Many people don’t know about the challenges that ESPN personality Stephen A. Smith dealt with as a child. Still, he recently opened up about how those adversities molded his ambition to always be at his best. Smith recently released his memoir titled “Straight Shooter: A Memoir of Second Chances and First Takes.”

Smith’s memoir explores how Smith overcame a stressful relationship with his father early on, which he discussed on “Jesse Walters Primetime.” Smith said, “At a very young age, when my father had doubts, I was definitely determined to prove him wrong. But as time grew on and I saw my mother struggling and suffering because of the kind of positions that he put her in, she ultimately became my ultimate source of motivation.”

Smith said his father thought he was a “lost cause” by the time Smith was in third grade, but that only motivated Smith to go harder and pursue more incredible things. Smith continued, “Your own ambition and everything else kicks in, and you recognize you’ve got two choices. You can lay down and do nothing and just disintegrate, or you can rise and strive to be the best that you can be and enjoy the journey along the way, not just the finish line, but the actual journey. Things that are worth having — if it’s easy, it ain’t worth having. It’s the tough road that makes you appreciate what you ultimately end up accomplishing.”

Smith is one of the highest-paid sports journalists at ESPN, but he had challenges reading before he could write. With help from his sisters and mother, Smith conquered dyslexia and put his energy into his passion: sports. Now, Smith wants to pay it forward. He explained that his father’s treatment of his mother affected him at a  young age. His mother’s situation inspired him to follow his “responsibility as a man to provide and protect.”

As a father of two girls, Smith maintains that responsibility, which all started with his mother. Smith said, “The ultimate goal was making sure that I was so successful that I would alleviate any concern she ever had in life and that the later part of her life would be much better than the early stages were with him.”

Smith appears on weekday mornings on the ESPN talk show First Take. He also does commentary for the network on everything from boxing to basketball and has a recurring role on the soap opera General Hospital.

However, Smith’s popularity is not simply a consequence of his many hours before television cameras. It reflects how he has combined sports analysis and self-promotion to successfully put on television the kinds of water-cooler arguments about sports that go on across America. Stephen A. Smith might not have had an easy beginning to his life, but now, he has the life he always imagined. The best part of Smith’s story is that he wants to pay it forward so others don’t have to struggle in the ways he did. Smith’s memoir is now available for purchase.