Surrender Changed Everything: Andrew Allen on Recovery, Leadership, and Hope

In this episode of the Courageous Crossroads Podcast, Andrew Allen shares how a farm kid from Iowa with an early path marked by delinquency, addiction, and repeated arrests eventually found sobriety at 17 and rebuilt his life through faith, recovery, and service, leading him from a 15-year career at Principal Financial Group to becoming President and CEO of YSS (Youth & Shelter Services), the very organization he credits with saving his life. A husband and father of three grown, entrepreneurial kids, Andrew reflects on how adversity shaped him, why he now defines courage with a single word, “surrender,” and how a pivotal moment in treatment, falling to his knees in a bathroom and asking God for help, became the foundation for everything that followed. He also discusses the power of encouragement to transfer courage, the importance of admitting powerlessness, and the mission of YSS across Iowa, including prevention and mentoring programs, residential addiction treatment, and innovative initiatives like Rooftop
Gardens and the Ember Recovery campus, all grounded in his belief that even the worst pain can become purposeful. Andrew welcomes connections from families, community members, and partners and can be reached through YSS at www.yss.org. He has openly shared his personal phone number, 515-291-5684, for those seeking guidance, resources, or hope.

Thank you for listening! We hope you feel inspired and encouraged by our conversation today. If you did, be sure to share this episode with others.

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See you in the next episode! Be blessed!

Full Transcript

Announcer: Welcome to Courageous by Crossroads Apologetics, a look into what motivates us to step out in courage, and the everyday bravery of men and women like you. In each episode, we hear a personal story of bravery centered around this question: What’s the most courageous thing you’ve ever done? And now your host, founder of Crossroads Apologetics, Jeff Johnson.

Jeff Johnson: Hey everybody, this is Jeff. Welcome back to another episode of the Courageous Crossroads Podcast. And thank you so much for listening. I am hearing more and more each week from listeners that are being edified and encouraged by our guests that are answering that very important question, that deep-diving question: what’s the most courageous thing you’ve ever done? And so I’m so pleased that people are enjoying this podcast. I’ve often said I would be doing this anyway, even if nobody was listening because I’m just curious. I’m curious how people answer that question. And I learned so much from each and every guest.

But I’m super grateful that you’re enjoying it too. And you’re really going to enjoy this next guest—another friend of mine, Andrew Allen. And I posed that question to Andrew. Got to learn a whole lot about his past and asked him that question and was blown away with his answer. And you’re going to be too. So without further ado, here’s our next guest, Andrew Allen. Andrew, thank you so much for joining us today. I really appreciate you being on the Courageous Crossroads Podcast. Wonderful to have you on.

Andrew Allen: Feel grateful to have been asked, Jeff. I’m really looking forward to it.

Jeff Johnson: Fantastic. Okay. You got to—I know you a little bit. I don’t know you a lot a bit, but I know you a little bit and I’m perfectly impressed with everything about Andrew Allen. But would you please give our listeners a little bit of background about you, what you’re doing, family, that sort of thing so they can put you into context before we start asking the big Courage questions?

Andrew Allen: Yeah, you bet. Farm boy from Iowa raised in the country, but ended up in town after my parents divorced and my mom ran a department store on Main Street in small town, Iowa. So I grew up kind of counting back change to old ladies and selling pantyhose and, you know, taking IOUs out of the till to get a root beer at the pharmacy that had a soda shop.

But I also had kind of a bent towards delinquency. You know, I was arrested for felony charges on my 10th birthday that, had I been an adult, could have put me in prison for a long time. And so we might get into that, Jeff, as we talk about today. But really, you know, it followed me through my adolescence to the point of finding God in my mid to late teens and getting sober. So, you know, I had a lot of adversity as a kid. My parents taught me right from wrong, and it took a really significant moment for things to change for me.

But you know, then had—I don’t want to say a traditional life by any stretch—but I went to community college and ended up at the great Iowa State University, number two in the nation… and then the basketball team just having lost a candle, however… and ended up at Principal Financial Group for 15 years. Started in IT, wound my way up into corporate social responsibility and their foundation. And 10 years ago, Jeff, was called—and I feel like—to come lead the organization that I credit with saving my life, YSS. So I feel blessed today to be the president and CEO at YSS, a youth-serving nonprofit organization based on Ames, but with operations around the state. And while my title is president and CEO, I always say my most important title is alumnus. So this, like I said, was the program that saved my life.

I got three kids, a 22-year-old boy and boy-girl twins that are 19—they just graduated high school. And all of them were in the house in June and they were all out of the house by August. So, you know, really feel proud about raising three independent kids. They’re all kind of, you know, on different paths. And then there’s our entrepreneurial kids—they started up their own businesses and actually both bought houses over the summer.

Jeff Johnson: Very nice.

Andrew Allen: My daughter’s entrepreneurial too. She’s got a social media thing going, kind of TikTok famous—really proud of her—but she’s at Iowa State studying fashion design. So, you know, just feel blessed on a lot of fronts. Every day, you know, facing adversity and struggle, but really try to embrace it and lean in and way to know that it’s, you know, from my faith standpoint, that it’s God really challenging me to become the person that he would have me be. So looking forward to digging in.

Jeff Johnson: That’s wonderful. That’s a great background. Are your kids more like you or are they more like your wife?

Andrew Allen: I think that we’ve got a mix. If we’ve got other parents out there listening, you’ll know that, you know, I really felt like had they all turned out exactly the same we would definitely be to blame. They’re all different and they all had the same upbringing. They had the same guidance. They had the same structure. And so the fact that they’re all different, you know, tells me it’s, you know, not just the nurture—there’s a lot of nature in there as well. So I think we’ve got a good mix.

My oldest son… I don’t think—I could be wrong, maybe naive, I talked to a lot of parents who work with kids and have substance use disorder—I don’t think any of my kids have ever drank or used drugs and we talk about it often and regularly. And I addressed… sometimes I worry that one or two of them, if they ever did, they might have the same sorts of issues that I had growing up. And so I’m grateful that they’ve made that decision. I can see some of their bent not too dissimilar to mine.

But then, you know, you’ve also got, you know, my daughter—she’s easy. She’s thoughtful. She’s really good at what she does. She has an idea, she pursues it, she gets it done. And my boys, like I said, are extremely entrepreneurial. One’s got his automobile dealer’s license—I think he probably bought and sold more than 200 cars on his own this year.

Jeff Johnson: Wow.

Andrew Allen: And my other son started up, before even graduating high school, started up a lawn care and landscape business. And he’s got a bunch of commercial contracts and is just doing great.

Jeff Johnson: That’s fantastic. So were you—were you a sober person when you got married?

Andrew Allen: Yeah, great question. I got sober when I was 17 and had started dating my wife just prior to that. She was kind of the good girl attracted to the bad boy.

Jeff Johnson: Yeah.

Andrew Allen: And yeah, definitely sober—got sober shortly out of college.

Jeff Johnson: So you talked a little bit about nature versus nurture with your kids because, guys, they just sound like they’re on a great trajectory. So your kids were raised in a very purposefully healthy environment?

Andrew Allen: Yeah, you know, I hope so. I think so. You know, they probably didn’t know much about my background. They knew I didn’t drink. They knew I went to meetings. They didn’t probably ask many questions beyond that. That said, 10 years ago—so they would have been 9, 9, and 12—when I was taking the job at YSS, I took about a month off between Principal Financial Group and the role that I’m in now. And did individual trips with all of the kids one on one wherever they wanted to go.

And so, you know, one of my boys and I went fishing, one of my boys and I, we flew out to Vegas, rented a convertible, got a side-by-side, drove through Arizona. And on each—took Darcy, my daughter, on a shopping trip—on each of the trips, sat down and had an intentional conversation about why this job was going to be more than just a job for dad, about my past and my history and their predisposition, the fact that you know they might have substance use disorder as a, you know, in their genes. And you know, really tried to embrace the moment as they were emerging through their adolescence and talk about some of my history in my past that I’m not necessarily proud of, but today really truly do believe it’s one of my greatest assets. I started to open the door just before taking the position. And I do feel like it created a foundation for the relationships that we have today.

Jeff Johnson: Well, we all have nuances in our life, that’s for sure. But you and I share that recovery journey and I got to tell you, I admire you greatly, Andrew, for what I’ve heard about your recovery story. And like you said, maybe we’ll get into some of that when we get a little deeper into some of these questions. Going back to that—your kids raised in a very purposefully healthy environment—is that the environment that you were raised in? Was it different?

Andrew Allen: Yeah, definitely loving. Like I said, my parents divorced when I was probably seven or eight. To me, Jeff, at the time, it was positive. Like, I already had the bent and a lot of the characteristics of an alcoholic: I like to get my way. And my parents apart from each other made it a little bit easier for me to manipulate situations and get my way. So I sure didn’t see it as a negative. They had a great relationship and they loved me. And I knew that they loved me. And I knew that they were doing everything they could to give me the very best life possible.

I really treated them poorly. I, you know, drugged them through a lot of difficulty. I put my parents in crappy situations, you know, defending me when I was wrong because I was lying about a situation, or even just this uncertainty about my safety—you know, not coming home at night, bad into drugs and alcohol. Having gotten an award for having the highest grade point, a year later I’m failing out of classes. And so there was a lot of chaos in my home. I don’t blame my parents at all. I feel like they gave me every opportunity to be successful.

I’m glad that I went through what I did at a young age. I’m glad that I don’t have felony charges on my adult record. I’m glad that I didn’t kill someone or myself or that, you know, the alcoholism/drug addiction would become chronic. And so I’m passionate about that today. I’ll talk more about it. But I really feel like I had a great childhood.

Jeff Johnson: I want to ask you—I’ve never asked anybody this question before, so this is interesting—I want to know what your definition of courage would have been in those primary years when your parents are separated and you’re working the angles and doing what you want. You know, how would you have defined courage then? And how do you define it now? Maybe they’re the same. Maybe it’s different.

Andrew Allen: Yeah, that’s a great question. I mean, I sure thought a lot about the definition now. And maybe even the idea that many people have about courage, which is probably the idea that I had in my adolescence, was: I was standing strong, being independent, pushing hard, refusing to give in, winning. You know, that was probably it. And I do think that my life required a lot of resilience. I had to push hard. And probably would have said, had I been asked at the time, that my actions were courageous. I come from a, you know, broken home; I’ve got adversity; I get the probation officer on my back and the principal on my back. And in order for me to fulfill whatever purpose that I thought that I had, I was standing up to them and being defiant and leading my own path. And I would say that probably felt like courage at the time.

Jeff Johnson: Some kind of toughness of being able to not go against “the man” or anything, but certainly stand up for yourself and get what you wanted and that sort of thing?

Andrew Allen: Yeah. Yeah, that’s right. I, you know, suffer from a lot of different character defects, one of which is pride and ego. And so there was something inside of me telling me, “Hey, you’re right,” or “It’s important to be right,” or “You can wrangle this situation if only you try harder.” And, you know, I had the ability to manipulate situations to get what I thought that I wanted. But the reality was I was simply just creating a lot of frustration.

Yeah, I wasn’t necessarily winning. It was people in my life—authority figures, even people that cared for me, Jeff—saying, “Fine, kid. Like, we’re tired of trying to help you. Go ruin your life on your own.” And so that to me felt like a win. And the reality, it was a loss, which is good enough.

Jeff Johnson: Isn’t that interesting? Okay, defining courage now. How do you define it?

Andrew Allen: Yeah, I think courage for me comes down to one word: surrender. And I’ve got multiple moments in my life that I’ve been thinking about since we talked, of deep surrender. You know, you and I are both part of a recovery group. As you mentioned, a line in that book that says, you know, “The verdict of the ages is that faith means courage. All men of faith have courage. They trust God. They never apologize. Instead, they let Him demonstrate through us what He can do.”

And so I wouldn’t have said it then. I had to have the lived experience. Surrender feels weak. It feels like a failure to many; it feels passive. But as I thought about courage and the most courageous acts of my life, they all come down to surrender. And it’s this acknowledgement that I don’t know what’s best. I don’t necessarily have control of a situation. And that if I allow God to fill the void and to be the director in my life, His plan is perfect and my path has already been created.

And I’ve got a mantra that came after losing my very best friend early in my sobriety where I wanted to breathe and the world to stop—I just was feeling so much pain. But what happens? Life doesn’t stop. Things keep going. And I was forced to just deal with life. So the mantra became: “My job is to just keep putting one foot in front of the other foot, trusting that God’s plan for me is perfect.” And so whatever’s happening is exactly what’s supposed to be happening. And my job is to lean in and to know that, you know, whatever it is—if it’s painful, it’s purposeful—and God’s using it to help shape me into the person that He would have me be.

And so I experience stress today; I’ve got difficult situations; I’ve got uncertainty. But my posture is simple: one foot in front of the other, taking the next right action, trusting that God’s plan for me is perfect. Whatever’s happening is exactly what’s supposed to be happening. So lean in and use it to grow into the person that He would have me be.

Jeff Johnson: Man, that’s so good, Andrew. That surrender as being a definition for courage—I absolutely love that. I often ask people: who do they think of that represents courage in their life? Somebody that they look up to, somebody that reflects that by your definition of surrender? You know, you’re talking about faith, you’re talking about trusting God. Is there somebody else that you look up to that you can see exemplifies courage to you? Or is it as simple as just holding on to your faith?

Andrew Allen: Yeah, I think that’s a great question. I have had many mentors in my life. And I think that as I think about each of them… like Danny Flannery, who owned a small business—still does—in the town where I grew up. The way that he operated through faith and surrender, I see as being courageous. Barry Spear was someone who was in leadership at Iowa Health/UnityPoint, and he too encouraged me, believed in me, and operated through courage.

And then the founder of YSS, George Belitsos. Though, you know, one of my greatest personal and professional mentors. He believed in me more than I believed in myself. He came to my graduation from his program, essentially put his arm around me, asked me to volunteer for his organization, nominated me for awards. You know, put me in positions to create impact, to use my experience to help others. And so, you know, I think that he took this organization in nearly 40 years from nothing—a volunteer organization—to what it was when I was handed the keys 10 years ago. And he no doubt experienced significant adversity and had to push through in a way that I’m sure required surrender and courage.

And then, Jeff, I just think about the entirety of the recovering community. Like, my story—our stories—are not unique. And we go into 12-step meetings or in this space, and you hear someone share about the struggle and the desperation and the pain and the redemption. It sounds fantastic. You know, we can articulate a story that is captivating, but the reality is I hear that four or five times a week, right? I’m surrounded by hundreds of people all the time that have similar stories of surrender. And it’s the key ingredient.

I run a nonprofit organization that helps a lot of kids. You know, some of them—it’s prevention programs, mentoring, and before/after school programs. In other cases, it’s residential addiction treatment. And I know when a kid that comes in defiant, telling us what we can do with the treatment plan… that was me nearly 30 years ago. And the reality is that something’s going to have to give. And I have hope every day that they experience enough pain to surrender and just say, “OK, I can’t keep living like this anymore.” And I think that’s when the magic begins to happen.

Jeff Johnson: Wow. You said a mouthful there too, Andrew. I was—you’re making me think—I was at a meeting this morning. And there were 30 men and women sitting around in a circle. And there’s 30 fresh testimonies that I got to be equipped with this morning to pick me up and to help me, you know, save my life. Or they save my life one more time, or God did. You know, it’s just an amazing thing.

OK, I want to jump right into the deep end with you, Andrew Allen. What’s the most courageous thing you’ve ever done?

Andrew Allen: I thought that’s what you just asked me a little bit ago! But it does—it does come back to surrender for me, Jeff. And I’ll describe the moment and subsequent moments after that.

As I indicated, I grew up in a loving home, parents that taught me right from wrong. Yet, arrested for felony charges on my 10th birthday—things that I did when I was nine that could have put me in jail for a long time, like I said. You know, defiant through school. I got off of probation and then re-arrested when I was 12 and was on juvenile probation until I was 17 and three-quarters years of age. At which point I was arrested again—I mean, multiple times throughout that process—and tried as an adult, as you could be in the adult system.

I’d been involved in sports and had dropped out of sports. I was, like I said, failing out of class. I had been expelled from school. I had been admitted to a psychiatric institute for “crazy kids.” You know, I just was in a horrible spot. And the last arrest was a drunk driving—like I said, I was nearly 18. The juvenile justice system said, “We’d had enough of you, kid.” And I was headed to Eldora State Training School for boys. I was headed to detention.

And my dad, who was in recovery—sober longer than I was alive—knew that I was not a bad kid that needed to get good, that I was a sick kid who needed to get well. And he fought to get me into treatment. And so I got to treatment—Youth and Shelter Services (YSS) at the time—nearly 18 years of age. I had four and a half months. I said I could do this, you know, “standing on my head,” right? I’m just going to bide my time until I get out and then I can be an adult and live like I want to have the freedom that I thought was going to make me satisfied.

And for six weeks, I fought it tooth and nail. Just like I described, I told them what they could do with their treatment plan, where they could put the restriction phase. The first day that I got there, I was extremely defiant. I couldn’t stand to be told what to do. I hated authority. All of the things. I’m surprised I wasn’t kicked out. And I am exactly the kid, if you’re a teacher, that you didn’t want in your class, or if you run a treatment program, that you didn’t want in your program.

And six weeks in, my mom picked me up to take a test. It was the first time I’d left treatment. I got in her car on the way to take a test. I snuck a half-smoked Virginia Slim luxury light 120 menthol cigarette—one of those really “manly” cigarettes—at a restaurant. I smoked it while I was off campus. She picked me back up, dropped me off.

And nobody knew, Jeff, that I had smoked that cigarette. But I had this sense in the pit of my stomach, like, maybe I shouldn’t have done it. Like, here I am almost 18. I’m in a rehab program. I can’t leave for even just a couple of hours without stealing, lying—I mean, breaking the law even.

And over the course of about 30 minutes, the sensation moved from my stomach to my chest, and I felt a heavy weight. And it moved from my chest to my neck and I could feel that sense like I was about to cry. And I went to the bathroom. And this is not “of me.” I mean, I just really feel like the courage was given to me. The stage was set. If this was of me—had I earned it, if it was pulling myself up by the bootstraps—this would just be a much different story.

I went into that bathroom desperate and hopeless, carrying a weight that I could no longer bear. And I fell to my knees and I started balling like a baby. And I said, “I can’t keep living like this anymore.” And the most honest part of it was I’ve ever said: “God, help me.” And for me, it was instantaneous. That—that was the essence of surrender. I had never admitted that I was the problem. I had never admitted that this was my fault. I had never asked anyone else for help unless it was self-serving in a way that I was going to twist it.

And in that moment, I had no other options. I was completely out of control. I was desperate and had nothing else to do except for cry out to God for help. And He answered immediately. And in the very moment, Jeff, I felt relief. I knew that I had a new creator. I wouldn’t have been able to tell you that I was “born again” at that moment. I didn’t know what transformation was. I didn’t have the words for it. But my actions showed I was a new being.

And I stopped crying. And I cleaned myself up. And I left the bathroom. I went straight to my counselor’s office. And I told her what I’d done. Smoked this cigarette. Big deal? I mean, man, of all the things that I had done, it was the least of my offenses. And I said, “You know, whatever the consequence is, I accept it.” And I don’t remember what the consequence was. Like, I think we can be disciplined as Christians or as humans in a way that is fulfilling.

And so for me, the transformation was admitting that I was powerless, that my life was unmanageable, you know, surrendering fully to God. And at that moment, He took over. He became my director. He became, you know, through faith, the provider of courage.

And I did look up “courage.” I was actually at a meeting last week and—not even thinking about this—I was thinking about the relationship between “courage” and “encourage.” What’s the “courage” in “encourage”? Encouragement is the way that we transfer courage. And I just love that. God in that moment gave me courage by encouraging me. And I stopped trying to defy—like, trying to “win” treatment, trying to be the best student, trying to be exemplary in all of the areas. And my life began to change. I mean, it happened immediately. It was obvious to the people around me. It was obvious to my family. It was obvious to my peers. It was obvious to the counselors that something was different.

And so, as you asked me that question and I thought about the definition being less about being bold and standing strong and refusing to give in, and more about the absence of ego and pride and the presence of surrender—that moment became the cornerstone, the bedrock to the life that I’ve got today.

Jeff Johnson: Hitting your knees. Wow. And I love how you say, like, the table had been set for you, so that it was just a moment for you to stop and say, “I quit. I give up.” And that that didn’t have any—I heard you say that didn’t have any other human attachment to it. It was a work that God did in your heart. So it didn’t really matter what the punishment was afterwards. You’re a changed person right at that point. You’re transformed.

Andrew Allen: That’s right.

Jeff Johnson: So that’s such a beautiful picture of courage. Andrew, what happens to you then after that? Because you said yours was instantaneous. Did character defects fall away?

Andrew Allen: Gosh, great question. I think some of them did; many of them persisted. Yeah. And so I think the big ones did. I think this acknowledgment that I was no longer in control… I sometimes take my will back regularly. I mean, ask the people that work with me, ask my family. I am by no means “pure as snow” or completely immune to bad behavior. That said, there was a significant shift where—I’ve heard it actually talked about as it relates to sin—and how I traveled in it, pursued it, enveloped in it for much of my adolescence. And at that point, my relationship with sin changed. I still have it. I still fall short. I do stuff I shouldn’t do, I don’t do things I should do—like, it’s still present, the character defects.

But my relationship to it has changed. It’s no longer something I feel good about. It’s no longer something I revel in. It’s now… I’m averse to it. I’m ashamed of it. I struggle with it. I allow the discomfort to help shake me and change me. And I have a conscience today.

You know, Jeff, I sometimes share I was diagnosed with Anti-Social Personality Disorder—which if anyone out there’s listening has a background in psychology, I’m like in my Psych 101 book, I’m reading “Anti-Social Personality” and I’m like, “Oh, that’s me.” Also known as sociopath. And there’s a picture of Jeffrey Dahmer… like, not a comparison you want.

Jeff Johnson: Right. Right.

Andrew Allen: But what it looked like for me was—and it was mistreated, undiagnosed substance use disorder, alcohol and drug addiction—but what it looked like for me was I could do bad stuff and not feel bad about it. I did not have much of a conscience. Or if I did feel bad, I would immediately get high or medicate to feel different.

And so—the smoke of the Virginia Slim—exactly, the best way to talk about it is that my disposition and my relationship with it changed and it came with a conscience, with a God-consciousness. I had a counselor at the time in treatment who said, “Your conscience is kind of like a muscle.” And the more you work it, the stronger it gets. The less you pay attention to that little voice that says, “Hey, maybe you shouldn’t be doing that,” the weaker it gets. And that’s what happened for me—it was so weak, I couldn’t even hear it.

And so that’s why today my mantra is one foot in front of the other foot, trying to take the next right action. Every time I do that and I take the right action, man, I strengthen that muscle. Every time I acknowledge doing something that I shouldn’t be doing—even if I’m taking the wrong action—every time I acknowledge it, I strengthen that muscle. And for me, what you want to avoid is getting into a space where you’re indulging in whatever it might be and not paying attention to it. I feel bad for a little bit the first time, and then the second time not quite as bad, and you know, by the third or the fourth time, you know, the muscle has been weakened to the point that you’re stuck back in sin and it takes a big moment of surrender.

Jeff Johnson: So you’re equipped with that too—the knowledge of where you’ve been in the past, so you know what to avoid as well, which is a byproduct of the courageous act of surrender, hitting your knees.

Andrew Allen: I love it. I mean, I’m grateful for the pain that I went through. I’m sad that I impacted other people negatively. Yeah. But Barry Spear—also a mentor of mine, God rest his soul, the former CEO at Principal Financial Group—when he retired, he wrote a book called The Adversity Paradox. They studied 100 successful business people. They said, “What’s a common attribute?” And in each case, they had all experienced some adversity, some pain, some significant struggle that they overcame and became stronger because of it.

So yes, today, my past is my greatest asset. You know, it’s the foundation for the life that I’ve got today, but it’s also my opportunity to share with other people. Like, I do believe—and I borrowed it from a 12-step recovery book—that my purpose is to “fit myself to be of maximum service to God and the people about me.” And that means for me, sharing my experience, strength, and hope in a way that encourages—transfers courage—to people that are desperate and hopeless. Like, I just feel like I went through those things for a reason. God has made me uniquely useful and well-positioned to help other people.

And again, it’s easy to talk a big game. I fall short every day. There’s lots of areas that I could continue and will continue to not just pursue God, but to make improvements in my life. But the reality is: yes. My past is my greatest asset. And you know, here I am 30 years sober still, you know, trying not to forget the lessons that were learned and trying to, you know, lean in in a way that I can continue to share with other people.

Jeff Johnson: Is that memory of what you came from fleeting at all? Because I hear you talk about the importance of remembering—but is it fleeting? Does it feel like it wants to erode or is it fresh?

Andrew Allen: In certain moments, you know, when I get discouraged or I get upset or I’m frustrated and I’m in control of myself trying to, you know, self-will run riot… “fleeting” might not be the right word, but “distant” would be. I don’t know how many times have I worked on an issue that’s created frustration that it dominates my thought process for weeks… and I’m in the shower one day and I’m like, “Well, wait a minute. Like, maybe I should just give this to God. Maybe I should surrender this. Maybe I should pray about it.”

And how I still go back to experiencing so much frustration for such a long period of time before I think, “Oh, wait a minute. God could help with this.” And at that moment, I surrender. I stop thinking about it. I stop working on it. I stop making it worse. God gives me a newcomer, maybe, to focus on, or some other problem He also got to help them with, and my problem seems to take care of itself.

So not fleeting. But maybe… 15 years at Principal Financial Group working alongside executives, thinking that I might be “like them,” normal… there was a time, Jeff—you asked the question—that it was distant and fleeting. And I was going to fewer meetings and I was doing less in recovery and ego was taking over and I was thinking I was a big shot.

And for me, you know, one of the other stories is that at Principal, I had been in IT for four years, five years. I moved into community relations. I managed the company’s grants for a period of time. I got, you know, a couple of promotions, which was really encouraging for me at the time. And my boss had retired—and she had been Chief Marketing Officer and head of the foundation. And when I started at Principal, the CEO was my boss’s boss’s boss’s boss’s boss’s boss’s boss’s boss. I mean, 15,000 employees. And at that moment, the CEO was my boss’s boss—I reported to my boss, who reported to the CEO. And so I set a five-year goal to become president of the foundation. I thought, you know, sitting great.

Andrew Allen: I heard about the Harvard research study that said the two most important things that you can do to help make a goal come to fruition is: number one, tell someone; number two, write it down. It’s the only time I’d ever done that. I wrote it down: “In five years, I want to be president of the foundation.” Told someone, and six months later, I got called into my new boss’s office. And she said, “Hey, we just got a board meeting. You’re being named president.”

That was the 24th largest corporate foundation in America at the time. And I knew that that wasn’t it. Like, I felt elated for about three seconds, and then instantly knew that that was about pride and ego, and that it was unfulfilling. Immediately, that it was shallow and it was about a title. And I would be frustrated for a year or 18 months after that. “First world problems”—driving back and forth to work, crying in my car, wondering, “Why is this happening to me? Why am I so discontented?”

But also, Jeff, at the time, knowing that it was purposeful. I was reading at the time C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity. You know, I was learning more about ego and pride; I was digging in there. It was like God was really shaping me and I felt, even though it was a difficult period of time, I knew it was purposeful.

So what ended up happening is George, the founder of YSS, announced his retirement. I put my name in the hat to be on the committee—I was on the committee to find a successor. And you know, one thing led to another and somebody said, “Why aren’t you applying for the job?” And I threw my name in that hat and got the job 10 years ago.

So this job, this role—where I feel like I can be uniquely useful, where I feel like my greatest title is alumnus—doesn’t allow my past to be fleeting. I mean, sometimes I say the only reason I’m in this job is because, you know, the organization saved my life 30 years ago. I hadn’t thought about it until you just asked, but I’m grateful that I was thrust back into this space, this work, because my past is one of my greatest assets and I love sharing it in a way that creates hope.

Jeff Johnson: And that surrender followed you too. I mean, not just that time, that first time that you hit your knees—you know, that’s your courageous act, the most courageous thing you’ve ever done—but there it is in that YSS transition, too. You know, you’re surrendering to: “I’m not going to go for the ego-filling, whatever this is; this is not the right path for me.” I mean, that struck me as another courageous act. So there, the lesson has been learned. Yeah, how else is that followed you? What other areas of your life do you feel surrender in?

Andrew Allen: Gosh, you know, I—like I said—it’s small moments and big. The small moments are fleeting; the big moments stick with me. We had a donor early in my tenure. You know, much of my job is telling the story, encouraging people and teams, but I love to dream big. I love big ideas. I love building things. And so we had, you know, had some ambitious plans, were developing big ideas. We want to save the world. You know, I want Iowa to become one of the greatest states in the country for young people to recover. I want everybody to have the same shot that I had.

I just talked to a mom this week whose son died just before Christmas—19 years old. I’ve been to too many funerals. And so this work is just that important. And part of my role is to fundraise. And so, had a great donor, had a big gift. And things started to change with our plans and the idea, and the most important thing to me was, like, holding on to this big gift. Like, we can’t lose this big gift. And we were adjusting our ideas and I was worried about what they were thinking. And I had sleepless nights where I was worried we might lose it. And I was, you know, trying to accommodate the organization and the donor. And I was trying to make something that probably didn’t… square peg in a round hole.

And I can remember this went on for months. And I’ve got a development team of fundraisers. And I can remember the day that I—God’s help—made a courageous decision. And I said, “Here’s the thing, guys. If we lose the gift, it’s going to be okay. Like, we’re going to do what’s best for the organization.” And the relief I saw on their faces… like, I had felt relief before when I made the decision. Like, here’s the thing: we’re no longer going to be changing our plans to meet a donor expectation. We’re going to do what’s best for the organization, and if we lose it, no big deal. As soon as I said it, I could see the relief in their faces. Like, they had been carrying the same weight.

And so that to me was a moment of surrender that reminded me that, you know, God is in control. His plan is perfect. One foot in front of the other foot. Try to take the next right action. And simply lean in. And so I carry that moment; I share that regularly. And the team knows it as well.

Jeff Johnson: Can you teach people to surrender? I often ask people if courage is transferable per your definition. You’re driven to your knees—so is that a… because you know, we run into people where you want to say, “If you can just open your eyes, if you can just get it.” But I don’t know if you can transfer that to somebody. Can you give that to somebody? Can you give them courage?

Andrew Allen: I think you can give them courage through encouragement. I mean, it is the definition of encouragement. Sometimes you don’t like the title “CEO” (Chief Executive Officer). I’ve got a visionary intention to become the “Chief Encouragement Officer.”

Some of your listeners might know the CEO of Whole Foods—he would travel around the country and fly in and go to different stores and visit them. And so he saw the best practices; he knew what was good and what was bad. And so he made a point every visit that he would point out five or six great things that they were doing and two or three areas for improvement. Guess how that went? Poorly. Right. He got a terrible reputation as being ultra-critical. And the only thing anybody focused on was the one or two or three things that he said needed to be fixed. And people felt defeated when he would leave.

He got that feedback, he learned from it, and then he changed his actions. And instead of ever saying anything negative to anybody, he would only encourage them at the stores and they would perform better. And you know, maybe there was a back channel where there was a conversation like, “Hey, do this or do that.” I think about that as a leader. I want to be great. I love winning. I can—an event can be a 9 out of 10, and I’ve got a little list of three or four things that could have been better. And when I share that, it is so discouraging. It is so deflating.

So my job, if I want to transfer courage, is to be the Chief Encouragement Officer. Is to, you know, continually tell people they’re doing a great job. I had one employee say it was the best job she’d ever—well, she’d ever had. I don’t feel like that, but I only encourage her all the time: “You’re doing great. Keep it up. Well done.” Because she was doing such a great job. And that is all that it took. And so I think that you can transfer courage through encouragement. And you can diminish courage, Jeff. I can extract courage through discouragement.

And I try to be an example. I think that, especially in a leadership role, it’s hard. Most people want to front confidence and that they’ve got it all figured out and they know the answer to things. And so I do both—try to not always have the answers (it’s hard for me)—but then admit when I’m wrong. And I think that, you know, it’s… leaning into the 12 steps, you know, Step 10. And there’s something really disarming about a leader who says, “Hey, you know what? What I did was wrong. There’s something I can do to make it right. Let me know.” That’s the transfer.

Jeff Johnson: Yeah, encouragement. That’s perfect. So we’re going to put YSS information in the show notes so people know how to get a hold of you. But say how people can get a hold of YSS and get a hold of you if they’re curious to know more about the organization and you.

Andrew Allen: Yeah, it’s really easy. It’s just YSS.org. And we are embarking upon our 50th anniversary as an organization. You think about businesses and nonprofits and, you know, to have 50 years of sustainability, more than 300 employees… and we helped 13,000 kids and families across Iowa last year.

Jeff Johnson: Wow.

Andrew Allen: We had probably our greatest year ever. And the reflection is we want to be here for 50 more years. We’ve got a great legacy and history; we’ve done remarkably things. Last year we opened Rooftop Gardens—probably the greatest social entrepreneurial project the state’s ever seen. We’re growing leafy greens, and now radishes and carrots and even strawberries in retrofitted shipping containers that have vertical hydroponic gardens. And we’re growing with homeless youth. We’re paying them 15 bucks an hour. They plant and grow and harvest and package and sell leafy greens to make your own food or to teach the process, or both.

It is a workforce development program. We’re giving them workforce skills, we’re paying them to do it, and then we’re sustaining the program through the sale of leafy greens. You can buy our stuff, Rooftop Gardens, at the Iowa Cooperative online.

And we also opened the Ember Recovery Campus—a best-in-class, nature-based, trauma-informed experiential campus where people who are struggling with substance use disorder… families who have kids, both youth and young adults. We’ve got 13 to 18-year-olds and 18 to 25-year-olds. Rural setting, centrally located in the state. It’s called Ember Recovery. It’s part of our niche focus on creating a behavioral health continuum of care for youth and young adults.

And so there’s just nothing I wouldn’t do to help a young person or family get some hope and pursue recovery. I mean, I don’t know if it’s okay, I share my cell: 515-291-5684. Not everybody, especially when you think about the anonymity factor in a 12-step program, is sharing their stories publicly. God’s put me in a position—you in a position—to share. I feel like, while I don’t want to be the “poster child” and I’m an example good and bad, I do want families to know that there’s hope. That if they’re struggling, like, “Hey man, struggle can actually be the foundation for a new life.” Like, sometimes the worst it is, the better it can be. The very worst things that happened in my life became the very best things that ever happened in my life, and I never would have seen that or known it.

So if families have issues or questions, I’m easy to find—YSS.org. And you know, if you want to make Iowa one of the greatest places in the country for young people to recover… our vision is a world where youth are empowered and valued to stand strong. And so we’re working on that every day. We’ll be at the Capitol next week for AMP Day on the Hill. We’ll be in the trenches every day serving them: kids with substance use disorder, homeless youth ensuring that they have housing every day, kids in our mentoring and before/after school programs. And if there’s ever anything YSS or I can do to help anyone in your audience, reach out.

Jeff Johnson: Andrew, you’re fantastic. You know, there’s people that are inside of your circle that you know and that you run with all the time and you’re very… you keep up to date and current and you’re familiar with. And then there’s other people that are on the periphery a little bit that you see and you just notice. And I want you to know that I see you and I notice stuff that’s going on with you in particular, and certainly with the organization that you’re in charge of, YSS.

And I’m always impressed with what’s going on. I see somebody being selfless. I see somebody expressing their God-given gifts and it very much impresses me. And I’m so grateful to have you on today. Andrew Allen: a great business leader, a man with an amazing testimony, a great experience of God, and a man who knows what surrender really means and therefore a man of great courage. Thank you so much for being with us today, Andrew. Thanks for all that you’re doing for our community and our state.

Andrew Allen: Keep it up.

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