Registered Rep.: So you are an Ayn Rand fan, and specifically of her heroic character John Galt. Why?
David Loeper: Nearly 20 years ago I read Atlas Shrugged. Objectivism clarified in my mind a moral and noble way to live my life. The basis of the philosophy is that it is up to the individual to achieve on his own — one doesn't seek charity. John Galt stands out in the book because the saying, “Who is John Galt?” is a popular phrase that all of society in the book has adopted as the standard response to a question one cannot answer. The character remains a mystery throughout most of the book until the end when society has completely crumbled because Galt has convinced all of the most productive “men of mind” to “go on strike” and join him in a hidden society where only honorable, productive people live. Libertarianism is essentially based on Ayn Rand's Objectivism, and John Galt is the main hero — he is the persona for the philosophy.
RR: How does Objectivism affect the way you run your practice and your personal life?
DL: Wealthcare is our patented advising process. It is about avoiding needless sacrifice of your life. It is about unquestionable moral integrity. It is about using one's mind to create value. It is about the profound value of an individual's life and making the most of it. Our patented Wealthcare advising process applies these Objectivist premises, and this results in extraordinary value in our advice to clients. That's the process that I invented.
For me, the starting point was when I thought about financial advising processes that already exist. Rand said, “An inventor is a man who asks ‘Why?’ of the universe and lets nothing stand between the answer and his mind.” So, because of Atlas Shrugged and how it taught me to be completely honest and objective, I took a step back and evaluated the industry's supposed “best practices” that I had been teaching to thousands of advisors across the country for years. It took Atlas Shrugged to put myself in the shoes of the consumer to objectively evaluate whether what I was teaching actually had value or not.
In my practice, I also give every employee at Wealthcare Capital Management a copy of Atlas Shrugged and I inscribe each one with: “Who is John Galt? Are you?”
