Josh Kaufman Quotes

these foundational business concepts mental models, and together, they create a solid framework you can rely on to make good decisions. Mental models are concepts that represent your understanding of “how things work.” Think of driving a car: what do you expect when you press down on the right-side pedal? If the car slows down, you’ll be surprised — that pedal is supposed to be the accelerator. That’s a mental model — an idea about how something works in the real world.

Discoveries are often made by not following instructions, by going off the main road, by trying the untried. — FRANK TYGER, POLITICAL CARTOONIST AND COLUMNIST I

Here’s Gall’s Law : all complex systems that work evolved from simpler systems that worked. Complex systems are full of variables and Interdependencies (discussed later) that must be arranged just right in order to function. Complex systems designed from scratch will never work in the real world, since they haven’t been subject to environmental selection forces while being designed.

without solid business knowledge, it’s possible to organize and lead a group of people toward the accomplishment of the wrong objectives. Business is about the profitable creation and delivery of valuable offers to paying customers

Sunk Costs are investments of time, energy, and money that can’t be recovered once they’ve been made. No matter what you do, you can’t get those resources back. Continuing to invest in a project to recover lost resources doesn’t make sense — all that matters is how much more investment is required versus the reward you expect to obtain.

By making offers Modular, the business can create and improve each offer in isolation, then mix and match offers as necessary to better serve their customers. It’s like playing with LEGOS: once you have a set of pieces to work with, you can put them together in all sorts of interesting ways.

Climbing the corporate ladder is an obstacle to doing great work. I wanted to focus on getting things done and making things better, not drafting memos, sitting in meetings, and positioning myself for promotion.

As the saying goes: you can have anything you want, as long as you’re willing to pay the price.

A great example of Guiding Structure is the “Sterile Cockpit Rule” that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) instituted in 1981. Most airline accidents happen below ten thousand feet, where distractions can be deadly. Above ten thousand feet, pilots can talk about anything they want, but below ten thousand feet, the only discussion permitted is about information directly related to the flight in progress. By eliminating distractions, the Sterile Cockpit Rule reduces errors and accidents.

Business is not (and has never been) rocket science — it

La enseñanza no es la respuesta a la pregunta. La enseñanza es el medio que le permite encontrar respuesta a todas las preguntas.

ERG theory”: people seek existence, relatedness, and growth, in

Experience makes it easier to avoid Absence Blindness. Experience is valuable primarily because the expert has a larger mental database of related patterns and thus a higher chance of noticing an absence. By noticing violations of expected patterns, experienced people are more likely to get an “odd feeling” that things “aren’t quite right,” which is often enough warning to find an issue before it becomes serious.

Understanding what businesses actually do to create and deliver value is essential knowledge, but many business programs have de-emphasized value creation and operations in favor of finance and quantitative analysis.

people progress through five general stages in the pursuit of what they need: physiology, safety, belonging/love, esteem, and self-actualization.