Broker / Business Owner
She set her sights beyond the recommendation of a guidance counselor, who misjudged her persistence and ability to cope with significant personal issues.
WL was born in Iowa, the oldest of 5 siblings. Her father owned a real estate sales company (known within the trade as a licensed “Broker”). Her mother was a homemaker until her parents divorced and thereafter became a social worker.
CHILD ABSORBS PARENT’S BUSINESS
At home, WL’s father talked about his real estate business, so WL became generally familiar with the concepts of buyers and sellers and the “behind the scenes” work that had to be done to bring those two parties together to complete a mutually agreeable transaction. As a child, WL absorbed the generalities of the real estate business while assisting her father in delivering sales brochures around town. Most important: it was clear to WL that her father totally enjoyed his entire career in real estate.
PERSONAL CHALLENGES
Following her parents’ divorce, WL lived with her mother and siblings in Iowa until her mother was tragically killed in an auto accident, following which WL and her two sisters moved to Florida to live with her by then relocated father and several half-siblings.
ACADEMIC DEVOTIONG FORECASTS FUTURE BUSINESS DEDICATION
During these personal, emotionally difficult transitions to a new home area, a new family and a new school, WL continued to dedicate herself to high achievement in her school courses, graduating as her high school’s Salutatorian (second highest in class rank). Despite her obvious academic proficiency, her HS guidance counselor suggested that she avoid setting her sights on nationally well recognized universities and instead, settle for nearby, smaller schools where she would easily stand out academically. The counselor mis-judged WL’s willingness to accept a challenge.
WL applied to both Duke and Vanderbilt Universities, finally deciding upon Duke after being admitted to both despite the pessimistic prediction of her guidance counselor.
Enrolling at Duke with her personal academic experience of nothing but “A” grades, WL was initially intimidated by the academic records and confidence of many of her classmates with private school educations. In one course, WL looked at her “B” grade with surprise, disappointment, and a bit of anxiety. Not uncommon to entering college freshmen, WL assumed – prematurely as she now looks back – that a grade less than an A forecast future failure or at least mere average performance. But WL counseled with herself and resolved to transfer her courses to subjects with which she was more familiar and more comfortable, featuring literature and utilizing her writing skills and interests. WL’s decision proved to be a wise choice, as she eventually graduated from Duke with a double major, Magna Cum Laude (high honors).
ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT – THEN WHAT NEXT?
A distinguished academic career completed, now what? WL approached a career guidance counselor at Duke, explained her indecision about a future career and took a recommended battery of tests involving her skills, interests, and personality. The result: WL was a match with members of the legal profession. Who knew?!
FINANCIAL CHALLENGE
Unfortunately, WL did not have prompt financial means to afford to proceed directly to law school. So, she decided to accompany her boyfriend to the Philadelphia area, where she enrolled in a relatively inexpensive paralegal training course, confirming her interest in a legal career beyond basic paralegal duties. During this time, WL supported herself working part-time performing legal research for law firms and found that she could do very well understanding and applying legal concepts.
With a modest financial inheritance from her paternal grandfather, WL was able to afford to enroll in the first year of law school without a financial plan to pay for the second and third years of law school. However, her academic achievement that first year, combined with her level of financial need, was recognized by the prestigious law school, which granted her a very generous scholarship for her final two years, during which she continued to perform part-time legal research to support herself, as academic scholarships don’t also provide food and rent.
Note that by wisely using her modest inheritance, WL literally bet on herself by investing in her own career. As a result of depleting her inheritance to fund her education, WL was personally motivated to “get (my) money’s worth” by attending almost every class and seriously studying her coursework between classes.
FIRST CAREER STEP
Upon law school graduation, WL was offered an entry level position with a prominent Philadelphia law firm, which involved periodic rotations within the firm’s various departments of specialized legal services so that the rookie lawyer and the employer could eventually resolve the best mutual fit going forward. Accordingly, WL learned early on that securities law was too boring and complex, corporate law was less complex but uninteresting, litigation was not appealing (no pun intended). (Editor’s note: WL had the personality for litigation but during her rotation within the firm’s litigation department, she was then exposed to only reading deposition transcripts, not to in-person courtroom battles of wits).
CAREER SATISFACTION
WL eventually joined the law firm’s real estate section on a long-term basis. There, her professional group seemed more personable than in other departments and she already understood the basic concepts of real estate. Working with nice people on issues you enjoy is a basic ingredient for job satisfaction before considering the level of financial compensation.
WL had found a mutually happy niche within a large law firm, which lasted seven years until she took maternity leave to deliver her first child, following which she intended to return – until she didn’t, changing her mind to avoid having to leave her newborn in someone else’s care until her child was old enough to function within a day-care setting. As with most large law firms, a seventh-year associate is then evaluated for partnership, when even more “billable hours” are expected to be produced.
BUSINESS RISK ACCEPTED
Now with time to return to the working world on a close to full-time basis, WL opted to work part time in a job (for her, different from a career), selling the services of other part-time attorneys to law firms. She enjoyed the sales transaction and was succeeding in this type of work until management of the company strangely tried to decrease her compensation while requiring full-time work, under the guise of the proposed new arrangement to be a better guarantee of steadier income. WL attempted to negotiate a mutually acceptable contract of employment, but it was not offered so she opted to depart and take a BIG RISK: start her own real estate sales company.
How huge a risk? Not unreasonably huge since by now (1) she had broad experience within this specific business: real estate; and (2) she had developed quite a few business contacts during her career to date; and (3) she was creative enough to develop a niche to make her business unique: promote herself as solely devoted to the interests of buyers, which not coincidentally, matched her empathetic interests.
MELDING YIELDS SUCCESS
The net result: by melding
* innate persistence to achieve excellence in whatever she attempted
* ability to cope with negative personal issues along the way
* motivation to continuously gain experience in a field with which she was already comfortable with its business issues
* goal to make her clients comfortable during the transactional process and ultimately happy with the result, WL has built a steady business which is both financially rewarding and professionally satisfying. (Memo to WL’s high school counselor: Look at her now!)
