CFO Bookshelf Blog

My second-favorite accountant in the movies is Oscar Wallace in The Untouchables. While Tiffany Couch probably hasn’t ever had to deal with someone like Al Capone, she has something in common with Oscar – they both use the science of numbers accounting to detect fraudulent schemes. Tiffany is a long-time forensic account and the author of, The Thief In Your Company. Tiffany teaches us that thieves are not the only ones who rationalize. So do their victims.

Mark provides five titles in this special CFO Bookshelf episode that inspire and educate. Three of the books are by female authors. Only three of the books are business-centric. Two are by CEOs, and three are close to being memoirs. Only one title comes close to being a how-to book. All five of these titles inspire, educate, and entertain the lifelong reader seeking to take their drinking of good books to an entirely new level.

What is a Fractional CFO? That term has become a household name for financial experts who help small business owners in various industries. However, do we have a concise and complete definition for this type of professional services provider? In this special episode, we break down what the fractional CFO is based on their three unique and primary roles to small business owners. We also give the best definition of a CFO you have probably never heard before.

After I listened to Jody’s interview on the producer’s cut, my first thought was, “This is Andrew Warner (Mixergy) material.” That’s the greatest compliment I can give this creative thinker with an accounting and finance background. During this conversation, we fixated on first principles in Jody’s profession, which includes the Peter Drucker directive for effective professionals, the Harold Geneen career path, and why AI is a positive, not a negative. Finally, there is no accounting stereotype in Jody’s world.

When did you start using Excel, and how did you learn it? Jeff Lenning is the founder of Excel University. He discusses the mistakes he sees in Excel workbooks, the differences between formal and informal training, and why both are critical. We walk down memory lane, discussing when we started using Excel and our favorite functions inside this powerful application. Finally, we tip our cap to two famous Excel MVPs and explain why we do so.

What would you be willing to do to feel alive in your work every day? Jack Craven asks executives from all walks of life this question. Jack is the author of Aliveness Mindset: Lead and Live with More Passion, Purpose, and Joy. His book includes more than a dozen tools and frameworks for starting the journey of aliveness. This conversation addresses David Robsen’s expectation effect, the actual vs. the ideal self, anchoring mindsets, accelerants, and magic words.

The Venture Mindset by Ilya Strebulaev and Alex Dang reads fast and reminds me a little of Kahneman, Munger, and books about Buffett. In this episode, we discuss some of the big ideas with both authors, including roof shots vs. moonshots, betting on jockeys vs. horses, winning at the piggy bank game, and what we can learn from student VC partnerships. We also learn about colleganza, vervet monkeys, and the escalation of commitment.

I had never heard of Edmond Safra until I read Daniel Gross’s informative and inspiring biography, A Banker’s Journey. His banks never had to write off loans, and many of his early deals were on a handshake. He never needed a government bailout, nor did he ever head to DC complaining about regulations. Dan Gross gives us compelling reasons to revisit this banker’s remarkable life, whose business career started at fifteen in Milan.

Our special guest may not be a best-selling author on real estate yet, but we’re already predicting this former World Cup soccer player will soon be a household name in Dave Ramsey’s world in a few years. Vaughn Bethell is the founder of REI Junkies based in South Carolina. In this episode, we learn his unique process of providing real estate investors a different way to reduce stress and frustration in their investments.