The Enemies of Excellence: A Manifesto on the Importance of Quality

By George Wilson Adams CPA MBA

Excellence is the ultimate human power and the source of our greatest inventions, most successful businesses, deepest insights, furthest explorations, best performances, and most profound art.

Yet some people and companies fear, hate, or are otherwise opposed to excellence. Why?

In this book George Adams answers the question based on his many years of experience as a CPA, MBA, small business owner, and survivor of countless difficult life experiences.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Dec 8, 2023
• ISBN: 9798889101802

George Wilson Adams CPA MBA

George Wilson Adams is the owner of a successful Maine CPA firm and has over thirty years of experience as an accountant and business consultant. He graduated cum laude from DePaul University with a double major in accounting and economics and spent five years working for the largest public accounting firm in the world at that time. In 2010, he finished his MBA and graduated summa cum laude from the University of Massachusetts. In 2011, he created the ad-free website IntelligenceForRent.com where he shares with the public for free his accumulated expertise on taxes, business management, accounting and philosophy.

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About the Author

George Wilson Adams is the owner of a successful Maine CPA firm and has over thirty years of experience as an accountant and business consultant. He graduated cum laude from DePaul University with a double major in accounting and economics and spent five years working for the largest public accounting firm in the world at that time.

In 2010, he finished his MBA and graduated summa cum laude from the University of Massachusetts. In 2011, he created the ad-free website IntelligenceForRent.com where he shares with the public for free his accumulated expertise on taxes, business management, accounting and philosophy.

Dedication

To Joe, My Greatest Mentor

In my office desk drawer in Brewer, Maine, is an old, cheap rubber stamp that says: Tentative and preliminary draft. For review and discussion. Subject to change. This stamp is one of my most valuable material possessions. I treasure it.

I spent over four years working for Joe, a CPA, attorney, and math prodigy at a public accounting firm in Chicago (the largest public accounting firm in the world at that time). He was my greatest and most demanding mentor. Joe had memorized acres of law, tax rules, and case precedent, could solve complex differential equations in his head, and always found the one urgent question that was overlooked or unforeseen in a consulting project, research memo, or tax return. For the first time in my life, I worked for someone who was smarter than me. I am grateful for this.

On my last day of work at the firm, Joe gave me this rubber stamp. It was his final gift to me and his final lesson. For with it, he reminded me that all our work, however good we think it is, remains a draft subject to change, revision, error correction, deeper insight, and the accumulation of still greater knowledge and experience.

Joe has gone to a place I cannot visit. But even now, as I write these words, I can see his kind, wise face before me, and imagine the advice he would give me. Fear those who see knowledge as arrogance, he once warned me.

The purpose of this book is to do for my readers what Joe did for me: To inspire people, including business owners and managers, to achieve excellence in their lives, livelihoods, and legacies.

All chapters in this book have been kept concise to facilitate very easy reading by very busy people. This book is not primarily about how to achieve excellence (though I do offer many ideas). Instead, it is about those who oppose excellence for many reasons.

Copyright Information ©

George Wilson Adams CPA MBA 2023

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher.

Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

Ordering Information

Quantity sales: Special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associations, and others. For details, contact the publisher at the address below.

Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication data

Adams CPA MBA, George Wilson

The Enemies of Excellence

ISBN 9798886931297 (Paperback)

ISBN 9798886931303 (Hardback)

ISBN 9798889101802 (ePub e-book)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2023918113

www.austinmacauley.com/us

First Published 2023

Austin Macauley Publishers LLC

40 Wall Street, 33rd Floor, Suite 3302

New York, NY 10005

USA

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Acknowledgement

I would like to thank my beloved wife, Lital, for her help and patience given the immense challenge of writing this book while running a super-busy CPA firm.

Two souls with but a single thought,

Two hearts that beat as one.

—John Keats

THE ENEMIES OF EXCELLENCE

A Manifesto on the Importance of Quality

By George Wilson Adams CPA MBA

Website: TheEnemiesofExcellence.com

Illustration of a violent mob deliberately burning down the Great Library of Alexandria in 391 AD. It was completely destroyed. This Library was the center of classical learning, science, and philosophy at that time. The greatest part of the accumulated wisdom of the ancients was lost forever. Why?

The Burning of the Library of Alexandria, Ambrose Dudley, circa 1910.

List of Illustrations