In his book The Personal MBA, author Josh Kaufman has crafted an amazing resource for entrepreneurs at any stage of their business’s development—or, indeed of their own development. Kaufman’s thesis, the raison d’être of his book, is to encourage people by emphasizing that you don’t need an MBA to start and run a successful business. As he puts it, it’s not rocket science, the concepts are simple. His main arguments for an MBA being unnecessary are that they cost too much, take too long, and do not add as much value as they are worth.

Josh Kaufman’s ultimate goal is to provide people with all the resources related to business their hearts could ever desire. He has condensed all of his years of experience and knowledge into The Personal MBA, but recommends many resources along the way, including his own website which provides further information and a blog. Personally, I have found his book incredibly valuable and would recommend it to anyone in the 21^st century. It is a complete introduction to about how business works. At just over 400 pages, how could it not be worth a read?

The book is divided into chapters that address all the critical areas of study of an MBA course. These include Value Creation, Marketing, Finance, Sales, etc. Each chapter is then further divided into short sections which are each an easy ten-minute read. Our attention spans being as short as they are in 2021, this format makes the wealth of information much easier to digest. Each section is also accompanied by a relevant famous quote. I was very happy to run into some of my favourites and discover some new ones by well-known businesspeople and great thinkers. I was also pleasantly surprised to find Dale Carnegie’s work discussed in the book. Kaufman simplifies Carnegie’s many lessons on being influential into three rules, but once again, the author is introducing ideas and pointing the way to further reading for people who would like to pursue certain areas in greater depth.

If other books, such as Linchpin, are written to motivate people to strive for their greatest success in professional life, The Personal MBA provides the toolkit for achieving those ends. In this sense, it is an invaluable resource. For anyone who lacks formal training in business finance), Kaufman imparts much needed wisdom. As he readily admits, most people’s eyes gloss over when he discusses finance (and mine did), but now I know where the resources are to read on this tedious subject, and I have a better grasp of what goes into financing a business.

I hope that you found this recommendation useful. My goal in these book reviews is to help professionals find the right resources for their situation faster and easier. If you would like more information about The Personal MBA, please email, message, or call us at The English Business House or check out Kaufman’s own website https://personalmba.com.