I grew up in San Bernardino, California, which at one point was dubbed by Money magazine as one of the most dangerous cities to live in the United States. My parents, who are from Alabama, raised me and my four brothers very old-school. They believed in an abstinent lifestyle. By abstinence, I mean mastering the art of self-control and sell-discipline, and the delay of self-gratification. I was taught that you cannot achieve sustained success in life unless you've mastered those three skills. The message that I always heard from my parents was "Begin with the end in mind."

Sex really wasn't talked about in our house except to say that you shouldn't be having it unless you're married. It was just understood. I also knew my mother would kill me. But I didn't decide to wait to have sex just because my mother told me to. I figured she was supposed to tell me that. What really inspired me to wait was something my grandfather told me when I was 11.

Every summer we used to drive to Alabama to visit my grandfather Walter Long. In the mornings he would disappear for a few hours, and one day I asked him where he went. He said, "I go to talk to my best friend, your grandmother." My grandmother Louise had been dead for four or five years at that Point. He was 90 years old and getting up six days a week as the sun was coming up to walk two miles to the cemetery to visit with her. He said he did it because that woman had made him feel as if he could take on the world..
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