Why is this the “rich man’s MBA” and not the “poor man’s MBA” even though it costs a fraction of time, money, and energy of a MBA? Because knowledge changes thinking, and our thinking creates our results. So the key is finding the real and practical knowledge and learning that successful people have consumed and applied that changed their thinking, to ultimately give them the results they have now.
If your desire is the ego gratification of a piece of paper from a prestigious place, then this will probably not do that much to aid you in that pursuit. The goal of sharing these resources, is to share the things I’ve found to be the most valuable and effective material in changing my thinking, and thereby; my results.
The Goal:
Help prepare readers to become a successful entrepreneur or business person by highlighting the most important and valuable materials to transform their thinking and ultimately increase their value creation ability
Step One: Understand Value
Read the article here.
Value is the engine that drives the vehicles of economies. Understanding value and how it’s exchanged and stored is absolutely crucial to understanding business and even life.
Step Two: Understand Money
Read the article here.
Money is simply stored value. It’s power is in its ability to exchange regardless of the material used to exchange for the money, or what the money is being exchanged for.
Step Three: Read “The Go Giver”
Buy the book here.
This book will explain the basic principles of value, how it drives economies, and the foundational systems of success.
Step Four: Read “Managing Oneself”
Buy the book here.
This book will help you cultivate a deep understanding of yourself by identifying your most valuable strengths and most dangerous weaknesses, articulate how you learn and work with others and what your most deeply held values are, and describe the type of work environment where you can make the greatest contribution. This is an important primer to the next materials.
Step Five: Read “The Personal MBA”
Buy the book here.
One of the most comprehensive and accessible books I could recommend to anyone who’s either never been in business, or been in business for years. Regardless of your experience, it’s going to share a huge number of things in a very easy and consumable way. A brilliant book all around.
Step Six: Read “The E-Myth Revisited”
Buy the book here.
To date one of the best business books I’ve read. It easily communicates the principles of systems and automation, and should give a good platform of understanding how to scale a business to anyone. This is crucial for small business owners and startups especially.
Step Eight: Read “The Lean Startup”
Buy the book here.
This is slightly optional for some people because it’s more directed at startups. But the message of the book is key for any business owner or business person: do more with less. A key concept to learn is what the book calls your “MVP” or “Minimum Viable Product”. This is key for ‘validating’ your business model and product/service ASAP so you can remove as much as risk as possible.
Step Nine: Continue Growth
At first you may not see the value of this after learning so much. But this is one of the most crucial steps. Once you’ve acquired a solid base of knowledge from those books, it’s imperative to maintain the positive trajectory. This means to perform even more ‘personal development’.
The reason for this is explained in The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership (a highly recommended read), as “The Law of the Lid”. Which says that “Your leadership is like a lid or a ceiling on your organisation. Your church or business will not rise beyond the level your leadership allows.”
This means:
1. Continue reading the best business and personal development books
2. Get solid mentorship
3. Join a Napoleon Hill Mastermind, or start your own (here and here)
4. Join or get accountability, or start an accountability system or group yourself
5. Start listening to podcasts and audiobooks while driving or exercising
6. And most importantly, take action!
“The graveyard is the richest place on earth, because it is here that you will find all the hopes and dreams that were never fulfilled, the books that were never written, the songs that were never sung, the inventions that were never shared, the cures that were never discovered, all because someone was too afraid to take that first step, keep with the problem, or determined to carry our their dream.”
– Les Brown