Frazier's eyes light up when thinking about the time his sixth grade teacher asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up.
"I said 'well I want to be a major league baseball player," real estate investor and developer, Terance Frazier said. " I want to play for the Oakland A's one day, and I remember she's laughing at me, and I remember all the kids around there, they were all laughing like, you gotta pick a real job, and I was like well that is a real job to me."
By high school Frazier's grades were decent, and his baseball was even better. But he didn't get the lucky bounces in his personal life, and found himself living on the streets at age 17.
"I lived from house to house, I lived in friends' houses, crack houses, I slept in parks, I did what I had to do," Frazier said. "I just lived wherever I had to live so I could go to school, just so I could play baseball."
And it paid off Frazier would earn a scholarship to Fresno State. He then signed with the Oakland A's, reaching the major leagues as a replacement player during the 1994 strike.
"I should have asked for more days than that one day though, but I got that one day that I talked about," Frazier said. "And after that I was like, is my life over or what? Because that's all I asked god for: to get that one day with the Oakland A's. And I got it."
Frazier then returned to Fresno, ready to start a new chapter in his life. There was only one problem.
"I tried to go apply for different jobs for two years and nobody would hire me. To the point that my second year I remember even trying to apply at McDonalds. I still didn't get hired," Frazier said.
So he put his love for studying to use, analyzing local real estate trends, and bought his first property in Fresno for a whopping sum of $150.
"I got the deed of the trust and I went to the property and it was partially burnt down. And I didn't know what I was going to do. I was like 'oh," Frazier said.
Frazier has become one of the most successful men in his field, investing in around 100 properties per year. From inner-city poverty to business owner, Frazier knows firsthand that success starts from within.
"You've got to be able to dig down deep to go get something that you feel ain't there," Frazier said. "And the harder you work at it, the more successful you're going to become."
Frazier had one final appeal to children in the Central Valley.
"When everybody's getting up in the morning pressing that snooze button you've gotta be the kid going 'I don't even need an alarm clock.' I'm going to get up before they do. I'm gonna work harder than they do. And I'm going to be more successful than they've ever been," Frazier said.
