Nonconformity completes me. Not for the sake of it, but for the way it forces me to think.

Like you, I learned to throw a rockin’ rebellious tantrum at the age of two. It’s a rite of passage for toddlers.

And then — perhaps like you, too? — I learned to conform. Get along. Toe the line. Be nice. Do things the way they were supposed to be done, or there would be hell to pay.

And then, one day, I went to law school. That’s when all hell broke loose… in my mind.

(C’mon, admit it: Don’t you just love it when all hell breaks loose?)

I learned how to “tantrum” like an adult, i.e., not for the sake of it, but for reasons that I could finally articulate with words instead of thrashing my arms and screaming things like, “I object” without really understanding why I was objecting.

In law school, they teach you how to think like a lawyer. I took it one step further: I learned to think like a woman who had a mind of her own, without apology. Without excuses. Without explanation.

You don’t have to go to law school to do this, but you do have to learn it somewhere… or succumb to conformity. Like I almost did.

As a newly-minted lawyer, I admit I dipped my toe into the pool of conformity, working for two women lawyers who had started their own firm. I was initially so excited to work for them because I thought things would be “different” in their firm. Turns out, they wanted to practice law in the more traditional way. And of course there is nothing wrong with that; it just wasn’t for me. I felt stifled. I didn’t want it. I had to conform… or leave.

So I left.

I flew solo.

The ride was bumpy, until I figured out a “new way to be a lawyer.”

My way of being a lawyer. An Internet lawyer who helps business owners cover their assets online.

I wanted to be the kind of lawyer who showed online business owners all the legal steps they had to take in order to protect themselves and their businesses, without having to hire a lawyer.

My rebel yell tag line became: “Created by a lawyer so you don’t have to hire one.”

And that’s how Cover Your Assets Online was born.

It started with what I affectionately call my “Crazy Sexy Legal” checklist, a list of all the things an online entrepreneur must do in order to protect their businesses AND stay in compliance with the law.

Starting your business requires that you come up with your your own “authentically you” rebel yell.

You also need to download that checklist and start checking things off, one by one, until your assets are covered.