The Fifteen Percent

Overcoming Hardships and Achieving Lasting Success

Terry Giles

• Publisher: Skyhorse
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781510758728
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Entrepreneurship
• Index: Business

Wall Street Journal and USA Today besteller!Lawyer turned entrepreneur Terry Giles explains what sets high achievers ("the fifteen percent") apart from those who don't quite make it. This is a riveting story of what it takes to win and keep winning—in business and in life—from one of America's most successful entrepreneurs, with a foreword by Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Dr. Ben Carson. On the surface, Terry Giles has a classic American success story. By 30, he built one of the largest criminal defense firms and generated tens of millions in revenue working with high profile clients. By 34, he left the legal profession and achieved even greater success as an entrepreneur, seemingly overnight.But as Giles observes in The Fifteen Percent, no one goes through life without facing serious obstacles. Speaking from his own hard-won experience from a difficult upbringing to America's loftiest boardrooms, Giles answers the question that took him years to answer: Why do some people overcome hardships while others do not? Citing research that fifteen percent of those individuals who face adversity and hardship are able to rise above the despair and succeed above all odds, Giles uses examples from his career and life to illustrate why and how this phenomenon occurs. From his childhood in the Missouri Ozarks, to defending the victims of child sex abuse, to creating a plethora of business enterprises, and even organizing a presidential campaign, he learns from experience the traits that define "the fifteen percent."Even more important, in each chapter you will learn valuable skillsincluding fearlessness; embracing under­dog status; visualizing the future; and positive thinking; proving that you do not have to be a victim of bad circumstances to adopt the superpowers of "the fifteen percent."Entertaining, inspiring, and full of useful insights you'll turn to again and again, The Fifteen Percent will help you overcome whatever's holding you back, so you can achieve lasting success in business and in life.

CHAPTER NINE

“Nothing” Can Be Everything

You never know where something will lead until you follow it

I once had a constitutional law professor who’d tell us that no matter what we went on to do as lawyers, we’d always be dealing with constitutional issues, they were embedded in cases large and small—and yet, he added, he ran across lawyers in practice thirty years who assured him they’d never had a single constitutional issue in any of their cases. Of course, it wasn’t true; they were just blind to the obvious.

It’s the same with opportunity. Millions of people go through life thinking they’ve been unlucky and have never had a shot at getting ahead in life. But really what happened—they didn’t have the capacity to recognize it.

Those in the 15 percent may have problems, but that’s not one of them. Because there are opportunities in every lifetime. And if you’re in the right frame of mind, they’re all over the place.

My first wife used to complain that we didn’t spend enough time together, because I was forever chasing after some shiny new possibility. I couldn’t deny it.

“What’s the point,” she’d say, “it’s a nothing thing.”

But there she was wrong. Nothing is not nothing. Nothing can be everything. There’s no way of knowing where something will lead until it’s been closely examined and assessed. The greatest results often come from the smallest beginnings.

Take how I met William Millard, for thirty-five years now one of my closest friends.

William is remarkable. Having worked with IBM in the 1950s, by the early 1960s he was one of the most knowledgeable computer minds in the world. He wired the cities of Oakland and San Francisco before anyone thought it possible. After the Kennedy assassination he helped law enforcement develop the P.I.N. (Police Information Network). In the early 1970s his company, IMSAI, invented the first personal computer as we know it—the IMSAI 8080. The problem was that technology was moving so fast, by the time he’d completed production, the machine was nearly obsolete. As a result, when IMSAI was shuttered in 1976, William started a company he called “ComputerLand.” Selling the best manufactured computers of the day, it became the largest retailer of computers in the world for two decades. In 1984, Forbes called him the “Instant Billionaire.”

Yet, by 1985, William’s world was in turmoil. He had two lawsuits pending. While his antagonists in the suits were different individuals, the actions were identical, and in fact pending in front of the same Alameda County judge. William had hired Edward Bennett Williams’s firm out of Washington, D.C., to defend him. Ed Williams, arguably America’s best-ever lawyer, consulted on the case, but Ray Berman was the trial lawyer assigned by the firm. Berman was experienced, tough, and formerly represented Jimmy Hoffa.

Nonetheless, the first trial went terribly wrong. The jury returned a verdict for $141.5 million for the plaintiff against the company and Millard in punitive damages, then a California record, plus an award of 45 percent of ComputerLand, worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

To make matters worse, William still had the second case pending in the same courtroom before the same judge. The plaintiff’s lawyers were licking their chops.

When William sent his troops out to find a new trial lawyer, they eventually contacted me. I politely explained that I had retired from the law and why. However, I did offer to speak to Mr. Millard, if only to offer advice on what kind of trial lawyer he should choose. Why did I do that, knowing a meeting would take a whole day at a time I was knee-deep in the auto dealership, the bank, the copier company, and a million other things? Simple. Who knew where it might lead?

So I flew to Oakland, and William and I had lunch. As I began to understand the mistakes that had been made in the first trial, I could see that this remarkable man found himself bear-trapped by a legal system I knew all too well.

Over the next three decades I would learn to highly regard William’s ability to focus, and even in that first meeting I could not help but notice how intently he listened to my advice, writing everything down. Still, I had to emphasize I was retired from the law, and when I left I figured I’d probably never see him again.

But a week later, his office called requesting another meeting. Once again, I flew to Oakland, and again his driver picked me up. Only this time, instead of going to his house, he drove to the private airport where Mr. Millard’s private Falcon was warming up to take off. Told to board the plane, the next thing I knew we were wheels up on the way to Boston. Fifteen minutes into the flight, the stewardess walked me to the rear of the plane. A door opened into a compartment set up as an office for William. Greeting me, he handed me a first-class ticket from Boston back to Los Angeles, and invited me to join him for lunch.

He began by saying how much by now he absolutely hated lawyers—and the fact that I’d had the good sense to quit the law meant I was the lawyer for him.

I say I’m flattered, which I very much am, but I didn’t think so. My own experience had been as soul-searing as his, and though I’m still getting lots of calls from would-be clients, that door was closed.

Millard brushed that aside. “Listen,” he said, “I have a proposition . . . ,” and then, at 36,000 feet, he made me an incredible offer. Would I be willing to put together a small firm, personally hiring everyone from lawyers to secretaries, that would have the sole purpose of preparing and trying the second case?

That got my attention. A “dream team” a decade before the term had been coined, totally under my control, yet wholly financed by the client. Every trial lawyer’s fantasy scenario. And of course, I would not be representing my usual type of client. I would represent him and his cause—a man and a position I could believe in.

“It wouldn’t be cheap,” I said, musing aloud. “We’re talking at least three lawyers, a couple of paralegals, a good investigator. Figure $40,000 a month in overhead alone for as long as it takes.” In 1985, that was not just chickenfeed.

“And how much for you?”

“Probably another $40,000 a month.” I paused, considering. “And if I win, I’d want a bonus of a million.”

“What does winning mean?”

“That you won’t have to give the people suing you a penny.”

It was the first time I’d seen him smile.

“Look,” I put it to him at Logan Airport, before boarding a flight back to California, “you seem like a good guy and this is incredibly intriguing. But I don’t really know you. Give me three weeks to do my own investigation, and if I think you’re in the right, I’ll take the case. If not, no hard feelings.”

He gave me full access to ComputerLand’s records and personnel, and I reviewed the transcripts from the first trial. It was an easy call: there was no doubt he’d gotten well and truly screwed. Quite simply, the plaintiff’s attorney in the first case, a flamboyant, canny veteran named Herb Hafif, had run circles around Millard’s guy.

How ironic that I had to leave the practice of law in order to meet the perfect client and represent the ideal cause.

Since it’s probably a year before our case is to come to trial, I use the time to immerse myself in ComputerLand’s culture, learning the cast of characters and sitting in on top-level meetings. Since I keep my mouth shut, after a while people start to consider me safe, and neutral, someone they can confide in; and in a company as unsettled as this one with a huge verdict from the first trial threatening its very existence and where no one knows what’s coming next, everyone is bursting with things to say.

One huge problem is Millard’s management style. As chairman, he is so forbidding a presence that around him even corporate lawyers and top executives clam up. His relationship with his longtime CEO is especially fraught, so much so I’m picking up rumblings there’s a coup afoot. Worse, it appears that the real power behind it is Herb Hafif, the lawyer who, after creaming Millard in the first trial, now controls a hefty share of ComputerLand’s assets. Hafif’s all about ego and power—years ago he ran for governor, finishing sixth in a field of six—and having come to despise Millard during the trial, he wants nothing more than to unseat the founder and chairman and take over the company.

Worse still, one of my longtime friends may be among the conspirators, while another person I care deeply about, Ron Helm, is maintaining loyalty to Millard.

Learning all this, I agonized over what to do. Both friends are good guys, while Millard is just a client, whom I still address as “Mr. Millard.”

Still, there is no question that as his lawyer, I have to let him know.

I was sitting at my desk, literally looking for his phone number, when my secretary buzzed that William Millard is on the phone.

He sounds like I’ve never heard him before, almost distraught. “Listen, Terry,” he says, “I know we don’t know each other well, but I’m really down. Something’s going on, and I’ve got a really uneasy feeling. Are you available to sit down and talk?”

“Well, it’s amazing, I was just going to give you a call. And, yeah, we need to talk.”

The next morning, I flew up to Oakland for what was a truly extraordinary meeting. I told William everything I knew, and what I expected to happen, none of it good. But, to my surprise, he took it all in with seeming calm. More, and this ran counter to everything in his makeup, he accepted his full share of responsibility for what had led to this juncture.

He then granted me authority to approach his adversaries and work out a settlement—even if that meant his surrendering the chairmanship.

It was a conversation that forever cemented my relationship with William Millard. The trust on both sides has been absolute and irrevocable ever since.

There’s no time to waste. It’s Saturday morning, and the CEO and the other chief conspirators are set to finalize their deal with Hafif on Monday.

I’m able to track down the CEO and my friend at a local golf club; in the midst of a round, they’re startled to see me, in suit and tie, walking toward them down the fairway. At my side, to confirm I’ve been granted the authority I claim, is Millard’s daughter. We repair to the clubhouse, and I tell them they no longer need Herb Hafif to get the power they seek in the company, and, then and there, we begin hammering out a settlement. Millard will indeed step aside, transferring control to his executives—with some important conditions.

With that situation stabilized, I shift my focus to preparing for the lawsuit. Fortunately, in light of the other’s side’s success in the first trial, I have the advantage of pretty much knowing what they’ll throw at me, and there’s one witness in particular whose testimony we definitely need to counter: a lawyer named Bowman, who started with Millard at IMSAI and later moved with him to ComputerLand. He claimed, under oath, that the deal with the plaintiffs was designed from the get-go to protect William and screw the employees.

It was absolutely devastating testimony, and the primary reason for the huge punitive damages.

Millard, for his part, maintained that, in fact, he had explicitly instructed the lawyer to see that the agreement was “done right,” and fair to all concerned; and, indeed, once it had been drafted, he’d had Bowman draw up a diagram showing exactly how the deal was meant to work.

While this document would counter Bowman’s testimony and destroy his credibility, no such diagram had been unearthed, and even Millard’s own lawyers apparently came to regard it as a figment of his imagination.

However, I trusted William’s explanation for two reasons. First, I found William’s integrity to be sterling. Second, Bowman had a reason to lie. After he quit at ComputerLand, the plaintiffs in the first case gave him a piece of the action—if he testified for them in the manner that he had.

All IMSAI’s old files were now in storage in an Oakland warehouse, but William swore that Bowman’s memo was in there somewhere. I needed to find it.

When I arrived at the warehouse with eight or ten helpers, it was clear the task at hand amounted to a very small needle in several hundred haystacks; there were hundreds of filing cabinets, each bulging with contracts, memos, letters, message slips, and every other conceivable variety of paper that would have been generated by such an operation over a twelve-year span in, ironically, the precomputer age. I instructed our small army to closely examine every page, in every drawer, in every file cabinet, giving them a week to complete the task.

After a week . . . nothing. They’d gone through everything, I was told, and came up empty.

I ...