My wife and I are celebrating our 25th wedding anniversary tomorrow (August 8th). We celebrated it over the weekend with a little get away in downtown Nashville. I set up the whole weekend to surprise my wife. We stayed in a fancy hotel and had a nice dinner. I had 25 long-stem red roses delivered to the room. It was a great weekend.
In addition to being married for 25 years, I have been doing state taxes for 22 years. That sounds crazy. I used to look at people who had been in their career long and be like, "wow," you must really know your stuff. Now I am one of those. Crazy how time flies. Speaking of time, my oldest daughter will be a senior in high school which starts this week. We are busy talking about college options and whether college is still a good investment. I have lots of opinions on this, but will hold that for another day.
As far as LEVERAGE SALT, LLC goes. If you have been following along, I started the LEVERAGE SALT blog in 2009. I started the LEVERAGE SALT LinkedIn group in 2012 and LEVERAGE SALT, LLC in 2013. Consequently, I have been on my own for 4 years. That even sounds like a long time to me. Needless to say, I have been more successful than I could have thought when I started LS, LLC. I have made more money and had more freedom than ever before. During that time, my family and I moved ourselves from Richmond, Virginia to Nashville, Tennessee and totally renovated a house on 16 acres. We built my wife's dream home. Crazy stuff. I don't say this stuff to brag. I say this stuff to tell you my story and let you know that life is too short to not go for what you want. What are you waiting for? Permission?
Running your own firm, especially by yourself, can be lonely at times. I find myself wanting to work at a firm again just to have more interaction. However, once you have the money, the freedom is something you can't put a price on.
One of the things I love about having my own firm is that I can implement ideas quickly. Perhaps sometimes too quickly. Regardless, I am continually thinking of new ideas, opportunities, ways to help state tax professionals do more, get more done, etc. without the bureaucracy of large firms.
At my core, I love analyzing court cases, rulings, daily developments and writing about them. I also love handling controversy - I call it, "research with a purpose." You may have noticed that I am attempting to build a state tax controversy innovation center. The goal of the Center is to serve and promote state tax controversy professionals across the country by building a mastermind network, knowledge sharing publication, CPE, and various tools.
I want to thank you for reading my blog. Following along on my crazy story. I hope you find my blog useful and my story helpful.
Please connect with me on LinkedIn. Send me an e-mail. Subscribe to the blog. Join the LinkedIn group. I would love to hear your story. I may start promoting and sharing stories of other tax professionals on my blog in the near future. Lots of ideas. Lots of plans.
Have a great week!