Listen to this articleThe basics:
- ‘America’s Accountant’ Dan Geltrude debuts business book inspired by his dogs
- Apollo and Annie shape lessons applied to leadership and work
- Book features 23 chapters and the Geltrude Principles
- Focuses on connecting personal experiences with business strategy
For more than 30 years, Dan Geltrude has been a prominent figure in New Jersey’s accounting community.
He founded Geltrude & Co. in Nutley in 1995 and has grown it into a well-established advisory firm serving privately held businesses, real estate clients, family offices and high-net-worth individuals.
His plainspoken breakdowns of tax policy and economic issues have also made him a familiar presence on national news programs, where he appears regularly as “America’s Accountant.”
As NJBIZ has reported, Geltrude has been closely involved in efforts to address the accounting talent shortage – and was a key architect, leading the charge for the Work for Credit pilot program, an alternative pathway to CPA licensure. That concept has been adopted by a slew of accounting firms and institutions in a range of collaborations.
Geltrude has been a mainstay on NJBIZ’s Accounting Power (now Finance) List.
His latest project is a book that takes an unconventional angle on business lessons he has learned through the lens of his relationship with his beloved dogs, Apollo and Annie.
The book titled is titled “Dogs Taught Me Everything I Know About Business.”
NJBIZ recently spoke to Geltrude about the book and much more.
Apollo’s impact
“What was the genesis and thought process behind this book – and taking the lessons day-to-day that your dogs have taught you and how it mirrors what’s going on in your business life? How did you weave that all together into the idea for a book,” NJBIZ asked.
“I wrote my first book ‘Positive Financial Karma’. After I finished that book and had a pretty decent amount of success with it – I started writing a second book after that,” Geltrude told NJBIZ. “So, I finished that – and that was another business book. And when I was finished with it, although I thought the content was really good, I’m like – it just feels like another run of the mill advice about business. So, I just shelved it.
“And then what happened was, my Jack Russell Terrier died – and I just couldn’t believe how devastating that was.”
Geltrude said he spent a lot of time contemplating his relationship with the dog, Apollo – and all of the memories they shared together.
That dog taught me a lot.
“As I thought about my relationship, I’m like – that dog taught me a lot,” said Geltrude. “Then, when I was looking at those lessons – I didn’t realize this dog was teaching me a lot about business. And I wasn’t paying attention. So what I did was I pulled my book off the shelf and I started going back through the points I was making in that book – and I was drawing a parallel.”
Connecting the dots
He explained how many of the business points connected to lessons his dog was teaching him.
“I just didn’t connect the dots,” said Geltrude. “The whole concept of – people love their dogs. People understand their dogs. People relate to their dogs. And I said – what if I take the voice of my dog, or a dog – and I start talking about business and essentially create a business book through the eyes of a dog.
“Because I think people will actually understand it. It’ll stick more. I just started writing – all from the angel of how does a dog see these things, in business and your career. Instead of just hardcore business, which has been written about over and over again; let me just take a different angle, a different approach.
“I don’t think I’ve created anything new. I think what I’ve created was a different lens in which to view business and career.”
America’s Accountant and Kelsey Grammer, two celebrity authors exchanging thoughts about each other’s books. My book tour continues…#americasaccountant pic.twitter.com/vaH6a39Z77
— AmericasAccountant® (@DanGeltrude) May 7, 2025
The book begins with Geltrude laying out “The Geltrude Principles,” a set of 10 fundamentals inspired by Phil Knight, founder of Nike.
“Let me tell you the genesis of the Geltrude Principles. I had been watching the Michael Jordan documentary, ‘The Last Dance,’” said Geltrude. “There is a lot of reference in how Michael Jordan approached things in terms of his focus to be as successful as he was. Him and Kobe [Bryant] are probably the two greatest competitors of all time.
“At the same time, I happened to watch the Nike movie, ‘Air,’ about the signing of Jordan to Nike. Phil Knight had very similar principles when he started the company – he just laid these things out,” Geltrude continued. “I was in my office and literally, I wrote these up in this order, in this wording, with no editing.
“That literally was just a stream of consciousness of – when I thought about my company and I said, what are going to be the things that guide us that literally cover everything?”
Core principles
After writing the principles, Geltrude said he rolled them out to his firm.
“I said, these are going to be our guiding principles in everything that we do,” Geltrude recalled. “So, every scenario that we look at, it’s going to relate back to these. And that’s how it came to be. This is literally the core of my company of how approach things.”
Principles include:
- No one wins unless we all win. We are a TEAM.
- Nothing is random. Everything is cause and effect.
- Always be working backwards from the outcome.
- We have no competitors except for ourselves.
- There are no shortcuts. Hard work is mandatory.
- We will succeed doing things the right way.
- We are here to serve others.
- If you are not willing to change and evolve, leave now.
- Do something great every day.
- Love what you do.
“They have taken to them very well,” Geltrude said of his team. “Because they are being consistently applied by the firm’s leadership. If you are going to present something like this to your team, as the leader, you better damn well follow all of this as you go through the process.”
Those principles then launch into the book, which lays out 23 lessons Geltrude that can be learned through the relationship with your dog. And yes, the 23 chapters is very much a nod to the aforementioned NBA legend Michael Jordan, who famously wore No. 23 on the court.
“That was intentional. I said – there’s going to be 23 chapters in this book,” said Geltrude.
Name game
The first chapter describes how the name of a dog should be an intentional exercise – and how the dog’s name will provide its identity and branding, much life a business.
“The point I was trying to make is that when you are assigning a name to anything, it’s got to have meaning. That’s not haphazard. At least, that’s how I see it,” Geltrude explained. “If you’re going to name your company, you’re going to live and die by that name. You are telling the world who you are with your name.
The point I was trying to make is that when you are assigning a name to anything, it’s got to have meaning.
“As I said, when you’re naming a dog, think about it, you’re going to repeat that name thousands of times as you’re calling, addressing that dog. It should be a name that actually has meaning. And if you view things in terms of the universe, the law of attraction – everything has meaning. Everything has intention. When you’re giving a dog a name, have it be a name that really means something.
“Because that translates into your relationship with that dog – like your relationship with your company. It’s got to be a name you’re proud of, a name you want to say over and over. A name you love. So, that was the whole concept of a dog’s name and your business’s name.”
Stay tuned for the next part of NJBIZ’s discussion with Geltrude. More information on his book is available here.
