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- 🚨 Maximum security prison to Harvard professor
🚨 Maximum security prison to Harvard professor
how Andre Norman turned his life around against all odds
Almost 4 years ago, I met a guy named Keaton. We hit it off based on both being Star Wars nerds. Despite only seeing him in person one other time since then (randomly in a Walmart parking lot), our friendship has continued and consists exclusively of texting each other Star Wars memes every few months.
And I think that’s a beautiful thing.
That’s all. 😂
Enjoy today’s Habit Example!
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⚡️ Estimated read time: 1 minutes 57 seconds.
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By 18 years old, Andre Norman was sentenced to 100 years in prison for armed robbery and attempted murder (among many other crimes).
You could blame it on him growing up with an abusive father and a bank robber step-father.
You could blame it on them being so poor that he sold drugs after school just to have decent clothes to wear.
Doesn’t matter.
Cause as soon as he realized he was good at being bad…
…he decided he was gonna be the biggest baddie of them all.
So for 6 years he lied, stole, and quite literally backstabbed his way to being the #3 gang leader in the state prison system.
Until one day, he realized he’d become the “King of Nowhere”.
Who even cared if he was the top dog in prison?
Suddenly he wanted something different… something real.
Success.
And everyone he ever heard of becoming successful had gone to college, so he decided he wanted to get out of prison and do that.
Harvard seemed as good a college as any since he grew up not far from campus.
Why not?
The next morning he ran to tell his prison buddies that he’d figured it out.
“I’m gonna go home, go to Harvard, and be successful.”
One friend shot back at him, “You can’t go to Harvard. You’re black.”
Some friends, right?
So he wrote up his plan, looked in the mirror and asked:
What’s inside of me that’s stopping this dream from happening?
While most people would’ve stopped at just asking the question, Andre made an actual list.
Next day, he starts studying to get his GED.
Went to anger management classes.
He studied law to figure out how to get out of prison sooner.
After 8 years working 20 hours a day, he got to the bottom of the list.
On November 15th, 1999 he walked out of prison a changed man.
By 2015, he got his fellowship at Harvard Law School - one of the most selective universities in the world.
Since then, he’s become a highly sought after keynote speaker, an author, and become widely known as “The Ambassador of Hope”.
If Andre could turn a habit of stabbing and stealing into one of studying and striving to help people, why can’t you become exactly the person you want to become?
What’s inside of you that’s keeping you from who you want to be?
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Try it
Ponder on the kind of person you want to be, and the things you want to acheive.
Ask yourself, “What’s inside of me that’s keeping this dream from happening?”
Make a list, start working on it one by one, and don’t stop til you get there.
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BRAIN SNACKS
✊ I’m kinda picky with Christmas music, but here’s my favorite one so far this year (song)
🫣 What are the best 100 books for behavioral change? (List)
🤷♂️ BJ Fogg on why the word “after” is the key to building new habits (2 min video)
💼 How I lost 10 lbs without exercising (3 min read)
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My 4-year-old (from the bathroom): “Dad! Come here!”
*I arrive*
Her: It’s just, I don’t like pooping.
Me: I’m sorry sweetie… everyone poops.
Her: I know. Even dogs and reindeers. But not magical reindeers.
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- Kody
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P.S. This took 3 hours to research and write. It only takes you 3 seconds to share.
What did you think of today’s habit example? |