The great teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.

—William Arthur Ward, author, educator

[Paul] Every major work you undertake is rarely, if ever, the result solely of your own efforts.

Time's Up! is a classic case of that. It's also a classic case of taking care to assimilate a lot of ideas.

I'm indebted to so many people. To every single organization and person I've served since 1981 when the “Results” concepts started to form for me, thank you. Thank you for having the faith. And thank you for sharing with me all the ideas you've implemented so that I can excitedly share them with others.

More recently, I think of people who've helped me really “get” why I'm here and what I need to do about that. Of course, Ron Baker is major in that, as are Ric Payne, Steve Pipe, Simon Bowen, Aynsley Damery, and Stephen Briginshaw at Clarity; as well as Heather Yelland, Wayne and Sally Schmidt, Harvee Pene, Maya Shahani, Sarah McCrum, Deborah and Jeremy Harris, Tim Wade, Kylie Anderson, James Lizars, Stephen Kelly, Paul Polman, Barry Melancon, Brody Lee, Adam Houlahan, Yves Daccord, Jennie McLaughlin, Mick Hase, Gabriela Styf Sjöman, Calvin Ng, David Dugan, Dan Priestley, Glen Carlson, Consolata Norbert, Casandra Treadwell, Fred Mito, and Rob O'Byrne.

Countless others played and continue to play significant parts in the learning environment for me. These people continue to enrich my life.

The “chief enricher,” though, is my wife, Masami Sato, who does more than anyone else to keep me grounded, focused, and on purpose (as well as fed and watered).

My incredible good fortune has been to be a part of the learning and to be able to present it to others to change the way they enrich lives, too. That remains—above all—a special privilege.

[Ron] We are the composite of our connections. This book is the product of an astounding collection of human and social capital. As always, I have stood on the shoulders of giants who have helped me see the world as it is, not as I believe it should be. Please do not condemn the prophets for the ineptitude and errors of the disciple. I take full responsibility for any and all faults that remain.

Many economists have contributed to my education: Milton and Rose Friedman and their son, David Friedman, Friedrich Hayek, Steven Landsburg, Deirdre McCloskey, Ludwig von Mises, Michael Munger, Russ Roberts and his magnificent podcast, EconTalk, Julian Simon, Mark Skousen, Thomas Sowell, and Walter Williams.

Even though I am not Jewish, I am proud to have my very own rabbi—Daniel Lapin. His grasp of human behavior is astounding, his book Thou Shall Prosper is profound, and he was the inspiration for the distinction between that which is spiritual and that which is material. Thank you, Rabbi.

Thank you, Dr. Paul Thomas, founder of Plum Health DPC, for evangelizing the DPC movement, for your books (the first from which I borrowed the epigraph), and for appearing on The Soul of Enterprise four times (so far), and sharing your wisdom, passion, challenges, and successes. I wish you were my doctor.

Four leading authors profoundly affected me through their books and through interviews we were able to do with each of them on The Soul of Enterprise—I thank you all for writing, and contributing your immense tacit knowledge to my understanding of the subscription economy: Tien Tzuo (who coined the term), Robbie Kellman Baxter, Anne Janzer, and John Warrillow.

B. Joseph Pine II and James H. Gilmore, for your wonderful books on The Experience Economy, which introduced me to the timeless idea of guiding customer transformations. I cannot thank you enough for this insight.

Peter Drucker, who consistently contributed real insight and wisdom to the discipline of management thinking. In one way or another, everyone who writes on business stands on his shoulders. His legacy is large, and it will endure for the ages. He should have been awarded a Nobel Prize.

Indescribable gratitude must go to my 41‐year mentor, George Gilder, for conducting an interview with Playboy that a barber read and was so inspired by, he purchased your book for his stubborn son, changing the boy's life forever after. His book Wealth and Poverty created the desire in me to write my own. His subsequent books are equally profound, from The Spirit of Enterprise and Life after Google, to Life after Capitalism, just to mention three (there's more). Gilder is the Adam Smith of the twentieth and twenty‐first centuries.

Elbert Hubbard wisecracked in 1923 that the job of an editor is to “separate the wheat from the chaff, and to see that the chaff is printed,” which is the exact opposite of the results the talented team at John Wiley & Sons, Inc. produced. Thank you, Sheck Cho, Susan Cerra, Julie Kerr, Cheryl Ferguson, Samantha Wu, and Natasha Wolfe for giving birth to our thoughts that will endure on the page.

To my friend and colleague Tim Williams, who has taught me everything I know about purpose, strategy, positioning, marketing, and branding. Tim is largely the inspiration for Chapter 11, and many other points throughout the book. I am eternally grateful for his wisdom.

Ric Payne is another mentor to me and one who has taught me an inordinate amount about strategy, disruption, and accounting firms pivoting to advisory work. I may have never convinced him of the uselessness of timesheets, over which we have engaged in a friendly debate for two decades, but there is one salutary effect. If it were not for this disagreement, I would agree with Ric on everything else relating to the profession, thereby rendering one of us superfluous—me, I'm afraid. Thanks, Ric, I cherish our friendship.

The Talmud says, “I have learned much from my teachers, more from my colleagues, and most of all from my students.” It is my good fortune that my students are also my colleagues, from our amazing, worldwide audience of listeners to The Soul of Enterprise and our phenomenal Patreon members, to the beloved Black Swans—including Melissa Michalski, who read the early manuscript and provided valuable feedback—my VeraSage Institute colleagues, and all the professionals who have read my prior works. You have all contributed tremendously to my knowledge while providing epistemic humility given that the world is complex and the future unknowable.

Thank you, Hector Garcia, Ed Kless, Melissa Michalski, Blake Oliver, Ric Payne, Ethan Williams, and Mark Wickersham for reviewing the rather chaotic manuscript and contributing your insights, wisdom, and tacit knowledge. A special thank you to Dan Morris for doing a deep read and providing detailed feedback; and to Ethan Williams, I look forward to seeing how you use these concepts to future‐proof your pricing.

An enormous thank you to Blake Oliver, host of Cloud Accounting and Earmark Accounting podcasts, for reading the first draft, providing invaluable feedback, and being bold enough to write the Foreword to a book destined to cause some controversy and cognitive dissonance in our chosen profession.

Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote in Character: “A chief event of life is the day in which we have encountered a mind that startled us.” This perfectly describes my dear friend, colleague, and fellow Cognitor, Dan Morris. Thank you, Dan, you are like a brother to me.

Novelist Edna Buchanan wrote, “Friends are the family we choose for ourselves.” In that spirit, I am honored to call Ed Kless a treasured brother. Our 20+‐year collaboration has been epic, and The Soul of Enterprise—that I cannot imagine hosting without you—is one of my proudest contributions. Aristotle described his idea of the “perfect friendship” as based on willing each other's well‐being and shared love for something good and virtuous that is outside either of you. Liberty and human flourishing come to mind.

Having the opportunity to work closely with Paul Dunn since our first meeting in 1996 has been nirvana—especially since I learned that in Zen, nirvana literally means a complete sense of timelessness. In the Acknowledgments to Paul in The Firm of the Future, I wrote, “… and if I know Paul, the next book will be even better.” Let us learn together if that is so. You are a great teacher, my friend.

A wise rabbi said, “Pay attention to the ways in which your relationship continues,” in reference to those loved ones who have departed. This means more to me each passing day as I fondly remember my brother, Ken Baker. Robert Browning expresses it beautifully in A Blot on the 'Scutcheon, II, 1843:

I think, am sure, a brother's love exceeds

All the world's loves in its unworldliness.

To my mother and father for genetically encoding me to challenge the conventional wisdom, and providing the most immeasurable of all blessings: their love and unwavering support in all I do.

And to you, Dear Reader, we now await your final verdict of value.