In this 5-minute interview, successful entrepreneur-turned-philanthropist Joseph Grenny reveals his journey of turning personal conviction into measurable, life-changing impact. Short, but filled with insight to sharpen your own philanthropic journey.
What You'll Gain:
A glimpse into the journey from professional success to personal mission.
Insight into how a family struggle turned into an Academy where 82% of long-term graduates stay drug-free, crime-free, and employed.
A lens for spotting the moment when personal pain becomes your clearest call to action.
Transcript of the Video:
Joseph Grenny is a four-time New York Times bestselling author, successful entrepreneur, and co-founder of . In his professional life, he helped businesses and individuals become their best selves. When he couldn’t achieve the same outcomes within his own family, he knew he had to do something more.
Joseph Grenny: We're in the business of saving lives, and, and that means that when we fail, we lose lives. When it doesn't work out at The Other Side Academy, there are profound, inescapable consequences, and we take that very, very seriously. This is the most heartbreaking work I've ever done, and it's the most exhilarating, most ecstatic work I've ever done.
82% of people released from prison are re-arrested within 10 years. Joseph Grenny is breaking that cycle.
Joseph Grenny: The problems that most interest me are problems related to human behavior. So I've spent my career and my life studying why people do what they do and how to help them change.
And that's intensely important and interesting to me, really for existential reasons. I believe in God. I believe that we have a purpose here on earth. I believe that we're acting here in ways that affect the eternal outcomes for people. And so what more important thing could we be doing than helping people get from a bad place to a good place in their life?
The second path to where I am today with The Other Side Academy came because we had two boys that got into trouble. Started into drugs, started into jail, one was potentially on his way to a prison sentence, and we saw that once into that, you never escape. It's a problem of human behavior. I had this sense that, well, life prepared me to lick this in no time. And it turned out to be way more complicated than that.
So there was a day that my son was incarcerated in Utah County Jail, and I was on a video visit with him. And he had a cellmate who was on his way to 13 years in prison after having already served about 20 previously in his life. And he had given him a copy of a book I'd written called Crucial Influence that talks about Delancey Street, the place that The Other Side Academy was modeled after. And he said, you know, Zach is really interested after he finishes his 13-year prison sentence in going to Delancey Street. Could you help him do that?
I wasn't happy with my son and it seemed to me a ridiculous question to ask for a commitment 13 years in advance. So I said, I, you know, I don't think I'm busy that day. Have him give me a call. And I hung up the phone, and I knew with absolute clarity that God was not happy with that answer, that he wanted more from me than what I had just done. And I'd learned in my life what it felt like when God spoke. And so I had absolutely no doubt in this moment that this was something he wanted done. I felt overwhelmed, and that set the ball in motion. And, eventually, four or five people were able to go from Utah County Jail to Delancey Street, but then the calling got bigger, and I realized this wasn't just about four or five people that this was supposed to happen here too. The Other Side Academy is here because God wanted it here.
My attention got drawn to the problem of criminal recidivism because I saw that same cycle. The cycle where once people get in, they hardly ever get out. When I found this model, what's called a Therapeutic Community Model that we have at The Other Side Academy, I felt a need, a demand, a moral calling to try to propagate the model in more places. Our theory of change at the simplest level is that the best way to learn to live in a healthy community is just to practice living in a healthy community for a long time. And it needs to be in a practice context where you get a lot of feedback because feedback accelerates growth. So that's all we are.
We're a real community. You can't be at The Other Side Academy without having your life changed. And I can tell you there were a dozen times where I was standing next to people like a guy who'd been in San Quentin for 20 years of his life, who's looking around and pinching himself and saying, “When did this happen? Who am I?” They're redefining their place in the world in those moments. And the joy of that, the ecstasy of that is absolutely indescribable.
The greatest miracles in the world are miracles of human change. You know, I used to think about some of the old Bible stories and miracles that you read about there and how cool it would have been to be there when the Red Sea parted. I get to see the Red Sea part every week here. And the Red Sea parting is most meaningful when it's somebody's life opening up for the first time.
One thing I've learned about life is that if you can't fight the battle you want to fight, then you get into the war. And, for a long time, my boys who were involved with addiction themselves, didn't want help from us, didn't want help at all. There are people here that have had an influence on my sons that I couldn't have had, and this has spread ripples in their lives that have been a significant blessing to them.
What the world of philanthropy needs is people who are willing to invest in thinking more deeply about problems and answering more rigorous questions to ensure that we're actually changing the world because we can. What The Other Side Academy and The Other Side Village show is that nobody is beyond redemption. Nobody is beyond change. But it takes the kind of deep thinking that most people who have accomplished great good in their lives often don't bring to philanthropy and need to.
