Summary: Today’s episode is with JT McCormick, author of <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/1619615568">I Got There</a>.<br> We talk about what it was like to grow up as a poor mixed-race child and how he hustled his way out of poverty and became president of a multi-million dollar software company.<br> <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/1619615568" target="_blank"></a><br> JT shares some heartbreaking stories about how he grew up around criminals and racism and abuse. But he also shares a redemption story, where he achieves the American dream and becomes a self-made millionaire.<br> Be sure to stick around until the end, because JT’s going to share how you can follow in his footsteps even if you’re starting out with nothing like he did.<br> This is a life-changing episode that you do not want to miss.<br> Without further ado, here is JT McCormick.<br> <br> <br> What was it like to have a drug dealing pimp as your father?<br> My dad had this red El Dorado Biarritz Cadillac in the 70s, and that was the black man’s car of choice. And he had ordered it custom, and he was the only person who had one. So he loved that car. He loved that car, I believe to this day, more than he loved his kids.<br> When you rode in my dad’s car, you technically shouldn’t even breath. Don’t put your feet on the seat, don’t mess up anything. Sit there, be still.<br> One day, we’re driving, we had just gone to Wendy’s and he’s got one of his prostitutes in the front with him, and they’re arguing. She pulls a burger out of the Wendy’s bag, and she hits my dad in the side of the head with it.<br> He stopped in the middle of the highway, just consider major highway in any major city, stops in the middle of the highway, puts the car in park, walks around, pulls her out of the car, commences to beat her ass, and then pulls out her purse, dumps it on her, pulls out the food, dumps it on her, shuts the door, comes back around, puts the cark in park, we drive off, she’s laying in the middle of the highway beat to a pulp.<br> He casually calmly turns around, looks at me and my brothers, and says, “Where do you guys want to go to eat?”<br> When I first got to Houston with my dad, we were living in a weekly rent motel.<br> My dad was running prostitutes in and out of our motel room. I’m nine years old, and it’s the summer right after my fourth grade year.<br> It’s Houston. It’s humid. My six month old half sister is crying and crying, and I can not get her to stop. Her mother’s out on the corner trying to pick up a trick (i.e. customer), and my baby sister just won’t stop crying. I don’t know what to do.<br> I’m picking her up. I’m bouncing her. I’m rocking her.<br> I’m talking to her like she’s going to talk back to me.<br> What do I do?<br> I got so frustrated that I threw my six month old baby sister on the couch.<br> Oh, the stress. It’s stressful right now to think about it.<br> As soon as she left my arms, I immediately caught myself and I ran over, I picked her up, and I just plead with her: “I’m so sorry.”<br> I’m holding my baby sister, and she’s crying even more now. Her mother shows up with this man, the trick, and tells me to leave the hotel room with my crying baby sister in nothing but a diaper. She takes the man in, and they go do their business.<br> I’m walking around the parking lot of this weekly motel, in the scorching sun in Houston, in the middle of the summer, with no clue what to do. I just felt completely lost. No clue what to do.<br> That was the most stressful thing that I’ve ever gone through.<br> <br> When did you get yourself out of poverty?<br> The last time I was in juvenile, I was in there for two and a half months for beating up a kid and putting him into a coma....
