The Most Independent Person You've Ever Met

A forty-five year old husband and father of two children, ages two and eight, Whitey works out of a home office. His wife has been a full-time, stay-at-home Mom since their children were born.

I asked Whitey who in his background had the most influence on him.

"Me," he replied.

Long pause.

"I mean, I've…," he continues. "How do I say it without sounding arrogant? I'm the most independent person you've ever met. There have been some influential people in my life, but they've taught me what not to be and how not to act and how not to conduct myself. In other words, there's been lots of negative influences, which are instructive."

Whitey's fierce independence has not always made it easy for him.

"I was a terrible employee," he explains. "When I worked for law firms as an associate, I was terrible. I hated it. I've never, ever liked being in a position where I had to call another man boss. It's just misery to me. It's torture. My brothers are the same way. My little brother has been self-employed his entire adult life. My older brother's dead now, never had a boss in his life either. We just couldn't… it's just not in our blood to do that.

"I'd rather make a hundred thousand dollars a year and be on my own than make two hundred thousand and work for some other a**hole. I can't deal with it.

Whitey's inability to tolerate a boss is what ultimately led him into his own specialized tax law practice.

"I got out of the law firm business back in 1992. Excuse me, the law firm got me out of the business. I got my a** fired, which was a perfectly great thing to happen, because it just set up the next phase, which was me opening up my own office and taking it from nothing to something that was really outstanding in a matter of about five years, and it was all me. I never had an employee, never had a staff, operated out of home, so I had extremely low overhead.

Next, I asked Whitey if any specific events from his past had altered the course of his life. He said there were many, but a few stand out.

"I would guess that part of my independent streak would date back to when I was nine years old and my father blew his brains out. That probably created a very un-trusting little boy who had been abandoned- that's a classic case of abandonment. I didn't let anybody get close to me for a long time. I just did not want to put myself in a position where I was dependent on other people. That's carried all the way to adult life and it's also made me a very wealthy guy at a fairly young age."

Whitey says that getting fired twice from law firm jobs, first in 1990 and again in 1992, set him up for the jump into his own practice. Then, four or five years into his practice Whitey took a step that allowed him to progress to the next level professionally.

"At that point, I had lots of wealthy clients, but I didn't know how to really serve them completely. Wealthy clients need different types of estate planning than school teachers and regular types. The more wealth you have, the more tax exposure. I had a good understanding of a number of advanced techniques. I didn't know how to roll it out. I didn't know how to present it to a client and ask them for a thirty or forty thousand dollar legal fee.

What did he do?

"I joined a group of attorneys, a think tank, of about fifty attorneys around the country who routinely worked with clients with a net worth of ten million dollars and up. It was the best decision I ever made as an attorney because it quickly elevated my practice and launched me into an advanced estate planning practice, high fee, low volume, at exactly the time when Silicon Valley was exploding, and I mean exploding! This was 1998.

"Making that decision allowed me to take my practice from gross fees in the hundred thousand dollar range to gross fees in the four hundred thousand dollar range. Remember, I was solo. No overhead. So that was crucial.

"I reeducated myself. I was already a CPA and a tax lawyer and I had an advanced law degree in taxation. Okay. Six, seven years out from that I basically went back to school and I got myself upgraded once again. Education has been crucial."

It wouldn't be the last time Whitey would need to re-educate himself.

More Tomorrow...

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