In Episode 170 of the Wealth On Any Income podcast, host Rennie Gabriel interviews John David Graham, a former homeless man who transformed his life to become a business owner, published author, and founder of the Good Samaritan Home. John shares his inspiring journey of starting over at 53, helping over 2,500 people rebuild their lives after prison through his nonprofit. His story highlights the power of perseverance, second chances, and the belief that it’s never too late to create meaningful change.
In this episode, Rennie and John cover:
[0:10 - 0:51] Introduction and Podcast Overview: Host Rennie Gabriel introduces Episode 170 of Wealth On Any Income and sets the stage by highlighting past episodes that covered money tips, tracking finances, and business strategies. He briefly introduces the guest, John David Graham, who overcame homelessness to become an entrepreneur and nonprofit founder.
[1:01 - 1:34] John's Background and Achievements: John David Graham shares his inspiring journey from being homeless to founding Good Samaritan Home, a nonprofit focused on helping formerly incarcerated individuals restart their lives. At 75, he published his award-winning debut novel, proving that it’s never too late to change your life.
[1:48 - 3:46] Founding Good Samaritan Home: John discusses how he and his wife founded Good Samaritan Home, initially turning their own home into a shelter for those in need. Over time, it grew into a nonprofit with 20 houses and 10 staff members, helping thousands of individuals find stability after incarceration.
[3:59 - 5:28] Aligning with Purpose and Giving Back: Rennie and John discuss the importance of giving back and how their missions align. John emphasizes that Good Samaritan Home operated for years without any income, focusing on the heart of the work rather than financial gain, underscoring that wealth is not just about money.
[5:55 - 7:32] Supporting Women in Reentry Housing: John explains how their nonprofit adapted to meet community needs, including housing for women. Despite lower statistical need, they’ve consistently housed women in reentry, offering support based on local court referrals.
[8:11 - 9:49] Understanding the Importance of Family Structure: John reflects on the lack of family and community support he and many of his residents experienced. He stresses how poverty and crime, regardless of race, often stem from the absence of expectation and direction in early life, making second chances vital.
[10:15 - 12:09] The Struggles of Growing Up Without Expectations: John shares insights on how growing up without familial expectations affects success, comparing homes that instill educational and career aspirations to those where survival takes precedence. This resonates with both his personal journey and the lives of those he helps.
[12:31 - 14:15] Overcoming Adversity and Community Resistance: John talks about the opposition he faced when establishing Good Samaritan Home, including lawsuits and threats from the local community. Despite the challenges, his determination to help others kept him focused on his mission, leading to the creation of his novel, Running as Fast as I Can, as a way to share the emotional side of second chances.
[16:00 - 17:08] The Power of Stories to Inspire Change: John recounts a touching moment when a woman at the airport read the beginning of his novel and couldn’t put it down, showcasing the emotional power of storytelling to connect with others and spread the message of hope and redemption.
[17:22 - 19:29] Advice for Those Starting Over and Conclusion: John advises those looking to start over later in life to seek connections and support rather than facing struggles alone. The episode wraps up with a discussion of the importance of never giving up, even during difficult times, and a reminder of the hope and resilience that second chances bring.
"We operated without any income for years because it wasn’t about making money—it was about helping people. Wealth isn’t just about the money you have; it’s about the heart and the purpose behind what you do." - John David Graham
To learn more about John David Graham, please visit: https://johndavidgraham.com/ or visit his non-profit at https://goodsamaritanhome.org/
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AND if you'd like to see how you can increase your wealth and donate to the causes that touch your heart. Please check out our affordable program ‘Wealth with Purpose’.
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Episode 170: Second Chances and Late Life Success with John David Graham
[Rennie Gabriel]
Hi folks, welcome to episode 170 of the Wealth On Any Income podcast. This is where we talk about money tips, techniques, attitudes, information, and provide inspiration around your business and your money. I'm your host, Renny Gabriel.
In past episodes, we spoke about how to understand the numbers from your business, how to measure the level of pleasure based on where you spend your money, how to track your money in five to ten seconds, what determines how close you are to complete financial choice, and how to run your business without being in your business. Last time, we had Brian T. Sebastian, who has 66 million views and counting for his media company.
Today, we have as our guest, John David Graham. John has gone from homelessness to business owner to published author. At 53, he founded Good Samaritan Home, a non-profit helping people restart their lives after prison.
At 61, he finished his doctorate, and at 75, he published his debut novel, Running As Fast As I Can. He believes it's never too late to change your life as long as you keep trying, and his novel has already garnered five awards for inspirational fiction. John, welcome to the Wealth on Any Income podcast.
Glad to be here. Very glad. Terrific.
Well, let's start with some questions. Tell me more about the work that you do and why you do it.
[John David Graham]
We started Good Samaritan Home initially. Well, let me give you some background. It might help.
I was a door-to-door salesman, a children's home counselor, a substitute school teacher, a truck driver, fireman, building contractor, a minister, and a journalist. I had moved 12 times with my family, and it was a very difficult structure for them. Finally, at 53, because I could not find where I fit, at 53, I said to my wife, who stuck with me through it all, by the way, I may add, that we just need to do something that is more in the heart instead of trying to look for something that is financially feasible.
What we did was we bought the oldest house in town that needed lots of work because my construction background, I knew I could do it. I said I'll have it remodeled in three months, and 14 years later, we're still doing that, by the way. Optimism has never been a problem for me.
What we did was we said, we're going to open this up to people who have come to our door for help, and we're going to start a shelter, and we're going to use our own home. We started off like that, but then the Department of Corrections said, we have some homeless people who are low risk, but if they just had a place to stay, then they could get back on their feet and do the first steps in rehabilitation. We started contracting with the Department of Correction, and sharing a bedroom in our house led to another house, another house, and another house.
We formerly had started Good Samaritan Home as a legal nonprofit. Over the years, since I was 53, just now finding what I felt to be my comfort zone. Over the years now, it's been 22 years, we have gotten 20 houses and 10 staff members, and we have helped more than 2,500 men and women restart their lives.
[Rennie Gabriel]
That's so wonderful. I applaud you for that because one of the requirements to be a guest on the show is that you're giving back in some way, whether you're donating money, whether you're cleaning beaches, whether you're providing a restart for people who are coming out of prison like you're doing. That's one of the requirements for being on the show because a lot of the people who know about my story know that I started over at age 50 after a couple of divorces and a business failure from broke, but eight years later, I no longer had to work for a living.
At this point, the only reason for my working is I donate 100% of the profits from my books, from my programs, from my coaching, to various animal and veteran charities. There's an alignment between you and I.
[John David Graham]
I sensed that when I first saw your broadcast. In this culture, ever since about 95, when everything was consumed with finances and making money, and we went the opposite direction, which makes you a bit of an odd man out, but your broadcast is wealth at any income. To me, if you really parse that, it makes a great deal of emotional sense because you can be wealthy.
Well, the first five years with Good Samaritan Home, we did not have a dime of income. My wife had to work at McDonald's to support us. And it wasn't until probably 10 or 15 years in that we actually made a decent income, affordable living income from Good Samaritan Home.
And that doesn't count all the work we had to do.
[Rennie Gabriel]
Yeah, I get it. I completely understand. And like I said, there's an alignment between the two of us.
But tell me, I got a good idea because you already talked about who you're supporting. So I'm guessing that the Good Samaritan Home works primarily with men, but also women? Are they a part of your target market?
[John David Graham]
Well, our often statement has always been, what is the need in the community? And then we say, how do we adapt to meet that need? So we were told, we were asked, can you help with this problem?
So we started the shelter, and then we started the re-entry houses. But we kept getting calls saying, I have a woman who needs housing. But statistically, there's not a great need for women in housing.
Now, my thinking is that women always can find somebody to take them in because they appear less threatening than men. Although drugs have changed everything.
[Rennie Gabriel]
Yeah.
[John David Graham]
But statewide, there was only maybe, we're located in Ohio. But statewide, there was only, I believe, two houses for women total. Entire state?
Entire state, because there wasn't the need. Now, I'm talking about private reentry housing, not necessarily state housing. Yeah, I understand.
What we did was we started one house, and we worked primarily with the local court. And I would say since in the past 10 years, we've had consistently, we've had referrals from the local court to help local women who need temporary housing. So out of 20 houses, we have one for women.
[Rennie Gabriel]
Okay. So here's what it sounds like you told me. You've had a lot of career challenges.
You're being kind. Yes. I've learned how to do that.
[John David Graham]
My motto has been, I've been thrown out of better bars than this one.
[Rennie Gabriel]
Okay. Well, so obviously, you've gained some insights from that. And would you say that has been what has allowed you to have the success that you're having at this stage of life?
[John David Graham]
I've never been arrested. I've never been in prison. But to a degree, I can identify with our residents.
Because invariably, if you talk to them, they'll say, you ask them, where was your mother? Where was your father? And there's nobody there.
What were you expected to do? Well, I don't know, we just got through we just got by I was alone, or my grandma raised me. And to a degree, I can identify with that.
Because when I was growing up, it was in, in the, the what they call the mill suburbs of Pittsburgh. And we all just we just existed together, there was no structure in our family, no expectation for education. We were I call it living alone together.
So when I graduated high school, I just went off to college on my own, not having any direction. But I just wanted to get out of home. And when I graduated college, I had no idea what I wanted to do with it.
I had no structure to teach me. And so I spent the next 30 years bouncing around saying, What do I want to do? And I was over educated, but under qualified.
And I had no one to help me. And historically, we've always had structures like clubs or groups or, or churches. And but we're finding less and less of that.
And people are growing up alone. And they have nowhere to go. So they go to the streets, and they survive in any way possible.
So in some homes, what I've learned is some homes have an expectation of success. They expect you to go to college to become a lawyer, to become a doctor, become a teacher, a professional, they expect you to find a someone who will stay with you as a spouse, they expect you to be a father or a mother. But in the homes that we deal with, and in my home, you weren't given any of that.
So in the in the black community, they call it white privilege, where you're you're taught things naturally. Yes. And I call this an expectation for success in all communities.
Yeah, not given to wasn't to me, and it's not to the people we deal with.
[Rennie Gabriel]
That makes that is so clear to me what you're speaking about. When I look back at my own situation, while I had parents at home, well, while I had parents, they weren't necessarily at home, because they were working to survive. And I remember coming home from elementary school, five, six years of age, I was latchkey child, right?
There may have been food on the table. But again, there was no direction. There was no idea what was expected of me.
And I realized, I don't even know where it came from. But I provided that to my children, what was expected of them, they were expected to go to college, they had no idea that anything else was an alternative. My, my daughter became an attorney, and my son is a chartered financial analyst.
But the idea, when they were growing up was, I went to college, you will go to college, period.
[John David Graham]
Right. So part of the part of the issue, I think, happened after World War Two and the depression, our parents came home, and they said, I want to provide for my family. Yes.
So they provided the financial structure. Yes, it wasn't poverty, but they weren't there. Right.
And so we grew up without that family structure. And it's 10 times worse in many of the minority groups. Because when without the without marriage and without structure, and with the divorce rate running 50% now, it makes it it's much, much harder on children to grow up in a family that's separate like that.
So I've come to believe very, very strongly in second and third and fourth chances. I've needed I've needed a chances, but we're not counting.
[Rennie Gabriel]
Well, let me ask you this. Is there a valuable free resource that people listening to the podcast or watching it on YouTube can go to and get some additional support for what you're doing?
[John David Graham]
Well, obviously, if you're interested, you can go to https://goodsamaritanhome.org which is our website.
[Rennie Gabriel]
Mm hmm.
[John David Graham]
But maybe one thing I there was a lot of blowback when we started our work in this small town, it was, it was mostly a rural white community outside of Dayton, Ohio. Everybody thought that when you bring in felons, you're going to be bringing in black people from the city. Yeah.
And it wasn't true, of course, because the same issues in the white community are in the black community. I found that poverty and and crime have and drugs in particular, have no respect for skin color. And so what happened was there was a lot of blowback.
There were petitions filed, there were lawsuits filed. There were threats. It was about seven years of very hard times.
And what I what I've learned through it all is that you you when you keep focused on the prize and you your goal is very clear in your head. So you try to explain it to others and they don't hear your statistics. So what I decided to do was how do I tell a second chance story so that people will understand the emotions of giving a second chance of what we're talking about.
And that's where the novel came from. Running as fast as I can. It's not a it's not a memoir.
It's a fictionalized story of a boy who grew up in the situation that we're describing who grew up and didn't have the tools. And there was poverty. There was physical abuse.
There was sexual abuse. And he spent his entire life running to catch up to everyone else who seemed to be normal. Now what I would recommend if somebody would like to know the emotional story of Second Chances then I would look at that book.
[Rennie Gabriel]
Oh that sounds terrific. That sounds like oh well no wonder you've been winning awards for this as fictionalized you know inspiration.
[John David Graham]
And I didn't intend to be a pilot as inspirational fiction but it it was awarded that way after reading it. So I was I was taken aback by that. But it makes sense because it's a rags to riches emotionally.
And right now in particular it seems like a good example. I was at the airport in Dallas yesterday and a woman saw me working on my I was doing some editing and she said are you a writer. I said well I am.
I'm just editing the audio book now. And so we were talking and I said if you want some free chapters you can go to the website and Amazon and download and just read a little bit. Tell me your thoughts.
So we're sitting in the airport and she's on her phone reading the introduction of the first 20 or 30 pages. And she walks over later and says I couldn't put it down. And so she downloaded the book from Amazon right there.
And that's the reaction I want because it was a story emotionally of what we're talking about.
[Rennie Gabriel]
That's beautiful John. That makes me feel warm inside. So thank you.
What would be your best advice for someone who wants to start over late in their career or late in their life?
[John David Graham]
Probably what was most important to me was what I was lacking was getting someone I could trust to say how can help me through this. Because through my life every when I was at my worst point there would be someone and for me it was often a male because I didn't have a man. Someone who said let me help you through this.
Let me give you feedback. So I would suggest that making connections because there's a tendency for hurting people to stay alone until they feel better. And we don't we don't go to church until we feel better.
We don't go to tell people where we that we're hurting until we get through it. But many times we can't get through it without help. So I would say reach out.
[Rennie Gabriel]
Perfect. And it reminds me of a comment that salespeople use when someone says well when I feel more organized I will purchase your whatever. And it's similar to saying someone saying well I'm ill now and I'll wait to feel better before I go to the doctor.
Which doesn't make any sense when you think about it.
[John David Graham]
What I would tell people is just try one more time. Just keep trying. Never quit trying because right now particularly we're living in a very hostile time.
Yes. And there's it when I watch the news on any channel at the end I just feel like I just need to I go off I usually go off and walk five miles just to clear my head because I have got to get out of this name calling and this negativity. And it makes me long for the days when Dr. King was speaking when he would offer me hope.
[Rennie Gabriel]
Thank you John. John and I want to thank you for being on the Wealth on Any Income program.
[John David Graham]
It's been my pleasure. You actually you're very good at what you do.
[Rennie Gabriel]
I did practice so thank you. And to all of you who are still listening or watching if you'd like to know how books movies and society programs you to be poor and what the cure is then log on to wealthonanyincome.com forward slash TEDx. You'll hear my TEDx talk and can request a free nine-step roadmap to complete financial choice and philanthropy and receive an email once or twice a month with tips techniques or inspiration around your business or your money.
And if you'd like to see how you can increase your wealth and donate to the causes that touch your heart please check out our affordable program Wealth with Purpose. To my listeners thank you for tuning in. You can listen to the Wealth on Any Income podcast on your favorite platform and please rate, review, and subscribe.
Until next time, be prosperous. Bye-bye for now.