Focused - 28: David's Origin Story

Episode Date: August 22, 2017

Jason asks David to explain where he came from, the background of his career, and what the circumstances were that led him to become an independent worker, and then asks him to reflect on his two-plus years no longer being employed by a law firm.

David Sparks and Jason Snell spent their careers working for the establishment. Then one day, they'd had enough. Now, they are independent workers learning what it takes to succeed in the 21st century. They are free agents. Welcome back to Free Agents, a podcast about being an independent worker in a digital age. I'm Jason Snell, and I'm joined, as always, by my fellow host, Mr. David Sparks. Hi, David. Hi, Jason. Why is this podcast not like other episodes of Free Agents?

Because we're sitting here looking at each other. We are. Now, people will know from our stories that we are not strangers to one another. And back when we worked for the man, we used to have lunch or breakfast every so often when I was visiting where you live, visiting my in-laws, and we'd come over and talk about leaving our jobs. But this is the first time we've had the conversation face-to-face doing the free agents podcast. After a big dinner, no less.

Yeah. If we're going to be low-key that we're going to blame it on the dinner, but I think we should be able to, uh, we'll make it, we'll make it work. Yes, we will. So this episode is me turning the tables on you from eight episodes ago, when you asked me about my origin story. Yeah. I'm a little intimidated because I think you're better at this stuff than I am. I am putting you in the spotlight here. Well, you know, you are one to talk as a fancy courtroom lawyer. Who, me? Not me. I'm just a simple country doctor. I don't know what you're talking about. Half the days, I don't even get my socks to match, Jason. Okay. Well, we'll see how it goes then. But as you pointed out in my origin story episode, every free agent story makes sense in hindsight.

So let's go deep with David Sparks to hear about how he got from there to here. So let's go back to the beginning as you did with me. I'm literally just going to use the same playbook that you used on me. All right. Growing up, we've talked about our Depression-era parents in the past. What was your impression of work growing up as you watched your parents? Well, my parents were older when I was born. They were both 40. So they truly were Depression, um, and it was a very traditional family. My dad worked and my mom stayed home and my dad worked really hard and I didn't really

have any idea what he was doing, but I knew he was working hard. Business. Yeah. Well, he was, he worked for a lumber yard, you know, my dad was 39 when I was born. So it was a similar thing. My mom was younger. She was 31. But yeah, yeah.

My mom was younger. She was 31. Yeah. Yeah. My dad started out loading lumber on a truck and over the years kind of built himself up to be more in management. But he had that whole thing about, you know, salt of the earth, work really hard and, you know, life will take care of you. Wow. So was he – did he start loading the truck and was still working like the same employer and worked his way up? Or did he go from place to place?

He bounced around over the years. But that was kind of what dad did. And we keep hammering on that depression era thing. But I think in hindsight, it was a big player even back then. That's when the hooks were getting into me about being careful about this kind of thing. Yeah, no, I believe that it echoes in us, right? That's the thing that we can talk about it in them, but we saw it and you do model that behavior and you do get brought up. The priorities are set in some ways by those – like responsibility is a phrase that i learned from my dad giving my

big brother a lecture about how he i forget even what he did but it was a big lecture that he gave and i just was i was in the other room and it still like made this huge impression on me it's like you're a kid stuff like that sinks in even if you don't know that it's happening. Yeah, and I think I probably heard the same discussion at one point or another. So when you went to college, what did you think you were going to do? I was an aerospace engineering major. Wow. Yeah. I wanted to be, for a long time I wanted to be an architect.

When I was going through school, I was really into music. I was in a lot of the honor jazz bands. I spent most of my high school career touring with various honor bands. And I guess I should talk about that a little bit. So I thought I would become a musician for the longest time. And I was doing pretty good. I was playing pretty good. I started doing some studio work in LA.

And I got into a very prestigious music school. And I also got into the Navy jazz band. I auditioned for that. And my father, another influence of my father, he was in the Korean War and he felt very strongly that the Sparks family and the military, that something bad was going to happen. When he got to Korea, he won a shooting competition. He got assigned to a machine gun. And apparently machine gunners didn't live very long in Korea. So he made it back, but he was

very anti-military. So he talked me out of that. And I said, OK, I'll go to the music school. Then I started working kind of in the industry a little bit because I was doing the studio work. And I realized that I enjoy it, but it's not the only thing for me. So what were you playing? Saxophone. I'll read instruments, but mainly saxophone. It was back when the Honey Drippers were around. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. So the Honey Drippers were a rockabilly band that kind of came out of nowhere and they kind of made rockabilly popular. And so all these bands were emerging and they wanted ameasure tenor sax solo on their demo tape, and a lot of them didn't have a very good saxophone player. It was like some guy that they knew that was in band. People don't remember, but starting in the 80s, there was a period there where the sax solo was required in all music.

Yeah, so I was pretty good, and I charged $100, and I would play a solo on your demo tape. Wow. I wasn't in the union, which got me in trouble a little bit. And I thought I was like, this was 17 to 19 years old. I thought I had the whole world figured out at that point. I just thought I had it all figured out. But then I realized I didn't really want to be a musician,

but I was always kind of geeky and technically minded. And I talked to my parents about their thoughts. And engineering seemed like a good idea for me. And so I went into what was sexy at the time, which was aerospace engineering. So did you have any sort of interest, real interest or passion in being an aerospace engineer? Or was it a little more calculated than that um i took we in my high school we had a uh a teacher that was a former navy pilot and he had a class called aerospace and um i had won an award i made i built a wind tunnel when i was in the

senior in high school so i i i got it i understood. And I was interested. But I was also very active in play production and music. I did everything in high school. So it made it hard to pick one thing when you have interests everywhere. In fact, that's the problem that I still face. So what happened? I got to aerospace engineering. One of the thoughts I had was most engineers are inarticulate. So I thought, if I'm going to be an aerospace engineer, what if I was an articulate aerospace engineer? So I joined the debate team. And that's kind of what changed the course for me. The debate team at my university was pretty good. So we toured a lot and I won some

pretty big tournaments. And one of them, a federal judge, and this was my sophomore year of college, a federal judge was the judge of the tournament. And he said, hey, maybe you should become a lawyer. And that was the first time I'd ever thought about it. Wow. And did that resonate immediately or did it take time for that to sink in? It took a little while for me to – actually, it resonated because I obviously followed up on it. But I wasn't sure about it. It was so different from what I was doing.

But also I felt like I wasn't really feeling that enriched with the engineering course of study. And I know there's a lot of engineers listening, and I think it's great, and I'm happy for it. But for me, it just wasn't lighting me up the way I thought it should. So I thought I might try something like that. Again, I talked to my parents. It's kind of funny. That's a recurring theme in this.

And one of the things my parents said to me, they said, well, if you become a lawyer, do you think you can do that and remain ethical? That was a big deal to my parents. You know, Catholic, Depression era, you know, just, you know, they were concerned because they felt like, well, are you sure you can do that and stay a good person? And now as I'm approaching 50 years old, I think about that conversation and it fills me with love for my parents that that was their worry. Most people say, oh, you want to become a lawyer? Great. You're going to make a lot of money.

Their concern was can you live a quality, good life and be a lawyer? And the fact that we had that conversation has really – I've never forgot it. In fact, some of the key moments in my life, I go back to that conversation and it helps me make the right decision. Wow. So changed your major? Yeah. I changed from aerospace engineering to political science because I just went all in. And in fact, the dean told me when I graduated, I was the only guy in the College of Arts who graduated with several years of calculus and organic chemistry. But it was great. I had a good time and I fell to that like a duck to water and went through undergrad, got my political science degree, and then from there I went to law school.

All right. degree. And then from there, I went to law school. All right. So forgive me, because I don't know a lot about the legal profession, despite having friends who are lawyers and a sister-in-law who's a judge. Yeah, fancy. Yeah, I know. And yet I don't know anything. So tell me, when you went to law school, and then when you emerged, what led you to the kind of law that you ended up practicing? This is another just mistake of fate. You know, when I was going through law school, I thought I wanted to be a criminal attorney. I wanted to be a prosecutor. Put the bad guys away.

Yeah, exactly. I have a friend who ended up doing that, yeah. Yeah, and I was going through school kind of with that thought. I did all the debate. I loved being a courtroom lawyer. You know, I loved going to court. I thought that's what I wanted to do. Then I got a summer internship where I worked for the public defender and the prosecutor's office

and spent the summer just really going in deep on it. And it's really hard work. And emotionally, it was just killing me, just kind of dealing with all the craziness there. And, you know, i i didn't know really what i wanted to do and then while i was in law school a small law firm down in orange county i'd never lived in orange county at the time was looking for a law student that they could send research to where you would it was before really significant internet so they would lick a stamp they'd mail me a bunch of questions. Oh, and you'd go into the law library and look up the answers? Yes, yes. Oh, wow. And

I would research them and I'd mail them the answers back. And so I did that for several years. And when I graduated, in addition to working for the criminal system, I also worked for a federal judge. So I had a lot of opportunities. And I thought I'd go into a big firm when I started it all out. But for some reason, that wasn't feeling right to me. And, and it just felt so mercenary to me, you know, because I think I was kind of tired by this point. You know, I'd gone through a significant science course, then I'd crammed in political science. I graduated in four years. I didn't extend my college at all.

Then I went through three years of law school. And then when you go to these big firms, at least back in 1993 when I did it, you would go into the interview. And at the end of the interview, I would always say, what do you expect of me? The typical interview question.

And then they'd say, there would always expect of me? The typical interview question. And then they'd say, there would always be some integer followed by the word hours. Yeah. I'd be like, we expect 2,000 hours or 1,800 hours. And I started doing in my head the math of, how am I going to bill that many hours? And it just really wasn't for me.

My sister-in-law went to one of those firms after law school and they weren't kidding. Yeah, it is a grist for the mill. You do the math and you realize that this is like an 80-hour work week every week of billing, of just the billable hours. Yeah, you're either going to be a liar or you're going to put yourself in a grave. So I wasn't sure about that. Then meanwhile, this little firm that had done this research through all through law school said, well, we'd like you to work for us. And I said, well, what do you expect of me? And they said, we expect you to win.

And it was like, hallelujah, sign me up. And it was less money. But I had my first trial about a month and a half after I got sworn in the bar. Wow. The other lawyer called me up. He said he looked up my bar number, but I didn't have one yet. He started teasing me about it, which he shouldn't have done in hindsight. And so it was great. And I really, I guess in hindsight, I was immediately self-selecting myself out of the big law firm life before I even really got started. That sounds like you had enough awareness of yourself to steer yourself away from engineering

and then steer yourself away from certain kinds of law and then steer yourself away from certain kinds of law firms, right? Like, obviously, you think back and you think you're just a kid and what do you know? But you obviously had enough instinct and enough thoughts about what you wanted to do and what you didn't want to do to steer away rather than like, oh, no, but this is what I'm supposed to do. I'm just going to force myself into this. You had enough smarts to say, no, that's not for me.

And it's funny because I think my smarts were only enough to know the stuff that wouldn't work for me. Like what I ended up doing going to this firm was working for a bunch of small businesses. And if you had asked me when I started law school, do you want to be a small business, you know, country doctor, business lawyer? I would have said that's ridiculous. And as soon as I started doing that, I immediately fell in love with it because you've got all these people that really need your help. They're usually very thankful for your help. And the whole world is against them. I mean, the small business guy, the big companies want to crush you. The competition wants to crush you. Sometimes the government wants to crush you.

You really feel like, you know, David and Goliath sometimes, and they're fighting for those guys. So it was happenstance, but I found myself in the right place. Now, how long did you stay with that firm? 22 years. So that's the one. Yeah. That was the one, the big one. Yeah.

With a small vacation. I guess I should tell that story. Oh, yeah. I've heard this story. This is a good story. Have I shared it on the show? I don't know. I'm not sure.

I know you've shared it with me. Maybe not. This is your false start of I'm going to go work for this bigger firm. Yeah. You know, I said earlier I learned the lesson that I shouldn't work for a big firm, but I didn't learn it good enough. You had to reinforce a little refresher. After I'd been – I don't know how long I'd been with the other firm, but I had a big case and things went well. And one of the opposing counsel – long story short, I got offered a nice job from a bigger firm.

And I went and worked for them and I lasted two weeks. Yeah. Yeah. It just wasn't for me. And I needed to go there to do it. It was a, you know, it just the type of work wasn't for me. And my fault as much as anybody else's, I found myself very quickly not liking the guy in the mirror.

And I realized that, you know, even though I make more money, I'll probably be dead if I keep doing this stuff. Are you glad that you, I mean, I say a lot that I'm, regardless of what happens with my going out on my own here, I'm glad I did it because I knew I would regret it if I didn't try it. Obviously, some part of you thought, well, maybe I should work at a big firm. And so in the end, is it good that that happened because you got your answer? Yeah, if it doesn't kill you, it makes you stronger or something like that. Well, you went back to your old firm, right? Yeah, one of the lessons, I mean, I was very

professional about the way I left. I didn't burn my bridges. Talked about it. They were very happy. They were sending me emails. Are you happy? I mean, they were clearly sending signals they would like me to come back. And honestly, going back, I had a better deal when I went back because suddenly I had more value. But that's an interesting little side trip because I think that experience made it even harder for me to consider leaving again. Right. Because you'd gone through that and you'd left. So the last thing you want to do is do that again. Well, we should talk about that process. But before we do that, I think it's time for us to take a break and tell you about our sponsor. Yes. FreshBooks. To all the freelancers listening right now, if you could reclaim up to 192 hours of your precious time this year,

would you? Our friends at FreshBooks make cloud accounting software for freelancers that's ridiculously easy to use, and they can help you do just that. By simplifying tasks like invoicing, tracking expenses, and getting paid online, FreshBooks has drastically reduced the time it takes for over 10 million people to deal with their paperwork. Now, FreshBooks isn't just sitting on their laurels. These guys are working really hard. Despite the fact they've got these 10 million customers, they are always pushing the envelope further. One of the things they've added is a recent feature that when you email a client an invoice, FreshBooks can show you whether they've seen it, which puts an end to the guessing game. It's way better than mailing an invoice out and

wondering if it ever arrived there. Yeah. And then you call them like, did they get it? Did you get it? Are you going to pay it? And I get my FreshBooks invoices now when I think to myself, well, they know. They know I've seen it now. I pay it right away. Or when you call them and say, hey, this one's a little late. And they're like, oh, I hadn't seen it yet. And you look at the computer and you're like, I know exactly when you opened it. Another thing they have is the projects feature to share files and messages with your clients, contractors, and employees. So you can actually bring them in. I think the whole idea of cloud accounting makes so much sense. This is one of those things that

with the emergence of this technology, it allows people like you and me to go out on our own and make it. We don't need a whole team of accountants. FreshBooks takes care of that for you. And now with over 10 million users, FreshBooks continues to just grow. But they've managed to stay a pretty small company as well, landing them the title of small giant on Forbes list of best small companies this year. Now, if you're listening to this and not using FreshBooks yet,

now's the time to try. FreshBooks are offering an unrestricted 30-day free trial for listeners of the show. There's no credit card required. All you have to do is go to freshbooks.com slash free agents without a space and enter free agents with a space. And how did you hear about a section? Now, if you've got a couple clients that you want to impress, go sign up for the free trial and just send the invoice out and see how fast they pay. Because I can tell you from experience, when you send an invoice out,

that's got the little button inside it, they just push and they pay. Because I can tell you from experience, when you send an invoice out that's got the little button inside it, they just push and they pay, a lot of your clients are going to pay you a lot faster. Most of them want to pay you, they just don't have the time to deal with it. FreshBooks makes it easy. So go check it out. Once again, that's freshbooks.com slash freeagents.

And we thank FreshBooks for all of their support of the show. Now, so you're back at the law firm. Yeah. And you've returned from the big firm back to the small business law firm. When do you start to think, maybe I want to go out on my own and not be here anymore? How does that start to germinate? Well, I'm carrying around the depression thing. I'm also carrying around the fact that I have two children that are growing up. And we're starting to think college is a few years down the road.

So it was very difficult for me to consider taking risks. Something I haven't said on the show, my wife doesn't work. When our second child was born, we looked at how much she was making versus how much it cost to take care of them. Absolutely. And we decided, no, we'll versus how much it cost to take care of them. Absolutely. And we decided, no, we'll have her stay home. So it was on me. If I blow it, we don't eat. So it was really hard.

Something that helped me, though. In fact, I think the reason I was able to do this is because I started a side thing. Yeah, I was going to say, how much of this was the seed is growing because you're doing Mac Sparky, you're doing website and books and speaking to people and doing Mac power users and all of these, your, your side business as a Mac and Apple guy was that, you know, obviously you were doing that and maybe we should back up and say, you know, obviously you were doing that. And maybe we should back up and say, you know, how did that start? Yeah. Because we don't talk about that part of it, but we should. How did you start doing the Mac stuff?

You know, everybody says you do one thing. I do two things. And so I've been a nerd my whole life. I've been super absorbed with this stuff, always looking for ways to get better and faster and use technology to serve me. And I loved Apple stuff, but for a long time I got stuck using PCs because that's what they do in law firms. And then when Apple went back to Intel, I jumped back into Apple with both feet.

And, you know, just like reborn, you know, religiously, I loved it so much. So I started writing about it and I needed a place to put things up. I started submitting little snippets to people that had podcasts. Some people were strangers that eventually became friends. And then people said, well, why don't you put that on the Internet somewhere? So I think in around 2006, I started maxsparky.com and started writing. And then that kind of led, one thing led to another, then I started getting some speaking gigs. I'm not bad if you put me in front of a group of people. So I did some speaking and

that kind of led to me, I was speaking for the American Bar Association, teaching lawyers how to use Macs. And I got stuck on an airplane one day on a tarmac for four hours. And I outlined the first book I wrote, the Mac at Work book. And so all this stuff just kind of one thing led to another. None of it was planned. In fact, somebody sent me a link a few years ago. There was an Australian podcast that took apart my Mac Sparky career. Two marketing guys. I wish I had saved the link. I'll have to go find it again. But they did a thing on me. I had no idea. They just did it on me. I guess

one of them was a fan of the Mac Power users or something. And they talked about how I meticulously, they went and kind of traced how Mac Sparkkey started as just some lonely little lawyer writing tech things to the podcast and the speaking and all the other things I've done in the years. And I had to write him an email afterwards and say, I'm really sorry, guys. None of this was planned. So I grew up this thing in the background and that was giving me, um, while I always had an independent spirit in me, this was giving me, um, a track record and a confidence that I didn't have before. And another big step for me was the first two books I wrote were for a big publishing company on New Jersey. You know, I went through

the whole system, you know, I got the good housekeeping seal of approval. We got to take the kids to Barnes and Noble and see my book on the shelf. You know, I'm sure you've done all that stuff. Um, but then, uh, when I got to my third book, I decided, you know, I'd like to try my own hand at this, you know, and I, what would happen if I did it on my own? And, um, so I did that and it was, I thought the book was better and the money was more lucrative. And, you know, I started reinforcing the idea that if you did it yourself, you're going to be happier and do better. That's a little mini go out on your own and be an independent story right there. Yeah.

That that's, that's you becoming a free agent as a book creator and leaving the publisher behind. Yes. And then I've also got this personality trait that's probably a failing that I always want to do everything myself. It's very hard for me to work with other people. I mean, I'm to a failing. I feel bad for the people that worked with me at the old firm. And I realized that increasingly as I got older and more crotchety that I was essentially running as a solo out of my old practice. It's a long story. So these things are just kind of germinating inside of me.

It's a long story. But, you know, so these things are just kind of germinating inside of me. And but even then, I never really admitted to myself I was going to go out on my own. And what really pushed it over for me was that we had a case go bad in the office and they brought me in to fix it. And it was from October 2014 to January of 2015. And I worked for four months really hard, and I fixed it, and things turned out well. And at the end, I looked at the wreckage that had left on my family, my Max Barkey pursuits, my own legal clients, and I said, I don't want to do this anymore. And it was kind of, it was like a switch had been thrown. And then I just couldn't wait to get out. So was it the idea that that was you functioning inside the law firm, which is they called you in to do somebody else, to clean up somebody else's mess?

I don't want to say that. It just, it wasn't somebody else's mess. It was just, sometimes cases don't go that way. Yeah. But it wasn't, it wasn't your case, right? Yeah. But because you're at the law firm – And I'm good at fixing things. Yeah, so they brought you in. But if you're out on your own, if the case goes sideways, it's your own case and not someone else's case that you're coming in to be brought in.

Is that part of it? Yeah, that's it. And also I think by then I started to realize – I never did the Max Sparky thing with the idea that I'd make any money off of it. It's just like a lot like this podcast. I feel like I have this stuff in my system. I have to get it out of my system. But it did start making money. I mean, the books started to pay off and I realized that I had a little bit of a cushion. You know, that's the big fear when you go out on your own as an attorney is you don't have any idea how many clients are going to come with you. So, but I knew that even if I had, you know, half of the clients that I thought would come with me, I'd still make enough money

to pay the mortgage and the basics. So what was the day like when you said to your law firm, I'm leaving and what preparation had to go into that? I am. Once I realized that I was, I realized I was on the train after it had full steam. That's the funny thing for me. I think a lot of people that we talk to aren't, are more, are better at planning and more realistic or more honest with themselves than I was. But when I realized it, hey, I not only am I thinking about leaving, I am leaving. So I got to figure this out. And obviously, if I had put together the spreadsheet, we're going to do the show at some point about the spreadsheet that's on our list. But I did the spreadsheet where I looked at who how many clients will leave? How much money will

I make? How much does it cost for me? You know, what's, what does malpractice insurance cost? What, you know, all the different costs involved with going out on your own. And I saw the numbers. I'm like, okay, this is going to work. And I knew pretty quickly that at least I would make a living. So I, and so I've got these people that I've worked with for 22 years with a brief two week vacation and I really like them I mean the people at my old firm they're good people and I

but it was time for me to go and so I told them and I think they were pretty shocked they didn't see it coming now you've said to me on more than one occasion that they don't they didn't get the whole Max Sparky thing. So that might have been an indicator for some people who who knew you and worked there. But it seems like they had no that was just a totally like we don't even understand what you're doing over there.

Yeah, well, I mean, it's nerdy stuff. And for some of the folks there, I know they were going to mock me if they even heard about it. So for a long time, I had the goal as the Max Parkey thing was growing was I want them, if they ever hear about this, it'll be at my funeral. I just didn't. I just wanted it to be something entirely different. But eventually, you know, I think I was in a restaurant with one of them and somebody walked up to me and talked about how much they loved the books. And so, I mean, it just started to bleed over a bit. We had a couple of cases where opposing counsel was listening to my podcast so eventually

you know it got out but we i didn't talk about it too much because i just really didn't want to get into it and one of the the concerns the the old firm had was they feel like they said dave you're gonna starve you know because my personality as a lawyer, I think my forte is, is solving problems, you know? And so, and you look at the people who are attracted to me as a lawyer, the clients, they're usually people who don't want to be stuck in six month trials, in massive bills. And, um, and so to make it as a lawyer with that style of practice, you need a lot of clients, you know, as opposed to if you have a bunch of hothead clients that want to go to trial every day as a lawyer. That's super great. You're going to make a bunch of money. But that's just as my career progressed, I became more of a peacemaker than a war maker. And I think they saw that in me and they thought, you know, you're not going to make it. And I said, I think I will.

And I didn't really get into it all, you know, that, you know, I was doing okay with the other stuff. And but it was a tense few days when I gave him notice. What is the, what are the rules? You've talked about going out with clients of yours. What are the rules about who you can take like because i as somebody who worked in another business like in my business experience when you leave you just leave yeah but but it seems like you were able to bring clients with you well the part this is part of the fact that i worked with good people and there were

over the years of me working with his law firm, there were several clients that I guess I'd say, for lack of a word, I landed. There were clients that came to me and they're the ones I took care of. And the firm knew that under no circumstances would those clients probably stay around if they didn't let me take them. Right. And they had a bunch of clients of theirs that they landed, and they didn't want me poking my nose in them. And so we just said, look, the people that were my clients I'm going to take, and yours are yours.

And they were fine with it. It could have been much worse. But it was a very amicable separation. And I don't want to get hung up on it, but I got out of there and went out and hung my shingle and so just like i got the books out from the publisher i got the law practice out from the law firm all right so what um what have we not talked about that was on your list of things that kept you up at night when you were making that switch? Um, you know, the idea of letting down my family

just weighs on, it still weighs on me to this day. Um, you know, um, but I also felt like I wasn't happy in the old situation and this is not, I'm not like an aggrieved former employee. There were nice people, they treated me right, but it wasn't right for me anymore. And I wasn't happy. And something that was weighing on me just as much as the fear of not being able to take care of my family was I felt like I was setting a poor example for my own children. You know, dad goes to work and comes home and he looks beat down, you know, and I felt like that's not the example to set that actually played a role. I know that sounds hippie and goofy, but I thought about that a lot. I thought about primarily the money.

I just wanted to be able to make sure that we could keep the trains running in the Sparks house. Well, that's – my experience is very similar, right, where my wife for many years after we had kids was just at home. Yeah. And so I was the sole earner. And at the point where I was going out on my own, she was working sort of part-time a little bit, but it was not a full-time job or anything. And I feel like as the breadwinner,

you end up having this internalized pressure and that you have to take care of everything. And what I found, and I and that you're, you have to take care of everything. And what I found, and I think what you found is there's this whole other perspective from the outside, which is, I can see that you're not happy and that you need to do something else. So let's do something else. And I, I definitely, you know, started to realize that that was, and also let's, let's talk about the reality of this. It's very rarely that you walk away from something to try something else. And unless you really try hard that all bridges are burned, you're never going to be able to go back and get another job

anywhere. This is it. It's all or nothing. That's, that's something that I realized I was sort of thinking like, Oh boy, if I screw this up, I've ruined everything. When it was like, no, you were really unhappy. There are other jobs out there if this doesn't work out. Like you just have to make that leap of like this is not all or nothing and I'm going to live or die. That's not it. You're just taking your shot. And if it doesn't work, you can go find another job.

It's not the end of the world if it doesn't work. Yeah, it's funny you say that because I went through the exact same thing. I was deluding myself. And my wife was so helpful through this process. I mean, she was like all in. She didn't have any concerns. She had complete faith in me. I remember looking at how much health insurance was going to cost for us.

And she's looking over my shoulder. She's like, you know, if it's too tight all because she worked at disneyland for 15 years she said i'll just go back to disneyland and get us health insurance what are you waiting for you know don't give me any more excuses and um and so i think having her support uh was one of you know that's probably that and the max sparky you know cushion were the two things that really made it possible. So where, where are you now? What, what, um, what's different than what you expected in terms of maybe your workload and what your business looks like today? I am. So, so now I've been doing it for two and almost a half years. Uh, I feel like it's been more successful than I ever thought it would be. A couple of things I

didn't take into account is that people in the community, both the Max Barkey community, several of them became legal clients, which I never expected. And even just the local attorney community, attorneys that I'd worked with for all the years. As soon as they heard I was going out on my own, you know, found a way to send me business. And so not only did I get the clients I wanted out of the old firm, I expanded the client list significantly after that. So I've got a good solid foundation. I think I'm doing great except for, I think I, I'm not, I'm still not good enough at this whole solo thing.

I'm still struggling with figuring out what work I'm supposed to be doing versus hiring other people to do it. I'm still trying to figure out the legal model. One of the things I wanted to do as a lawyer is turn things upside down because the whole idea of lawyers charging the billable hour and if it takes you a long time, you make more money, I think that's ridiculous. So I'm trying to find creative ways to work with clients to charge reasonable rates and give good work.

And so not only did I go out on my own, I tried to rebuild a business model from scratch. So like usual, Jason, I bit off more than I could probably chew, but I'm still figuring it out. I would hope by two and a half years I would have this thing just like running like a Swiss watch. And that's not true yet. But I continue to dream. So this is all really interesting.

I know we need – we've talked about it before. We need to do a show at some point about getting help. Although I think one of the challenges may be to find somebody to talk to us about it, because that is such a next level challenge for people who go out on their own is what if their business gets to the point where they can't do it all themselves? How do you get that help? How do you, you know, what form does it take? When do you make those decisions about about am I going to go bigger and have like an employee or just people who I contract to help on an hourly basis, but it's a huge issue

because so many people who go out on their own go out on their own because they want to be on their own. And I mean, I, people who listen to other tech podcasts will know, maybe a little bit of Marco Arment's story where he's an incredibly talented person who could probably build a fairly large business based on his talents and then some of his vision. But the fact is he really doesn't want an employee, right? He just wants to be on his own. And that's part of the challenge is like, what do I want here? Do I want to have somebody to take the load off or to help me grow? It's another show, but it's really interesting when you get to that point and you think, now what do I do? Because like you said, sometimes you get really good at working on your own.

And then you realize, well, what do I do now? Because I'm a lone wolf and maybe I can't be, or maybe this has gone too far. Yeah. I talked about that. I think in one of our very first episodes, it was one of the things that led to this show is somebody offered me a big litigation case that was going to make a ton of money, but I was going to have to hire an associate attorney and I was going to have to do all this work. And I realized that with the practice I've grown with all these small businesses and that need me once in a while, but intensely when they need me, I couldn't be in trial for two months. And just coming to that realization that, no, that's not what I want.

I was just talking to an attorney friend today who's followed me down this path. He's been watching me. We'd go out to lunch. He was looking at me like a canary in a coal mine. And eventually he did it. He went out on his own and he called me today about something unrelated. And I said, you know, when people ask how you're doing, I always tell them I'm doing well and I'm happy. Because I'm not getting rich, but I'm doing well enough. And right now I am so happy with the course my life has taken with this big change of going independent. I think it's one of the best things I've ever done.

So this is the retrospective part of the questionnaire that you laid out for me that I'm turning back around on you. I feel like I'm getting stabbed by my own sword. That's pretty much it. So what, what's the best part of this process been? And what is the hardest part of what you're doing now? Um, I think there's really two parts of it that I particularly like. The first is the control. I get to work with people that I want to work with and not work with people I don't want to work with. And when you can only do that when you run your own shop. And the other part that's been really great is just, I feel like I'm closer to my family than I've ever been. And we've got some younger children in our family and I see them and like we babysat some of them over the summer and I was looking at them, you know, day to day cause I work from home a lot. And I see them and like we babysat some of them over the summer.

And I was looking at them, you know, day to day because I work from home a lot. And I was like, you know, I never really had that experience with my own children. And but now I do, you know, and they're older. They're 15 and 20. But my daughter and I go to Starbucks together and we go to comedy clubs together. And we have found ways to connect better than I ever could when I didn't know my schedule or I didn't have control of my schedule. So that's some of the greatest parts of it. The hardest? You know, the hardest part, I still worry about the future and, you know, where is it all going.

I think there's this delusion you have when you work for somebody else that it's forever and it will always take care of you and when you go out on your own that is stripped away and i'm not sure that you're actually any different you know it's an illusion but it's a nice solution it is it is a nice solution especially i mean especially for people of our age i think the younger you get the less It is. It at a particular company. They much more recognize like I'll be here for a while and then I'm going to go do something else. Where people of our age definitely sort of – we're at the tail end of it, but it's still a little bit like, well, you get a job and you work there for a long time. If not your whole career, then at least you put in some years and then you go.

Yeah, that's another legacy from our parents was the idea that you got the job and then you worked until you got the gold watch. Yeah. That was the mid 20th century kind of ideal was you get a job and just work there the whole time. And my uncle did that. My uncle, when he was a teenager, I think got a job at the local glass factory and he retired as their vice president of HR. And that was his whole career, was at the glass company. Well, I kind of did that at one law firm, 22 years. But I also think that for me, another hard part is just always figuring out the balance. It's why I find this whole podcast so fascinating to create. Because you and I, at least I, am constantly struggling.

I haven't got all this stuff figured out. That's why it's fun to address and talk about it. But most people, when they go out on their own, they go out with one thing. And I've gone out with two things. And I hear from listeners and friends who say, you know, you are heading for a disaster because you've got to pick one. You can't do both. And I don't believe that. I think that the way I have my practice, my legal practice has

evolved. Uh, it's not quite as emergency based, although some days it feels like it still is. And, um, I think that so long as I continue to make good stuff for Max Barkey, there will be an audience there for me. And I, I feel like I can do it, but that's most days. And some days I feel like I can't do it. Some days I feel like I'm in over my head, but I'm not willing to give up either one because I get good feels from both jobs. I don't know about you.

I'm curious to how this has played out for you. When I started on my own, I had a lot of those 2 a.m. you wake up and you can't get back to sleep because your mind's kind of racing on all the things that could go wrong. And now almost three years later, I still get those every now and then, but they are rare. They're much more rare than they were at the beginning. Did you have that? And do you still have that? Yeah, yeah i agree and as it decreased over time yeah because you start to understand it's no longer hypothetical right and and and i think i've embraced also the that the change worrying about the future is something you need to do as part of being a

smart business person but worrying because there's change is stupid because of course there's change. And you kind of internalize it. And instead of waking up in the middle of the night going, oh God, what's going to happen next? You're like, it's fine. I got it.

I'll deal with it. And then you go back to sleep. I even sometimes tell myself, I truly believe this, that because I am independent, because I'm this small guy, if there's a change in the technology of ways people write books, I'm going to pivot faster. If there's a change in the way people

practice law, I'm a nerd and it's just me. I will be there first. It's like, I almost feel like change is going to be something that's only going to be to my advantage. Right. So the last question for you is the future. What's your, what's your path? Is your, is your goal to just keep doing what you're doing until you can retire down the road or, or, or do you have kind of grander plans? I think that always is evolving for people, but ever since I've started this solo thing, I felt very comfortable with what I'm doing now. I was talking about good feels. When I help someone out with a legal problem,

a lot of times it's small, sometimes family businesses, I can really make a material difference in their lives. And then when someone writes me an email and says, hey, that stupid little tip you talked about on Mac Power Users, it allows me to get home to my kids an hour earlier every week or something. And I feel like I'm helping people in both places. It feels great. I don't want anything to change. I was telling my wife at this point, if my life continued like this for the duration, I would be very happy, you know, continuing to help legal clients, not growing a massive law firm, you know, not going to the U S Supreme court, but instead just, you know, doing my,

my best to help people where I can. And if I could continue to write and talk about technology and help people out with that stuff too, I would feel very satisfied. All right. Well, I think that wraps it up. I don't see any more questions for me here that I can reflect back on you. We've gotten to the bottom of this. Of course, as always, we love to get your feedback. You can go to relay.fm slash freeagents and look for the email link there to contact us. You can tweet at us at freeagentsfm. Go to the Free Agents Facebook group, facebook.com slash groups slash free agents group.

And of course, David is Max Sparky on Twitter and I am Jay Snell on Twitter. But I think that's it for this episode. We'll see you in a fortnight. Bye everybody.