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RIdE PURPOSE, ATTITUdE & WORK ETHIC TO THE FRONT<br />

ChApTEr 9<br />

RIdE PuRPOSE,<br />

ATTITudE & WORK ETHIC<br />

TO THE FROnT<br />

By miChAEL D’ADAmO<br />

Nothing in my childhood predicts that I will succeed or even be<br />

alive by the time I am twenty-two, when I make my first million<br />

dollars. It’s some kind of miracle that my older brother Frank,<br />

my twin brother Kevin, and I, survived childhood. We grew up in East<br />

New York – Brooklyn – back in the day when looking a stranger in the<br />

eye could be deadly. The races were sharply divided, and kids fought<br />

their parent’s ancient and mindless battles. Gang initiation rituals included<br />

‘razor-tagging’ people’s faces. ‘Crack’ was everywhere. Still,<br />

my brothers and I stayed outdoors as much as we could. Home was a<br />

painful place – where our father beat our mother, and we were too little<br />

to do anything about it. Things got worse the deeper he sank into addiction.<br />

We slept with our sneakers on so that he wouldn’t sell them when<br />

he was ‘on a run.’<br />

Was it a lousy way to grow up? Yes. But it taught me what I don’t want.<br />

Just as the old saying goes, adversity can be turned to advantage.<br />

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