Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan - #13: The Positives We Can Take From It with JT McCormick

Episode Date: July 30, 2019

JT McCormick is the President and CEO of Scribe Media, a publishing company that helps you write, publish and market your book. The company has worked with more than 1,000 authors and Entrepreneur Magazine recently ranked Scribe’s as having the Top Company Culture in America. He was previously the President of Headspring Software, which he helped grow to a multimillion-dollar, 100-plus person company that was repeatedly ranked as one of the best places to work in all of Texas and the author of "I Got There: How I Overcame Racism, Poverty, and Abuse to Achieve the American Dream" where he talks of poverty, starting with his career cleaning toilets and eventually becoming the President of multiple companies.   JT has mentored at-risk youth in the juvenile justice system, as well as youth in low economic communities. JT’s work has been featured on CNBC, Entrepreneur, Forbes, Inc, and many others. He lives in Austin, Texas, with his wife, Megan, and their four children, Ava, age 5, Jaxon, age 4, Elle age 2, and Jace, 5 months. And thank you to today's sponsors: Pluto TV = Cut the cord and download Pluto.TV on whatever device you stream on Review this podcast on Apple Podcast using this link and when you DM me the screenshot, I buy you my $299 video course as a thank you!  My book Confidence Creator is available now! If you are looking for more tips you can download my free E-book at my website and thank you! DM your questions for the show Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | LinkedIn  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Thank you for listening to this Podcast One production. Available on Apple Podcasts and Podcast One. Each week when you join me here, you're going to chase down our goals. We'll overcome adversity and set you up for a better tomorrow. That's your journey with me. Hi, and welcome back. I'm so excited that you're joining me again today.

And today I wanted to share the story of how I came to write a book and how I actually executed and did it because I get a lot of questions about writing a book. And I have to tell you that writing a book was never something that I had thought about that I ever thought I was going to do. You know, when you're young, you're put into these different lanes. And I was always the social one or the sales one. I certainly was not the literary one or the writer. And I still can't. I think it's surreal that I have a book out. So it just goes to show that if I was able to write a book, absolutely anyone can. And that means you, if you want to.

But I believe that everyone has a story. And it's important to share your story. And it's something that you'll have forever. And it's a lot easier than what people try to make it out to be after going through the experience and not knowing what I was doing and being scared and not knowing if I'm anyone would like it or if I'd sell any copies, you know, there was so much fear that crept in for me. And I've just realized that for a long time in my life, I was stuck in the familiar, right? People will say, you know, get comfortable with uncomfortable or I wasn't comfortable in my

old job back in corporate America. I was being treated badly. I was being bullied and harassed by a nasty villain. And that was uncomfortable. However, it was familiar to me because over the years it had been going on. It started slowly. It got much worse. So I was very familiar with this negative situation. And because I was familiar with it, the payoff for me was my steady paycheck or I thought my safe paycheck. I was wrong because I got fired.

So it wasn't steady or safe. So that unknown and that idea of getting out of familiar and making that leap, that's what held me there. I was so petrified of what would I. I do. So I'm sure you already know, I ended up getting fired actually two years ago. My two-year anniversary was this weekend. And geez, a lot has happened in two years. But when that occurred, it was July 27, 2017. I went under a weighted blanket. I was a complete disaster, bawling my eyes out. I was just a mess. And I ended up putting it out on social media that I got fired. And a lot of people showed up and really tried to help me, one of which was Froggy from Elvis Duran. I went on the

Elvis Duran show, and during that show, Elvis Duran said to me, well, Heather, obviously you're writing a book. Now, I wasn't writing a book. And I said, well, obviously, because he felt so confident in the fact that I was doing it, I felt, oh, okay, I guess I'll write a book. And so I left New York after that interview, jumped on a plane, and Googled, how do you write a book? And I'll save you the time from having to search this up. Ultimately, you just start writing. That's it. People want to overthink it and make it so much harder than it actually is, but you just have to be disciplined and sit down and write. And so I made a commitment. I would write four to five hours a day. And within the first couple of weeks, I started writing about the nasty villain and how she bullied me and how I hated her.

But over time, it morphed into me writing about different times in my life where I'd been kicked in the teeth or knocked down and I got back up and here's how I did it. And so within a month, I knew I was writing about how I created confidence and how I was going to do it again because yet again I had been knocked down and I needed to create more sustainable confidence this time. And I ultimately created this blueprint. I started not knowing what I was doing. I mocked up a book I just put white paper over another book

and signed my name to the bottom of it to kind of give myself that visual of what I was creating. And over time, it became clear that I was writing this blueprint. I was using my low moments to showcase how I got knocked down and how I got back up.

And then I realized I needed an editor. So I went on LinkedIn. I reached out to people in my network and I ended up finding Ryan, Dempsey, in Los Angeles. and he was fantastic, and it was serendipitous. We went to the same high school, and it worked out great. So I sent him this data download, you know, all these files I had written on my computer.

And within a week, maybe two weeks tops, he got me back a rough draft outline, a first draft of my book. And it was so surreal and crazy. And he organized it, and I give him all the credit for the way that the book is organized was really because of his vision, which was fantastic. I didn't know how to organize a book or structure it, but it didn't matter. None of that stuff made me stop and say I'm not doing this. I just kept writing and creating files and I'd save the files and just putting more and more and more. Some of the stuff we cut out of the book, some of the stuff we added more in. But you have to start somewhere and just take that step. And for me, it was making the commitment to sit down and write. Now,

I didn't know if I'd sell any books. I didn't know if anyone would ever like my book. I didn't like my book, so I decided to set a low expectation for myself so I could move forward, which was if this book helps one person, then I've done my job. And lowering that pressure on myself allowed me to keep moving forward. And right before I was going to launch my book, I shared it with the closest people in my life. And a couple of my family members told me not to launch it. And I got scared again. And I took all that self-doubt and fear on and went under the weighted blanket. But this time I had learned that if I reach out to someone who's light years ahead of me, they'll help me figure out a way. So I reached back out to my editor, Ryan, and I told him the fears that I was

taking on from these people. And he shared with me that, no, if I was telling my story and if I was coming from a place of good and I was being authentic, I had nothing to worry about. I needed to move forward with this idea of the book. It was done and we needed to produce it. And I heard him loud and clear. And I took that leap of faith. Again, I was petrified. So it was a really scary process, but it wasn't hard. And don't overthink it if you are thinking, it doesn't have to be about writing a book, but just don't overthink anything. Take action, listen to your instinct and intuition and move forward with it. That's how you figure things out is taking the leap of faith. You've got to start moving and taking action and creating. And I'm so glad I did. Now, once we got

the book done, then it starts the self-publishing process, right, which posed another challenge. How do you self-publish? I don't know how to do that. So I Googled, as always, thank you Google for finding all these solutions for me. And I found this company called Scribe Media that this is what they do. They are experts in self-publishing, experts in writing books, editing books, creating books. They knew how to get an ISBN number. They knew about layouts and fonts and word counts in these things I didn't know. So I decided to go with Scribe Media and I'm very glad I did and this is not an ad for them at all. You know, I didn't know what I was doing and I took this leap of faith to hire this company to help me learn how to self-publish and they're experts in it again they've done thousands and thousands of books.

Most recently they did David Goggins. So that was that was pretty exciting to hear. So they've done major, major books and they did mine. So they do everything from if you want, if you want to write a book but you don't have time, they'll give you a ghost editor that will ultimately write the book for you. You have calls with them. I didn't go that route, But they have everything from a ghost editor to write the book to a static editor to all these different features to creating the cover. And they make it very easy. So bottom line is I had my challenges along the way like anything, didn't know what I was doing and had to figure it out. There were mistakes on both ends with me and with scribe media.

So I ended up getting to know the president and CEO, JT, pretty well because he, dove in when he saw there were some challenges my cover was wrong on the initial delivery which ended up being great because I love the cover now but you know all these trials and tribulations and challenges and fails and pivots along the way and JT and I developed a professional relationship where I knew I could trust him and count on him and I was really grateful that I ended up working with them. So overall this time, I am constantly asked about, you know, how do you write a book, blah, blah, blah. And I want people to know that Scribe really can make it so easy for you. So I decided I wanted to have JT on the show because not only is he a great business

partner and a great guy to work with, but he also has the most exceptional life story. And his book is amazing. And I actually read it on the flight out to Austin when I went to interview him a couple of weeks ago. As I always say, going face to face is everything. And I'm so grateful that after, you know, this year that he and I knew each other over the phone that we finally got to meet. And he's a really fantastic human being in person. And we, wow, I was blown away by his story. And it just reminds me that no matter what adversity you've faced in your past in your life and your upbringing, you can overcome anything.

And J.T. really lives that. He lives it every day. But when you hear his story and what he's been able to overcome, it'll wipe all of your excuses out. So I hope you love JT as much as I do. And I can't wait to hear what you think. If you read his book, if you've ever grown up with challenges, poor, gosh, you have to read his book.

It's mind-blowing. But he basically takes all the challenges that he had. and figures out a way to put it to work for him now in business, and he's become incredibly successful. So Pluto TV is the leading free streaming television service. Watch over 100 TV channels and thousands of movies on demand all completely for free. Pluto TV never asks for a credit card. You don't even need to sign up to watch for free. Pluto TV is the easy and completely legal way to watch your favorite TV shows

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I'm so excited to introduce to you my next guest, J.T. T. McCormick, an amazing author, and not only an amazing author of the book I got there, which I'm obsessed with, I just read it, but also someone that I hired, I'm his client, and is the reason why my book competence creator is out there live. I published, self-published my book in conjunction with him. I hired his company, Scribe Media, and this is why my book is out there. So J.T. McCormick, he's the CEO and president of Scribe Media. Thank you so much for being here. The legendary Heather Monaghan.

How are you, ma'am? Great. We've worked together for over a year, and today's the first day we're meeting face-to-face. Yes, yes. Well, yeah, first time we met face-to-face, but we have had several conversations and text messages. Yeah, we have. That is for sure.

We can get into that. But I really wanted to start off from my peeps is I wanted to get into having just read your book. and I know a lot about you now. You know, my show is all about creating confidence, overcoming adversity, and how to reach success, which obviously you've reached.

You're really at a pinnacle of success right now. I don't think a lot of people understand your background and where you came from and the poverty and the abuse and homeless. And I just, I wanted to see if you could get into a little bit about where you're from and how you got to where you are today.

Wow. You know, that's an open-ended question. So I tell you what, give me a direct question to dive into there because that's that's so open into Where do you want me to start? So if you you know, I want people to know that your father was a pimp. Yes. And your mother grew up in foster care, an orphanage. And your parents had a really rough upbringing both of them. And it translated to your childhood being really awful in my opinion and really hard. And so many people see that at. as a one-way ticket to unhappiness, you know, negative environment, going to jail, dealing drugs, doing drugs, whatever that may be. But you found a way to turn that into something different. And that magic dust, whatever that is, is what I want to grab hold of for everyone listening.

So you kind of, you nailed it there. Yeah, my father was a black pimp in the 1970s. He was a pimp and drug dealer. My mother was an orphan, grew up in an orphanage in the 1950s institutional orphys. where the kids were abused, beaten, neglected. My mother, when she turned 17 years old, they gave her $20 a small suitcase, and they said, good luck to you, there's a world.

We know you've never been outside of these four walls, but there it is, have at it. Unfortunately, for my mother, one of the first people she met was my well-dressed, fast-talking, quite a bit older father. When I say quite a bit older, I have a half-sister who is five years younger, five years younger than my mother.

And so my father was quite a bit older. He also fathered 23 children. So I have 22 siblings, half brothers and sisters. I'm the only one by my mother. And I share this with people. I'm only here to this day because the first time my mother got pregnant, she had an abortion. And this was back in 1970.

Abortion was illegal. So she had a back alley illegal abortion that was so horrific. that the second time she got pregnant, she said, okay, I'll take my chances raising a child versus having an abortion again. So you've got to imagine that had to be a traumatic experience that she went through. So truth be told, I'm fine with this. My mother should have never have had me. But one of the greatest things that I've been very proud of my mother is she didn't go have six more. She had me, call me a mistake. whatever you want to say she had me she should not have had me but she didn't go and have six more

children so yeah that's that's what i was born into the world i don't know where my last name comes from when i was born my mother took herself to the hospital my father was nowhere to be found so my mother rode the bus to the hospital when she went to labor he wasn't there i was born i was all she had in the world she gave me her last name problem with that is we don't know where the last name comes She was given that last name in the orphanage. So I've got this last name of Hormick. Don't know where it comes from to this day. From there, yeah, back and forth, poverty, growing up poor, eating out of trash cans, why all the other kids went to recess.

I'd stay back and pull trash out of the trash cans to eat. And what's interesting, you said this about confidence. It was in those moments of growing up that I eliminated three words from my vocabulary. hope, wish, and luck. And many people will say to me, why. And I said, well, when I was a kid, and I would hope there was something to eat when I got home, it never produced anything. So I stopped hoping. And when I would open the refrigerator and I would wish there was something in there, it never produced anything. So I stopped wishing. And then luck, well, for everyone who says the powerball winner is lucky, they just won the power ball. No, they bought a ticket. There was some,

there was an action that was taken, so there is no luck. So hope, wish, and luck, I do not use those words. I live in belief because belief forces execution. You can sit back and say, oh, I hope I have a house like that one day. I wish I had a house like that. Well, you can hope and wish all day, but if you believe you will have one, then you have to execute and do something to go get it. So confidence for me, at times, I shared this with you, I don't believe confidence is built. I believe it's a choice. You wake up each morning, you say to yourself, okay, I am going to be confident today, or I'm going to be timid and me? Is the glass half full or is it half empty? I've always looked at it is half full. How do I continue to fill it up? Well, negativity has never done anything for anyone,

so I choose to be positive. I choose to be confident. And so for me, confidence is not built. It is a choice. You choose to wake up confident or you choose to wake up Tim and Meek. But, you see, people also need to know, obviously, during the struggle that you've had, which is exceptional. There were times. You had to be down. You know, as a kid, of course, you know, when I was sexually molested by one of my father's prostitutes,

you know, it was one of the hardest things because it was confusing. You're six, seven, eight years old, and you've got this prostitute, and she's forcing you to go down on her or perform oral sex on her. And then when I didn't do it right, she would slap me in the face and punch me in the head. And I didn't know what don't do it right. Meanwhile, I'm six, seven, eight years old. What does do it right mean? And so, yeah, there were times like that. And then I was really confused because I knew if I told my mother, she'd never let me see my father again.

So you carried this as a child with you. Those were hard moments. There were hard moments when I was living with my dad because my mother was facing welfare fraud. Those were hard when I was left with my three half brothers and sisters for three weeks. This is the greatest stress I've ever faced. You're going to say there was some hard time. There is no stress greater that I've ever faced in my life. I'm 47 years old.

The three weeks when I was left with my half brothers and sisters, it was February, Dayton, Ohio, every day, almost hourly, the stress that I lived with in fear that they would disconnect the electricity and we would freeze. The fact that they would shut off the water and we wouldn't have any water to drink or take a bath with. How old were all the kids then? I was 12 and my sister was four. My other sister was seven. three and my little brother was two. And you were providing for and caring for all of them. I was going to the store, stealing food, coming back. I'd have the four-year-old babysit why I walked down to the store and stole food. I came back. Yeah, I bathed them. I never left them. People have asked me, hey, when did you first know you were going to go into leadership when I was 12?

And I made the choice that, yes, I'm supposed to be in school, but I will not leave my brothers and sisters, but the stress of just worried, are they going to turn off the electricity every day? Even right now, it brings tears in my eyes because it was so stressful. And so scaling a company, income statements, balance sheets, culture, all those things, there's no stress like just, oh my God, they're going to turn off the electricity. What are we going to do? So anytime you're faced with a difficult time in your life now as an adult when you are in business, you're able to leverage those times. as indicators why, okay, you can get through this.

So it's interesting. I appreciate that. Sometimes, yes, but really I live on this word. I love this word. Perspective. I have that story to lean on. I have that memory to lean on and what it was like to live in that. But actually, what I lean on more for inspiration and when I think about tough times that I may be going through right now,

I think about people in this moment here and now, the single mom of two that's walking 1,100 miles up from Honduras to try to get into this country. 1100 miles with nothing but maybe a backpack and I got two kids. Damn it, I was born in this country and I went through some things, but I've never had to face that. That mom and dad that are in Syria thinking about getting on a blowup raft to cross the Mediterranean Sea, I've never had to face that. I actually look at different things now and the present more than I do my back. I went through that. I find the benefits from it and I look at the positives. Even that, that three

weeks that I was left. The positive from that, that taught me, okay, I can get through anything. If I can get through that, I can get through anything. I couldn't agree with you more. Some of life's worse experiences for us teach us that we can survive and that that's an indicator that we're going to survive at all. Totally. Totally. And it's interesting. I survived as a child. My mother and I used to always say this as well. We survived. We didn't live. And when you survive, there's a lot of suffering that comes with survival because you're just trying to survive. I really haven't lived until my adulthood and even more so probably the last eight years since I met my wife. Because for the longest I struggled, I could not carry a relationship. I was a monster. I had no

role models. No one taught me what what's a family structure look like? What's a relationship look like. And so I don't have many regrets, but I do have a lot of remorse for how I treated a lot of women in relationships that I was in, because I had to really look at myself in the mirror and say, damn, you, you ended up a lot like your father. And that was hard to, you weren't beating women in the street. I didn't beat women in the street. No, I didn't, but, but my mentality, my, I was verbally abusive, very much so. So what changed it for you? What made you decide you had to do some self work. When I went broke, I had made a million dollars and I lost it all. And I remember when I was in my apartment, broke, and I'll even give you this scenario.

I went to the store one night. It was about 10, 30, 11 o'clock at night. And I went to the store and I had $10 and quarters in my hand. And I went to the cashier and I said, could I have $10 on number seven I was going to get gas and I remember how humiliated I was because I was thinking to myself you got a million dollars and you're back in this moment again what what happened would you do and so I went out my gas went home and I remember looking in the mirror and having a full-blown conversation out loud with myself and I said you know what here you are you had money now you don't have money and you're left with nothing else but your character who are you as a man now who are you going to be

going forward. You weren't a good person, you know, for years. Who are you going to be going forward? And that became the real, the switch for me on, okay, I want to be a better man. I want to be a better person and diving into that. That was the switch because you can make a lot of money and that was great, but I still had a bad character. And who you are when no one is looking is who you are when everyone is looking. And that became my big change point. If your anxiety, depression, or ADHD are more than a rough patch, you don't need just another meditation app.

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And then you implemented the same skills and tactics that you had implemented previously in business, which were to grind it out, work everyone, do everything to the best, whether it's cleaning toilets or selling mortgages, you were just going to grind that out and be the best at it. Be the best at anything that I did. Matter of fact, Heather, this is interesting. This only came out about three months ago. I struggled and I would never want to give my father credit for this and three months ago I finally

just said it out loud, gave him credit. When I stood and I looked at those toilets, it was my first job cleaning toilets in the restaurant and I looked at them and I said, okay if this is my job, I'm going to have the cleanest toilets and all of San Antonio, the whole state of Texas, so and so forth. What I've never said out loud was that mentality or that phrase came from my father. When I was a kid, and I don't know why he said this to us, he said, whatever you do in life, be the best at it. He said, if you're going to be a street sweeper, his specific words,

if you're going to be a street sweeper, make sure you sweep the best streets, and your streets are the cleanest ever. And that stuck with me. And from there on, I've always tried to be the best at anything that I did. And then how do you go from that conversation and gleaning that insight from him to how many years not speaking to him to showing up at his funeral? You know, when I showed up to his funeral, I didn't know the person that was in the casket. That wasn't my dad. My dad was this very charismatic person. Everyone loved him, even though he was a pimp and he did what he did and he was a drug dealer. everyone loved him that's who I knew I didn't know this old wrinkly gray guy that was in the

cask I had no clue who that was so it was a very interesting dynamic for me to be there because I didn't have a lot of there wasn't a lot of tear for emotion for that person there was tear for emotion because I was hearing stories from all of these pimps and people talking about my father things that I didn't know and a little animosity because the things that they were saying, some very positive. But for me, I'm like, I don't remember that person. I remember being a six-year-old kid waiting for this man to pick me up and I'm never showing up for hours on end. So that moment was very, it was tough. And then to go and pay for his funeral because he died flat broke. You know, you've never met a retired pimp and drug dealer. He died flat broke. I paid for

funeral. I was glad that I went. I made my peace and the big thing for me was I just didn't want him waiting for me to show up like I used to wait for him to show up. But what I like most about that story and what you did to me that spoke the most of me is that you stood up to actually speak at that detail. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was really balsy. You know, um, everything that was being said was positive and that's not who I remembered. That wasn't the father that that, that I knew. I know. I knew. You know, everybody had these great stories, and I guess, you know, these are the things that you say at a funeral, which, let me sidetrack for a minute. Funerals, or, excuse my language, are effing dumb, you stand up and you say all of these nice things about this individual.

Most of which, 70% of this, the person that's dead never even knew people felt this way. Right. Why did you wait till now? Why don't we share this with people? Boy, I'm like, okay, funerals are dumb. But, yeah, it, I just felt. a responsibility to go say my peace and say this is this is a person that I remember but I was happy that you know I buried him and

he he be in heaven be a hell wherever he is he didn't have to wait for me to to show up but yeah I felt the necessary to speak my peace and be done with it someone someone asked me you know do I have any

animosity towards my father whatever my father lived his life know he he did what he did you know obviously he didn't value family at 23 children and you know didn't take care of any of us so he obviously didn't value family but no you know it's i look back at my father and i took the pieces that i could to either benefit myself or to learn and there is value in seeing negativity my father never taught me how to be a father but he did he did he's me how not to be a father. There's benefit there. There's a positive there. If you choose to see it. If you choose to see it. And that's how I've always chosen to see my background. What are the

positives that I can take? You know, that positive moment of him telling me, no matter what you do, be the best at it. That's a positive. Another one that's recently come up for me that I've openly admitted. My father was leaning on a bookshelf one night. I think it was like two in the morning why I was awake with my half-brothers and sisters. I have no clue, but he leaned on the bookshelf and he looked at us and he said, don't ever end up like me. Don't ever end up like this. And the damnedest thing, he never said what he was talking about. So you were left to figure out what is he talking about. So for me, what that said was don't be a pimp, don't be a drug dealer, all the things that you see negative about your father don't be those things and I don't drink

I don't smoke I don't do any drugs I didn't end up a PIM I've got I've got one wife all four children are mine I take care all the things when he said that I guess stuck with me okay that's what I'm not supposed to be right took me a while to get there but you know 40 years I got my my act right on treating women respect for and having a great family. It's amazing what you've gone through, and your business trajectory is equally as amazing. And the reason why I see that, as I mentioned to you before,

we have in some regards very similar upbrings, a lot of loss, a lot of fear, you know, a laugh of having certain things, and transitioning that into drive. And you definitely did that through your insurance days, mortgage days, the software company, right? So you've done the lowest of the low. positions but always accelerated yourself and asked for advancement, which is something

that I think is really important. A lot of people don't do. Even though you do a great job in those low level positions, people will stay there. They're not thinking bigger. The theme with you that I took is you're always thinking bigger and you're always asking. Why is that? You know, I look at by this. You can ask for everything.

The worst someone can say to me is no. That's it. And if you do say no to me, I've got no. more or no less than I did before I asked the question. So why not ask? Because you may just say yes and I'll end up with more. Give her credit. My third grade teacher, Mrs. D-Dek, she said there are no dumb or stupid questions. Excuse me. And I ran with that. And I've always asked questions for everything. I'm not afraid to ask. All you can say is no. And a big piece of that comes as well. I remember coming home asking if we were going to eat dinner and hearing no.

That hurts because as a child, there's nothing you can do. But if I'm in sales and I'm prospecting and I'm calling the Fortune 1000 and I call number one and they say no, I've got 99 and other people that I'm going to find someone that's going to say yes. So I've always taken that no just means not right now. So I'll call you again next quarter. But yeah, you can ask for everything. And that's just it. you nailed it. So many of us are sitting back waiting for someone to come and give us something

or recognize us. No, I'm going to ask. And God forbid, you ask me what I want. I'm going to tell you. I remember Mr. Gentry when I was with the payday loan companies. He said, hell, son, what do you want? And I said, I want to be in the picture with you and the vice president's up there on the wall. And he even said, he goes, hell, son, you got some balls on you know. I go, hey, you ask me what I want it. all you can tell me is no. Well, you ended up getting that. He ended up promoting you. You moved to Oregon, but what you did was you built up credibility, and I liken this to myself

as well. As long as you, listen, going to Oregon, I'm sure it wasn't the dream job, you liked it there, whatever, you had your own adversity that you faced living there, but you took one property to three properties to eight properties and had the idea to acquire the other companies and did the due diligence to figure out there were some laws in place. in Oregon that people weren't aware of. Yeah. I mean, I'll never say that I'm, I struggle with self-made because yes, there are people who have helped you along the way. You are self-made, please. I appreciate that. But I am definitely, I don't stray away from this. I am definitely self-taught.

You know, I've always dug into teaching myself everything down to the basics of levels. And my favorite, one of my favorite moments is when Mr. Gentry, I was in Portland, I had only been there 30 days and he calls up and he says I want you to go to Eugene Oregon and open a new office and all I said was yes sir and he said do you need anything for me no sir and I remember hanging up the phone and I sat back and I go what the hell where's Eugene Oregon and I said to myself okay well first probably need to find where Eugene Oregon is let's do that two need to drive there I drove, I got there, said, okay, now what do I do? Probably need to find a location.

And everything I've done in life has been self-taught, from learning how to invest in stocks to income statements and balance sheets, EBITDA, you name it. It's been self-taught. Right, because you were not an academic. Oh, God, no. I can't, we joke here. Here I am.

It's a damnedest thing. CEO of a publishing company, and I can't tell you an advert from an adjutant. and I damn sure can't spell. I mean this sincerely. It sounds like a joke, but I mean this with all sincerity. One of the top five people I would like to meet is the man or woman who created a spell check

because good God, you have been influential in my career because I can't spell. So I am not an academic, but business, I love it. I love business. I love investing. And I would like to say I found my lane in life. and when I look at the chaos that I grew up in as a child and take some of those lessons as a child

and put them into the business world, it all makes sense to me. It just kind of slows down. And some of it, I got in trouble when I said this, but I'm going to say it again because I really care about getting in trouble when I said it. There are things that go on in the hood

that actually are the same in corporate America. Completely. And so, you know, when I'm mentoring youth, I explained this to them. This isn't what I got in trouble for. I'll get back to that one. But I explained to the youth that I mentor, the high-risk youth, I said, look, dress code is everywhere. I said, guys, you know we can't go into certain neighborhoods with certain colors on, right? And they're like, yeah, yeah. I said, well, guess what? You can't go into certain meetings without a certain outfit on, be it slacks tucked in shirt.

Sometimes it may be a suit and tie. I go, dress code is wherever you go. I said, if we go work at McDonald's, guess what? We have a dress code. the uniform we have to wear. Dress code is throughout, be it going into the hoods, certain neighborhoods, be it going into corporate America. It clicked for them.

That made sense. The thing that I got in trouble for, and I stand by this, is pharmaceutical reps, and that whole pharma industry is a legalized drug deal. We all know, every drug dealer knows this.

The first rule is the money is in the comeback. I give you. the first sample for free. You like it. You get hooked. You come back. A pharmaceutical rep goes to the doctor's office, gives out free samples. The doctor then gives free samples to the patient. The patient likes it, comes back to the doctor, asks for a prescription, doctor writes a prescription, sent us to Walgreens, CBS, whoever. Then they pick it up. If you look at it, it's actually a flawed system. There's too many people getting paid out of that system. The drunk deal on the street, it's the same thing. They give you the free. you get hooked, you come back, and you've probably got three layers of that drug deal.

You've got the kingpin who's sending it in, the person who's running the city, and you've got the person, the people who, the pharmaceutical reps out on the corners. It's the same system. One's legal, one's not. So what you did was you were an observer to what you grew up in, and you're just observing now in corporate America in different environments and applying that same methodology of what worked what didn't and it kind of came together for you to help you advance in business. Exactly.

Communication, shaking hands. The lessons that I share with the high risk youth now that I mentor are the greatest lessons that I've learned in life. How to shake someone's hand, look them in the eye and say, nice to meet you. How to say yes, ma'am, yes, sir, thank you, please. Do you have any employment opportunities? All of these different things have helped me in life. attention to detail. I've spoken with, we have people here who have PhDs from Harvard. No one yet

has been able to tell me that they've learned attention to detail in college. So attention to detail, punctuality, the greatest one for me, do what you say. How about that? If I say, hey, Heather, I'm going to have those books in New York. I'm going to have those books in New York. I'm going to have those books in New York. Do what you say you're going to do. It's such an easy concept, but somewhere along the line, these valuable lessons in our country have just gone by the wayside. JT., so as you moved up in all these situations, you ended up in boardrooms with a number of people from Ivy League schools, and in different occasions, they would inquire, what school did you go to? And you did not graduate from college? No. Were there times that that weighed on you? Did you feel insecure? How

How did you handle that? Oh, my God. Graduate from college. Heather, you know this. I barely graduated from high school. When I got reunited with my mother in Texas at 15, she had me tested, and I was only testing on a fifth or sixth grade level at the age of 15. To this day, I don't hold a pen or pencil the right way.

Yeah, but people need to know you were virtually homeless for a few years. I was. Between 10 and 15. There's reason for the. And so, but, you know, I get the job done. And so that's what matters. But yes, didn't graduate in the traditional sense high school. I had to go to summer school, take some remedial courses, take courses to get my high school

diploma, got that, never graduated college. And so I spent 25 plus years intimidated by people who had that damn degree. God forbid you had a master's or a PhD. I mean, there was so much imposter syndrome when I was the president at a soft. You had people there who had worked at NASA. There were people who had multiple master's degrees. I'm like, okay, I don't even have one, you've got two? And so there was so much imposter syndrome of,

I'm the president of a software company and I can't write code. And these people have multiple degrees. And I had always lived in this intimidation of not having those academic credentials. I'll forever give him credit for it. Tucker, he said, it's actually a benefit for you. He said, I wouldn't say for everyone, for you that you don't have a degree because the things that you've learned and how you learned them have helped you in business that you may

have been clouded or by getting a degree in the typical academic way may have actually not been a benefit for it for you. and he was the first person, first person, it was 45 years old, he was the first person that told me, he goes, damn, you're one of the fastest learners I've ever met. No one had ever told me I was a fast learner, ever. I had never heard that. I'm shocked to hear that knowing what you've done in business. I was shocked to hear that was a fast learner.

Because sometimes we only believe the self-limiting belief that we have for ourselves. Yes. Until someone else tells us. Yes. I knew internally that I would always say to myself, okay, no matter what, I'm going to figure this out. I'm going to get it done. And I knew if someone else was going to work 50 hours, I'll work 60. You work 70.

I work 80. I knew I would always do everything I needed to do to succeed. I knew I had that internally, but I had never had anyone verbally out loud say, you're damn, you're a fast learner. Not only a fast learner, but to hear someone who went to the University of Chicago, someone who went to Duke Law School, say, you're one of the fastest learners I've ever met. I was shocked by that. It gave you that validation that you've been wanting for a long time.

Maybe I kind of know a couple things. So do you ever feel that imposter syndrome or do you feel guilty nowadays that you are the CEO, you are the president, you're running this large company, and now you do want to take vacation with your family. You do spend time and leave work to go be with your family. I know you did not live that way for the majority of your life. Do I feel guilty about it now? Yeah.

Do you ever feel that imposter like, I shouldn't really be going home right now. I should put the extra hours in. You know, I'm not a fan of the term work-life balance. I edit this out of people. I think it's bullshit. And the reason why I say that is because life is just life. You have to work.

You have to pay your bills. You have to support your family. You have to have some retirement, so on and so forth. So I believe in you take your life and you figure out how are you want to balance your life, not work-life balance. So for me, there's five things. God, health, family, business, and investing. If it doesn't fall within those five, I don't touch it. You know, I'd like to believe I've made a little bit of money. I could probably afford ESPN on the DirecTV subscription, but I don't have ESPN because unless Tom Brady is sending me part of his

$20 million contract, I don't care. And so I don't, I don't watch. ESPN, I watch CNBC, I watch Bloomberg because, you know, the financial channels, because that's what I love. I love golf, but I've not played golf in probably three years because I'd rather spend that four and a half hours with my family. So that's life. And I love my life. So even when I go home, you know, if I leave early, took the kids in, we do bath, we read some books. Maybe, you know, I'm sitting on the couch for my wife. We have some discussions.

She dozes off. Yeah, I'm right back into Bloomberg. I'm right back into scale and growth and how are we going to grow this company. So I don't ever really have a shutdown period. You know, I took the kids last year in May for the first time, my first time in life. We went to Disney World. Spared zero expense. And so, but yeah, when everyone shut it down at night and everyone fell asleep because they were exhausted,

Yeah, I sat, did a little bit of work. And I love it. Because that's what you love. That's what I love. And so there's no, I know people have looked at me and said, that's ridiculous that you did that. Like when I was at the software company in five years, I only took 11 days vacation. There's that picture of me where I'm in the delivery room with my wife during the birth of my firstborn. And my laptop's open in the background.

And people will say, oh, it's insane. It's stupid. that's ridiculous. No, that's how I became president of the software company because I was always willing to do what other people aren't to succeed. And in many ways, because I didn't have that degree, because Heather, you've heard this, everyone would preach, oh, got to have something to fall back on. Got to have something to fall back on. I didn't have that degree to fall back one, although I think it's a bullshit comment, but I didn't have the degree to fall back one. My fallback was, I will just outwork you.

Right. That was my fallback. I had the same one. So what do you think about your kids and going to college? I mean, are you going to push them so hard? Are you like, A's, A's, A's. What is it like now? Because they have a completely different life than you.

So I am man enough to admit, and these are vulnerable moments. It scares me a little bit because I know the day is going to come where my daughter's going to bring some homework home. that I can't help her with. Wait, it already happens to me. My son's in fifth grade. Come on. So that, you know, but I joke with my wife. I go, but hey, I made enough money.

Hire a tutor. Right. So I'm in a fortunate position where financially, if they choose to go to college, if one of them gets accepted to Harvard Medical School, I will pay every dime of it. And so, but here's the thing. I'm not a A's, A's, A's. I want my children to truly see life, not be stressed by it, understand the good, the bad, I don't want to protect them. A great example of this. I showed my daughter the other day some

images of children that were homeless in India. And someone said to me, they go, well, don't you think your daughter, she's only five? Don't you think that's a little too young to show her images like that? I said, so let me get this straight. The five-year-old who's homeless isn't too young to be homeless, but my five-year-old who lives in the gated community is too young to see it? No, no. And, you know, I won't allow my kids to read my book until they're maybe 10, 11, 12 years old, but I want them to know what I came from, what I went through to get to where I am. So I'm not going to like push college if they want to go, great. But if one of my kids say, hey, dad, I'd like to start a business, I'd say, okay, here's what you got to do. You need to go work with someone for a year,

get some work experience, see how the real world works, then let's talk about investing $50,000 to start a business for you. They say, hey, dad, I want to go to college. You know, okay, great, let's do the college thing. What I won't finance is if somebody says, hey, dad, I want to go backpack Europe for six months. Yeah, you're on your own. I completely agree. Starting the year with a wardrobe refresh, Quince has you covered with Luxe Essentials that feel effortless, and look polished. They're perfect for layering, mixing, and building a wardrobe that lasts. Their versatile styles make it easy to reach for them day after day. Quince has all the staples covered, from soft Mongolian cashmere sweaters that feel like designer pieces without

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Now available in Canada, too. That's Q. U-I-N-C-E dot com slash confidence to get free shipping and 365-day returns. Quince.com slash confidence. So you brought up your book, and I know that for you that was a really difficult, cathartic, amazing experience similar to me because we did more of autobiographies. A lot of people don't do that, but, you know, many of us do. And it's a really amazing experience.

and your company, Scribe, has made it incredibly turnkey, whether you've never written a book, whether you don't really want to write, you want someone to be your ghostwriter, whether you're like me, you've written a book, and you don't know how to get an IBSN number, and I don't know how to get it into Amazon, and I don't know how to make a cover go on. I didn't know any of those things. So how did Scribe come to be, and how did you guys make it so easy? So you had the two co-founders, Tucker and Zach, two great guys, phenomenal ideas. and, you know, Tucker's one of three people in the history of the world that have had three books on the New York Times bestseller list, nonfiction simultaneously.

There's only three people in the history of the world have done that, and he's one of them. So he started this company. Everything was going great. They were profitable, beautiful, and I went to do my book with them. Tucker comes to my office, and I'll give you this quick story. Tucker, the way we got introduced, Jason. Dorsi sends an email and says JT this is Tucker Tucker's J T you know the traditional introduction in a separate email Jason sends to me goes hey that's the real Tucker Max

I didn't know who Tucker was so I emailed him back and I said hey I'm the real JT McCormick what's up so Tucker comes to the office we meet one thing leads to another I started doing my book with him he said hey will you give me feedback in the process as you go through it I started giving me feedback he said hey would you be an advisor said okay Tucker didn't know I was looking to transition out the software company anyway because one again I wasn't passionate about writing code and so one thing led to another I woke up one day and I was the CEO president of scribe and they did my book and why I have this deep love for the company is my book would not have been possible without this company I can't sit down and write

That wasn't going to happen. So enabling me to just sit down and speak my book and someone to make it flow correctly, to make sure it's grammatically correct, punctuation, proof read, all of that. And to capture my tone, my voice, one of my favorite moments when I worked with my scribe, Amanda. Amanda is from Vermont, and she, her family, summers in Maine. when I was on the phone with Amanda doing my book, I go, Summers, what would, I go, I've never heard, Summers, what, and so she explained to me, I had never heard the word. But then when I started going

into my content and I said, bottom bench, and I said, Trapp House, she had never heard that before. And so here we had this great dynamic of, I was learning from her, she was learning from me, but it really made me break down the details of my book so she could understand it. And so the reader could understand it. And that was just magical that I could speak that and hear this beautiful book came out from manuscript content, cover design, like you said, interior layout, get it up on Amazon. And you know this. I never wanted my book to be public. I wanted five copies. I never wanted this book to be public whatsoever because of some of the stories that are in there. I was still with imposter syndrome.

know, I knew people were now going to know, wow, his father was a pimp, 23 children, doesn't know where his last name comes up. He doesn't have a college degree. I mean, because I know there's people out there that I thought JT had an MBA. If you thought that, hey, I just ran with it. And so I never wanted that book to be public, but then through a lot of conversations, support, encouragement, we made it public, and it just took a life of its own. Did that get rid of the imposter syndrome for you, putting the book out there?

It did. The book was one, it was therapeutic because I had stories in me that I swore were going to the bottom of the ocean. You know, the story in there where I threw my baby sister across the room when she was six months old. She landed on the couch. She was safe. I swore that story was going to the bottom of the ocean. And the damnedest thing with God and timing and everything, The only reason why that story made it to the book, my father had passed away why we were doing the book.

I went to the funeral, saw my baby sister that I actually threw across the room. I shared it with her. And she cried with me and she said, it's okay. I know what we came from. I know what we were going through. She goes, it's not your fault. And I felt that forgiveness, that I had that peace. And then I said, okay, I'm going to put that in the book because that was, that's a deep story for me.

me and I finally felt at peace to share it and put it in the book. And again, I only wanted it for my kids, but it was out. It wasn't just sitting with me anymore. So the book was very therapeutic for me. And it did release a little bit of imposter syndrome because it was like, hey, this is who I am now. You know, I go by JT, but my real name's Jvonne. My name is Jvonne Thomas McCormick, father is a pimp, you know, half white, half black. Um, um, I'm, um, um, I'm just a lot. Um, barely have a high school diploma and here this is me so it's so freeing i feel writing a book and putting your secrets and your shame out there because it's like ripping that band-aid off fast it's just over totally even even in business you know our society is it's a damnedest thing

we all have this nerve where we'll say oh we learn the most through our mistakes we learn the most of our mistakes, but if you go to LinkedIn, you go to blog post. We're only talking about the highlights. Right, no one's sharing mistakes. Right, right, right. And so I literally, all my teaching comes from the mistakes that I've made over, over my business career and in life. I teach through my mistakes. I share through my mistakes. I did this wrong. I did this wrong. And yeah, I'll throw in a few successes along the way, but I share my mistakes. And I find that to be important because if we truly learn the most from our mistakes, then why are more of us sharing our mistakes? Right. Yeah. I mean, it's everyone, top five things Jeff Bezos has done for it to be

successful. Elon Buss, Steve Jobs. Hell, give me the top 10 mistake list. I want that one. Give me that list. Right. And I'll spare you of this next tangent. I find it interesting as well. We're a culture of work-life balance, work-life balance. But everybody is. celebrating Bezos jobs and Elon Musk, and those three gentlemen are not the definition of work-life balance, but everybody wants to celebrate them. You're so right. It's mind-going to me. It's a bit misled.

Okay, so tell me when in your life have you struggled with your confidence the most? It's interesting. I would struggle outwardly not having the degree. that's where the confidence was always but inwardly if that's a word sorry inward I didn't struggle because I always knew

okay I may not have this degree I may not have this MBA oh but I would look at people and I'm looking at you the whole time I'm saying okay I'm now work your ass you've got that master's you've got that degree from Pepperdine Harvard whatever

oh they didn't teach you how to out work me they didn't teach you that there's no piece of paper you ever have What is that? Is that vision? Is that manifesting? Is that belief? Belief. I say this all the time and I found this when at some of the lowest points in my life. Self-love is so important because if you can't love yourself first, how can you really expect anybody else to love you? You can't. And so I always just had this self-love and belief in myself.

that, okay, I will get through this. The sun will still come up tomorrow. Traffic will still be bad, and I still got to pay taxes. But I've always just had a belief that, okay, confidence and belief, it's all I got. I'm going to make it happen. Well, you definitely have done that. And you just shared with me, you did David Goggins book, and I did not even realize that. We did David Goggins book.

That was a true honor. to do his book. That book was huge for, I want to say it was like 10 weeks. He had the second most sought-after book in America, second only to Michelle Obama. A book was huge. And that's a scribe book. That's a scribe book. Matter of fact, give you the story, the day after Christmas, I had to jump on a plane

and go to God knows where Minnesota to meet with our printer because the book was in such demand, we needed to get the book printed faster. So the day after Christmas, I had to head up to literally two hours north of Minneapolis. I was closer to Canada than I was to the states to work on getting his book printed because it was so popular. But those are the things that you do and that's why I like working with you is that any time a challenge hits, you are there. Like you said, your word is your word and you come through even though it might be a real pain at certain times. Oh yeah. It's one of the lessons, like I said, it took me 40 years, 38 to 40 years to finally get there. But I learned it from my Uncle Bobby. You know, if you say you're going to do something, you've got to do it. And I didn't always live by that. But 38, 39, it all started kicking in for me. And, you know, you got to live by your word. If you say you're going to do it, you got to do it. And society's kind of made it easy because so many people don't do what they say they're going to do. So it's like, okay, if that's the bar, okay, I can make that happen.

But yeah, do what you say you're going to do. And go the extra mile. You know, when you're in the restroom, if there's a paper towel on the floor, pick it up. Pick it up. It takes you literally two seconds to pick up the paper towel. So, yeah, go the extra mile. Who you are when no one's looking is who you are when everyone's looking. So if you have a book out there and you're inside of you and you want it to come out of you,

scribe is obviously the place to go. We can turn your idea into a book. And I'll share, you and I were talking about this. My mother would say this to me when I was a kid. Everyone has a story, so don't judge because you don't know their story. And we truly believe that's literally for us at the company. We truly believe everyone has a story. We do believe everyone should have a book.

Maybe their books not to get on stage. Maybe their books not for lead generation, thought leadership, credibility. Maybe the book's a memoir. Maybe it's for their family. Maybe it's therapeutic for them. But everyone has a book. But I'll tell you, for me, going into entrepreneurship, for me, the first step was writing the book and then not knowing how to self-publish and finding you and then publishing, that really

became the epicenter of my brand would tell me to create my brand and the concept around confidence. Taking those steps sometimes and just having faith in your ideas and what's inside of you and then working with a partner that can advance you rapidly because this is your expertise really can move you in a completely new direction. Oh, totally. And we say this on our welcome calls now. We would rather hurt your feelings than publish a bad book.

So if we've got to say, hey, Heather, this is the wrong direction. We've got a course correct. Heather, we need to scratch that. Heather, that's a bad chapter. That's what we're willing to do. You know, truth be told, we actually turn. down about 30% of the people who come to us and I'll give you the top two reasons why people have a great book idea but not enough content that's number one because the worst thing that can happen

is you decide to do a book and at the end of this process you're not happy with your book because you didn't have the content so we want to make sure up front we walk you through the process and make sure you have enough content for a book number two reason we won't work with someone in many times this is the number one reason. Someone comes to us and they say they want to be in New York Times, best selling an author, and sell a million copies. That individual is looking for fame. You got to call the Kardashians. It's not our business model. So it's... Although David Gockens was able to reach it. He nailed it. But that wasn't what... That wasn't his goal. Exactly. You know, if that's the goal, you know this, Heather, so few people hit that list, ever sell a million copies. It's such a, a just hit or miss.

type thing. You've got some of the greatest books that have ever been written that have never seen the lighted day of a New York Times bestselling list. But how do they find Scribe if they want to, if they've got an idea inside of them, they want to get a book out there. How do they find Scribebmedia.com, scribewriting.com. You can set an appointment with this. Our author's strategist will walk you through it. Is there a cost for that call? Yes. No, not for the call at all. They can walk through and just learn about Scribe.

Just learn about it, what we do. And I would even say this. If you really want to learn about us, go to the website. We put testimonial stories on there. There's videos on there. All the content you could ever want. Every question about writing a book, who should write a book, why you should write your book. Everything you can think of is on that site.

And it's so much easier than I think people understand. Yes. Yes. And how do they find you, JT? Oh, gosh. LinkedIn's the easiest place to find me. LinkedIn's the best. That's what business gets done.

Yes. I share my mistakes on LinkedIn. So every Tuesday I post my thoughts, my mistakes, lessons, and every Tuesday that's where you can find me. Well, I appreciate your time today. I know how busy you are, so we'll let you go, JT, but check out Scribe. I am a scribe author. That's where Confidence Creator got published from.

So check it out, support my peeps, and I will put Scribe in the show notes. And JT. Thank you so much. Thank you, ma'am. And get Heather's book. Oh, yeah, Confidence Creator. There you go. That baby.

All right. We'll be right back. Hang with me. I hope you loved meeting J.T. And definitely got some value from his story and the adversity that he's overcome. Nothing is impossible. That is definitely what I'm reminded after. Speaking and meeting with J.T.

My excuses are out the window. If he could make this happen, anyone can. Just like me writing a book. It's so bizarre. So this weekend, I spent nearly the entire weekend. in my house, organizing, decluttering, getting rid of clothes that didn't fit, getting rid of my son's clothes that didn't fit, and putting some structure into my house. And I have to tell you, I started this week feeling amazing, proud, fantastic. And anytime I talk a lot about getting rid of negativity

from your life, firing the villains, and that's so critical in creating success for yourself. but it's also critical in decluttering and getting rid of anything negative in your home too. There was this painting that really drove me crazy in my house and I got rid of it. And I swear, I just feel like this great vibe in my home and I feel so good. So please take the time to not only get rid of the villains in your life, but declutter and get rid of any negativity in your house so that you feel strong and competent at home. to it's really made a big difference for me just in the past couple of days I'm I'm so glad I took the weekend to do this so today I wanted to of course answer a

couple of questions I had put a post on LinkedIn the other day about hey if you're dreading going to work on a Sunday night it's because you're in the wrong job work for the wrong person in the wrong industry or with the wrong company but it's up to you now to make a move and I got a question back from someone who follows me in LinkedIn and it says, how do I stop the mind chatter of Sunday night? It's the worst. I can't sleep. All I do is lay here thinking about what to do on Monday. Crazy. I've even taken up vaping CBD and it seems to help a little bit, but I hate to have to turn to drugs to fall asleep. Do you have any ideas? Well, here's the thing, right? This is so obvious to me. You are in the wrong job. You are

working for the wrong person. You are in the wrong company, industry, et cetera. Something is not a fit there. So you need to figure out what is your superpower? What is it that you love to do? If money didn't matter, if, you know, commitments to other people or whatever didn't matter, what is it that you would do? What do you want to do? And find a way to start working on that project in, you know, on your weekends at night in your free time and update your resume.

Start reaching out to your network and ask people, hey, I'm looking to make a move. I'm not in the right company. I need to create some change. Do you have ideas? Start brainstorming with others. Start Googling for other opportunities that might be out there. Get some referrals and reviews from your clients, existing clients, updated on LinkedIn, updated on your resume, and start taking action to get yourself out of that situation.

No one should have to take drugs to go to bed on a Sunday night because they're dreading Monday morning. That is a major red alert, wake up call. You've got to take action and make a change. Okay, so then I received another DM, actually, on Instagram, and this person had gone for a raise and had articulated in the email to me or a note to me that they, you know, don't care for the company that they work for, however, they need their job. And they were scared about going for a raise and I gave some feedback on how to do it. Well, this person got a proposal from the company that they would give a 2% raise, which is. essentially nothing. And this person reached back out and said, listen, 2%, but this person reached out via email, which I don't agree with, but reached out via email and said, listen, 2%'s not going to work.

And I'm suggesting, you know, 5 or 10%. And they never even responded to the email or acknowledged it. And then this person says, I know I need to leave. I'm done growing, but I can't. or I feel like I can't because of bills in my life. Why do I feel like I can't stand up and just say so? They say, sorry, this is just how we do things. So there's a couple different ways to handle this. Number one, you have to go face to face. It's so easy to say no to someone on email.

So you need to sit across from someone. You need to bring in your work into that meeting. You need to bring in the reviews of your work, the feedback you've got from your boss, showing that you've been doing your job, showing your meeting exceeding expectations. And then you need to say, I'm confused. I'm really confused here.

The feedback I have from you and from my clients is that you're happy with me. I'm doing a great job. However, that's not reflective in this 2% increase. I think we both can agree that the increase in business I brought in, the relationships, the feedback, the collaboration, etc., whatever it is that you're doing that's great, warrants at least a 10% increase. Can you explain to me where the breakdown is here? Because what you need to find out is you might not be dealing with the ultimate decision maker.

Maybe this person doesn't have a budget to give you the kind of money that you want, and they need to find it from another department. So then you need to go with that manager to another higher up manager to access additional revenues. Maybe this person just can't even sign off on it and is embarrassed to tell you that. You've got to dig down to what is the real issue. Maybe the issue is that boss doesn't like you and doesn't want you there. And that's something you need to know too. So gain more insight and information by getting a face-to-face meeting, by letting them know you're confused, that this doesn't match up or align with the feedback you had been getting, and get to the bottom of what's really going on.

However, by the way this person was talking about this company and this job, it does not sound like it's a good place to be. So again, update your resume, update your LinkedIn, and lean into valuing yourself by starting to get yourself out of there. That is always the right answer. Put you first and take care of you. Invest in you. So thank you so much yet again for being with me today. Please subscribe, rate and review. It helps immensely.

And if you like this podcast, share it with your friends, post it on social. It means the world to me. Until next week, keep creating confidence, and I'm right there with you.