From Prison Life Sentence to Harvard Professor | Andre Norman

I did everything gangs do. I stabbed people. I fought people. I fought on airplanes. You've seen Con Air. I've lived it. I've made him land planes twice. I was all in, 100%. Then I woke up one day and I realized something. I'm the king of nowhere. I'm the king of nothing. Nobody cared that I was this king of this prison in the middle of nowhere. So I came up with a concept that I could do and be better. And I wanted to be successful. So I said, successful people go to college. So I go home and go to college, and that's what I'll be. So I picked a school called Harvard University. And when I picked it, I came out my cell the next day. I got the dudes got. I said, check this out, fellas. I figured it out. They said, what's up? So I'm going home. I'm going to Harvard. I'm going to be successful. They looked at me. So I said it again. I said, yo, I figured it out. I'm going home. I'm going to go to Harvard. I'm going to be successful. It was like silence, like this. They wanted to laugh at me. They wanted to laugh at me, but I had a habit of stabbing people.

If you have been a Geni member for the last three years, then you are already aware of the impact that Andre has had not only on this group, but also on some of your loved ones and others around the world. If you're new and have never met him or heard his story, you're in for an incredible treat. Andre utilized every resource possible to teach himself how to read to overturn a 100 year prison sentence. Re enter society as a more productive citizen than your average person, helped create an office within the White House and lead successful initiatives across the world that reduced violence and saved countless lives. He's also become a Harvard University fellow and created a revolutionary nonprofit which specializes in rehabilitating the most violent gang leaders and empowering them and their families with the tools, knowledge and information needed to become positive influencers in their communities. Today begins with a story. A story of resilience. Andre's story will cause you to have a reflective look inward and address the silent battles that you may be currently fighting. Although it may be hard to even fathom some of the things that you're about to hear, you should all be able to empathize and relate certain parts of his story to your own life. His authenticity, his creative thinking and ability to genuinely connect with people from all walks of life. No matter race, religion, or language is what truly makes him an extraordinary individual. The point to Andre's story is simply this. If he did what he did, what can you do? He is truly our ambassador of hope. Would you please help me in welcoming to the stage, Mr. Andre Norman. Go get him, tiger.

They let me go first. A year without Joe and I go first. Well, I just want to say thank you for having me. I want to thank you for attending. This is the most wonderful family I've ever been a part of. And today I'm going to do three things. I'm going to tell you a little bit about myself. I'm going to tell you the work that I do. I'm going to talk about my guy, my little brother that's coming on behind me. Born in Boston, my mom married a high school sweetheart. She had two kids. Everything was great, except for he robbed banks. For 11, he went to prison. While he was in prison, she met my dad, a local drug dealer. She had four more kids and six kids. Mom, dad, everything's great, except my dad had a habit of beating up my mom. So I grew up in a house where I watched my mother be beat routinely. And I didn't know that this wasn't normal because I didn't live in your house. This is just what I know. And you just deal with it. You come home, there's crying and screaming. You come home and there's cookies on the table. You're sitting at the table eating dinner, everything's great. And dad reads over this thug's mom. And you get used to it. In the 70s, it wasn't called domestic violence. It was called handling your household. And that's what I grew up in. I finally got old enough to go to school. I jumped on the bus and I went to the school. I'm playing, I'm like, I'm the kid that came home missing clothes. So if I didn't come home missing clothes, I didn't have a great day. I come home like, where's your shoe at? I'm like, I don't know, but I had a great day. Mom come home with somebody else's jacket on. That's not, hey, Mom, I had a great day. I mean, I just love going to school because there's so many kids and they were different, and we could just play all day. And I got on the bus, we're coming home. We're laughing, we're joking. We hit the corner, and we're almost home. And the next, you know, rocks came crashing through our bus. Window. And behind the rocks came some names. First was nigger, then spearchucker. And I'm sitting on the bus, and rocks are crashing. I fall to the floor. I'm a first grader. I'm a little kid. I'm crying. I'm watching my cousin bleed from his face because he got cut by the glass. We get home, I go into the house. I go up to the big guy, my dad. I said, who are these people? Because I never met white people before. Why are they throwing rocks at me? Nobody's ever thrown rocks at me before. And what are these names? I've never heard these names before. I need you to take a second and just be my dad. And your son walks into the house and says, dad, what do these names mean? Why are they calling me these names? Why are they throwing rocks at me, dad? My father looked at me. I looked at him. I'm waiting for the dad son interaction. And he walks away. And I'm left standing there not understanding this. But I found out as an adult, my father grew up in a town called Petersburg, Virginia. And when he was 14, kids threw rocks, names at him. My grandfather told me, that's just the way it is, son. Protect your sisters and run faster. So when it happened to his kids, he was twice as traumatized. And that's just what it was. And one day the rock started. And one day the rock stopped. And for my mom, one day the beating started. One day the beating stopped. I came home from school and they said, dad's gone. What do you mean, dad's gone? He's gone. Single mom, six kids living in the city. You've seen the movie. If not, Jeff's gonna make it. And single mom, what do you do now? We bounce around. We try to find some place. We find a new place. We go to a new school. And. And in the third grade, I find out something. I'm illiterate. I can't read and write, just like my dad. But it wasn't a problem because I had a thing called a dummy class where they took all the little kids who couldn't read and stuck and sit at the end of the hall. And that's where they put me, at the end of the hall in the dummy class. And while I was in there, there was a teacher named Ms. Oliver who pulled me out of the dummy class. She said, you're not a dummy. You just learn differently. And she took the time to teach me my learning style. And when I finished the third grade, I was on track. I got to middle School, I could read and write like the other kids. But I found out something in middle school. I was poor, so I had to go to the park after school to sell drugs, weed, to buy clean socks, and to buy new shoes and to not be made fun of. And I did that. And by the time I got to high school, I was just a mess. I just went off the tracks. And I could give you the whole rundown of me crashing and bumping, going to jail. But at the end of the day, I ended up in state prison at 18 with a 100 year sentence. And when I got there, the gang members received me. They said, we'll keep you safe, and we'll show you how this works. So for six years, I ran with the gangs, and I did everything gangs do. I stabbed people, I fought people. I fought on airplanes. You've seen Con Air. I've lived it. I've made him land planes twice. I was all in, 100%. Then I woke up one day, and I realized something. I'm the king of nowhere. I'm the king of nothing. Nobody cared that I was this king of this prison in the middle of nowhere. So I came up with a concept that I could do and be better, and I wanted to be successful. So I said, successful people go to college, so I'll go home and go to college, and that's what I'll be. So I picked a school called Harvard University. And when I picked it, I came out my cell the next day. I got the dudes got. I said, check this out, fellas. I figured it out. They said, what's up? Said, I'm going home. I'm going to Harvard. I'm gonna be successful. They looked at me. So I said it again. I said, yo, I figured it out. I'm going home. I'm gonna go to Harvard. I'm gonna be successful. It was like silence, like this. They wanted to laugh at me. They wanted to laugh at me, but I had a habit of stabbing people, so nobody laughed. Then my buddy pulled me to the side and said, dre, what are you talking about? You can't go to Harvard. I said, why? He said, you're black. He said, you can't do this. He said, you're a gang member. He said, you're poor. You're one of us. This is our space. This is our allotment in life. I'm like, no, this is my dream. And I walked away from my friends. I went by myself, and I wrote out my little plan. I came up with a plan. I Said these are the things that I want. Harvard University. I looked in the mirror. I said, what's inside of me that's stopping this dream from happening? I stopped blaming other people. It's not my dad's fault. It's not my mom's fault. It's not the kids who threw rocks at me for what's inside of me that is stopping this from happening.

Hey, I hope you're enjoying this video. And I want to let you know that I have a new book that's come out, and if you'd like to get it absolutely free, there's a link below in the description. Or you can wait till the end of this video, or you can Simply go to joesfreebook.com and you can get a copy there.

I made a list of those things. I started working on them. I got my ged. Then I went to a thing called anger management class because I had a slight anger management problem. It wasn't bad. And after anger management, I started going to counseling. I started going to therapy. I started going everything that wasn't nailed down. I ran out of stuff. And they finally said. They took me to a thing called aa. I said, I don't drink, though. They said, just sit down. They said, when you hear us talk about drinking, they substitute it for anger. They took me to na. They said, you hear us talk about drugs substituted for anger. They said, dre, you can't always get it perfect. You have to make work. What is. So everything that was there, I did. And for the next eight years of my life, 20 hours a day, I studied. On November 15, 1999, I walked out of prison. When I walked out, I had a goal and a dream to go to Harvard University and be successful. I went to a local juvenile center, and I started talking to kids. I told them, you're going to jail not because you're black. You're going to jail because somebody let you down, hurt your feelings, and you don't know how to handle that. So you act out and you start doing stuff, and it's criminal, and they lock you up. Let me show you how to handle your feelings. Then you'll be better. And every day for the first 90 days, I'm in that juvie center. And they said, hey, Dre, can you talk to the girls? I said, I don't know about being a girl. I went to the girls side. Molestation, beatings, domestic violence, drugs, prostitution. It was horrible. And I started talking to the girls on how they can be whole. And somebody said, hey, Dre, you're doing fabulous, but you're denying people. I said, I don't deny anybody. I work every day. They said, no, there's some kids you won't work with because they're white and their parents want to pay you. I said, white kids ain't got no problems. It's their country. They own everything. You know what I'm saying? They own the sports teams. They own the businesses. I mean, they own the White House. This is pre Obama. So it was everything. They said, no, Dre, you gotta go. So I went to an all white school. When I got there, it was like one of the night schools. I walked up. There was all these nice cars in the parking lot. So I came to. I said, y' all teachers are paid good. They said, no, those are the students cars. They make us park out back. They take me down to the auditorium, and all these kids start walking in with the little Abracon being a Tommy Hilfiger. I'm like, we'll probably your kids. And they come walking in. I'm like, look at these little rich brats. And I'm like, they got it too good. I shouldn't even be here. But as I talked to them, I figured something out. They do drugs at the white school. They drink at the white school. They have bullies at the white school. They have kids who don't fit in at the white school. Little girl came up to me. She showed me a wrist she cut from here to here. She said, this is what I do when people don't listen to me at the white school. And when I walked out of there, I was like, never again will I judge somebody based on my ignorance. If you call me, I'll show up. And that's really simple and straightforward. I started doing the work that I've been doing. I've worked in Honduras. I worked in Guatemala. I've worked in Saudi Arabia. I became one of the top speakers in YPO and EO. I got my fellowship in 2015 at Harvard Law School. And when they called me, They gave me Dr. Charles Ogletree, who was a phenomenal guy. He gave me my fellowship, and they gave me my email. Anormanarvard Law. Edu. I cried because they said I couldn't do it, said it was impossible. I didn't call the homies and say, yo, y' all messed up. You bet on the wrong horse. I said, dude, I'm here, and I'm invited and I'm welcome. What do you want to do? Where do you want to go? If I can get here, you can get wherever you want to. And I just kept working. I've been working. I've been working all the way through, and it was probably six years ago. Every single day, you know me, I'm at somebody's door talking to somebody's kid, talking to somebody's cousin, talking to somebody's husband or wife. I'm there every day. I wake up because I know what it's like to not have. What drives me is I'm that guy that didn't have that person who didn't have the time. I can't say no to that next kid because I'm tired. Or I did 30 kids already or 20 adults. No, that next kid is me. So I'm always going to show up. And I unfortunately burnt out. I got stressed out, and I just fell apart. And I had a group of people that I didn't even know. My friends, Eoers ypoers, started reaching out to me every single day and saying, dre, don't give up. Dre, don't quit. Call it depressed, call it what you want. And they finally brought me back, and they got me started again. They said, dre, I started selling real estate in Atlanta. They called me in St. Louis. They sat me down and said, dre, what are you doing? I said, I'm selling real estate. It's an honest business. Grant Cardone does it. It works. I saw the commercial. He was like, no, Dre, that's not what you do. Sell real estate. You help people. I said, nah, I'm good with that. That didn't work out last time. They said, you can't be a quitter. And they said, we're going to start you up again. And they said, okay, cool. Now, I got a call from some lady. She said, hey, I want you to do this podcast. I said, cool. Where? She said, I'm in Phoenix. I said, if you're going to do me on a podcast, I'll fly to Phoenix. She said, that's necessary. We can do you. I said, I'll fly. If you're going to do it for me, I'll show up. So I showed up to Phoenix, and I'm sitting with the lady. I said, how did you find me? She said, this guy named John Rulin sounded a blast. And I saw you. I said, okay. As I pulled my phone out, I said, yo, John, I'm here with your people. I'm about to do this podcast. Like 30 seconds later, my phone. I don't know that lady. Dre, what are you doing she's on my list. I said, what's the list? He said, man, get away from her. I said, well, she ain't gonna kidnap me, dude. I'm all right. He said, well, since you're there, I'm gonna call around and introduce you to some people. So he starts calling people, saying, hey, my buddy Dre's in town. And Michael Bernoff called me, and he called me out at courtesy, you know, nice white guy. Hey, Dre, I'm busy. I can't meet with you. I would have just not called personally, but I don't have. Y' all have all these manners and things. So he called me and said, dre, I got a call from John. I really don't know him, but I can't meet with you, but maybe next time. I said, okay, no problem. Question for you. He said, what's that? I said, is there anybody here I can help? He said, what do you mean? I said, I do interventions. Is there anybody here I can help? He said, by the way, my wife's best friend's son is struggling with suicide and addiction. I said. He said, can you work with 15 white kids? I said, sure can. Got in the car, drove to Mike's house, met the wife. And we got in the car, we went to the young man's house. I went in, I sat him down, I talked to him. Twenty minutes later, he walked out. He apologized to his sister for being a butt head, apartheid, to his mother for being out of control. And he said, let's go to treatment. And he got in the car and he went to treatment. That was four years ago. And I saw that gentleman about six months ago, and he's doing phenomenal, and his whole life is better. Then Mike said, hey, I got a guy you have to meet. Said, who? He said, joe Polish. The Ellen said, joe Polish. He says, don't worry about it. She called. He said, he took me to this little thing in Scottsdale. And we walk into the thing in Scottsdale, this white guy come flopping with yoga pants. I'm like, put a little ball do with yoga pants on. He comes in, he looks at me. I'm looking at him like, really? What you want? We started talking, and three minutes in the conversation, he says, he went right to me. He says, I see you're hurting. What is the problem? I said, well, I went through this stuff, and I'm starting my life over. He says, what does it cost you to live in Atlanta? I said, what it was? He said, I'm gonna write you a check for Five months at that rate. Come by my office tomorrow and pick it up. I'm like, what's this? So I go to the office on Rural Road. I come in, he writes me a check and he says, this is my office. It's called a genius network. He said, by the way, we're having a meeting tomorrow if you want to come, so stop in. So I came to the genius meeting on Thursday, and I'm just downstairs mulling around, and most of you wouldn't talk to me like, who's a strange black guy? No, I'm just kidding. So I'm standing there and I saw somebody at the desk, and I said, what's the problem? They said, my brother is stressed out. He's in the street right now and he's on drugs. I said, give me his number. I got him. I went out, talked to him, got him in treatment. I did three interventions that first day. And the second day I did two more. And then there was one guy who called me from California. They put me in touch with. He's like, yo, my son's missing. He's out here doing drugs. I said, I get on the plane, I leave Phoenix, I come and I'll come find your son. I get him treatment. He says, well, who are you? I said, I'm Andre. He said, where you come from? I said, the penitentiary. So he's like, well, what is it gonna cost me? I said, nothing. He said, I got a 6 foot 2 black guy who just got a jail gang member's gonna come to my suburban neighborhood and go find my lost son in my bins. He says he couldn't make in for free. That was a real problem. If I'd have gave him a price, he might have been okay for free. He couldn't make for free. Makes sense. And I'm like, I got you. I said, dude, I'll come, I'll come, I'll come. And he said, well, can we do it next week? He kept saying, can we do it next week? I'm like, dude, I'm in Phoenix. I live in Atlanta. It's a shorter trip. And I finally said, okay, we'll do it next week. And that Monday, I got a phone call. His son had OD'd. And the lesson was, next week might not come. And when I sat with Joe, and I've been sitting with Joe, I know him, I got to know him. And his heart is really simple. He wants to help people. And when he saw me, he didn't judge me. He didn't ask me. He Just helped me. And the way I met Joe was based on a premise that he teaches. Life gives to the giver. Had I not said to Michael Bernhoff, is there somebody I can help? Oh, you can't be with me. I gotta find a connect. I gotta find a plug. No, is there somebody I can help? Is how I got to this room. Being willing to give without any anticipation of return. And since I gave that to Mike and his family and their friends, I ended up meeting Joe. And since I've met Joe, from day one to day now, it's always been, who can we help? There's no other agenda. Since I've been here for three and a half years, it's been, who can we help? The first time I stood on this stage, I had an orange jumpsuit on. And I told you I was wearing this jumpsuit because it was my shame. It was my prison jumpsuit. I was so shameful and embarrassed of having been in prison that I never wanted to put that thing on again. Joe thought it was me. Good. He's like, I'm a marketer. Go with me. He says, dre, this is going to be great. I said, dude, you jump. Put it on. I'm like, joe, no. He's like, dre, trust me. I'm like, I love you, but trust is different. Just put on a jumpsuit, Dre. So, as you know, for those who were there two years ago, I came out with the jumpsuit on, and it touched something in me which helped me connect better with the people who were in the audience that I was sharing with, because I wanted you to know I was hurt. And I don't ever want to forget. So I stand here today from head to toe in Lululemon. We are way past Shane. We are way. Hey, Chip, I'm thinning. We are way past Shane. I've gone from. I got this saying. When they put me in a room with people, I go to the prisons. They say, hey, Dre, we want you to work with these people. I got the saying that one of two things are going to happen. They're going to convince me to be a criminal. I'm going to convince them to be good. And they all turn out good. So hanging out with Joe, he's convinced me to put on goddamn yoga clothes. And to be fair, he didn't suggest that. It just happens. You're around somebody, you're with somebody, you take on a personality and their spirit. And he has a wonderful spirit, and he has a wonderful soul. So it just became natural. And I signed up my first yoga class this month. As I stand here and I'm looking at you, there's so many people I want to say something to, I want to say, but I can't get through the whole room because my time will run out. But I love everybody in this room. Everybody in this room. Everybody in this room. I've connected to, I've been on the phone with, I've come to visit. I'm uncles to half of your kids. It's all good. I'm even somebody's new brother. I mean, moms, I've been adopted. I mean, for me, I've always been looking for a family. I went to the streets looking for a family, and the gangs received me. Wrong family. Went to the penitentiary. Wrong family. Went to all these different spaces. Wrong family. All I needed was a flight to Phoenix and a date with a guy with some yoga pants on. And I'm in the right family. I'm in the right space, and it's my honor and privilege. Just to be here is great and my purpose. And genius is one thing. If you're ever in need, if your family is ever in crisis, we have a saying that we've come up with. Don't jump over your own to go save somebody else's. I don't care about your sales. I don't care about an email list. We care about your family. So if you or somebody in your family struggling, call us, and we're going to show up. We're going to do our best to show up because your kids matter, your family matters, and you matter. There's nothing bigger than that. And that's my purpose, and that's what I wake up with. Who can I help today? And it's an honor to be part of the Genius family and to be part of your families. So with that, I just want to say welcome back to Genius. Welcome back. Okay.

I hope you found that video awesome and useful. So if you want to get a free copy of my book, I want you to click here. And if you want to watch some more videos that will be useful and awesome, click here.

Go ahead. They're over here.

Do it now.

Come on. Thank you. Watch them.