Meet David Willis

We were lucky to catch up with David Willis recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi David, thanks for sharing your insights with our community today. Part of your success, no doubt, is due to your work ethic and so we’d love if you could open up about where you got your work ethic from?

I guess I got my work ethic from growing up in small town Kentucky. I grew up poor and had to work for everything that I needed or wanted. My mom was a single mom that was raising four kids on her own. So at an early age I was working on farms milking cows, putting up hay and other farm work. As I got older my duties on the farms changed. I also loved playing football and I was not gifted in football so I had to put in hard work to be able to get on the field and play.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?

Hello my name is David Willis and I grew up in Bardstown Kentucky. The second child of four for a single mom that had to work two jobs to make it work for us. I knew at a very early age that I would join the military but didn’t know what branch at that time. As I got older and started looking into the different branches I found that the Marines was the best so I have always pushed myself to be the best version of myself so I joined the Marines in 1997 right after high school. after serving six years I got out like most veterans i lost my sense of purpose and sense of community. So I tried to join the Army but was denied for some crazy reason. So I started going down a rabbit hole, so I started to volunteer at veteran nonprofits to fill the void left. after 20 years i left the nonprofit world and started my podcast HomeFront Sitrep. We focus on veteran nonprofits from around the country and we bring in veterans to tell their story as well.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

Looking back on my journey I would say that the ability to listen is a great quality to have. I learned this from my uncle who served in the army in Vietnam. He was always quite and I asked him why was he so quiet, he said that you can learn everything you need to know by just listening to people. Second I would say my quality of never giving up on anything no matter the stress that it puts on you. Third I would say is don’t be afraid of rejection. I have been told no so many times that I lost count. Just keep pushing forward with your dreams.

One of our goals is to help like-minded folks with similar goals connect and so before we go we want to ask if you are looking to partner or collab with others – and if so, what would make the ideal collaborator or partner?

I am always looking for partners or like minded individuals to collab with. I would love to partner with veteran owned business and collab with people who care about the common goal of working together to end veteran homelessness and the 22!

Image Credits

David Willis