When people ask what Ascension Leadership Academy is, the easiest answer is this: it is an emotional intelligence and leadership training program based in Austin, Texas. But that description doesn’t come close to capturing what actually happens when someone goes through it.
What actually happens is that people change. And then they go build things.
Over the past several years, the ALA graduate community has grown into something that would be difficult to design on purpose. It includes NFL Hall of Famers and Super Bowl champions. Global recording artists. A Miss Universe. The CTO of one of the most recognizable personal development brands in the world. Billion-dollar real estate entrepreneurs. Univision network executives. Founders of fast-growing American companies. And thousands of everyday people — nurses, teachers, parents, veterans, and first-generation entrepreneurs — who came in searching for something they couldn’t quite name and left with the tools to go get it.
This is the ALA community. This is what emotional intelligence training, done right, actually produces.
A Few Notable Ascension Leadership Academy Graduates
The breadth of people who have gone through the ALA program speaks to something important about how the work is designed. Transformation doesn’t care about your résumé. It meets you where you are.
Among the verified graduates of Ascension Leadership Academy:
Ronnie Lott, NFL Hall of Fame football player and four-time Super Bowl champion, went through the ALA program. So did Leonard Williams, Super Bowl champion and one of the most dominant defensive players of his generation.
Guaynaa, the global Latin music superstar, is an ALA graduate. So is Lele Pons, the actress, singer, and one of the most-followed social media personalities in the world.
Dayanara Torres, Miss Universe, actress, and entrepreneur, completed the program. Lior Weinstein, CTO of Tony Robbins’ organization — one of the most iconic personal development brands on the planet — is an ALA graduate.
Paul Hedrick, founder and CEO of Tecovas, the fastest-growing Western boot brand in America, went through ALA. JP Newman, a billion-dollar real estate entrepreneur, is a graduate. Silvia Salgado, a Univision network executive, completed the program. Azature Pogosian, the celebrity jeweler known for creating some of the world’s most extraordinary jewelry, is an ALA graduate.
These are not testimonials. These are facts about who has sat in the same room, done the same work, and walked out the other side changed.
What the Work Actually Is
Ascension Leadership Academy was co-founded by Brad Ballard and Jenna Phillips Ballard, and features world-class transformational trainer Chris Lee, one of the most respected figures in experiential leadership development. The program runs across three levels over approximately five months.
Level 1, called Discovery, is a three-day in-person weekend. It is designed to help participants identify the limiting beliefs, fears, and unconscious patterns that have been shaping their results in relationships, business, and life — often without their awareness.
Level 2, called Breakthrough, is a four-day in-person weekend. It takes the awareness built in Level 1 and moves it through the body and into action. Graduates consistently describe Level 2 as one of the most intense and meaningful experiences of their lives.
Level 3, called Leadership Integration, is a 75-day, 10-week program with three in-person weekends and daily coaching support. This is where the work meets real life. Participants practice new ways of leading in their actual relationships, their actual businesses, and their actual communities — with a team of coaches holding them accountable every step of the way.
Every Level 3 cohort also completes a community service project. To date, ALA cohorts have raised over $4 million for local nonprofits, with funds going to organizations serving homeless youth, children in need, and underserved communities across the country.
What Graduates Say
With over 114 verified five-star reviews, the documented experience of ALA graduates is consistent: the program works, and it works in ways that last.
Graduates who had spent years in therapy describe breakthroughs they couldn’t achieve in a decade of one-on-one sessions. Entrepreneurs report doubling and tripling their businesses. Parents describe fundamentally changing their relationships with their children. Couples describe saving marriages they thought were unsalvageable.
Elizabeth A., a graduate who had invested in personal development programs ranging from $6,000 to $100,000, called ALA “by far the BEST money I’ve ever spent.” Helen S., a Marriage and Family Therapist with decades of clinical experience who went through the program at age 69, now recommends ALA to her own clients, writing that it “would take years of therapy to accomplish” what the program delivers.
Matthew S., a graduate writing nearly two years after completing the program, described his transformation this way: “I am literally unrecognizable from the man that walked in the door to Level 1. I wake up each day overwhelmed with gratitude, and with a bulletproof understanding of myself, my worth, and my role in the world.”
That is not an outlier. That is the pattern.
Why the Community Matters
One of the things graduates talk about most is not the training weekends themselves. It is the people they meet during them.
The ALA community is made up of people who have done the work. People who speak the same language of accountability, emotional intelligence, and personal responsibility. People who, when you call them at a difficult moment, actually know how to show up.
In a world where loneliness and disconnection are at epidemic levels, this community is one of the most underappreciated outcomes of the ALA program. Graduates describe their cohorts as second families — groups of people they stay connected to not for months but for years, continuing to hold each other high long after the program ends.
Who ALA Is For
The ALA graduate community spans age 19 to 70 and beyond. It includes people at the top of their fields and people just starting out. What the graduates have in common is not where they started. It is a genuine desire to grow — to close the gap between who they are and who they know they can be.
The program is not for everyone. It requires honesty, openness, and a willingness to be challenged. But for the people who are ready, it consistently delivers more than they came for.
If you are ready to find out what that looks like for you, the next step is simple.
