The Personal MBA

Even financial giants like Warren Buffett are always looking for new concepts to learn. In fact, during an interview with a group of students at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Warren Buffett stated that if he could choose a superpower, it would be to read faster. To learn how to move in the business world, however, it is not necessary to wait until you know everything: it is enough to learn a series of basic principles which you can then choose to investigate further. Josh Kaufman defines these basic principles as 'mental models'. These mental models are a series of concepts that can define a person's understanding of how a concept works. Let's think, for example, about driving a car. If you pressed the pedal to the right and the car slowed down, you would be surprised, because we have all learned that the pedal on the right is the accelerator and not the brake. For a beginner, many mental models (and therefore much of what they know) regarding the business world stem from personal guesswork, based on hearsay. This is why business education is necessary and can be extremely useful: business is part of our daily life, and to be successful, it is essential that we understand exactly how it works.

A business is a complex system, made up of five parts: value creation, marketing, sales, delivery of created value, and finances. If one of these key parts fails, we are no longer operating a business, but - depending on which part fails – we are simply pursuing a hobby, a flop, a non-profit, a scam; either that, or we shut it down, and do not pursue anything at all.