The Key Principles Of Running Any Business | Josh Kaufman | Modern Wisdom Podcast 215

Every business has five parts, and only five parts. Every business creates something of value, they attract the attention of people who might be interested in that thing, which is marketing, they sell that offer to people who want to buy it, which is sales, they deliver what they've promised to their paying customers, which is value delivery, and then there's finance. You look at all the money flowing out, you look at all the money flowing in, and you answer two very important questions: A, is more money flowing in than flowing out? If not, you have a problem. And B, is it enough? Is it enough to make all of this time and effort and stress and frustration worth it?

(wind blowing) I, um, this, I need to put a disclaimer out before we get started. Usually, the camera is not right up to my face. If you are watching on YouTube, you will be able to see this. This is the first horizontal cast that I've done since, uh, my Achilles repair recovery, um, so my foot is currently all the way over there in the air, uh, and, and I'm back here. But we're making it work. We're anti-fragile, and, uh, today we are celebrating the 10-year anniversary of The Personal MBA. Man, how does that feel?

It feels great. It feels surreal. Like, uh, I remember writing the first draft of the book, and it doesn't feel like 10 years ago. Uh, but it's, it's been really gratifying to see, uh, how much people all over the world have enjoyed it and found it useful. And, uh, it's always an interesting experience going back and editing things that you wrote 10 years ago. Um, so, so the past, uh, year and a half, two years that I've been working on this project has, has been very interesting from, from a personal time capsule, uh, standpoint. Uh, my, my, my writing has changed. My, my thoughts, uh, ab- about s- uh, a lot of things have changed. So it was, it was great to be able to, to revisit this particular work and, and really update it for 2020 and beyond.

Have you, when you go back through things, have you found that much about your thinking has, has changed? Have you got, are you sort of curling your toes at a couple of little bits here and there, and you think, "Oh my God, why did Josh 10 years ago think that?"

(laughs) The, the thinking overall, I'm, I'm happy to say, is still really solid. Uh, I used a lot of adverbs 10 years ago.

(laughs)

And I, I don't know why. I will have to go back into my Word document and figure out how many adverbs I deleted, and it is, it is in the, the probably mid-thousands.

Wow.

Um, so, so just like, you know, I- I think as a beginning writer... This is something that I think beginning writers do a lot. You want to emphasize the things that you're emphasizing in your head as you write, and the way to add that emphasis is, you know, adverbs or italics or, you know, exclamation points, getting really excited. And, and so for me, it was like being able to take a step back and say, "Okay, you can get, uh, get this point across far more effectively by being clear and simple and concise in your language, and let the construction of the sentences do the work instead of trying to underline and bullet point everything in the manuscript." So...