The Role Of Attitude In Resiliency With Dr. Sam Adeyemi

Life happens, and not always the way we expect it to. Every single day we face change, stress, and uncertainty. What if you could learn to thrive no matter what life throws your way? Resilience expert Adam Markell and his inspiring guests explore breakthrough strategies to fully embrace change and build the resilience required to become change.

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Hey everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the Change Proof podcast. I am your host, Adam Markel, and I know that you're going to love the guest that I have in store for you today. His name is Dr. Sam Adeyemi. Sometimes called Dr. Sam. He has trained thousands of people in leadership for more than two decades. He has done this through the Daystar Leadership Academy DLA, which has graduated more than 52,000 people since 2002, and through seminars, workshops, and conferences. He currently serves as a mentor to hundreds of top CEOs in Nigeria. Dr. Sam is the author of Six Steps to Transform your Mindset and Elevate your Leadership Again. I know this conversation is going to be spectacular, so sit back and enjoy my conversation with Dr. Sam. Okay, Sam, so it was a great honor for me to read your bio to be sharing with my audience more about you. I know our community is going to be so curious to learn more and learn more about your book ships and the origin story and all of those things. It's an impressive cv. I want to ask you a question that is only tangential to that, which is to say, what's something that's not in your bio, in your introduction that you would love for people to know about you at the beginning of our conversation?

Okay. Thank you so much, Adam, for having me. What's not in my bio? Well, the fact that I studied civil engineering, that I trained to be an engineer originally, although now I'm known as a speaker, as a leadership expert, and a minister. So which means that I switched careers along the line. And the big question would be why in the first place? See, my granddad was the head of the builders in my hometown in Nigeria. My dad was also a building contractor, so it was just family tradition to be in the construction industry. I literally grew up on construction sites. So I studied civil engineering, right? And I was already a director in my dad's business by the time I was in college. So it was like my job was waiting for me. I was not meant to apply to anywhere for any job. Sadly, by the time I was out of college, my dad's business had collapsed and then I had to search for a job. It took me almost two years to get a job and during that time, because the business was down, things were really, really difficult for my family. It was difficult for my dad to pay the rent, was difficult sometimes for us to have food to eat and all that. And I became desperate because I was just starting out my life, and it was. Everything was looking bleak. And the big question on my mind was, is there anything that can really give me some. Some direction, some clear pathway forward? Are there any principles that at least should be able to guarantee success to a large extent? So I began to read. It's amazing. I began to buy books. I began to read. That's how I read. Tough Times Never Last, but Tough People do by Robert Schuller. And I began to read things there that were like mind twisting. Like I read a statement in the book that said, attitudes are more important than facts. I said, no, no, no, no, no, no. Facts are facts. Facts are sacred. What are you telling me, attitudes are more important than facts? I had to read it over and over and over, reflect deeply on it before I got it that what I think, how I feel, how I respond, they're more important than what is happening to me.

Wow. Attitude is something that's difficult to define for me. I find it to be sort of a combination of things. You know, almost like a compound. You know, water is made of hydrogen and oxygen, and it's H2O, the compound is.

Right.

You know. So how would you describe what. I mean? You've. You've done so already. But if I'm asking you to define attitude for our audience, how would you define attitude?

I would say I agree with you completely. It's a combination of what you think and how you feel. Right. So which is more or less what's going on on your inside, how you are responding to external stimuli. Right. So simply put, I would say it's the combination of what you think and how you feel.

I feel like if you've been in business or in any area of life, honestly, to see the ups and the downs and to experience really the roller coaster of life as it is, I think, for all of us. I mean, I only have my own life to. To really be, you know, an expert in, let's say. But I've been observing and have been blessed like you to work with leaders for many, many years now in organizations and to be given access to people, to see, to talk, to learn from, to offer insights to. In that process, I've certainly seen a lot of people go through a lot of ups and downs. And if there was one thing that I would say would be more of a predictor that that person would end up in a good place. Like success is a good word, but I also think it's a word that gets used a lot and you know, again, is another one of those words that isn't, Isn't one meaning anyway. It's a combination of things, and it's really very personal, too. But how that person navigates those situations, I think has more to do with their, with their attitude, their thinking than it has to do with anything else. I mean, the best example I have, you know, of someone else's life that. That has been inspirational to me and to so many other people is someone like Nelson Mandela. Because to imprison someone, physically imprison them for 27 years, I think is the case, and put them in a small cell and be in, in such a place, lacking any agency, any freedom whatsoever, you would imagine that that person would be bitter, resentful, would condemn the persecutors, would be angry or would have died. Died of just depression or, or, or, you know, or something. And yet we all know the story is that he comes out of prison to lead. To lead an entire community, both white and black, to some place that's better. I don't want to say it's complete unity. I don't think that's exactly true. But to create more harmony out of. As something was so desperately wrong and in need of change, and he waits 27 years and has that opportunity, is that not like through those 27 years in prison, what would have been more important to him than his attitude, than his thinking?

Exactly.

You agree? Yep.

Absolutely. Absolutely. I read this statement a quote, many years ago by Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of a former US President, and she said, it is not the things that happen to us that hurt us, it is how we respond that hurts us. That power of response, I read about it in the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey. And he broke responsibility into two words, response ability. And he said, most people don't use that power to respond. It's like, I slap you, you slap me back. And then they ask you, why did you slap him? And you say, oh, because he slapped me. And he said, that's not exactly true. Between the time something happened to you and when you responded, he said, there's that fraction of a second when you have the power to choose. You have the power to choose how to respond. But he said, most people don't use that ability. I think that's where the attitude comes in. So like you said, attitude is A big predictor, you know, of how a person would end up because they don't act. Other people's scripts, you know, if once someone does not use that power to respond, then there'll be acting scripts written for them by other people. But once you expand that capacity to respond, how you think, how you feel, then you just find out there's better control, there's better direction in your life, and you are more able to achieve the outcomes that you desire. So attitude is for Nelson Mandela, that's classic example of a man who, although he was oppressed, he was in a difficult place on the outside, but on his inside, he was in a different place altogether. He was a free man, right?

He was a free man, right, Sam? I mean, it's. It's the one freedom that we all have that no one, no one can take from us is how we think.

Absolutely true. You know, there's a way I describe attitude. I use the illustration of the sailboat, right? And I say to people, when you look at that sailboat, no engine to power it. It's the wind that moves it. You only have the sail. It's the wind. And I say, you've got to accept something about the wind. You have no control over it. You have no control over the speed or the direction of the wind. And I say, that's life. You have to accept that there are things beyond your control. In fact, most things in this life are beyond your control. The weather is beyond your control. The economy is beyond your control, right? Your governor or president is beyond your control. Other people's opinions, especially, are beyond your control. And when you focus on them, if you focus more of your energy and attention on them, I say that's like signing an agreement with frustration. It's predictable, right? You're going to feel powerless, feel helpless. So I say you look again at that sailboat and you realize it's not everything that is beyond your control. That sail is within your control. And when you turn it at the right angle, the wind that you cannot control actually takes you to where you want to go. It's amazing, right? So I encourage, therefore, that we focus on the things we can control, and we find out the things we can control are inside us, our thoughts, our emotions. Like we say.

This is almost. Is a. I think it's a. A great lead in to the part of the work that you do in the world, and that I and our company, workwell, does as well, is to meet organizations in their place of need. And what is consistently a place of need as you know, in that workplace is great management, not mediocre management, but really great management. And often the people that are not in management roles will be unhappy or be not productive or disengaged or lots of words to describe it. And if asked, and when asked why that is, they will point to their manager as the reason because that person's not supporting them, doesn't believe in them, is outwardly trying to sabotage them and every other thing you can imagine. And it's again, it's not maybe the topic for today, but it's ironic that that middle level management arena is under resourced. Often within an organization, it's the last place often that resources are directed. You know, you get plenty of money towards senior level and higher level, you know, leadership training, et cetera, et cetera. But that middle area filled with high performers, you know, people that were great at the roles that they were in and then they're given this promotion to supervise or manage other people, but with very little experience truly in doing that and training to do it. So I want to ask this question to you about both the book that you've written, but really at the moment, the point we're discussing around that, that moment, what you were saying about that moment, even that split second for the opportunity to make better decisions when it comes to how you, you respond to people and what emotional intelligence there is or isn't in that moment. I want to, I want to get a sense from the standpoint of that manager, what's your take as to, as to what could change there, what could really be pivotal and improve that, that relationship? Because this is across the board in so many companies that we hear this, that, that, that, that's the weak link in the chain. And I know you hear it as well. So in your role currently, what advice do you give in that area? What insights or thoughts do you have as to what could be improved?

Oh, thank you, Adam. So the big picture for me is culture that senior management or the leadership needs to pay attention to, to the culture, right? The way we do things that has evolved over time in the process of responding to different situations and circumstances. Culture is to a group of people, what habits are to individuals. You do something repeatedly, after some time, your conscious mind pushes it down to your subconscious mind just so that the conscious mind can focus on fresh problems. But once it gets to that subconscious level, it's auto automated, right? So when leaders don't pay attention to the culture, then things are in a flux and usually it's that middle level that actually suffers. Because there isn't intentionality in communicating the vision clearly, so people know why we're doing what we're doing. People then begin to pull in different directions. There isn't the communication of the values, the standards, the principles that guide decision making and behavior in the organization. Again, because there's a lot of movement in that middle level. Some people are moving into upper management. You have some others coming from ground floor into the middle management. So things are in a state of flux. If you wait two, three years, maybe half of the people at that middle level are actually new to that level. Right? So you'll be working on the assumption that people know what they're supposed to do, yet people are actually not sure of what to do. So it was in response to that issue of culture. That's why I wrote my book. I came to the conclusion that. That any leader that cannot shift people's mindsets and values and behavior cannot create sustainable change.

Right.

So my focus then was on how to shift people's minds, how to shape values. Right. How to shift behavior so it is consistent across board. So SHIFT is an acronym that stands for See, Hear, Insight, Formulate, Transform and Succeed. The basic principle that the methodology rests on is whatever you see and hear consistently over time will enter your heart. Whatever you see and hear consistently over time will go into the subconscious. And once it goes in there, it takes on a life of its own, so to speak. It makes your decisions for you. You would think that you're being rational in making your decisions, but it's actually that programming that makes the decisions for us. When I got that insight, I had to test it, you know, Are you really sure? Are you sure? And then I just realized it drives. It makes the media industry so powerful. You know, all we have to do is just sit in front of the TV or just look at the phone or listen to the radio over and over. Before you know it, it's going in there. The advertising industry is so powerful. If advertising didn't work, we would not spend billions of dollars. Right? Advertising. And we just need to roll those adverts over and over and over, and people don't know they're going in there. That's what makes movies powerful, Right? Our daughter, when she was in high school, came home with her friend who came all the way from Europe to school here in the United States. The young lady was speaking fluent English. So my wife asked, wait, you did your elementary school in Croatia. Were you taught in English there? She said, no. So how did you learn to speak English? She said, oh, by watching American movies. I thought, oh, whoa, okay, there must be something here. And then the ladies said they wanted to go to the mall to shop, and we took them to the mall. On the way, they said we should pick another friend of theirs who came from Vietnam. When the young lady got the Vietnamese got into the car, she was speaking with a fluent American accent. So my wife asked, were you taught in English in your country? She also said, no, I learned English by watching American movies. That day, for me, was a big revelation. It was like, oh, so this is really true. This principle really, really works, that these young people would actually learn to speak English just English, just by watching movies. Okay. It's the reason why the educational system is so powerful. What do we do in school? We go in, attend the classes, we see, we hear every day, Right? And we're being programmed, you know, gradually every single day. So that's the basic principle. Whatever you see and hear will enter your heart. The I stands for insight. I'm encouraging deep reflection on those things that you hear and see. Deep reflection. Because then you begin to make connections. Your mind will begin to make connections between horse and effect. You'll begin to recognize patterns and then understand, oh, wow, okay, this person did this and got that result. I want to get the same result. I've not been doing the same thing. Okay? Instead of doing this, I'm going to do that. That takes us to the F, which is formulate. That's where you make decisions. Instead of doing this, I will do that. And then we move on to transform, which is where you act on those decisions, and that's where you cultivate new habits. And then the S is success. Once you find what works, you repeat it, right? And then the success is sustainable. Uh, so in the book, I applied it to individuals. I have a chapter on personal shifts. I have one on professional shifts. Because I actually, then once it worked for me, I'll tell you, I really tested it to the extent of cutting pages off magazines and sticking them on the wall in my bedroom, printing pages off the Internet, sticking them on the wall in my bedroom, writing goals on play sheets of paper, sticking them on the wall in my bedroom, writing checks to myself, right? I'll take my checkbook. I write my name on the check, right? And then I would write a figure I had never gotten before and stick it on the wall. And gradually I saw those things happen. I went through the whole process at a subconscious level. Those new goals were shaping my thoughts, shaping the kind of books I read, shaping the kind of People I associated with. My thinking was changing, shaping my decision making the choices that I made. And gradually I saw those goals come to pass in my life. Right. I then applied the same thing to our staff in our office. I had to be intentional about what they were seeing and hearing. Right? The training had to be intentional. I had to repeat the vision over and over and over and over and every opportunity that I have, I repeat our vision, I repeat the values, I talk about the values, I use stories to illustrate the values, I model the values. And then, in fact, the training included in traveling internationally because I found out that when I traveled, what I would see and hear was also shaping my thinking. Then I encourage, you've got to go on vacation with your family, you got to travel, you've got to see new things. Okay? So this is my strong encouragement to organizational leaders. We've got to be intentional about shaping people's mindsets right within the organization. And sometimes the unique culture you want to create in your organization is different from the culture outside your organization. So I say you've got to treat your staff as cultural migrants because they're busy moving between two cultures. So you've got to be really, really intentional just so you can achieve your own goals. I think this is important so that it's not even only now at middle management, but there's a consistent understanding at all levels in the organization about why we are here and the best way to go about achieving it.

That's what was coming up for me as I was listening to you describe that, that you would really need to get the buy in of the most senior people in the organization. I don't want to say just the CEO, but for sure, that kind of shift or the shifts that is both the title of the book and its methodology, I can't imagine that being accessed. Well if you didn't have the buy in of whoever the top decision makers are.

Absolutely, you're very right on that. Change is not sustainable until the people at the highest level actually buy into it and actually stay at the forefront of it. I used to be a manager in an organization and I was reading books. I asked myself, what's the highest level I could get to in this organization? Okay, I need to begin to prepare for that level. So I was reading books that a CEO would read and I was getting ideas and I would give those ideas to my boss. He would say, that sounds good, that sounds good. But nothing was changing. And then there was a time my boss traveled and I have the opportunity to change some things. I Changed quite a number of things radically while he was away. And then when he got back, it was only a matter of weeks. Everything went back to where they were before.

Yes. I think you've made an imprint for me, and I know anybody that's been listening to this has really tracked it as well, that what we see and what we hear, again, they have had this really strong influence on us. And I want to remind people to remember the example of the two people that you referred to who learned English simply by watching, listening to, and seeing American movies, because I think we may take for granted, leaders may take for granted the degree to which people are within that organization, are being programmed by what they see and what they hear. And often, I think what can happen is we set about these values, these goals, these initiatives, these things that we call our mission and our vision, and all of that is great. And we put them into writing, and we put them in a plaque and put it in the break room and whatnot. And that's. Or it's in the. It's in the employee handbook. And yet there isn't a redundancy, if you will, to the messaging to what people see and hear in that regard. And therefore, even though there was great intentionality at a point in. Through a process that it loses, it's not sustainable. And ultimately, the energy of that process sort of evaporates. And then you're left with, really, a culture that is a reflection of what people do see and do hear regularly, which is different than what was intended when there was effort made to create something better, let's say, or different.

Oh, absolutely. You nailed something so important there. Yes. Sometimes organizations bring in consultants like us, and we advise and we help them to clarify their vision, their mission, and their core values. And then there's this fresh drive and all of that, like it's a campaign. And then after some time, everything just begins to fusela. And that's why I'm encouraging for leaders. It's. It's a daily thing. It's absolutely a daily thing, what people see and hear consistently. And, you know, I ask myself, so whatever it is that goes in through our eyes and our ears, what do we call it? It's knowledge or information. And I say, okay, you break up information. What do you have? You have in and you have formation. Whatever it is that is going in there through your eyes and your ears, they never leave you the same. They form you on the inside. It's in form. Right. They're shaping you on the inside. So organizational leaders cannot afford to take this for granted at all. We've got to be very intentional about everything, including the colors, the environment.

Yes, indeed, exactly everything.

We've got to be really, really intentional about what we could see on here.

I've so enjoyed this conversation and I don't want it to end. I know we've got just a minute or two here, but I did want to ask you about resiliency because just hearing your story and where your beginnings were and where you've gotten to, I want to understand your sort of. Your definition, if you will, of resilience or how you've used or say, how resilience has informed your experience in business and as a leader yourself. I'd love to. I'd love to just probe that with you for a moment.

Thank you. That's a book that really shifted my thinking Many years ago, this was over 30 years ago, and I saw a friend reading this book and it was titled how to Bounce Back from Failure to success in 30 seconds. I said, what? When you're through with the book, I've got to read it. I've got to read it. How to Bounce Back from Failure to success in 30 seconds. I think the author was dev d when I got the book and I began to read. The author said, well, you can bounce back from failure to success in 30 seconds because that's how long it takes you to decide to try again. That's how long it takes you to decide to try again. That really helped. That taught me to not mourn my mistakes for too long. In fact, I was so transformed by what I was reading from the books when I was searching desperately trying to find a way. I was so transformed by the things I read that some. In fact, exactly 30 years ago, I went on radio in Nigeria and began to teach people basic principles for success. It's amazing. I was. I was in my late 20s. Of course, I had this conflict in my head. It was like, what authority do you have to teach anybody how to succeed? Are you successful yet? But I did it anyway. I was just. It was a strong inspiration for me. And what I discovered was you really can't discuss success without discussing failure. You really can't. When we were in school, they took us into the lab and they would give us chemicals to mix together and so on. And they called whatever we did experiments, right? They weren't meant to produce perfect results. They were experiments. And then it looks like the older we grow, the more we lose the capacity for experimenting and we expect things to work out perfectly the first time. So I've got to find out that actually to achieve success, you achieve a lot of failure. It to the person that will be successful, it's not failure. It's actually a learning process. Right. Until you eventually find what works. So I would say again that resilience first begins with attitude. Begins with our interpretation of the things that happen in our lives. Once we have a negative bent, we get to wrong conclusions that stop us completely in our tracks. But once we have the correct attitude, especially to failure, then we welcome the failure. In fact, you realize you need to fail faster because each failure takes you closer. Right. To the ultimate success. I heard David Meltzer say, what would you think? What would you say if I said, it's exactly 24 no's that will take you to $1 billion? He said, how would you respond to the first no?

Right.

It will be with excitement. Look, let the nose come very fast, right? I want to hear the noise very quickly so I can get to the billion dollars. So I would say attitude plays a big role in our capacity for resilience because we know we just need to hold on long enough and things are going to change for the better.

Yeah, it's remarkable too. In our research over so many years on that word, resilience, what we see is that resilient individuals, teams, organizations are not the ones that made fewer mistakes. They're actually the.

It's the converse.

It's the one that those that made more mistakes are the more resilient ones. So, yeah, it's very curious. I have so loved this conversation with you and Dr. Adeyemi. I can't say enough to our listeners to find out more about your book and your work. And there'll be show notes that include information about both of those. So thank you for that. Shifts is a book I'm looking forward to reading as well. Is there a subtitle?

Yeah, it's Shifts Six steps to transform your mindset and elevate your leadership.

Absolutely. Love it, love it, love it. Sam, thank you so much for your time on the podcast today. Again, I expect people will be sharing this episode with friends and family, and we'd love to hear from you all. So, my community, thank you so much for being with us as always. And if you do know somebody that could benefit from listening to this, please share this podcast. And if you've got a question for myself or for Sam in regard to this episode, you can go to AdamMarkel.com podcast and leave your question or comment there. And of course, we'd love to hear from you in any way, shape or form, including if you take a moment to review this podcast on the platform that you consume it. That would be lovely. Five stars is always great. But whatever your feedback is, it is more than welcome and greatly appreciated. Sam, again, thank you so much for your time. You've been amazing and thank you.

Thank you very much, Adam.

I truly loved having that conversation with Dr. Sam. As you can hear, a very thoughtful person, extremely intelligent, big, big heart, and just the good, good human. I mean, it really is so obvious that, that I think it was Emerson that said something along the lines of, I can't hear a word you say because who you are is so obvious. It's, it's so. It tells the whole story. And so I was taking mental notes and writing and scribbling notes as well as I was listening to Dr. Sam share his thoughts. And one of the things that really resonated with me and bears, I think, repeating here is how important it is, the things that we see and that we hear. If we are wanting to create culture, which anyone that is in business, either for themselves or working in a business, in some role of leadership, is really concerned about that, and if not ought to be, but we're creating culture in every area of our lives. So in our roles as parents, as siblings, as friends, as community members, culture is vitally important. And what I was hearing from Dr. Sam is that the things that we see and that we hear ultimately become a part of our subconscious. They become a part of our heart consciousness, and we then act from that place. Our attitude is a reflection of that. So to be really intentional, to remind ourselves how important it is, the things that, that the people around us see and hear, because it will affect how they, how they feel, how they think and will inform their attitude. And also the same for ourselves, what are the things that we are, are curating for ourselves to see and to hear that will ultimately change our subconscious in the ways that are best for us. So the things that we truly want in our lives, whether it's to be the best leaders that we can be, whether it's to be successful in, however we define that, whether it's in money or it's in career or it's in, in some other area, how we can have the best relationships, the best health, the best financial life, whatever those things might be. So often it is that it's our attitude that is the most important intangible ingredient in defining or in setting about the ways and means that those things are achieved. And how does that happen? Well, I think what Dr. Sam shared with us is that it happens gradually, of course, but it happens by being very intentional about what we see and what we hear. And so I know that for my wife and I and with our kids when they were younger and now as young adults themselves, they have the choice of course to do this or not do this. But Randy and I, my wife, Randy and I, we routinely, every single year create a vision board for ourselves. And routinely throughout the year, look at it, think about it. And that involves something that is, you know, there's a very powerful visual aid, but even that I think could be, could be up leveled because there's an element of it being purely visual and not necessarily something that we hear that is activating that deeper understanding and that deeper insight and guidance perhaps. I certainly would say it is guidance from within that informs all the things that show up on the outside. So I just loved how he led us through the six components of his book, Shifts S H I F T S and not just the acronym, but what it means, but exactly how to apply it and where it lands within an organization and how important it is that there is this intentionality to how we address culture and what it is that will inform that culture. And again, that is what we see and what we hear and ultimately how people feel as a result of that. So love the conversation. I think it's an episode that's a keeper. It's worth sharing and I hope that you will share it with colleagues, friends, family members, et cetera. And as I said, also would love to hear from you and learn whether or not this is information that was insightful to you and helpful to you. That feedback is super helpful to us and we thank you for taking the time to share it. Also, if you're right now thinking about your own resiliency, how has it been that you have addressed challenges and been able to make a shift for yourself to be able to try again and move through difficult situations and not react, but respond, especially when you're triggered or when things are going differently than you would prefer. I think how we are able to show up best in those situations is the reflection of our resilience. If you want to find out where you are feeling that right now, what. What's a snapshot of your resiliency in this moment, mentally, emotionally, physically and even spiritually speaking, you can go to rankmyresilience. Com, rank my resilience.com and absolutely free. And three minutes is all it takes. And you'll get your own confidential report as a snapshot. If you've taken the resilience assessment in the past, it might be really cool to see what changes have occurred since the last time that you took those three minutes to answer those 16 questions and find out just where you are at. For now, anyway, I would just once again thank you for being a part of this community. It is a blessing and we thank you for everything that you that you are and everything that you you are adding to the world that we all live in and share. Thanks again and ciao for now.

Thanks for listening. We hope you now have even more tools and greater insights to build resilience and become change proof. Remember to leave a review on Apple Podcasts and you may be featured in an upcoming episode. For more resilience tips and strategies, including support for building change Proof improve teams, visit AdamMarkel.com to get your own free resilience assessment, go to rankmyresilience.

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