From Homeless to Business Owner with $2M Budget

In this episode of the Business Pulse podcast, host Candice Jarrett (co-founder of XKOVA) interviews John David Graham, a successful business owner and award-winning author. John shares his inspiring journey from homelessness to running a nonprofit called Good Samaritan Home that helps ex-offenders coming home from prison with housing and mentorship. He discusses the importance of reinvention and second chances, both in his life and in the lives of those he helps. The conversation also delves into John's writing journey, the challenges he faced in getting his book published, and his belief that it's never too late to pursue new opportunities and make a difference in the world. John David Graham is the author of RUNNING AS FAST AS I CAN, winner of 25 fiction awards. His novel is available on Amazon and wherever fine books are sold.

Chapters

• 0:00 From Homelessness to Hope: John David Graham's Journey
• 11:11 The Power of Reinvention and Second Chances
• 17:58 Writing as a Tool for Change: The Journey to Publication
• 25:30 Embracing New Challenges: Life Beyond Writing
• 33:16 Life Lessons: Running the Marathon of Life

Transcript

Candice Jarrett (00:19.682)
Hello everybody and welcome to the Business Pulse podcast episode two. I'm your host, Candice Jarrett. Today I'm so excited to have a good friend of mine, John David Graham, who is not only a business owner, but also a published author who is the winner of 25 fiction awards. So his story, not only the story in his book, but also his life story is absolutely fascinating and inspirational. And I cannot wait to share that with you all today on

the Business Pulse podcast, but first got to roll that podcast intro.

Candice Jarrett (01:14.584)
So awesome, John, welcome to the show. So happy to have you here.

John David Graham (01:18.962)
Very glad to be here.

Candice Jarrett (01:21.922)
So I guess I want to start with your personal journey and then we can go into discussing about how that impacted the book. you went from at a period in your time of being homeless to then being a successful business owner and then being a published award-winning author. And as I said, 25 fiction awards, which is just...

So incredible and well deserved because I read your book and it was absolutely amazing. So, and now one of the core themes in your own life and also in your book is the idea of reinvention. And I feel like a lot of people in our audience, people who are people who are in business, who maybe need to reinvent the way they do things or reinvent themselves even by changing careers during their life. I feel that they could get a lot of benefit and

hearing your story. can you take us back from the beginning and all of the things that have changed in your journey that led you up to where you are today?

John David Graham 
I think in a nutshell, I would say that just think of the 1960s. We joke about it and say, if you remember it, you weren't there because it was a time that, let's put it this way. There was a lot of experimentation that we found out was not healthy experimentation. So I lived in that chaos. I grew up in that chaos. And that included the civil rights issues, that included the Vietnam War protests.

It included Kent State, Watergate, all of that. I grew up and what that did was it created a certain degree of, I would say confusion, confusion and mistrust and lack of direction that was common with my generation for many of us, particularly those of us who grew up in what was then the working class factory family. And I grew up thinking you go into the factory,

You get a job, you stay there, raise three kids, spend your nights at the bar, and then you retire to Florida, and then you die. But in the 60s, we said, let's do something different. But we just, it reminded me of politics today where they said, we're gonna change Washington, we're gonna tear it down, but nobody had a plan to how to rebuild it. So I grew up into adulthood without direction.

and plan. And that's what happened. I ended up living in a truck, traveling the country, thinking I was going to write a book, but I had no training, no abilities, and no income. So I was homeless. And in time, I was able to meet somebody who became my wife in spite of all of my issues. And she helped stabilize me, if you can call it that. And over the next 30 years, I tried

to learn how to run a normal race. But what I found is without the background, without the structure, some of us don't know how to even find the starting line. So we were looking for direction, but we don't know what to do and we make a lot of mistakes. So I was a children's home counselor. I was a truck driver. I was a building contractor. I was a, I was a,

John David Graham 
I was even a minister at one point thinking that I could try to be civilized while working teaching in the church. But I found that the 60s were too much a part of me. So again, I was near homeless at 53 years old. And I had this passion from the 60s to help other people, but I had no idea how to do it. So my wife and I started a nonprofit when other people were retiring.

Candice Jarrett 
Mm.

John David Graham 
and we used our home, the oldest home, the cheapest home we could find, and we remodeled it and we used it as a homeless shelter. And then that led to one person, two people, three people. And before long, the Department of Corrections said, we have people coming out of jail who desperately need housing. Can you help them with your shelter? And that allowed us to start.

what we call Good Samaritan Home, which is a nonprofit for helping ex-offenders not just have housing, but mentoring. And all of a sudden, all, sorry.

Candice Jarrett 
So

Candice Jarrett 
I just wanted to ask you, so how long, see I know the answer to this, but the audience doesn't. How long have you been running Good Samaritan Home?

John David Graham 
We started that in 2001. So I've actually been running it for 23 years. The problem was, the first five years, there was no income. My wife was working in McDonald's, but we lived on her income. And the Good Samaritan income was only $5,000. So we were getting donations. And eventually with our contract with the state, which we worked very hard to learn how to write grants, how to write contracts.

And as a legal nonprofit, we fit their qualifications to offer shelter for offenders. And so one bed led to two and a contract grew from first it was four beds. And today our contract is for nearly 80 different, 80 to 90 different men. So our budget has grown from 5,000 to $2 million annually.

Candice Jarrett 
That's amazing. I mean, in to zoom out. So you went from literally homeless to now having a $2 million a year annual budget for your business and helping so many people. Like how many people do you think, including the homeless people and the people that have come from prison that you've given housing and mentoring to have you helped since you started Good Samaritan Home?

John David Graham 
I'd say better than 2,500 if you include all of that. And we have 10 staff who do much of the day-to-day now. And many of my staff were at one point homeless or incarcerated too. So basically, our whole philosophy is that the need in the community was for second chances. That was our product. We offer second chances. And that turned out to be a very, very positive thing for the community.

But to be candid, there were times when the community didn't agree with that. We had a hard start. It took a lot of work and a lot of legal maneuvering and a lot of politicking, if you can call it that, for the first seven years. But eventually we did win over the community and now those same people are our supporters in many levels. People will come by with donations or they'll act as mentors. So it's made a...

It's a slow go, but it's made a big difference.

Candice Jarrett 
So you had mentioned that you had to learn the process of grant writing in order to get these grants so that way you can expand and help more people. So what was your process in that education? Did you use certain tools? How did you learn how to write the grants? Was it just a process of trial and error?

John David Graham 
Well, luckily I have an academic degree, so I had training in research. same thing with starting Good Samaritan Home. You find out what's available, what are they doing, how can I do it better? And so I would find out what grants in construction I would be applying for contracts. And they're very similar when you're looking at bidding a contract. So with a grant, the difference is if it's a state grant,

It's smaller less competitive. But if it's a federal grant it's a crap shoot because there might be 500 or 5,000 people bidding against you and Why should they pick some small startup like us? So we were able to get one or two small grants But this was during the faith-based initiative, which was very good politically This was in 2001 when President Bush had put a lot of emphasis on

local faith communities doing the work of social service. And so we started off in the Dayton, Ohio region and there were 20 other nonprofits like ours doing similar service. But because of our diligence and because the grants came and went, that's the problem with grants is that you get a grant for a year or two years or three years and you build on that, but then it disappears.

And if you're not careful, you have to lose that staff or that program. So when they offered us a per diem contract, it was only for four beds. But we were very careful to do everything according to the procedures required of us. But because we were faith-based, we do it to a higher degree than federal compliance. We feel it's an obligation morally to do the best job possible.

We're not trying to change the world, but we are trying to change our corner of the world. And the way to do that, like Dr. King said, you sweeping streets, if that's your job, then you sweep them like Michelangelo painted pictures. And that was our philosophy. We're doing the best job because it's our faith that motivates us, not our dollar.

Candice Jarrett 
I actually think that you are changing the world. I think that you're changing the world in two ways. By mentoring people who are starting over in a very extreme situation, they're coming out of prison and trying to change their lives for the better. I think that by you helping, and you've helped over 2,000 people over the years, I think that that does qualify as world-changing in my view. And not only that, but with your book, how you reach people with that on, mean, just...

Thousands and thousands of people have read and loved your book. So as I said earlier in the podcast, mean, 25 Fiction Awards, your book is resonating with people. And I think that that is world-changing in itself. So I want to talk about the idea of reinvention. I want to talk about the idea of second chances. Now, you give people through your work with Good Samaritan Home and your nonprofit, you give people second chances all the time.

But I want to talk about the second chances that maybe you have received over the years, because as you said, you've reinvented yourself many times. So can you point to maybe a couple times or moments where you felt that you had a second chance and you saw it and were able to take advantage of

John David Graham 
I went to my 50 year high school reunion a while ago and I didn't realize it at the time, but apparently we were much more poor than I realized growing up. You never realize you're poor when you're a kid, but I look at the people in my high school class and these are the ones who became doctors and attorneys and successful professional people. And I realized looking back that they grew up in structured families.

They grew up where high school was a preparation for college and college was a preparation for the work world. And they had things that I didn't have. They had, they were not only told how to run the race, but they were helped in running it. So I, when I went to college, I had no idea what to do or what to study. So I graduated and I had to literally start over. And then when I got married, I had to start over again.

And it was my wife who helped me have the discipline to take a job and stay with that job. And I remember we moved from Michigan in construction to Kentucky and on down to Texas because there was no work. And I had to reinvent or restart my company every time we moved because there was simply not enough work to supply my family. And then when the oil embargo hit and...

started to go into a decline again back in 88, we had to move again. And that's when I went back to graduate school thinking if I could go back and change, reinvent, instead of, I was at an age where I was 40 then and you reach a limit physically where you can't do that type of work anymore. So I went back to graduate school thinking that I could change there. And after 10 years, I realized that

it still was not my niche. And that's we had to reinvent one more time with Good Samaritan Home. But the key question I asked now was, what is the need in the community? And how can I help meet that? That was our business model. And I believe that applies to all businesses. Because instead of saying, here's what I want you to do, I said, what do you want me to do for you?

Candice Jarrett 
Do you?

Candice Jarrett 
Do you think that all of the things that you experienced like the struggle for success and the failure and the struggle for the success and the need to reinvent yourself prepared you for helping people who need to reinvent themselves at different stages in their life, you know, coming from prison?

John David Graham 
We we when I first started the program I thought people would be sympathetic because we were trying to do what I considered a humanitarian thing But most people were not sympathetic because the attitude was they made their own mistakes. They can live with them Why should I use my tax dollars to help someone else who's messed up their own life and There was very little sympathy but what I learned was particularly when the drug epidemic switched to

from to heroin, meth, meth amphetamines and heroin. And we found it not in the cities, not among the other ethnic people, but we found that heroin and meth was in all communities. And we found that people who were critical of what we were doing suddenly were calling asking for help because their children, their, their grandchildren were having the same issue.

So the drug issue became a pandemic and we were there to offer a degree of help and support for the community. And that made a difference, I believe.

Candice Jarrett 
Do you interface with any other organizations that give additional support for, just say like, you know, people who are struggling with drugs, you know, post-prison?

John David Graham 
We couldn't do what we do alone because number one, I'm not skilled enough. We don't have the staff or the finances. But what the state asked us to do was provide the housing element because the research coming down was that when someone comes out of prison, the number one issue they need is housing because if they can get housing that is safe and affordable, then they can get a job. And if they get a job, then they won't commit a crime.

So they're not a threat to the community, but more important, they'll be paying child support. They'll be paying taxes. They'll be buying goods in the community. They'll be productive taxpayers instead of tax burden. So we provide that housing element. And what we do is we partner with job and family services. We partner with the mental health community. We partner with the VA and we do the housing that they can't provide.

So yes, absolutely, we cannot do it without the community connection.

Candice Jarrett 
How long does your average resident stay in your program?

John David Graham
The one that we have two programs, one is called reentry and it's supposed to be 90 days, but the average stay is at least six to nine months. So we keep offering extensions because the truth is nobody can get a job and get enough money saved for an apartment at 90 days. It just doesn't happen. And particularly when you have a box that says I've committed a felony on your application. So then we have a hard to place program for those who have failed many times.

And these fellows will stay with us probably two years or more. And some of them will never work. Their whole goal is just to get on disability because they have either the mental or physical limitations that won't allow them to work. They're damaged from birth is what it is. That's why they're in fact, what's happened, the mental health facilities have switched to the prisons. So instead of putting people in the mental health institution, we're locking them up.

About 60-80 % of what we deal with is mental health and drug addiction.

Candice Jarrett 
Wow, that's.

Candice Jarrett 
That's devastating. So you deal with a lot of very important world shaping topics in real life and also through literature. So I do want to transition to talking about how you communicate these things to a broader audience because the messages that you have in your novel,

Although your novel is fiction, a lot of the things that you have in your book are things that resonate with people in a very real way. In fact, I've seen a lot of reviewers say that when they were reading your book, they thought that it was like a biography, you know, because they thought that it felt so real to them. And I think that by you writing these topics into your novel this way, it makes people understand.

that these things are real and that they're happening and going on and kind of see it from a different perspective. So I want to dive into the book itself, but first I do want to talk about your journey because it is very interesting to me how you ended up, I mean, trying to write this book for so long and your struggle to get it published. So I do want to open the floor to you for you to talk about the journey.

of publishing the book. Did it happen overnight?

John David Graham 
I thought it would. wrote, I started writing when I was 65 and I had been thinking about this for 50 years. But I started, I sat down and got serious about it and started writing. And I thought, well, I have a degree, obviously I'm smart enough. And I wrote a draft that was, since this is a live broadcast, I won't say what it was, but it was, it was poorly written. It needed a lot of work. So I redid it.

And I wrote it again and I attended seminars and I went to workshops and I solicited agents and I said, here's my wonderful story. Rejected, rejected, rejected. I rejected before it was all done 200 times, literally. And I rewrote it 24 times from beginning to end. And I hired eventually a professional editor. he was somebody a third my age.

who was twice my intellect. And he taught me how to put emotion into the story because my years as a journalist had taught me how to put facts in a story. My years in academic research taught me to put facts in a story and nobody reads facts. And so my character, Daniel Robinson came across as what I call black and white. He was two dimensional or even one dimensional. And so he taught me how to

put emotion in it and allow all this emotion that I felt to come out for 50 years worth of emotion to come out on paper. And it was still rejected, even though I felt and he felt and my beta readers felt that it was a very good book. They call it a page turner. So I did something that I learned all along that I had to do in business. If the product you want is not available,

than you and Bennett yourself. And I consulted with my attorney, I consulted with my accountant, and we found out the best way to form our own publishing company. And we named it Don Quixote Press because we are always tilting at windmills. And I feel like that's how I have been in publishing. But here's what I found. When I put it out to agents, these young people from New York had no idea.

John David Graham (22:39.238)
what the Vietnam War was. They wanted some dystopian novel that would sell on the Lifetime channel or on Netflix or they wanted TikTok books. And I was trying to get people to think and to feel. And so they just weren't interested. And so what we did was I hired a publicist and we learned how to market. And I like to joke about it.

but I've learned how to use Facebook. I've learned how to use Instagram and God forbid I've learned how to speak TikTok. And when I have trouble with it, I call my granddaughters and they help me. So I've had to learn. Go ahead.

Candice Jarrett 
I love

I was gonna say, I love how you're not afraid of doing things, like of getting your hands dirty, you know? Like when you talked before about the houses that you had, I know that you did some of those renovations yourself in those early houses. And then you got 200 rejections from publishers. And so you're like, you know what? I'm gonna talk to my attorney and my accountant. I'm gonna make my own publishing LLC. And then you released your book yourself. And then, I mean, it had to be...

a little bit of vindication, right? I mean, when you saw Reader's Reviews coming in, when you saw the awards coming in, after getting so many rejections from the traditional publishing industry, did you feel a sense of like, you know, I guess, vindication from that?

John David Graham 
I just did a count. I've submitted to 29 writing submission contests over the past nine months. And I've gotten out of those 29 contests, I've gotten 29, 25 awards. And I'm just overwhelmed, overwhelmed with the professional recognition. And my first thought is to send a letter to all those 200 agents and say, take that New York City.

But what I do instead was, like John Kennedy said, the best revenge is living well. And so what I try to do is simply I want readers, and I went through Goodreads reviews just this morning, just to read what people were saying who'd read it. And it's exactly what you said, Candace. People said, I felt Daniel. That Daniel was me. I lived like Daniel.

Candice Jarrett 
Yes.

John David Graham 
and I couldn't stop reading it. I had one fellow tell me, a 91 year old man said he stayed up till three in the morning just to read the book because he couldn't stop reading. That to me is the vindication I wanted. So it's...

Candice Jarrett 
not 91, but I also stayed up till 3am. So I'll just tell you that. So I did. Yeah, and, and also I want to say that. So I felt your book is very touching. I agree with the readers that said that it felt very real, you know, the way that you crafted the character, he felt just so authentic on his journey. And I will say that only maybe like five books ever made me cry and yours was one of them, like

John David Graham 
I'm glad to hear it.

Candice Jarrett 
It's a tear-jerker, people, at some parts, just the heads up. But it's a beautiful novel. You should definitely check it out. It's called Running As Fast As I Can. You can get it on Amazon. You can get it at bronzeandnoble.com, pretty much anywhere where books are sold. Just look it up, Running As Fast As I Can by John David Graham. And I want to mention also that he is on TikTok. He has an awesome TikTok channel. So just search John David Graham, author, on TikTok, and you will find him.

And you can also get all the social links on johndavidgram.com. We're not ending the interview, but I just wanted to make sure that everybody knew those things because I felt they were important. So.

John David Graham 
And I will caution everybody that I don't use a single cat playing the piano on my TikTok videos.

Candice Jarrett 
darn it. I'm going to unfollow then. Unfollow. I only watch the cats. Yeah. So, so what, what is, what is next for you? so I know that you are, you, you have a journalist past where you like obviously wrote articles and stuff. And now I know you have a sub stack. So, are you releasing articles on your sub stack? What kind of stuff is on there? Like what other things other than your novels can people expect to read from you?

John David Graham 
Sorry.

John David Graham 
Initially, my thought was just to get the book out and then I even started this sequel called Requiem and I did the first chapter. But now that I'm wearing a publisher's hat as well, I've had to work much harder at publishing because this is a steep learning curve. And what I keep saying all along to my editor and my publicist is that this is so far beyond my training and every day my brain hurts.

from all the things I have to learn. And to be candid, I'm 76. You I should be fishing on the dock of the bay, but I just can't sit still. So what I'm doing is we stumbled onto these podcasts and they have just liberated me because I'm able to talk about important issues like homelessness or drug addiction. But most of all, second chances. You may never have been addicted to drugs, but...

My guess is everybody needs a second chance. And when I was trying to convince people about the data on reentry and recidivism rates, nobody cared. They glazed over. But when I have Daniel Robinson say, crying out alone in his room, why can't I be normal? Why was I born into that family instead of the other family? And then he says, he prayed and God was silent.

Talk about rejection, even God rejected him in Daniel's eyes. So how many of us have felt that way? How many of us have been divorced and felt like nobody will ever take me back because I'm damaged? so I have found that there's a market, not a business market, but a listening market for people who are hungry for good news. And right now, this is a very tumultuous and angry time socially and politically.

And I've done about 24 of these podcasts just in the past few months. And what people are asking me is, can you give us some hope? Can you give us some good news? So I think I found my next second chance, it's sharing the good news of a second chance. And it's resonating.

Candice Jarrett 
Yeah, I love that. That's amazing perspective. So if people want to connect with you, what is the best way for them to do that?

John David Graham 
JohnDavidGraham.com is my website, my author page, and there's a contact link on there. And you're welcome to contact me. I even have people contact me through TikTok or Instagram, and I'm not opposed to communicating. I had somebody ask for, you where can I find your book? Is it on Barnes and Noble? And I wrote back and I said, here's the link. And when you're done, let me know your thoughts, because I appreciate hearing.

And sometimes they'll have a running dialogue with the reader.

Candice Jarrett 
That's nice.

Candice Jarrett 
Yeah, it's so cool, I feel, when an author will respond to a reader's feedback. I just think that because sometimes we think of authors as kind of these unattainable people, but with social media, mean, we can reach out to each other immediately and start a dialogue. So what is your favorite piece of reader feedback that you've ever gotten?

John David Graham 
that's a very... I got a note from a girl I went to college with, and she's recently gone blind. And so we were able to... That motivated me to do the audible version of the book, and I sent it to her. And she wrote me back and said, I never knew you had all those emotions in you. And I thought, if I can communicate to her...

Candice Jarrett 
I know that's tough.

John David Graham  
emotionally and make her day, then I feel that that was worthwhile. But it, actually what's been the most fun to me though, has getting my grandkids who are only 13, 14, 15 years old, getting them to read the story. And I've got one granddaughter who thinks she's going to be a writer. So she and I collaborate. That's right. She helped me pick the voice actor.

Candice Jarrett  
that's great.

John David Graham 
for the audible version. So that's become our thought. She keeps saying that she's my special granddaughter now.

Candice Jarrett 
That's lovely.

Candice Jarrett 
That's awesome. I love it. So I just, I want to mention one other thing. So about the idea of reinvention about, I mean, not only your book with like making your own publishing company and everything, but also your job. So you started Good Samaritan Home when you were in your fifties, right? And then you became a published author. How old were you when you became a published author?

John David Graham 
Well, I started on my doctorate at the same time. So I finished that when I was 61. When there's no career move in that, it was just for the discipline. so I have 61, then I started writing at 65 and I finished it when I was 75. But here's the best part. I'm 76 now and I was in town. I have a house in Texas where I do my writing.

And there was an ad in the paper that said for the television series, 1923 with Harrison Ford, they're looking for movie actors. And so they were looking for movie actors, send your name in and we'll look at it. So I sent my name in and they hired me at 76 to become an actor. And so I went up to Austin and got fitted up and got my all 1923 costume on. And I thought, you know, there's a...

Candice Jarrett 
I love that one.

John David Graham 
whole lot of work that goes into a two-minute scene on a train in a movie. But I felt like it's not whether the part ever gets on TV. No, it'll get cut, I'm sure. But what matters is I tried something new. I did something outside my comfort zone, and now I can say, guess what? I'm an actor too, but I'm not buying a house in Hollywood.

Candice Jarrett (33:17.898)
yeah.

Candice Jarrett
Not yet. Give yourself some time. We'll have to see if running as fast as I can gets me into a movie. So the reason why I bring it up is because I think it's such an important message of hope for people because I meet and talk with young people who are like, if I don't make it by the time I'm 25, then I'm a failure. If I don't make it by the time I'm 30, I'm a failure. If I don't make it by the time I'm 40, I'm a failure. And there's a sense that people have to do everything at these certain milestones in their life.

John David Graham 
I don't

Candice Jarrett 
But you are such a beautiful example of somebody who has like always pushed forward, always like wanted to learn the new thing, always wanted to build something you knew, know, built this business to help people, wrote the book, got your doctorate. And these are all things that you have done past age 50. So I just want to say for anybody who is listening in the audience, especially if you're like, you know, in college, you're just coming out of college.

and you have all this pressure on your shoulders of like, need to be successful right now. Life has so many twists and turns as John's story and his book illustrate. And those twists and turns don't look the same for everybody. So you may have like a brilliant breakthrough of success, like get your doctorate when you're 60. Like, you you don't have to live your life by anybody else's timeline. You can have success at any stage in your life, in any facet, as long as you are willing to put in the work.

like John, willing to learn new things and willing to reinvent yourself. Yeah, so John, mean, I'm just so grateful that you came on to share your story with us today. Do you have any parting thoughts that you want to leave us with?

John David Graham 
I had somebody ask me, what does it all come down to? The whole book or your whole life, what does it come down to? And I would say that if you look at TikTok, you look at television, you have all those young hard bodies, I call them. They're perfectly quaffed people who are perfectly fit, not an ounce of fat, no cellulite, no wrinkles. Their hair is always beautiful and I will never measure up. And I realized that they're 18 years old.

Everybody's a hard body at 18, but I'm not, I will never be 18 again. Don't want to be again. And I realized that life is not for the young. It's not a sprint. It's a marathon and you must keep running and you will fall down. Just get up and run again. And I've been running and I've been running and running for now 76 years. And I feel like I'm 36.

And I feel like the next adventure is gonna be even bigger or better. I just don't know what it'll be yet.

Candice Jarrett 
I can't wait to see it. It's so amazing to see all the things you've done so far and I feel like the future is looking equally bright. So thank you so much again, John. Everybody, don't forget, go to amazon.com, check out John's book, Running As Fast As I Can. If you want to learn more about the work that he does at Good Samaritan Home, that is goodsamaritanhome.org. That's right, right, John? Goodsamaritanhome.org? Yes, excellent. So thank you very much, everybody, and have a wonderful evening.

Bye bye.

John David Graham 
Thank you.