Young and Profiting with Hala Taha - JT McCormick: Rise Against All Odds | Career | E30

Episode Date: July 1, 2019

Started from the bottom, now he's here! JT McCormick had an insanely tough upbringing. He grew up dirt poor, raised by a single mother and was the son of a pimp. He started out becoming a product of his environment, barely finishing high school and landing in juvie multiple times. But after high school JT turned things around. Through relentless hard work JT beat the odds and applied his knowledge and hustling mentality from the streets to become a millionaire and super effective CEO. He currently runs the publishing company, Scribe Media, which is routinely voted as one of the best places to work in Texas. In this episode, Hala digs into JT’s childhood and career journey, uncovering the life lessons he acquired on the way. If you liked this episode, please write us a review! Get a copy or download of JT’s book: https://amzn.to/2HxdVKr Want to connect with other YAP listeners? Join the YAP Society on Slack: bit.ly/yapsociety Need marketing services? Check this out: rethink.agency/yap  Earn rewards for inviting your friends to YAP Society: bit.ly/sharethewealthyap Follow YAP on IG: www.instagram.com/youngandprofiting Reach out to Hala directly at [e-mail] Follow Hala on Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/htaha/ Follow Hala on Instagram: www.instagram.com/yapwithhala Check out our website to meet the team, view show notes and transcripts: www.youngandprofiting.com

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Go to rethink.com agency slash yap to learn more. That's rethink. Dot agency slash yap. Check them out. You're listening to Yap, Young and Profiting Podcast, a place where you can listen to learn and profit. I'm your host Halitaha, and today we're speaking with J.T. McCormick. J.T. has had a tough upbringing. He grew up poor, raised by a single mother, and was a son of a black pimp. J.T. started out on the wrong path, barely finishing high school and landing in Juvie multiple times. But through relentless

hard work, J.T. beat the odds and applied his knowledge and hustling mentality from the streets to become a millionaire and super effective CEO. He currently runs the publishing company Scribe Media, which is routinely voted as one of the best places to work in Texas. Today we're going to dig into JT's childhood, career journey, and uncover the life lessons he acquired on the way. Hey, JT. Welcome to Young and Profiting Podcast. Excellent. How are you, ma'am? I appreciate it. I'm doing well. Thank you. We can't wait to uncover all the great things you have to share with our listeners. And just a note from my listeners, I know I sound totally different, recovering from a cold, but the show goes on.

So here we are. Okay, so let's calibrate on you as a person. J.T., you are an incredibly accomplished man. For those who don't know, he is the CEO and president of Scribe Media. It's a multi-million dollar publishing company that's created an entire new way to write a book. J.T. is the definition of starting from the bottom. And now let me tell you, he is here. J.T. grew up on the incredibly tough streets of Dayton, Ohio. He was born a mixed race son of a drug dealing pimp in the 1970s. and an orphaned single mother on welfare. He was also one of 23 children on his father's side, and now he's a millionaire despite insane hardships like sexual abuse, homelessness, and stints in juvenile detention. So I think you've had one of the hardest lives growing up compared to anyone else we've interviewed.

We've researched a story, and I think we could learn a lot just by bringing up and talking about your father. So let's start with that first. What was your father like? Surprisingly enough, given his background of what you just went through, You nailed it. My father was a pimp and drug dealer. He put women on a street corner. They sold their bodies and he took every dollar. That said, everyone loved my father. When he would pick me up on the weekends on those rare occasions, I remember wherever we were going our destination, it may only take 10 minutes to get there, but it would take us 45 minutes because everyone would want to stop and talk to him. He would stop and talk to everyone. He said hello to everyone. everyone loved my father so he was he was a great communicator he was always open spoke with everyone so that's the father that I remember on top of the fact

I also remember the times that he was supposed to come pick me up and he never showed up so there were times where he would call and tell my mother you know get him ready get him dressed I'm gonna come pick him up and he'd never show and I'd stand in that window four or five hours loyal but he never showed up so those are the things that really come to top of mind when I think of my father. And I'll share this with you recently. It's not in the book. I've not spoken on it. And it's really come up over the last 60 days that I've opened up and admitted it publicly. So I got to ask this question the other day. Someone said, well, JT, how did you learn this work ethic? Where did it come from? When you

stood in front of those toilets and that was your job, what made you commit to making sure you have the cleanest toilets in San Antonio and in Texas. And I've never owned this or set it out loud. So I'll share it with you. My father, when I was a kid, and I don't know why he was saying it, but he had mentioned to me and my brothers one time, he said, whatever you do in life, be the very best at it. He said, if you're going to be a street sweeper, be the best street sweeper in the world. for whatever reason that stuck in my head and it was etched in my mind and when I found myself standing at my first job in front of those toilets to you know cleaning the toilets that phrase came up and from that day forward everything that I've done in life I've attempted to be the very best that I can

be the best husband the best father CEO president whatever I was doing at the time I've always wanted to be the best at it. That's a great approach and I think anybody who follows that advice will end up doing well. How did your mother meet your father? So unfortunately for my mother, when she left the orphanage, my mother was an orphan. She grew up in the orphanage, institutional kids prison, was really what it was. When she turned 17 years old, they gave her $20, her suitcase and they said, good up to you. There's the world. She had never been outside of those four walls. so she had no clue how to navigate society. Unfortunately for my mother, one of the very first people she met was my well-dressed, fast-talking, quite a bit older father.

And when I say quite a bit older, let me put this in perspective. I have a half-sister that is five years younger than my mother. So my dad was quite a bit older, and my mother didn't know anything. She was naive. She didn't understand the world. and here she was this at the time nice pimp speaking with her, and that's how they met. And was your mom a prostitute? You know, it's interesting.

I have asked my mother that very question, and it's a bit of an unspoken conversation, and my mother has answered and said this to me, and I know what it means, but she used to say this when I was a child as well. sometimes in life necessity has an ugly face. And I know what that means. And at times she did what she had to do to try to feed me, to try to provide for me, to take care of me, or to try to take care of her and provide for herself. So, you know, it's the unspoken conversation that's never just been said out loud. And she's always answered the question.

Sometimes in life, necessity has an ugly face. And so can you give some color to how poor. you actually were growing up and what it was like growing up for you being that poor and being mixed race as well. So I'll start with poor. So I want to be very clear. I was U.S. poor, United States four, because in other countries, it's a whole different definition of poor. So I was United States poor. And because even on our worst day here in the United States, as we define poor, it's nothing compared to some of the slums in India and maybe different third world country. So I was U.S. poor. I'll give you a couple stories. My mother and I would

joke that we were so poor. We couldn't afford the O and the R. We were just Po. I remember on many occasion when winter would come around in Dayton, Ohio, it was cold. And our windows had huge cracks in them. So when it got down to in the 20s, the air would come through and sometimes the heat would be turned off. So my mom and I would go to the local dry cleaner and my mother would ask for a handout. She would beg for the dry cleaning bags and ask if they would give them to us for free. And my mother would tape the dry cleaning bags to the window in order to try to keep some of the air out. And I still to this day have just etched in my mind that sound of the wind whipping through and shaking the plastic. So yeah, it was pretty poor. You know, I pulled trash out of trash cans as a kid.

during school. When everyone else went out to recess, I held back and waited and I pulled out a burger that wasn't eating all the way or whatever because I knew when I got home, there wasn't anything to eat. So yeah, we grew up pretty poor, wore bread bags on our feet because we had holes in our shoes in the winter, so we wanted our feet to stay dry. My mother didn't learn how to drive until she was 35, so we always rode the bus everywhere, didn't always have bus fare. So we had to walk many places. So, yeah, it was tough. It was hard. I remember going to bed on a Friday evening and knowing I would not eat again until Monday when I went back to school and got my free lunch at school again. So I knew there was going to be a 48-hour time period where I would not have food. That's crazy. One of the things that stood out in your book for me was that you learned the months based on the fact that your food stamps would have to stretch. Like in February, it was great, whereas, you know, May was terrible. That's how I learned my months of the year.

I realized that if the month had 30 days, that was a pretty good month because the welfare would be coming in. But if it had 31, oh, that was a rough month. And then like you said, February, hell, even in a leap year, February was good. Yeah. How about being mixed race and Dayton, Ohio? What was that like? You know, the best way I can sum this up for people is when someone wants to have a race conversation or they use it as a crutch. or an excuse or they want to pretty up the word excuse and say reason I'm not a fan

because racism I'm willing to have that conversation black people didn't like me because I was half white and white people didn't like me because I was half black so in many ways I did not have a group of people to fit in with and in Dayton Ohio you were black or you were white or you were mixed race and so it was very looked down upon You know, I was called half-breed. I was called Oreo cookie, mixed race, zebra, color confused. And as rough as it was for me being mixed race, it was horrific for my mother, what she experienced having a mixed-race child. I don't know if you all will edit this out, but I constantly heard my mother referred to as a nigger lover.

And that's what they would call her. So on many occasions, I remember watching my mother get an older white lady spit in her face. and called her a nigger lover when we were standing in line waiting for our food stance, waiting for our allotment of handout. To this day, I remember I was eight years old. This lady spit in my mother's face and called her a nigger lover. And why I laugh about it is when I think about it now, that lady was in the same broke-ass, handout free welfare line as us.

And to this day, I can't figure out what in her mind made her feel that she was better than us just because my mother had a mixed-race child. We were both in the same line for a free handout, but it was worse for my mother, I believe, than it was me. Yeah, it was hard and I was a kid and, you know, I pushed through. But here was my mother having to endure the ridicule, the shame of having a mixed race child. Wow, that's so tough. It's clear that your upbringing was so challenging, but hopefully these challenges helped you become the leader in person that you are today. Speaking of that, what are some of the lessons that your father taught you that you later applied to business and in life in general?

The number one I shared with you earlier was, you know, whatever you're going to do, be the best at it. Put in 100% of your effort. I would also say my father taught me communication skills. Like I said, he spoke to everyone. One of the greatest lessons of my life came from my father. And I'll give you the story of how it came to be. One weekend my father picked me up. I don't know, I was eight or nine years old, and we were in the grocery store for whatever reason. And we were walking through the frozen food section. And a little girl walked next to me and she said, hi, Javon. My actual name is Javon.

And I looked down. I was shy. I didn't say anything. And I feel this massive blow to the back of my head. And my father had smacked me. My face hit the ground. My nose started bleeding. He snatches me up, pins me up against the frozen food. door with his forearm under my neck and he's inches from my face and he says I don't care who it is. You show respect and say hello to everyone. And that lesson stuck with me my entire life. And I'll say hello to everyone. The housekeeping at a hotel, the person who takes your ticket at the movie theater, the person checking you out at the grocery store, I say hello to everyone. And in fact, I'm probably nicer. I am nicer to service industry individuals than I am C-suite executives, founders, CEOs. Okay, they got enough people kissing up to them. I am far nicer,

kind, and respectful to service industry people. But that was the greatest lesson my father ever taught me. Yeah. And I know in your book you mentioned like you could even take it further by making sure you ask people how they are and waiting for a response. Yes. How are you doing to? and have a genuine interest. When I ask people, I say this, how are you today? And I'm not just asking because it's the polite thing to do. And when you follow it up with that, people then really will attempt to connect with you. They'll tell you how they're doing. They'll say what's going on, so on and so forth. Now, be prepared. You may hear some things you don't want to hear, but I really look to ask the question with purpose. And I'm asking with sincerity or don't ask the question. So what did your father teach you about money? I don't know that my father specifically taught me about money. It was my circumstances that taught me about money. I realized the power that money had to change my life.

I realized that when you did not have money, there are times where you did not have electricity. When you did not have money, there were times where you did not eat. So money became a deep love affair for me, or should I say the lack of money became a deep love affair. And in fact, I've always just cringed at that phrase and I may mess it up here. So work with me. Money is the root of all evil. I've never met a poor person who felt that way. So not having money is the root of all evil because the last time I checked, someone who's got $50,000 in their

bank account has never gone in and robbed 7-Eleven. And so for me, not having money became the root of all evil because of the things you're willing to do in order to obtain money. So I don't know that my father necessarily taught me a lot about money. It was my circumstances and he just happened to be a part of that. Got it. So last question on your father. In your book, you talk about a great analogy that he gives between the CEO of Budweiser and a drug dealer and what that taught you. Could you go into that? Yes. In fact, I love this.

So my father, when I was a child, he would always say the only difference between me and the CEO of Budweiser is the CEO of Budweiser, our government chose to make his drug legal. And he would go into this whole explanation about how alcohol back during prohibition, alcohol used to be illegal. And he would go into this whole explanation about how alcohol is responsible for killing many people, drunk driving, so on and so forth, and creating problems. But he would say the only difference is the CEO Budweiser, our government chose to make his drug legal and chose not to make my drug legal. And it's interesting because never did I believe that I would see the day that here we are in our country. Now we're making.

weed legal throughout the country and so I sit back and I was like wow he was on to something in the other piece of this too and I've caught a lot of heat for this when you look at pharmaceutical reps they are legalized drug dealers and literally there's a hate for me for saying this but the first rule of a drug dealer we all know this is the money is in the comeback so we're going to give you the first sample for free because the goal is you're going to love the drug, you're going to get hooked, and you're going to keep coming back. Every drug dealer knows that. That's the first rule of drug dealing. Well, what do pharmaceutical

reps do? They go to the doctor's office. They give out free samples. Then the doctor gives free samples to the patient. The patient then takes the drug, calls the doctor back. Can I have a prescription for this? Doctor calls in the prescription. Walgreens fills the prescription. now you have the patient who is now hooked on the drug. I've come out and said, if you look at that system, it's flawed. You've got too many middlemen in between there because drug dealers on the street, they're about three transactions involved. Where you have pharmaceutical reps, you've got a pharmaceutical rep,

you've got the doctor, you've got Walgreens, you've got Big Pharma, whatever name you want to put on that. So there's a lot of people in between there that are getting a piece of the pie versus the same deal that's going down on the street. Now, people don't like, I use that analogy, but it is what it is. Yeah, and it just goes to show how you can have connections between what goes on into the street versus, you know, what happens in business. So very cool. Your mom was a shining light in your life, and she's really the only parent that you had. What was your relationship like with her? And what are some of the big lessons that she taught you to help you

succeed as much as you've had later on in life. You know, regardless of how many times we came up short and didn't have enough money or didn't have food to eat, my mother always tried. And I have said time and time again, the greatest example that my mother gave me was she had a son and she had no business having me. I have no problem saying this. My mother had no business having a child. And And I know that and I'm fine in saying it. But the greatest example she ever showed me was she didn't go off and have six more and knowing she couldn't afford that first one. So she had one.

She shouldn't have had me. And she didn't continue to repeat having more children when she couldn't take care of them. That was a great lesson for me. In fact, maybe more than you want to know, I'm only here by way of a horrific abortion that my mother had. The first time she got pregnant, my mother had an abortion, and this is back in 1970, when abortion was illegal. And so my mother had an illegal abortion that was so horrific as she described it to me that she decided the next time she got pregnant that she would take her chances in trying to raise a child than to go and have an abortion again. So that's the only reason I'm here. And again, she did not repeat.

I kindly refer to myself as a mistake because she shouldn't have had. me but she always tried you know she would sweep out the stairs in the apartments we live in to try to get ten dollars off of our rent in fact there's a rent receipt I keep on my desk at work that shows our rent was a hundred and forty five dollars and she only had ten dollars to pay on the rent and the whole transaction is there on the receipt and I keep that receipt framed on my desk to remind me where I come from what I went through and everything that I've done to get here but she always tried

She may have come up short, but she always tried. It's amazing. She must be so proud of you. She is. She tells me quite often, and I'm very happy of that. Although I had a very chaotic childhood, she was the one piece of stability. I always felt that I could depend on. Even in the five years where she and I weren't together and I was off with my father, the memories of my mother are, in many ways, what kept me going.

because I just remember how much I loved my mom. Yeah. So you got into some trouble as a kid. You landed into Juvie three times. Can you talk to us about how much trouble you really got into and perhaps how you transferred some of your hustling qualities into the corporate world? You know, I went to Juvenile more as anger as a kid. I get it from so many children, how they end up there.

The first time I went to juvenile is because, One of my father's girlfriends had beat me and then I ended up being taken to another one of my father's girlfriend's house and then she ended up beating me. Well, I got tired of being beat. And so I fought back and she called the police and I went to juvenile. What was sad about that situation was I was in Dayton, Ohio. My mother had gone, moved to Texas because I was there for a bit, but my father was in England. So no one knew I was in juvenile. So I was there for about two and a half months.

And finally I got out. I was staying with one of my aunts that picked me up and she couldn't afford to take care of me. So I kept my suitcase and I left and I slept on a bus stop. So I was homeless at 13, had nowhere to go. But I would go to school each day because I knew I could get a free meal. A little boy there, middle school, we all know those kids are brutal in middle school. He would make fun of me and I got in a fight with him. He ended up going into the hospital and I, went back to juvenile and I was in juvenile again. You said it. I was in juvenile three different times. What really stands out the most for me from juvenile is the last time I was there, I was leaving, and a corrections officer pulls me to the side and he goes, let me tell you something, son, you come back here again. You're going to man prison. Now I'm 47 years old and I don't know what it is about the term man prison that just doesn't sound right, but I made it a goal that I was never going to find out what man prison was about. So I'd like to thank that gentleman because he kept me out of man prison for whatever man prison is. I didn't want to go. To the second point of

your question, what have I taken into corporate America? My childhood as a whole was very chaotic. It was challenging. I was sexually molested by one of my father's prostitutes from the ages of six, seven, eight years old. I took every bit of my child. And I found the positives within it. I never let myself be a victim a victim in my opinion is a victim of a drive-by shooting no one asked for that A victim of a hit and run. No one asked for that my childhood was my childhood. It's what I had. It's what I was born into. Okay, great So I don't lean on it. I look at what are the things that I went through that can help me succeed in life and I try my best to find the positives in every negative situation. So I'll be very specific here. So in growing a company, you're talking about scale, payroll, growth, operational metrics, visibility, all the things that you need to

be able to scale and grow. Well, a lot of times those things do get stressful for some people. For me, I find peace in all of that because in the most stressful moments, I dip back to one situation in particular as a child and it was when I was left for three weeks with my three half brothers and sisters I was 12 and they were four three and two and we got left in Dayton Ohio in February for three weeks in a house and I remember I used to have to leave my four-year-old sister in the house why I went down to the store and would steal food for us to eat and I would come back why this is significant to this day is the stressed that I felt as a 12 year old kid this is what I felt day and day out I was

scared as hell that someone would come and turn off the electricity because the bill wasn't paid in that the four of us my brothers and sisters and I we would freeze because it was February in Ohio I was scared to death that the water would be shut off and we wouldn't have any water to drink or be able to take a bath or anything like that I lived with that stress every day for three weeks. So when I look at balance sheets, income statements, ebada, capital expenditures, operational expenditures, I don't find it too stressful. So because I did back to that and I remember that's what real stress felt like. Wow, that is so incredible. I can't

believe you went through all of that as a child and all the pressure that must have been on your shoulders. No wonder like you're so strong and can handle anything now. What was the turning point in your life where you started to, you know, transition on the straight path? And how did you end up landing your first job and getting on the path to success? So my first job, I never graduated high school. I had to go to summer school, take some remedial courses. And the janitor gave me my high school diploma. I never walked the stage, never got to do the graduation celebration. I just, academically I was not and still am not the most gifted person in the world so I got my high school diploma went home and my mother said great you've got two weeks to

get a job or you got to get out and so my first job I can't make this up was at a restaurant called po folks so my job was cleaning toilets and like I said I looked at those toilets and I made a commitment if this is my job I will make sure I'm the best toilet cleaner in the country. What benefited me, and I believe this, you don't do things just because people are looking. Who you are when no one is looking is who you are when everyone is looking. So what I developed is I was a bus boy as well. When I would clean my tables, I would wipe off the table, I would wipe off the salt and pepper shaker, I would wipe off the chair. We all have been to a restaurant where you go to sit down and there's crumbs in the

chair. I took pride in the fact of attention to detail. So I made sure there were no crumbs in the chair. Well, there was a couple that came into the restaurant every day for lunch and they saw how I took pride in that. And they asked me if I would come work at their candle shop in the mall. Now, this is back in the 90s. Mall was still the hot place to be. I was 18 years old. I'm like, hell yeah, I'll go work in the mall so they taught me how to make candles in the mall in front of this window I'm like oh yeah girls can see me I'm a candle maker they're paying me more money and I'm not cleaning toilets this is great but from there I ended up getting the job at an insurance company my mother was working at the insurance company and I got a job as a filer I would

file papers and I would deliver the mail I was the cart mail guy and that was my first introduction to corporate America and I just paid attention watched how everyone would interact, watch how things were done in corporate America, how to speak, how to shake hands, how to conduct myself. And I just paid attention. And then from there, I went from payday loans to mortgages to being the president of a software company and now CEO of a publishing company. That's amazing.

So let's take it back to Headsprings System, which is where you started off at the lowest paid position, but within. And a handful of years, you became the president of the company. So what was that experience like? And how did you climb the corporate ladder so quickly? At Yap, we have a super unique company culture. We're all about obsessive excellence. We even call ourselves scrappy hustlers.

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big companies and truth be told I didn't know what I was selling I was selling enterprise software I had no clue what I was selling I don't write code and so then I turned around and I called my competitors and I wanted to find listen to listen to their sales pitch and listen okay how are they doing this what are they saying and so I would listen to their sales pitch I pay attention I would take it come back tailor it to my delivery and then it was just all out I would you know come in at six in the morning I'd stay till six in the evening long story short I had some great success in cells we

were 13 people I was making my calls out of a storage closet and we went from 13 people to having offices in Austin Houston Dallas in Monterey Mexico and we ended up with over a hundred people and that all transpired within about four and a half years and I went from as you said the lowest paid person to president of the company much of it was grind hard work effort and willing to do what other people won't do. So I greatly appreciate you asking me this because this is the non-sexy part of this that most people don't want to hear about. In the five years that I was with that company, I only ever took 11 days vacation.

You and I both know we live in a world right now where people take 11 days vacation in Q1. I only took 11 days in five years. And so out of those 11 days, I can even break them down three, were for my wedding, two were for the birth of my firstborn and one was for the birth of my second born and then there's a bunch of little sporadic days in between there, but only 11 days and five years. And in fact, I share this with people. There is a picture of me in the delivery room with my wife and my daughter being born and you can see my laptop opened in the back where I was working in the delivery room. Now, a lot of people would say that's insane, that's stupid. I would never

do anything like that. Okay, great. I don't knock you for not wanting to do that, but if you're asking me how I did it, that's how I did it. I've always been willing to do everything that someone else isn't willing to do. To this day, if I go into the office, I'll take out the trash, storage closet needs clean, I'll clean the storage closet. I do not believe in low-level tasks. There are no low-level tasks. There are only tasks, duties, and responsibilities. Wow. And I bet you that kind of mentality really earns the respects of your employees because it's not like you're telling them to do something that you wouldn't go ahead and do yourself. You roll up your sleeves and get dirty. Totally. I will never ask someone to do something that I'm not willing to do. And in fact,

it usually won't even come by way of an ask. You'll just see me doing it. Trash is overflowing. Okay, well, we're the bags. Let's get the trash taken care of. So I'm very blessed and fortunate and happy. my first role was cleaning toilets because in many ways, that's the ultimate entry level job that you can have. And it taught me, okay, there is no job, no responsibility, no task that's beneath me. I'm willing to do it all. That's amazing. It really is probably why you are such like a humble person. Your background has made you into such an incredible leader.

So that's great. So now you are the CEO of Scribe Media. From my understanding, you didn't found that company, which usually somebody who doesn't have a college degree, they're like, you know, entrepreneur founder of a company. You actually got selected by Tucker Max to be the CEO of Scribe Media. How did you end up getting handpicked for this job? And I'm sure the other people he was looking at were like Ivy School graduates and things like that. What were the qualities he saw in you? He himself went to the University of Chicago in Duke Law School.

So yes, he had all the credentials. But I'll give you the story of how this came to be. So I was at the software company, president, blah, blah, blah. And I was traveling one day. I don't like to fly. I hate turbulence. And I hit a lot of turbulence. And I thought to myself, it hit me.

Wow, if something happened to me, my children would not know where I come from. They would not know that we don't even know where our last name comes from. My mother was given the last name McCormick in the orphanage, but she has no clue where that last name comes from. So I had this last name. I don't know where it comes from. So it hit me. My children wouldn't know these things. They wouldn't know that their biological grandfather was a pimp. And so I said, okay, when I get off this plane, I got to find a way to document my background for my children. So they have a legacy piece. So they at least know where we have a starting point because I don't have. you know five six seven generations that I can track hell I can't track 30 minutes

and so I wanted that for my children so I got off the plane I reached out to my LinkedIn connections and I said hey does anyone know of anyone that can help me write a book or document my story so I got introduced to Tucker max by way of an email and here's how the email went we've all seen this it's your typical introduction Tucker meet JT JT meet Tucker I didn't know who Tucker was in a separate email Jason Dorsey who introduced us. Jason says, hey, J.T. That's the real Tucker Max. Again, I didn't know who Tucker was. So I emailed Jason back and I go, hey, I'm the real J.T. McCormick. What's up? And so I go online. I look only to find out,

oh, wow, Tucker's background. But what jumped out to me the most is when I read that he is one of three people in the history of the world who have had three New York Times best selling books on the list simultaneously. I thought, oh, that's an accomplishment. He, Michael Lewis and Malcolm Gladwell, only three people have ever done it. So Tucker comes over to my office at Head Spring and we're sitting in the conference room. This massive conference room, conference table sitting there and we wrap up and I tell Tucker, look, I want to do this book. I don't ever want it to be public. I just need to five copies for my children and Tucker goes man I've sold a lot of books and I've never heard anyone say they don't care if they sell any copies I go look I'm doing it for a legacy piece we're wrapping up then Tucker says man you've built a hell of a company here and I stopped him in his tracks I go whole hold wait a minute I go I didn't build this company I go it took a lot of people to pull this

off I said building a company is never one person I said it takes a great amount of people and talent to build a great company. And then he says, hey, when you're going through our process, will you give me feedback as you go through? Long story short, I kept going through the process. I'd call Tucker. Do you want feedback? Yes, yes, yes. I tell them what they were doing right, what they were doing wrong, keep doing this, change that. He asked me to sit on their advisory board. Unbeknown to Tucker, I was actually looking to transition out of the software company anyway. and long story short, Tucker and Zach, the two co-founders, they approached me and they said, hey, man, you want to be the CEO.

And so we sat down, hammered out details, and I became the CEO of the company. That's incredible. I know that previously we mentioned that, you know, you barely finished high school. You're running a company that's probably has top talent there with folks that have PhDs and multiple degrees. And in the past, you've mentioned that you felt this. imposter syndrome. And for those who don't know, imposter syndrome is a psychological term referring to a pattern of behavior where people doubt their accomplishments and they have a persistent,

often internalized fear of being exposed as a fraud. Can you help us understand how you overcame this common feeling that many of us often have? You know, first and foremost, I would say I suffered from imposter syndrome and intimidation is what I used to call it for everyone who had a degree. And the more degrees you had, the more intimidated I was. If you had a master's, MBA, a PhD, oh God, they've got all these credentials. I don't have these. And so I struggled with that because I felt that these individuals knew something that I didn't know. It actually wasn't until I was paired with Tucker and Zach, the two co-founders. Tucker pulled me aside one day and he said this and it was like the clouds opened up he goes let me explain

something to you he goes part of why you're so good at what you do is because you weren't clouded by the things that come with a degree he goes you don't know the typical things that are taught in school so everything that you do comes from a different position he said i'm telling you that from me going to University of Chicago, me going to Duke Law School, you are actually in a very fortunate position that you actually didn't go to college. And that really changed the game for me because I realized, oh, okay, I do know some things. I may not have academic credentials. I may not be able to tell you when some of the wars took place or I may not be able to write a dissertation, but I can damn sure tell you how to scale a company, what to do, how to do it, anticipate, scale, grow,

and visibility. I'm good at those things. And even now, if you look at this I don't do any of the writing I can't tell you an adverb from an adjective and thank God because you guys don't want me writing books but I can tell you from the business aspect what needs to be done I make this joke all the time one of the top five people I would love to meet in my life right now is the man or woman who invented spell check because you have been greatly influential in my career but to your point yes I suffered deeply for 45 years with imposter syndrome and being intimidated because I didn't have that academic background. Awesome. So let's switch gears a little bit. Let's pretend the market crashed tomorrow.

And you lost everything. You know I did that before, right? Yes. Let's say it happened again. What would you do to earn it all back a third time around? I'd go back into the market again. That's where I made my first million dollars in the stock market. I was able to turn $100 into eight figures and do it again in the market. And I love the market. I love business. I love growth, scale. So it'd be anything around starting another company, growing a company, investing in the stock market.

I would probably do both. Even right now, my life boils down to five areas. God, health, family, business, and investing. If it does not fall in those five areas, I don't do it. I love golf, love golf. But I've got four small children. And I much rather spend that four hours that it takes to play around the golf. I much rather spend that four hours with my family.

So for me, I would just straight focus in on what I needed to focus on, even if I had to start over at McDonald's, whatever it is. I will get back to the top and make a million dollars a year. This is America. This is literally the land of opportunity. We all have read that story of a person who comes to this country for the first time. with 45 cents in their pocket, they don't speak the language, only years later to hear that they've become a multimillionaire. Well, damn it, I was born here. So I've already got a leg up on you.

And my attitude is I have a responsibility that being born here, being blessed and fortunate to have been born in this country, oh, there's no reason why I shouldn't be successful. I think that's such great advice. Let's move on to some of your philosophies. You talk about the three Ss of success, which are sacrifice, sleep, and success. Can you unpack these for us? So sacrifice. I personally believe that you will have to make some sacrifices in life in order to achieve success. And I use LeBron James. Go to the highest level here. Everyone sees LeBron James, $100 million a year he's making, all the endorsements, the championships, you know, one could argue is the greatest basketball player that's in the game.

But what we don't look at and what we don't celebrate in our country is the fact that when LeBron's playing during the season and he has to go on an 11 game road trip, he's missing his daughter's activities. He's missing his son's basketball games. He's not there for bath time, bedtime, bedtime, dinner time with the family. He's gone. He's sacrificing in order to have. that success that he has when he's in the gym shooting a thousand free throws a

thousand jump shots he's sacrificing you know we live in a country where we always want to talk about the success but we don't want to talk about what it takes to sacrifice no one wants to come out and say damn it you can't binge watch which is just a disgusting term in itself you can't binge watch from Friday to Sunday Game of Thrones and expect that you're going to be successful and if that's what you want to do, great. I don't knock it. Just don't bitch on Monday that you haven't achieved your dreams and goals when you just spend all weekend binge watching Game of Thrones that did absolutely nothing for you. So in life, you will have to sacrifice. Now, I'll go to sleep. I struggled

with this for a while. It wasn't until probably the last two years that I finally said, okay, everyone else is right. I'm wrong. I achieved. success on three to four hours of sleep each day so I had convinced myself that sleep wasn't important and what I will say now is yes sleep definitely helps you go next level it helps you think more clearly it helps with your health so you have to sleep and I'm telling you from someone who used to constantly three four hours three four hours I was all I was doing I used to even make the comment I can sleep when I die

But sleep has definitely helped me. Now, I'm not an eight, nine, ten hour sleeper. I'm a six, and that's good for me. But I do believe that sleep very much helps you in achieving success. So, yeah, you've got to make some sacrifices. You've got to sleep in order to achieve success. What's up, Yap, gang? If you're a serious entrepreneur like me, you know your website is one of the first touchpoints

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I always believe you should put people first at everything. Process second will equal profits. Now the ultimate breakdown I personally believe is in publicly traded companies because the profits are actually put first. And let me explain that. When you have a publicly traded company, people are not number one. Shareholders are number one. And in my opinion, if more publicly traded CEOs came out and admitted this openly, it would be a great thing.

But the way the system works if you're a publicly traded stock company is shareholders are first. Your customers are actually second because they got to buy the product or service. your employees are third. And I challenge any publicly traded CEO to say otherwise, because that's the order of operation if you're a publicly traded company. I love the fact that we at Scribe have no outside capital, no VC money, no private equity money, and we're profitable. So there's no pictures of us in a magazine or the local business journal smiling because we just raised Siri C. gave away more equity in the company. You're not going to find that. It's owned by three individuals, Tucker, Zach, and myself, and it's private, and we can serve our people first.

Awesome. And I know that Scribe is known for their company culture. You guys have actually received many awards for being best places to work, having an exceptional company culture. So what's your philosophy on fostering a good company culture and retaining talent to keep them happy? From a leadership perspective, this is an overused term. But I, truly believe it. Many people use this term that have no business using it. Servant leadership. You are only a leader if you serve. If you have the three letters CEO or you're in some type of leadership role, your responsibility is to serve those people you work with. I do not believe anyone works for me. People work with me. I cringe when they said, oh yeah, my boss, JT, or I work for JT.

No, you don't. You work with me. I'm no more important to the organization than everyone else here in the office. So I'm a big believer that you are only a leader if you are serving. So my role, 99.999% of the decisions that I make are not for me. Therefore, the individuals that I serve. And our culture operates that way. Results are first, people, and then so on and so forth. We got the learning. service to our authors, our people, our community. So we've been fortunate. Last year, Entrepreneur Magazine named us the number one culture in America. And that was awesome. And as you said, we've won many other awards. But from a leadership perspective, it's all about service of those people that you work with. Amazing. Congratulations on all your success. As we mentioned previously, you have an incredible work ethic. You just said that you were on three, four hours of sleep a day when you were first starting out your career. You only took 11 days off when you were at your software company that you ended up becoming the president of.

So I know that everybody loves a good morning routine. I know that you have a great one. Can you just go over that with our listeners and give your tips on how to have a great start to your day? So yes. And as I was listening to you talk about that, let's, if I can, let me pause there for a second as well. Because I was listening to you. So let's keep that morning routine thing there for a second. What I want to be very fair with here as well, you know, we're sitting here and we're talking about the accomplishment where I came from things I've done, overcome, success, blah, blah, blah. I want to be very clear. I have made a ton of mistakes throughout my life and career. A ton. I couldn't hold a relationship to save my life. I was a monster in relationships. Could not hold one. As a first time president of a software company, I made a ton of mistakes. But I truly believe this in my heart.

heart of heart. You only fell if you stop trying. So I failed at a lot of past relationships because we broke up. We're not together anymore. But as far as the mistakes I made as a president of a software company or mistakes that I've made in life, even mistakes I make as a parent with my children, you only fell if you stop trying. So I made them a lot of mistakes in life, but I don't fail because I will never stop trying. So with all of the success, with everything that I've overcome, I just want to be real clear, oh, God, I have made a ton of mistakes in my life. So that's going to happen. The key is don't repeat those mistakes and to learn from your mistakes. Totally. Failing is just a stepping stone on your path to success. That's what I always

think. Yep. So to your point about morning routine, I get up every day between somewhere 3, 45, five, four o'clock in the morning. And the first thing that I do is I will pray is the very first thing. Then I will study all things leadership, growth, scale, business, markets. Then I'll go to the gym. Once I get back from the gym, it's chaos in my house. I got a five year old, a four year old, a two year old, and a seven month old at the house. So, you know, it's have breakfast with them, try to get things in order, get dress, off to the office. but that is my routine every day. In fact, on Saturdays and Sundays, I can't tell you the last time I've slept past 6 a.m. That's amazing. So the last question I'm going to leave you with before we ask you, you know, where everybody can learn more about you is really about you giving back. So one of the things that really stood out to me is the fact that, you know, you're not only this successful guy who came from the bottom and now super successful.

You also take time to give back to your community and you talk to kids at juvenile detention centers. Give us a little color to how you give back to your community. So for me, it became very important. This actually hit me back when I was at the software company. When I became president, I realized, oh, wow, okay, I've kind of achieved a little bit of success. And I look back in my life, I'm like, wow, okay, I've done a few things. I would have liked to have known this, this and this. So it hit me. I go, I got to start reaching back out to those kids who come from where I come from that just don't know. That's the biggest challenge in my opinion with our society. You don't know what you don't know. And in fact, if I was standing in a group of 50 people right now and I said, okay, how many people in here can perform brain surgery? Very few people are going to raise their hand, if any, because they don't know. If I said, how many people can perform brain surgery?

Very few people are going to raise their hand, if any, because they don't know. If I said how many people can launch a rocket in the space, very few people, if any, are going to raise their hand. You don't know what you don't know. Unfortunately, from the communities in which I come from, there's a lot that's unknown. So for me, I wanted to go back and mentor, teach, coach the youth to show them how they can get their first job, how to interact in society, give them a leg up. up, even a chance to try to go and succeed. So I go back and we run a class where I teach children how to shake hands. It's a travesty, travesty that we know 40% of every kid that graduates high school in this country.

I don't care where you are on the economic ladder. 40% of all students who graduate high school in this country will never go to college. But we don't even teach you how to shake your hand. Where do you learn attention to detail? I've talked to people who have gone to Harvard with master's degrees and they've said, no, nowhere has anyone ever taught me attention to detail. Where do you learn that lesson? That lesson has served me far greater in life than maybe a bachelor's.

So I teach these kids how to shake a hand. Look me in the eye. Say nice to meet you. I teach them how to walk into Burger King for their first job and say, excuse me, sir, do you have any employment opportunities, just to give them that added advantage of things that other people aren't doing? Lessons that have served me in life. Manners. Yes, sir. Thank you. Yes, ma'am. No, thank you. Can I please? All of the little things that for somewhere in this country have escaped us, I do my best to go back and teach the youth and give them these tools that benefited me

through my career. That is so sweet. You are such a great guy. And I know you mentioned you've focused your life on God, health, family, business, and investing. But I really think you ought to add a sixth one called philanthropy after all that you've done for your community and for the younger generation. I appreciate that. I may have to look at that. I like odd numbers. So then I'm going to have to find seven because I appreciate that. Thank you. There you go. There you go. All right, JT, it was such a pleasure to speak with you. Where can our listeners go to learn more about you and everything that you do. There would be three places.

You can go to scribemedia.com. That tells you all about our company. You can go to LinkedIn. It's probably the best place if you're looking for things from me personally. Every week I will share different mistakes, lessons, things that I do in business, things that haven't worked for me, things that have worked for me in business. I'll share those on LinkedIn. So that's probably the best place.

And then you could go to JT. McCormick.com and that's my personal website. Yep. And he has also got a book that I read that's actually really a great read. I really enjoyed it. It's called I Got There. Yes. So check that out. Yep.

I got there. How I overcame racism, poverty, and abuse to achieve the American dream. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for joining the show. I hope to chat with you soon. I appreciate it. Very humbled and flattered that you would have me on. Thank you, ma'am.

Thanks for listening to Young and Profiting Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to write us a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to the show. Follow Yap on Instagram at Young and Profiting and check us out at young and profiting.com. And now you can chat live with us every single day on Yap Society on Slack. Check out our show notes or young and profiting.com for the registration link. You can find me on Instagram at Yap with Hala or LinkedIn. Just search for my name, Hala Taha.

Big thanks to the Yap team for another successful episode. This week, I'd like to give a special shout out to Tim. Timothy Tan has been by my side since episode three. He handles all business development matters for the podcast. podcast and is currently focused on ramping up our referral program and helping to build up our Yap Society community. Tim is my right-hand man. He helps me make all major decisions, and I wouldn't have it any other way. Thanks, Tim. You're the best. This is Hala, signing off.