School(ability to read, write) and further - the school of life.

business game

Terms:

At the age of 20, my grandparents got married. Outside in 1924.

"Citizen", devastation. There is no food in the villages. There are private farms where something grows, and that can be taken away. There are almost no cattle (they were taken away or died). There are hand tools, of course: saws, shovels, axes, ropes. Living with parents is a NO. Firstly, there is nowhere (seven in shops), and secondly, there is nothing to eat anyway.

A task:

Survive. Build a farm. Give birth to children.

Now imagine yourself (from the movies) in this setting. Record that you are 20 years old. You don't have a roof over your head. You don't have a penny of money. You are newlyweds. Food is just under your feet. At the same time, there is no healthcare, the Ministry of Emergency Situations, Pyaterochka and Building Materials stores, transport, and work in the city. Around civil skirmishes.

The only plus is that to build a house you do not need to buy land or register with the chamber. He went to the edge of the village and lined up behind the last house.

Very briefly, schematically, I set out a detailed grandmother's story, how everything turned out for them further. The meaning of my presentation is to voice the grandfather's solution to this business problem.

So, the sequence of actions:

1. Spend the night - where relatives sheltered.

2. Then a forest, a log house, a small house under the guidance of a village carpenter. ( Grandfather learned how to fold a log house, fix rafters, etc.)

3. Then the stove, under the guidance of a local stove-maker. ( Grandfather learned to make stoves.)

5. Then a fire in the village. The house is burning down.

7. Grandfather builds a second house on his own (log house, stove, etc.). Relatives, who were built later, invite grandfather as construction consultant.

8. Then, with a new house, a barn appears in sequence with three zones:

- 1st zone - workbench, tools, sharpener, lathe, drilling machine, etc., that is, according to Marx - first we create the production of means of production;

- 2nd zone - energy block: a place for the preparation and storage of firewood and coal;

– 3rd zone – summer food storage. This is a cellar - a deep pit, which is clogged with ice in winter and serves as a refrigerator for food all summer.

9. And, finally, having a strong base, proceeds to the development of the economy. It was an endless chain of successive, unhurried actions that gradually increased the power and efficiency of the economy. Garden. ( Grandfather studied all the literature on gardening.) Boat. ( Learned to build a boat.) networks. ( Learned to knit.) Fishing. Subsidiary farm. Etc.

Grandfather constantly studied the intended direction. I started to implement, continuing to study a new business, adopting experience and reading books. Soon he became a machinist and then an instructor at the training school for the technical staff of the depot. In adulthood, grandfather and grandmother lived in abundance, were strong and independent.

The red thread in this story about the life of my ancestors is the fact of constant self-education and movement forward. In modern terms, grandpa and grandma were always in new projects and developments. This gave new knowledge, broadened horizons, introduced to a large number of people and created more and more “mental models” (the concept from this book), as close as possible to the “truth of life”.

And I remembered all this in connection with reading the wonderful book by Josh Kaufman "My own MBA". Suddenly, in my head, this "village" block of information that was stored in my brain under the index "interesting historical information" "resonated" with what I heard and felt in Kaufman's book.

This clear, very vital and wise book about business turned my mind to the origins, to a key moment. Business, or, in Russian, business (economy), at its root has a very important root cause. In the old days, people did business not because they wanted to exchange a one-room dugout in the forest with a view of a stump for a two-room dugout with a view of a swamp, but because one could die of hunger or die from the elements. Therefore, it was not necessary to think for a long time, and it was possible to study only “on the job”.

Nothing has changed in modern life. Statistics show that success in the modern world is achieved by purposeful people who show obsession, courage, and fiction. These people take action immediately, learning and adjusting their actions as they go, applying knowledge from different sources as appropriate, creatively, without losing common sense.

Successful people they build a business not like a computer game, with the feeling that if suddenly “game over, it’s gone”, you can go to the kitchen to drink coffee and think, “what else to stir up”. Successful people drive real tanks. And to drive a real tank, you first need to know only four buttons: how to start, how to drive, how to turn and how to stop. And then - years of stubborn independent training, analysis, work with masters of "tank" art and medals for really, but sometimes "you don't understand how" cities were taken.

These are the thoughts that are prompted by reading, I repeat once again, a very clear and practical book “Your own MBA”.

My sincere wishes for creative permanence to the author of the book, a deep bow to the team of the Mann, Ivanov and Ferber publishing house, which brought this book to the minds of Russian readers. useful information and to all colleagues, present and future. Self-confidence, optimism and faith in self-education!

Sincerely, Yuri Prostakov, CEO of I Can Teach, founder and head of the company "Studio Yuri Prostakov" www.i-can-teach.ru www.i-love-english.ru

Dedicated to the millions of entrepreneurs around the world who make life better to the best of their ability

Another business textbook? As if they were not written enough without you.

Customs officer at Kennedy International Airport after I answered a question about what I do

Life is hard. Especially if you're an idiot.

John Wayne, star of classic American Westerns

Since you are holding this book in your hands, I would venture to guess that you are either about to start your own business or you are looking for a promotion. And most likely, you still have not taken action, because the following reasons are holding you back:

1. Business "angst"(German angst- fear). The belief that you do not understand anything about business and therefore will not be able to create your own company or take on more responsibility in your current position. It is better to leave everything as it is than to overcome the fear of the unknown.

2. Fear of being incompetent. The idea that business is a complex thing and should be handled by professionals. If you don't have an MBA or a diploma from a prestigious business school, who are you to say, "I know what to do."

3. "Imposter Syndrome." Fear that you will not cope with new tasks and everyone will understand that you are just a liar. But nobody likes them, right?

Dont be upset. Everyone experiences these unfounded fears, and you can quickly get rid of them. To do this, you just need to learn a few simple rules that will change the way you think about how a business works.

If you Self employed, designer, student, programmer, or just a professional who wants to master the basics of entrepreneurship, this book is for you. No matter who you are or what you do, with a new perspective on business, you will no longer waste time fighting your own fears, but devote it to your cause.

It is not necessary to know everything

There are wagon and a small cart methods, but there are very few principles. One who has mastered the principles, it costs nothing to choose this or that method. But those who are looking for a method, not paying attention to principles, will have a hard time.

Ralph Emerson, poet and essayist

In the study of any new subject there is an important rule: you don't need to know everything; you just need to understand a few fundamental principles of the field. Once you master them, the process of accumulating knowledge will go much easier, and learning will become more successful.

"My own MBA" - it is a set of fundamental principles for the functioning of any business, with the help of which you can perform your tasks. Once you master them, you will be able to solve the most difficult problems and achieve the most difficult goals with amazing ease.

Over the past five years, I have read a huge number of books on economics and business, interviewed hundreds of professionals, worked in a corporation from the list Fortune 50, repeatedly opened his own business and collected information about various enterprises- from tiny, where everything is done by one person, to multinational ones with a huge staff and billions of dollars in profits. All this time I've been refining collected information and as a result formulated several main principles, which are set forth in this book. Understanding these fundamentals will give you a solid decision-making toolkit. If you are willing to take the time and effort to learn these principles, you will learn:

- how in reality business is running;

- how to open your own business;

- how to force existing business work more efficiently;

– how to use business skills and abilities in order to achieve a personal goal.

You can think of this book as a kind of filter. Instead of soaking up everything written and said about business, it can help you glean from seas information only the most important and focus on what personally will allow you to influence what is happening.

No experience needed

People tend to overestimate the complexity of a business. We are not building rockets - we have chosen one of the simplest professions in the world.

Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric Corporation

Even if you are a complete beginner, don't worry. Unlike most business manuals, this book does not require any special knowledge or experience. I don't think that I will be read exclusively CEOs large companies making millions of dollars worth of decisions every day. (But even so, this book will still be very useful to them.)

If you have business experience, take my word for MBA clients around the world: you will find information in this book that is much more valuable and useful than anything that is taught in business schools.

We will look at 256 simple concepts with which you will learn a completely new business way of thinking. After reading the book, you will have a much more correct and clear idea of what a business is and how to run it successfully.

Questions not answers

Education is not the answer to the question. Education teaches one to find answers to all questions.

Bill Ellen, sociologist, educator

The authors of most business textbooks try to give answers: to suggest a method or a solution to a problem. This book is different. She won't give you answers - she'll teach you how to bet questions. Knowledge of the most important principles any business is the first step to making sound business decisions. The more you learn about what questions to ask in a particular case, the faster you will find answers to them and understand what you need to develop your business.

Mental models, not methods

The limits of my language are the limits of my world.

Ludwig Wittgenstein, philosopher

In order to acquire new skills in the field of business, it is not at all necessary to strive to learn everything - it is enough to master the basics. I call key concepts business science mental models. Together, they form a solid system that you can rely on when making decisions.

Mental models are concepts that reflect your understanding of "how it works". Imagine you are driving a car. Here you press the pedal on the right. If your car slows down after that, it will surprise you, right? Because, as everyone knows, the gas pedal is on the right. This "known" is a mental model - a representation of how things work in the real world.

Your brain automatically forms mental models, noticing certain principles in what you do every day. However, the models formed in this way are often not entirely accurate, because the experience of one person, of course, is limited. Education is a way to refine your mental models by assimilating the knowledge and experience that other people accumulate throughout their lives.

For example, many believe that “starting your own business is a very risky step”, “to open your own business, you need to write a detailed business plan and borrow a lot of money”, and “business is about connections, not knowledge”. Each of these phrases is a mental model, but none of them is absolutely correct. Adjusting your mental models will help you become more clear about what you are doing right and what is wrong, and as a result, your decisions will be more accurate.

After examining the mental models proposed in this book, many of my clients have realized that their ideas about what is a business and how does it work, are not entirely correct - if they knew this earlier, they would not have to make such efforts at the beginning of the journey and spend precious time to unnecessary fears and worries.

Himself MBA

I am convinced that self-education is true education.

Isaac Asimov, science fiction writer, biochemist

I am often asked if I have an MBA. “No,” I answer, “although I went to business school.”

As a student at the University of Cincinnati, I took part in the Karl Lindner Honors-PLUS program, which was basically an undergraduate MBA course. The program was heavily subsidized, so I had a great opportunity to learn a lot of what they teach in business school without going into debt.

A year later, under the university's work-study program, I got a managerial position at Procter & Gamble - one of the 50 most successful companies, according to the magazine Fortune. In 2005, when I was graduating from university, I was offered the position of deputy head of brand management in the division dealing with household chemicals, - holders of MBA diplomas from leading educational institutions were usually invited to this post.

By the beginning of the last semester, I was much more concerned about the future than actually studying. Of course, new job required deep knowledge of business, and all my colleagues probably flaunted diplomas from the best business schools. For a while, I also thought about getting a special education, but then I decided that there was no point in spending a lot of money on a “crust”, which was necessary, in fact, only in order to get a position that I was offered anyway; besides, I would have had enough work even without a bunch of tasks that would have to be done during part-time study.

As I pondered what to do, I remembered the advice of Andy Walter, the first deputy director of Procter & Gamble, to whom I had to report: “If you spend as much time and effort as it would take you to get an MBA, Good work and reinforcing skills, the result will be the same.” (Andy didn't have an MBA, just an electrical engineering degree. Walter is now a world-class IT executive and oversees some of Procter & Gamble's biggest international projects.)

Many self-taught students will easily outdo PhDs, masters and bachelors from top universities.

Ludwig von Mises, Austrian economist, author of Human Action

I have always loved books, but before I decided to study business science on my own, I read mostly fiction. My childhood and early youth were spent in New London, a small town in the state of Ohio, whose inhabitants are mainly engaged in agriculture and some produce for their own needs. My mother works in a children's library, my father taught physics to high school students, and then became the director of an elementary school. So reading played a big role in my life, but business didn't play any.

When I got my first real job, I knew next to nothing about what a business was and how it worked—except, perhaps, that it was the kind of job people go to to get paid. The existence of companies like Procter & Gamble, I had a very vague idea until I applied for a position and stepped into the corporate world.

Working at P&G is a good education in itself. For the first three years, I had to make decisions that involved creating new products, managing the manufacturing process, allocating millions of dollars in marketing costs, and controlling the distribution of products through major retail chains like Walmart, Target, Kroger, and Costco.

As deputy head of brand management, I managed teams of 30-40 employees, as well as contractors and intermediary organizations, all of which had competing projects, plans, and different order of urgency. The stakes were high, and, accordingly, the pressure on me was considerable. Even now, I am amazed at how many thousands of man-hours, millions of dollars and extraordinarily complex technological processes needed to create a regular bottle of dishwashing detergent, which you can buy in any supermarket. Everything from the shape of the bottle to the perfumes is optimized, including the text of the inscriptions on cardboard boxes to deliver goods to stores.

However, at the time, I wasn't just thinking about my job at P&G. The decision to educate myself instead of studying for an MBA program turned from a side project, so to speak, into a slight insanity. Every day I spent hours reading and comprehending business literature, bit by bit accumulating precious knowledge about the laws by which the business world lives.

That summer, after graduating, I did not go on vacation. Instead, I spent whole days at the business bookshelves at the local bookstore, soaking up as much as I could absorb. By September 2005, my official full-time employment at Procter & Gamble, I had read hundreds of books in every subject taught in business schools, as well as those not taught there: psychology, physics, and theory. systems. So on my first day at the company, I was ready to discuss business strategy with the best business school graduates.

As it turned out, self-education served me well - I became a valuable employee, I really did useful thing and received high marks from auditors. However, over time, I realized three important things.

1. In large companies, everything happens slowly. And the most best idea can nip in the bud only because it needs the approval of too many to make it happen.

2. Fixation on career growth hinders quality work. I wanted to do my best to do the real thing and do my best, rather than run around and pitch in for a promotion. But intrigues and the struggle for a place under the sun are an integral part of every working day in a large corporation.

3. The feeling of dissatisfaction leads to complete exhaustion of forces. I thought that the daily work would be enjoyable, but instead I felt like I was being driven through the ranks. Soon this shook my health, I began to quarrel with loved ones. The longer I stayed in the corporation, the more I wanted to break out of this world and work for myself, become a private entrepreneur.

Grain and chaff

It is important that students have a healthy hooligan disrespect for knowledge; for their business is not to worship what they study, but to doubt it.

If anything comes easy to me, it is the ability to isolate the most important from a large amount of information. I have a synthetic mind, and my travels in the world of business literature quickly became an exercise in separating the wheat from the chaff.

The amount of business information published every day is amazing. As for books, the general collection of the Library of Congress alone contains about 1.2 million books, textbooks, manuals, and other business literature. If we assume that the average reading speed is 250 words per minute, and the average book has 60,000 words, then it will take 528 years to master the entire collection of the Library of Congress, and then, assuming that you read 24 hours a day, and even if you allow yourself such a luxury as food and sleep, then all 822 years.

According to Bowker, the organization responsible for assigning standard international ISBNs to publications, 11,000 new business books appear worldwide each year, adding to an already multimillion-dollar collection of publications published since the early 1900s. Amazon.com returns 630,000 titles for business literature, not counting audio and e-books, as well as books published without an ISBN.

Of course, books are not the only available source of information. Take newspapers and magazines, for example: Wilson's catalog of business periodicals (WBPI) currently contains 527 major business periodicals. Each year, WBPI adds 96,000 new items to its archive, which already contains 1.6 million titles. This figure does not include blogs - according to Google Blog Search, there are currently more than 110 million blog entries on the Internet related to business in one way or another, and this number is growing every day.

And I wondered: what of all this to me in fact need to know? How to distinguish valuable information from verbal garbage? I began to look for a "sieve" to separate the rational grain from the chaff. And the longer I searched, the more I realized that such a "sieve" does not exist - so I decided to create it myself.

"Myself MBA" goes global

Whoever can best identify the problem is likely to be able to solve it.

I read with particular interest the blog of Seth Godin, best-selling author of Permission Marketing, Purple Cow, and Irreplaceable, one of the pioneers of successful online marketing.

One morning, Seth commented on his page the following news: Harvard University has rejected the applications of 119 students who wanted to enroll in an MBA 1 course. It turned out that some hackers hacked the Harvard website and some of the students were able to view the "closed" documents with a preliminary decision on enrollment. The story caused a lively discussion in the media: everyone was discussing whether the classic MBA applicants are really liars and thieves, or whether this is taught in business school.

Instead of resenting the behavior of the students, Seth (not surprisingly) showed his own attitude to what happened: Harvard gave these students a gift. By refusing admission, the Harvard authorities saved them $150,000 and two years of their lives, which, otherwise, would have been spent chasing a not very useful piece of paper. “I don’t understand,” wrote Seth, “how studying in the MBA program is better than real work experience, coupled with a focused study of 30-40 worthwhile textbooks.”

"Hell! I thought. “That’s exactly what I do!”

Over the next two days, I compiled a list of books and other sources that I found most helpful 2 and posted it on the blog with a link to Seth's entry so that those who read the marketing guru's advice and decided to put it into practice could see my findings. After that, I quickly wrote a short letter to Seth and sent him a link to my entry.

Two minutes later, a post appeared on Seth's blog with a link to my list, and my site was flooded with visitors from all over the globe.

The topic was picked up on popular self-development and self-improvement resources like Lifehacker.com, after which it migrated to social media resources Reddit, Digg, Delicious, and others. In the first week of the existence of the MBA list, my little corner of the Internet space was visited by several thousand people . And most importantly, they began to get in touch.

Some readers asked the question: where to start? Others recommended books they had read themselves. Some people did not fail to remark that my idea was naive and that I was wasting my time. Despite everything, I continued to read, write out the necessary and replenish the list of books. Meanwhile, the number of supporters of business self-education grew rapidly.

Published with permission from Portfolio, a division of Penguine Group Inc., and Andrew Nurnberg Literary Agency

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without the written permission of the copyright holders.

* * *

Dedicated to the millions of entrepreneurs around the world who make life better to the best of their ability

Chapter 1 Why Read This Book

Another business textbook? As if they were not written enough without you.

Customs officer at Kennedy International Airport after I answered a question about what I do

Life is hard. Especially if you're an idiot.

John Wayne, star of classic American Westerns

1. Business "angst"(German angst- fear). The belief that you do not understand anything about business and therefore will not be able to create your own company or take over about more responsibility in my current position. It is better to leave everything as it is than to overcome the fear of the unknown.

3. "Imposter Syndrome." Fear that you will not cope with new tasks and everyone will understand that you are just a liar. But nobody likes them, right?

Dont be upset. Everyone experiences these unfounded fears, and you can quickly get rid of them. To do this, you just need to learn a few simple rules that will change your understanding of how a business works.

If you are a self-employed entrepreneur, designer, student, programmer, or just a professional who wants to master the basics of entrepreneurship, this book is for you. No matter who you are or what you do, with a new perspective on business, you will no longer waste time fighting your own fears, but devote it to your cause.

It is not necessary to know everything

There are wagon and a small cart methods, but there are very few principles. One who has mastered the principles, it costs nothing to choose this or that method.
But those who are looking for a method, not paying attention to principles, will have a hard time.
Ralph Emerson, poet and essayist

"My own MBA" is a set of fundamental principles for the functioning of any business, with the help of which it is possible to fulfill the tasks set. Once you master them, you will be able to solve the most difficult problems and achieve the most difficult goals with amazing ease.

Over the past five years, I have read a huge number of books on economics and business, interviewed hundreds of professionals, worked in a corporation from the list Fortune 50, has repeatedly opened his own business and collected information about various enterprises - from tiny, where everything is done by one person, to multinational ones with a huge staff and billions of dollars in profit. All this time I processed the collected information and as a result formulated several main principles, which are set forth in this book. Understanding these fundamentals will give you a solid decision-making toolkit. If you are willing to take the time and effort to learn these principles, you will learn:

How in reality business is running;

How to open your own business;

How to make an existing business work more efficiently;

How to use your business skills to achieve your personal goals.

No experience needed

People tend to overestimate the complexity of a business. We are not building rockets - we have chosen one of the simplest professions in the world.

Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric Corporation

Even if you are a complete beginner, don't worry. Unlike most business manuals, this book does not require any special knowledge or experience. I don't think I'll be read exclusively by CEOs of large companies making millions of dollars worth of decisions every day. (But even so, this book will still be very useful to them.)

Questions not answers

Education is not the answer to the question. Education teaches one to find answers to all questions.

Bill Ellen, sociologist, educator

Mental models, not methods

The limits of my language are the limits of my world.

Ludwig Wittgenstein, philosopher

In order to acquire new skills in the field of business, it is not at all necessary to strive to learn everything - it is enough to master the basics. I name the key concepts of business science mental models. Together, they form a solid system that you can rely on when making decisions.

After examining the mental models proposed in this book, many of my clients have realized that their ideas about what is a business and how does it work, are not entirely true - if they had known this before, they would not have had to make such efforts at the beginning of the journey and waste precious time on unnecessary fears and worries.

Himself MBA

I am convinced that self-education is true education.

Isaac Asimov, science fiction writer, biochemist

I am often asked if I have an MBA. “No,” I answer, “although I went to business school.”

A year later, under the university's "work-study" program, I received a managerial position at Procter & Gamble - one of the 50 most successful companies, according to the magazine Fortune. In 2005, when I was graduating from university, I was offered the position of deputy head of brand management in the household chemicals division, a position usually invited to holders of MBA degrees from leading educational institutions.

By the beginning of the last semester, I was much more concerned about the future than actually studying. Of course, the new job required a deep knowledge of business, and all my colleagues probably sported diplomas from the best business schools. For a while, I also thought about getting a special education, but then I decided that there was no point in spending a lot of money on a “crust”, which was necessary, in fact, only in order to get a position that I was offered anyway; besides, I would have had enough work even without a bunch of tasks that would have to be done during part-time study.

As I pondered what to do, I remembered the advice of Andy Walter, the first deputy director of Procter & Gamble, to whom I had to report: “If you spend as much time and effort as it would take you to get an MBA degree, on a good job and reinforcing skills, the result will be the same.” (Andy didn't have an MBA, just an electrical engineering degree. Walter is now a world-class IT executive and oversees some of Procter & Gamble's biggest international projects.)

I eventually abandoned the idea of a business school - but not a business education - and sat down with books to complete my "personal" MBA course.

Self-Made Short Accelerated Business Course

Many self-taught students will easily outdo PhDs, masters and bachelors from top universities.

Ludwig von Mises, Austrian economist, author of Human Action 1
Mises L. Human activity. Treatise on economic theory. M.: Sotsium, 2008. Note. ed.

As deputy head of brand management, I managed teams of 30-40 employees, as well as contractors and intermediary organizations, all of which had competing projects, plans, and different order of urgency. The stakes were high, and, accordingly, the pressure on me was considerable. Even now, I am amazed at how many thousands of man-hours, millions of dollars, and extraordinarily complex manufacturing processes it takes to create a typical bottle of dishwashing detergent, which you can buy in any supermarket. Everything from the shape of the bottle to the fragrances is streamlined, including the wording on the shipping cartons for the stores.

As it turned out, self-education served me well - I became a valuable employee, did really useful work and received high marks from the inspectors. However, over time, I realized three important things.

1. In large companies, everything happens slowly. And the best idea can die in the bud just because it needs the approval of too many to make it happen.

2. Obsession with career growth interferes with quality work. I wanted to do my best to do the real thing and do my best, rather than run around and pitch in for a promotion. But intrigues and the struggle for a place under the sun are an integral part of every working day in a large corporation.

Grain and chaff

It is important that students have a healthy hooligan disrespect for knowledge; for their business is not to worship what they study, but to doubt it.

According to Bowker, the organization responsible for assigning standard international ISBNs to publications, 11,000 new business books appear worldwide each year, adding to an already multimillion-dollar collection of publications published since the early 1900s. Amazon.com lists 630,000 titles for business literature, not counting audio, e-books, and non-ISBN books.

This went on until, one fateful morning, my “personal MBA course” suddenly went public, at which point my life changed dramatically.

"Myself MBA" goes global

Whoever can best identify the problem is likely to be able to solve it.

I have been reading with particular interest the blog of Seth Godin, bestselling author of Trust Marketing, Purple Cow, and Irreplaceable. 3
trust marketing. How to make a friend out of a stranger and turn him into a buyer. Moscow: Alpina Business Books, 2008; Purple cow. Make your business stand out. Moscow: Mann, Ivanov i Ferber, 2010; Indispensable. Is it possible to do without you? Moscow: Mann, Ivanov i Ferber, 2010. Note. ed.

One of the pioneers of successful online marketing.

One morning, Seth commented on his page the following news: Harvard University rejected the applications of 119 students who wanted to enroll in an MBA course 4
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2005/03/good_news_and_b.html

It turned out that some hackers hacked the Harvard website and some of the students were able to view the "closed" documents with a preliminary decision on enrollment. The story caused a lively discussion in the media: everyone was discussing whether the classic MBA applicants are really liars and thieves, or whether this is taught in business school.

"Hell! I thought. “That’s exactly what I do!”

Over the next two days, I compiled a list of books and other sources that I found most helpful. 5
http://personalmba.com/best-business-books

And I posted it on the blog with a link to Seth's post so that those who read the advice of the marketing gurus and decided to put it into practice could see my findings. After that, I quickly wrote a short letter to Seth and sent him a link to my entry.

Two minutes later, a post appeared on Seth's blog with a link to my list, and my site was flooded with visitors from all over the globe.

The topic was picked up on popular self-development and self-improvement resources like Lifehacker.com, after which it migrated to social media resources Reddit, Digg, Delicious, and others. In the first week of the existence of the "Myself MBA" list, several thousand people visited my little corner of the Internet space . And most importantly, they began to get in touch.

"The Personal MBA Manifesto" 6
http://personalmba.com/manifesto

— a short essay I wrote to help newbies get the gist of the project — has received hundreds of thousands of views and is still one of the top 10 most visited texts published on ChangeThis.com in five years. The list of books recommended by me as part of the "My Own MBA" was awarded a feature article in business magazine business week7
www.businessweek.com/bschools/content/apr2006/bs2006042_3490_bs001.htm

Thousands of self-taught business scientists around the world help each other learn and grow in the PMBA Community Forums 8
http://community.personalmba.com

In an amazingly short time, the Self MBA project grew from a one-man initiative to a global movement, so I left Procter & Gamble and devoted my time to improving my program and working with clients.

As much as I enjoyed being the administrator of my own forum, I quickly realized that a list of books alone was not enough. People read business literature in search of a solution to a particular pressing problem or in order to quantitatively and qualitatively improve their own knowledge on a topic. They are looking for answers to questions, and books in this sense are not a panacea.

Published with permission from Portfolio, a division of Penguine Group Inc., and Andrew Nurnberg Literary Agency

Copyright © 2010 Worldly Wisdom Ventures LLC.

© Translation into Russian, edition in Russian, design. OOO "Mann, Ivanov and Ferber", 2012

This book is well complemented by:

My first business

James Caan

Startup management

Katherine Kathleen and Jaina Matthews

Let's break away

Cameron Herold

Vocation

Ken Robinson

From a publishing partner

My grandparents were real businessmen in those distant pre-war, war and post-war years. They were peasants and did not know the word "business". Their education consisted of two levels: elementary school (the ability to read, write) and then - the school of life.

business game

Terms:

At the age of 20, my grandparents got married. Outside in 1924.

A task:

Survive. Build a farm. Give birth to children.

The only plus is that to build a house you do not need to buy land or register with the chamber. He went to the edge of the village and lined up behind the last house.

So, the sequence of actions:

1. Spend the night - where relatives sheltered.

2. Then a forest, a log house, a small house under the guidance of a village carpenter. ( Grandfather learned how to fold a log house, fix rafters, etc.)

3. Then the stove, under the guidance of a local stove-maker. ( Grandfather learned to make stoves.)

4. Next - winter in your house. Grandfather gets a job on the outskirts of the city as a mechanic in a railway depot. ( He begins to read books on his own and study the locomotive. Passes courses and becomes an assistant driver.) Little money appears.

5. Then a fire in the village. The house is burning down.

7. Grandfather builds a second house on his own (log house, stove, etc.). Relatives, who were built later, invite grandfather as construction consultant.

8. Then, with a new house, a barn appears in sequence with three zones:

- 1st zone - workbench, tools, grindstone, lathe, drilling machine, etc., that is, according to Marx - first we create the production of means of production;

- 2nd zone - energy block: a place for the preparation and storage of firewood and coal;

– 3rd zone – summer food storage. This is a cellar - a deep pit, which is clogged with ice in winter and serves as a refrigerator for food all summer.

Successful people build a business not like a computer game, with the feeling that if suddenly "game over, no," you can go to the kitchen to drink coffee and think "what else to stir up." Successful people drive real tanks. And to drive a real tank, you first need to know only four buttons: how to start, how to drive, how to turn and how to stop. And then - years of stubborn independent training, analysis, work with masters of "tank" art and medals for really, but sometimes "you don't understand how" cities were taken.

These are the thoughts that are prompted by reading, I repeat once again, a very clear and practical book “Your own MBA”.

My sincere wishes of creative permanence to the author of the book, low bow to the team of the Mann, Ivanov and Ferber publishing house, which brought this most useful information to the minds of Russian readers, and to all colleagues, present and future. Self-confidence, optimism and faith in self-education!

Josh Kaufman

Himself MBA

100% self-education

Dedicated to the millions of entrepreneurs around the world who make life better to the best of their ability

From a publishing partner

business game

Terms:

At the age of 20, my grandparents got married. Outside in 1924. "Citizen", devastation. There is no food in the villages. There are private farms where something grows, and that can be taken away. There are almost no cattle (they were taken away or died). There are hand tools, of course: saws, shovels, axes, ropes. Living with parents is a NO. Firstly, there is nowhere (seven in shops), and secondly, there is nothing to eat anyway.

A task:

Survive. Build a farm. Give birth to children.

The only plus is that to build a house you do not need to buy land or register with the chamber. He went to the edge of the village and lined up behind the last house.

Very briefly, schematically, I set out a detailed grandmother's story, how everything turned out for them further. The meaning of my presentation is to voice the old-fashioned solution to this business problem.

So, the sequence of actions:

1. Spend the night - where relatives sheltered.

2. Then a forest, a log house, a small house under the guidance of a village carpenter. ( Grandfather learned how to fold a log house, fix rafters, etc.)

3. Then the stove, under the guidance of a local stove-maker. (Grandfather learned to make stoves.)

5. Then a fire in the village. The house is burning down.

7. Grandfather builds a second house on his own (log house, stove, etc.). Relatives, who were built later, invite grandfather as construction consultant.

8. Then, with a new house, a barn appears in sequence with three zones:

1st zone - a workbench, tools, a grindstone, a lathe, a drilling machine, etc., that is, according to Marx - first we create the production of means of production;

2nd zone - energy block: a place for the preparation and storage of firewood and coal;

3rd zone - summer food storage. This is a cellar - a deep pit, which is clogged with ice in winter and serves as a refrigerator for food all summer.

9. And, finally, having a strong base, proceeds to the development of the economy. It was an endless chain of successive, unhurried actions that gradually increased the power and efficiency of the economy. Garden. ( Grandfather studied all the literature on gardening) Boat. ( Learned to build a boat) networks. (I learned to knit.) Fishing. Subsidiary farm. Etc.

And I remembered all this in connection with reading the wonderful book by Josh Kaufman "My Own MBA". Suddenly, in my head, this "village" block of information that was stored in my brain under the index "interesting historical information" "resonated" with what I heard and felt in Kaufman's book.

Nothing has changed in modern life. Statistics show that success in the modern world is achieved by purposeful people who show obsession, courage, invention These people begin to act immediately, learning and correcting their actions on the go, applying knowledge received from different sources, according to the situation, creatively, without turning off common sense meaning.

Successful people build a business not like a computer game, with the feeling that if suddenly “game over’s gone,” you can go to the kitchen to drink coffee and think, “what else to stir up.” Successful people drive real tanks. And to drive a real tank, you first need to know only four buttons: how to start, how to drive, how to turn and how to stop. And then - years of stubborn independent training, analysis, work with masters of "tank" art and medals for real, but sometimes "you don't understand how" cities were taken.

These thoughts are suggested by reading, I repeat once again, a very clear and practical book “To Myself MB A”.

FROM respect,

Yuri Prostakov,

CEO of I Can Teach,

founder and head of the company "Studio Yuri Prostakov"

www.i-can-teach.ru

www.i-love-english.ru

Another business textbook? As if they were not written enough without you.

Customs officer at Kennedy International Airport after I answered a question about what I do

Life is hard. Especially if you're an idiot.

John Wayne, star of classic American Westerns

1. Business "angst"(German angst- fear). The belief that you do not understand anything about business and therefore cannot start your own company or take on more responsibility in your current position. It is better to leave everything as it is than to overcome the fear of the unknown.

3. "Imposter Syndrome". Fear that you will not cope with new tasks and everyone will understand that you are just a liar. But nobody likes them, right?

It is not necessary to know everything

What is this book about

Josh Kaufman wrote...

Read completely

What is this book about
This is a book about believing in yourself. Suddenly? Nevertheless, the main idea of the author lies in the value of your personality, and not the "crust" in your case. You can finish any business school you like and stay on the bottom rung of the social ladder. Or you can follow in the footsteps of the author of the book.

Josh Kaufman is an outstanding manager without a classical business education. He deliberately chose a non-standard path, deciding not to go to MBA courses, but to get self-educated at the same time starting to work full-time at Procter & Gamble. However, a simple question - why is an MBA diploma needed and what resources can be used to get an education of the same or superior quality - haunted him.

Josh began blogging about self-education in business and soon, realizing the huge demand for the subject, left P&G to write his personal guide to key management concepts.

The result of his work is before you.

Josh Kaufman wrote an alternative business textbook from which you will learn:

How the business works.
- How people work.
- Finally - how the whole business system works as a whole.
At the same time - do not expect that you:

You will be inundated with information on management and business leadership.
- Learn all the subtleties of accounting.
This "tutorial" is designed to ensure that you quickly learn the essential foundations of business practice and start to successfully apply it "in the field."

And then - what's the difference what is written in the diploma!

Who is this book for?
For those who have decided to open their own business, but have complexes about the lack of a "cool" diploma.

For aspiring entrepreneurs who want to learn more about the mechanics of doing business.

For successful businessmen who do not want to stop there, because they know: the whole point is in development.

Why we decided to publish this book
Many of us do not have an MBA. Even Russian. But this did not stop us from starting to do business that captivates and makes a profit. We dare to assume that many of our readers can say the same about themselves.

D. Kaufman's book will give you confidence at the stage of starting your business. It will help you anticipate and avoid various pitfalls and traps in advance, significantly shortening your path to success.

Book chip
A textbook that captures - and teaches. No, you misunderstood: it really teaches.

From the author
If you are a self-employed entrepreneur, designer, or even a student who wants to master the basics of effective entrepreneurship, this book is for you. It does not matter who you are and what you are trying to do - you will get acquainted with a new look at business and from now on you will not waste time fighting unnecessary fears, but devote it to doing business.

You can think of this book as a kind of "filter". Instead of absorbing everything that is written and said about business - and this is a sea of \u200b\u200binformation - with its help you will be able to extract only the most important things in order to focus on what you personally need most.

6th edition.

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