Brighten Your Day

My name is Norman K. Willis and my journey has been one filled with achievement, pain, and a positive attitude. I wrote my first book at 18, sold an app years later, and now I speak and teach for a living. I come from a single parent house hold, my grandparents aided in raising me until about eleven. My mother was stabbed when I was younger by my own father and he spent eleven years in jail because of it. Luckily she survived. I was always very precocious growing up, even testing to move up two grades before I went to middle school. I was offered the chance to go to a private school, but unfortunately didn't go so I was stuck in one of the worse high schools in the district. Times were very hard. It was no longer about school, but survival. Many of my friends got in fights, joined gangs, but I remained the same. The one thing that saved me was football. Unfortunately, my senior year I quit due to stress related issues and people stealing my cleats... I just couldn't take it anymore. Luckily I graduated with honors and continued my education. And now I've just been accepted to Harvard. I tell people all of the time, I'm not supposed to be here, but I am very happy that I am.