2,000 People Who Beat Addiction & Crime Taught Me This About Change | Joseph Grenny | EP0062
Let's Get Real with Stephen Jones | Episode 65 | 75 min
What does it actually take for a person to change?
Joseph Grenny has spent decades studying human behavior, influence, and transformation. But some of his deepest lessons came when those ideas collided with his own family, including his son’s struggle with heroin addiction and Joseph’s painful realization that knowing how change works did not give him the power to change someone he loved.
In this conversation, Joseph explores why repentance is about more than simply wanting to be better or trying harder. He explains the six sources of influence that shape our behavior and connects them to the way God works throughout scripture, through relationships, environments, consequences, truth, accountability, and grace.
Drawing from his work with the Other Side Academy, Joseph shares stories of people with long histories of addiction, crime, homelessness, and broken relationships who became dramatically different people. Their experiences reveal why pain is not always the enemy, why agency has to be preserved, and why lasting change often begins with two simple realizations: “I have a problem” and “I need help.”
The conversation also explores what this means for families, wards, and the Church. If discipleship is meant to transform us, then Zion cannot just be a place where people hear good advice. It has to be a community where people are known, loved, challenged, supported, and given room to become something new.
Joseph’s work ultimately points to a deeply Christian idea: God does not simply command us to change and leave us alone to figure it out. He places us in relationships, covenants, communities, and experiences that can help shape us into the people He knows we can become.
Chapters:
0:00 Intro - Seth’s drug addiction story
3:59 Our assumptions about change
6:40 6 influences that shape behavior
14:58 The Other Side Academy
19:58 Pain & slowing change
24:08 Importance of environment
29:13 Steps to change
34:34 Deciding to change
39:00 Ministering & connecting
42:42 How to approach someone to help
51:20 Speaking truth w/ love
58:13 Shifting identity & change
1:04:40 Staying in Gethsemane
1:08:34 Lessons from the Lord
Joseph Grenny has spent decades studying human behavior, influence, and transformation. But some of his deepest lessons came when those ideas collided with his own family, including his son’s struggle with heroin addiction and Joseph’s painful realization that knowing how change works did not give him the power to change someone he loved.
In this conversation, Joseph explores why repentance is about more than simply wanting to be better or trying harder. He explains the six sources of influence that shape our behavior and connects them to the way God works throughout scripture, through relationships, environments, consequences, truth, accountability, and grace.
Drawing from his work with the Other Side Academy, Joseph shares stories of people with long histories of addiction, crime, homelessness, and broken relationships who became dramatically different people. Their experiences reveal why pain is not always the enemy, why agency has to be preserved, and why lasting change often begins with two simple realizations: “I have a problem” and “I need help.”
The conversation also explores what this means for families, wards, and the Church. If discipleship is meant to transform us, then Zion cannot just be a place where people hear good advice. It has to be a community where people are known, loved, challenged, supported, and given room to become something new.
Joseph’s work ultimately points to a deeply Christian idea: God does not simply command us to change and leave us alone to figure it out. He places us in relationships, covenants, communities, and experiences that can help shape us into the people He knows we can become.
Chapters:
0:00 Intro - Seth’s drug addiction story
3:59 Our assumptions about change
6:40 6 influences that shape behavior
14:58 The Other Side Academy
19:58 Pain & slowing change
24:08 Importance of environment
29:13 Steps to change
34:34 Deciding to change
39:00 Ministering & connecting
42:42 How to approach someone to help
51:20 Speaking truth w/ love
58:13 Shifting identity & change
1:04:40 Staying in Gethsemane
1:08:34 Lessons from the Lord