The Personal MBA: A World-Class Business Education in a Single Volume

Obsessing over Opportunity Cost too much can make you needlessly crazy, however. If you’re a natural maximizer (like I am), it’s tempting to overanalyze every Decision to make sure you’ve chosen the very best option available, which can easily go well past the point of Diminishing Returns (discussed later). Don’t get bogged down with all of the opt

Finance is the art and science of watching the money flowing into and out of a business, then deciding how to allocate it and determining whether or not what you’re doing is producing the results you want. Accounting is the process of ensuring the data you use to make financial decisions is as complete and accurate as possible. It’s really not any

At the beginning of every day, create a list of two or three MITs, then focus on getting them done as quickly as possible. Keep this list separate from your general to-do list or task tracking system. I typically use a 3 × 5 index card or David Seah’s “Emergent Task Planner,”7 a free downloadable PDF that makes it easy to plan your day.

The best way to get Permission is to ask for it. Whenever you provide value to people, ask them if it’s okay to continue to give them more value in the future.

Controversy means publicly taking a position that not everyone will agree with, approve of, or support. Used constructively, Controversy can be an effective way to attract Attention: people start talking, engaging, and paying Attention to your position, which is a very good thing.

No System stands alone: every system is inevitably affected by all of the other systems around it. An Environment is the structure in which a system operates. The Environment primarily influences or impacts the system’s Flows or processes, changing the output of the system.

it’s important to remember that these social signals may seem silly at best or manipulative at worst, but that doesn’t make them any less real or important. By understanding how your prospects evaluate offers, you can plan your pitch in a way that minimizes Persuasion Resistance and encourages the prospect to Desire what you have to offer.

The larger your rent or mortgage payment, the more money you need to make each month to pay your expenses. The same general principle applies to businesses. Overhead represents the minimum ongoing resources required for a business to continue operation. This includes all of the things you need to run your business every month, regardless of whether

Many corporate policies have their roots in Intervention Bias. When something bad happens, it’s tempting to “fix” the situation by installing additional layers of limitations, reporting, and auditing. The result isn’t an improvement in Throughput or efficiency: it’s an increase in Communication Overhead, waste, and unproductive bureaucracy. The bes

Don’t let your Buffer replace your own informed judgment. One of the worst things you can do is relinquish control over your decisions to your Buffer, particularly