Ron and Ed welcome back Alan Whitman, former CEO of Baker Tilly and author of the new book Break the Mold. In his second visit to The Soul of Enterprise, we will talk about this book and the mold around the CPA profession. The mold is made up of the common conventions and the long-time operating principles that are shared across organizations. We are sure you will enjoy this in-depth conversation.

Ron and Ed sit down with entrepreneur, advisor, and educator David Fionda, founder of BizBreakthru.com, to explore what it really takes for business owners to break through their growth ceilings. With decades of experience guiding firms through transformation — from startups to global consultancies — Fionda brings both the discipline of a CPA and the curiosity of a strategist.

They discuss why most advisory work fails to scale, how to turn financial data into decision-making power, and the mindset shifts that separate incremental change from genuine breakthrough. This is a real-world architecture of growth, built from a lifetime of turning insights into action.

Ron and Ed sit down with Brent Beshore, founder and CEO of Permanent Equity, to explore a radical rethinking of what "private equity" can mean. Instead of the typical buy-fix-flip model, Beshore's firm takes a generational approach which involves acquiring businesses to own indefinitely, building value through trust, stewardship, and patient capital.

They discuss why short-term thinking often erodes lasting wealth, how culture can be a company's greatest moat, and what it takes to invest with humility in a world obsessed with speed. This is private equity with a soul, or as Brent might say, the long-term bet on human potential.

Ron and Ed welcome back Joe Woodard — for the tenth time. Over the years, Joe has joined The Soul of Enterprise to challenge the accounting profession's comfort zone, rethink practice models, and remind everyone that transformation is never "done."

In this milestone conversation, they revisit the evolution of Woodard's mission to help accounting professionals build healthier, more human-centered firms, and how the journey from technician to transformer keeps unfolding. Expect reflection, a few friendly jabs, and, as always, big ideas about the future of advisory work.

In this conversation, Ron and Ed take a close look at economist Russ Roberts' critique of utilitarianism. Can moral choices can be reduced to calculations of pleasure and pain? "No," says Roberts (and say Ron and Ed). Drawing on Roberts' essay Apples and Oranges, they explore why life's most important questions resist tidy arithmetic.

Is it possible to weigh justice against joy? Or kindness against efficiency? Ron and Ed unpack the limits of the ledger, where human dignity, love, and meaning refuse to fit neatly into the spreadsheet.

In this episode, we sit down with Dr. Tim Naddy — CPA, educator, entrepreneur, author-in-the-making — who serves as Vice President of Finance for the Savannah Bananas, a team that's rewriting the rulebook on sports entertainment.

Tim walks us through how a seemingly wild concept (a baseball team with full-on live-show energy) becomes a serious business by blending financial discipline with big ideas. He unpacks the "diamond and dugout" finance model, the decision to keep merchandise separate from operations, and how the organization turned unlimited food and fan-first pricing into measurable growth.

In this episode, we return to the pricing front lines. We'll bring you up to speed on how pricing models are evolving in the experience, knowledge-work, and subscription zones — what's working, what's failing, and what you should keep an eye on.

We'll walk through the shift from "set a price and forget it" to dynamic, value-based, relationship-driven pricing. There will be practical takeaways for service firms, consultancies, and knowledge-work businesses: how to rethink your pricing structure, how to engage clients around value, and how to prepare for what's next.

Whether you're revisiting your base pricing, pivoting into subscription or retainer models, or simply looking to tighten up the value conversation — this update is your check-in and wake-up call. Tune in to learn what Ron & Ed have learned (and re-learned) so you don't repeat the same mistakes.

In this episode, Ron and Ed talk with filmmaker Christian Origenes, director of Kamayan — a documentary exploring the heart of Filipino identity through its cuisine. Origenes traces how communal meals, shared by hand on banana leaves, embody the resilience and creativity of the Filipino people.

From the colonial echoes that shaped modern recipes to the new generation reclaiming ancestral flavors, Kamayan reveals food as both memory and bridge — connecting homeland Filipinos, diaspora communities, and those just beginning to rediscover their roots.

Ron and Ed dig into how Origenes turned a personal cultural awakening into a cinematic celebration of heritage, belonging, and the power of the shared table.

In this episode of The Soul of Enterprise, Ron and Ed take on one of the most cherished virtues of our age — empathy — and ask whether it really belongs at the heart of moral or political reasoning.

Drawing on Kevin D. Williamson's National Review essay "Against Empathy," they explore his case that empathy, far from being a moral compass, often clouds judgment and replaces argument with feeling. Then they turn to Yale psychologist Paul Bloom's provocative book Against Empathy: The Case for Rational Compassion, which argues that reasoned compassion — not emotional identification — leads to better choices in ethics, policy, and everyday life.

From the courts to the classroom to the marketplace, Ron and Ed ask: what happens when emotion overrules principle? And what might a society guided by rational compassion look like instead?

This week on The Soul of Enterprise, Ron and Ed sit down with economist and author Steven Landsburg for a wide-ranging conversation that spans the frontiers of economics and physics. Known for his provocative insights and clear explanations of complex ideas, Landsburg discusses his latest work in economics—including why artificial intelligence continues to stumble on his famously challenging exams. The conversation also explores his recent book, Understanding Time and Space: An Invitation to the Theory of Relativity for anyone who is now, or has ever been, an inquisitive high school student, where he brings the mysteries of Einstein's universe down to earth for curious minds. Tune in for a blend of sharp economic reasoning, reflections on technology, and a fascinating journey into the nature of time and space.