A man whose family struggled with addiction built Above and Beyond, a treatment center in Chicago for homeless and poor people. Within six years it earned a Wall Street Journal feature and became a model addiction experts point to. He credits the team's shared mission, not his own effort, for the success.
The most self-fulfilling project I've ever worked on by far is when I had a dream and made a vision of creating what's now called Above and Beyond. I dreamed that I could create through some life experience with family members and extended family members who had trouble with addiction, and I visited a lot of top addiction centers, and I learned, in my view, they were clinically hollow. And I dreamed of innovating into the best addiction treatment in America. I felt like addiction treatment was same as 100 years ago. Every other business and charity had innovated what they did with technology and entrepreneuring, except for addiction. You could be 1935 right now. So I realized there are some things missing that could be added. The second part of my dream was, well, once I could create, I believed, the best addiction treatment, who would I provide it to? I could make a lot of money if I brought it to the wealthy and it became known as the best. And I decided that wasn't what I wanted to do. My dream was to get it to those who would benefit the most, and that was the poor and the homeless, addicted and living on the streets. Biggest challenge too, but I thought, wow, that excited me to help transform those lives, and that's what I wanted to do. And as I thought about it, because I had helped build healthcare companies and invest in those, Most of my career, I recognized I could probably do this. And then I felt the next thing. As soon as I thought I could probably do this, I felt I have a responsibility to do this. I can help these people. I can help addiction treatment. Other people don't have the vision or the resources or the background or experience to do this. I need to do it. So I got in my car and drove around Chicago's poor areas one winter looking for a location, and I finally found one. And then guess what I did? I leased it and started telling of my vision to people I knew that would listen, and it inspired certain people. And guess what happened? The magic started. It was no longer dependent on My skills and ability to make this work. 2 great people were magnetically attracted. They were inspired by the vision of building the best addiction treatment in America and providing at no cost to the poor and the homeless. A clinician who probably is the greatest in America joined us to help build clinically, and we talked about the vision and helped create it. And a gentleman who knew how to build it and had experience building enterprises came and joined it. He was inspired to help build the best in America. And those 2, through other people that were attracted to them, have done it. It didn't happen because of me, but now it's been named the best program in America in its 6th year. In its 5th year, Above and Beyond was named one of the best and brightest places to work, as printed in the Wall Street Journal. Nationally, reputation and addiction authors, famous people who know addiction best, who've written 12 books, have said Above and Beyond is the model for the future. Above and Beyond is the Addiction treatment, which should be the future of America's addiction treatment. So we're getting it done. We are creating the dream. But it's not because of me that the dream is coming true. It's because of great people who are attracted to the vision, and motivated by the adventure, and inspired by what if. Maybe they can do the impossible and create the best and the future of addiction treatment. And they, that team of people, have done it.
