How to Reprogram Your Mind & Lead Your Family Like a Boss with special guest Sam Adayemi

All right. You are in for such a treat today. I have what I consider my personal leadership coach with me today to help you. Now, I. Look, I know a lot of moms are listening, and if you are a mom, you already know you're a leader. You're a leader in the home. And Sam Adeyemi is an amazing leadership coach. He's an incredible pastor, and he's just an incredible person, too. You're in for such a revelation today. I feel like you're in the right place at the right time. So let's decide and activate how we're going to be leaders in the home.

Welcome to the Hannah Keeley show, where America's number one mom coach dishes out bold truth, brain hacks, and holy spirit fire to help you ditch the chaos and send anxiety running back to hell with its hair on fire. Every week, Hannah keeps it real, from breakdowns to breakthroughs and everything in between. So if you're ready to transform your life, your family, and your future, you're in the right place. Cause this is where faith gets fierce. And moms, come on, let's get this party started.

Sam, thank you so much for hanging out with me today.

Thank you, Hannah, for having me back on Crazy Blessed.

I love it. I love it. We are blessed like crazy. And I. I just devours. Your book shifts. And I love this because I want a system. I want a clean system. I want to know what to do. Like, if you're going to tell me how to bake a cake, I want you to get in the kitchen with me, and I want you to bake it with me so I don't get it wrong. And I feel like this is what you've done. And this book is like, yes, you want to be able to elevate your leadership, transform your mind. You want to be. And I know for moms, I'm going to speak personally for moms, you want to be that person who can lead your entire family into the next level. And I think you've broken down that into such a clear system. But tell me, like, why did you decide to write this book right now?

Thank you so much, Hannah. I decided to write this book because I realized that most transformation efforts in our world fail at the personal, organizational, national, even global levels. Things change pretty slowly in our world. Like, when we were coming into this year, a lot of people made New Year resolutions, but within two to three weeks, the resolutions had fizzled.

We don't even know where the list is at that point. Like, I wrote them down somewhere. I Don't know.

Somewhere. Right. So I wanted to know why. Right. I wanted to know why most change efforts fail, why people's lives change slowly. And I look back into my own experience and realized there were some principles that I had been applying, and I realized they actually make up a framework. Right. So this whole book is based on a framework that I saw in the verse of the Bible, Mark 13:15. The disciples of Christ were asking him, why do you always speak with parables? And he said, oh, it's because the hearts of the people have grown dull. Their eyes, they have closed. Their ears are dull of hearing, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, lest they should understand with their hearts and turn so that I should heal them. Now, this verse hit me real hard because I had a research question. How do I change my heart? The one major reason why transformation efforts fail is because people underestimate the power of our programming as humans. Or should I say habits. The power of habits. So the psychologists say, when something. When you encounter a fresh problem, your mind goes to work trying to create solutions. Then you test the solutions. When you find what works, then, of course, you repeat that over and over and over. Or when you're learning a new skill like driving. At first it's complicated, but then with practice, you get it. And then you do it again and again and again. They say when it becomes routine, us, the mind pushes it down to the subconscious.

Yeah.

We call that the heart. Right. All through the Bible, it's called heart. Once it gets in there, it goes on automatic. You think without thinking. Right. It influences your choices, your decisions, your behavior without you consciously thinking about it. And it's so powerful, it overrides most of the time what your conscious mind is thinking.

Yeah.

I'll give you an example. So my wife, Nick, and I decided to go to a restaurant to eat here in Atlanta. And the restaurant is right next to the shopping mall closest to our house. On the way, we got into this conversation. And it was really good, right? We were enjoying it, and I wasn't thinking about the driving until we got to the parking lot of the shopping mall. Now, remember, we were going to the restaurant, not the shopping mall, right? So it was when I got into the parking lot that both of us just turned to each other and said, what are we doing here? Right? And honestly, I figure that's how it is with the lives of most people. I have a feeling that a lot of people are not where they really would want to be. And they're wondering, how did I get here. Well, I delegated driving to the auto system. Right, Right. But I wasn't consciously thinking about the drive. So when the new goals that we set are not in alignment with our programming, the programming overwhelms the new goals.

Right, Right.

When you. In terms of organizations, the management guru, Peter Drucker, he said. He said culture will eat your strategy for lunch. So group habit is culture, group programming is culture. Right. So I wrote the book to give leaders the tools to use to transform ourselves first.

Right.

And then to transform our families and our organization. So the shifts is actually an acronym for the framework. The S for seeing, the H is for hearing, I is for insight, F is formulate, T is transform, and S is succeed. This is the powerful principle I saw in Matthew 13:15. Whatever you see and hear consistently over time will enter your heart. You can be intentional about the programming if you're not careful. That principle drives many industries. It drives the advertising industry. What do we do with the adverts we see and hear continuously on radio, on tv, on the Internet? The movie industry is so powerful because what we do is seeing and hearing, and it's programming people all over the world. The media is powerful. You watch the news. You notice at the top of the hour, they repeat the same thing again and again. And the problem with the news is in the media world, they say, good news is no news, bad news is good news. Right?

Right.

So the stronger the emotion they can attach to the news, the better results they get. Music is powerful because it's seeing and hearing and it's programming us. Right. So I wrote here how you can be intentional about what you see and hear. I tested these principles. Right. I would write goals on plain sheets of paper and stick them on the wall in my bedroom. I tested it first with a car and. Yeah, the exact thing that I wrote. Okay. And then I said, if it works for cars, then it must work for cash. I wrote a check to myself, an amount I'd never gotten before. Put it on the wall in my bedroom. Eventually, I got the money and I said, wait, this is now more than a coincidence. So till tomorrow, you will always see things on the wall. Some people, yeah, they call it vision board, right?

Yeah. Yeah.

Got to be intentional about what you see and hear. When you've done it personally, then you are careful about your family, what they see and hear, especially your children. And then for your organization, you are intentional about what they see and hear. You are intentional about your training. And it's the same thing for a whole nation that's why the schools are important.

Yeah.

That's why I wrote this book.

That is so. It's so important. And I've always said, you can't change the world till you change your world. You can't transform your family till you transform yourself. And I think for a lot of moms, they are the thermostat in their home. And until they understand how to see something different, here's something different and transform, they're not going to see it happening. So we can either complain about what's happening in our home and in our family, or we can start with the one who's setting the temperature of it and start to change that person, start to change the inner person. And it reminds me, I love that it's illustration in, you know, when Jacob would. Would take the sticks and he made them spot it and he would cut them away and he would put them before the animals because he knew all the spotted ones would be his. And so think about even as an animal, even as a. As a.

Exactly right.

You would see the spots before you, and you would start to create that in your body, and it would show up on your skin. And so if it can change a herd of sheep or goats, and then it can change you. That principle of whatever I put before me is what will be shown within me.

Absolutely. You nailed it. That's one of the most powerful illustrations of this principle in the Bible. And it works for animals.

Jacob had to get it from God. He had to get that from God, put it before them. So what are you putting before you?

Exactly right. So, in fact, when I. When I. When. When I got the insights, I had to ask myself, oh, my God, wait. Because, see, Christ said, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their hearts, and turn. Yeah, right. And change on the inside. He said, so that I should heal them. So what hit me there was, oh, my God. The healing is the physical manifestation. But look at all the things that happened before that.

Right, right, right. And we're praying for the healing, but we're not doing the steps that lead up to it.

Thank you. So I asked myself, wait, I can't just run away with this as a doctrine. Is this anywhere else in the Bible? Then I remembered Proverbs 4:20 to 23.

23, 22, 23.

Yes, my son, attend to my words. Incline your ears to my sayings. Don't let them depart from before your eyes. Keep them in the midst of your heart. It's complete. First Corinthians 2:9 Eye has not seen, ear has not heard. Neither has it nothing to do. The heart of any man. The things God has prepared for those who love him. Right. So this is actually how God changes our lives, changing what we're seeing and hearing. Like you said for Jacob, he said, an angel of God appeared to me in the dream of the night. Right. And told him the impossible can become possible. Right. If you change what you're seeing. So this is so, so powerful.

Yeah.

And my hope is that as leaders, we can be intentional, you know, about what our families are seeing. My dad moved our family in Nigeria, moved us to a new state altogether, because he said, I don't want my children to grow up in this environment. Right. Moved us to a bigger city where we had better opportunities, where we saw better things. And my mom and I were discussing this. My dad passed last year, but my mom and I were discussing this three days ago. And she referred back to it and said, we're grateful to God that Daddy did that.

Yeah.

Most of my contemporaries who grew up in. In the place where I was born, they didn't. They didn't end up quite well. That's how important it is for a family to be intentional about our children. And hearing a scene. Now, let me talk about the movies. Something interesting happened. So my daughter, she's out of college now, but when she was in high school here in Georgia, they had a short break. She was in boarding school. Then she. She requested permission to bring her friend who came from Croatia. So when they came home, the young lady from Croatia was speaking fluent English. So my wife asked her, wait, you did your elementary school in Croatia. Did they teach you in English? Then she said, no, they did not teach me in English. So how did you learn to speak English? She said, oh, by watching American movies. I thought, oh, wow. And then they said they wanted to go shopping. On the way to the shopping mall, they requested. We picked another classmate of theirs who was staying with another family. That classmate came from Vietnam. She got into the car, she was speaking fluent American English. So my wife said, wait, were you taught in English in Vietnam? She said, no. How did you learn to speak English? She said, oh, by watching American movies. For me, that day was like, what?

That's amazing.

Right? Right.

Environment is. Everything is. You can even take. I. I was reading about how you can take a cancer cell and put it in a healthy environment, and it will change the cell. When it goes into a healthy petri dish, you will. It will change the cell because it's surrounded now with healthy Cells. And that's the same thing. When you immerse yourself in the environment.

Wow.

Of. Of worship, of praise.

Exactly.

When you, when you immerse yourself in that. I believe in the presence of God, there is no scarcity, there is no lack, there is no disease, there is no, there is nothing that is outside of that covenant. Blessing.

Right.

And you just, I mean, when, when you mentioned above all else, guard your heart for out of it flow all the issues of there. That right there, you can look in your environment and see what's in your heart. You're, you're creating it, you're authoring it. Because God has given you the power because he's the creator. You're made in his image, so you're creating. The problem is some people are creating intentionally and some people are creating unintentionally. And when we're creating unintentionally, then we wonder like, just like you in the parking lot with your wife and how did I get here? How are, how's my money looking? Like this. Why are my kids acting like this? Why is my home environment feeling this way? It started inside.

Absolutely. Absolutely. You know, just like Solomon expressed it, Keep your heart with all diligence out of it. And the issues of life. And Christ said exactly the same thing.

Yeah.

Matthew 12:35. A good man from the treasures of his heart brings out good things. An evil man from the treasures of his heart brings out evil things. Right. So if you don't like, just look at what you've been bringing out. If you don't like it, then go change what is in there.

Right, Right.

And how to do that? Changing is what we're talking about. You've got to be intentional about what you're seeing and hearing.

Yes.

The Bible talks a lot about your association. So powerful. Right. The blessed man in someone blessed is the man and goes straight into his associations. He does not walk in the council of the ungodly, nor stand in the way of sinners, nor sit in the seat of discomfort. But his interaction is with the word of God. Right? Yeah. And then you have Proverbs 13:20 again from Solomon. He who walks with the wise will be wise. The companion of fools will be destroyed. Says it as a matter of fact. It's not a suggestion.

It's fact. It's fact.

Right, it's fact. So. So we've got to be intentional about the way we lead, about the environment that we allow for ourselves and our families. And to be candid, I'm asking now for us to be culture Shaping leaders.

Yes, yes, we should be. This is. This is what we. We have the power to do that. I believe we have the power to. To expand the kingdom of God here on earth as it is in heaven.

Absolutely.

And we take that up. And it's got to. I believe it has to start in the home. It has to start with the family.

I agree.

It's so vital. And just how you created these, basically a system like, change what you're seeing, change what you're hearing. And here's a problem that has come up that I found to come up with a lot of people who are like, all right, if it's going to change, I've got to initiate the change. And they start really immersing themselves in God's word. They start making differences in what they're seeing and what they're hearing. And then they get frustrated because it's like, wait, I'm not. I'm not seeing it yet in my life. I found that in some people. And what I tell them is, you're just looking at the past version of you. This is the past version. You're creating something new. So do not grow weary and well doing. So do not grow weary and well hearing. Do not grow weary and well seeing in due time. Because that God gives us his blessing, always in seed form. And so don't quit this. Like, if you're. If you're operating in this way, if you've changed what you're seeing and hearing, and if you're feeling the transformation, it's going to happen inside. So give it time for that seed to grow into a harvest. But don't get discouraged if it's like, but I'm still in debt. No, that's. That's your past version. We're moving out of it. You know, I just want to make sure people have hope when they start creating this change that. No, I have to. This is the promise of God. This is his word, and he's not a man that he could lie.

Right. Oh, this is so brilliant. Thank you for bringing that aspect in. It's not magic. It's a process. It's principles. Right. It takes time. Right. And eventually it does happen. You just find out those pictures that have become dominant inside, they gradually become your reality.

Right.

Let me tell you an interesting scenario with our family. So the first time we traveled from Africa to Europe, we went to Greece and Italy. So at Italy, we in. That was a long time ago. That was 24 years ago. So the Internet wasn't that strong then. Making reservations and Things like that. We actually landed at the airport in Milan when we called up two hotels. So I made reservations on phone. One was a one star hotel, the other was a five star hotel. If we went to the one star hotel, we would have some money left for shopping. If, if we went to the five star hotel, there would be no money for shopping.

Right.

So we took a taxi, went to the one star hotel. We got in there and there was only one staff on duty, only the receptionist. And she said, well, I'm sorry, some, some people will come in, join me in the morning, we serve breakfast. After that they go, and it will be only me left. Okay, so no lunch, no, no denying this hotel said, okay. We wanted to go up with the elevator. She opened it. Well, she said, well, I'm sorry, your bags will not be able to go with you on the elevator. So you go up first, then you just press the button for the first floor. You know, put your bags and press your floor and it will come up to me. Just stand by the elevator. Oh my God, what did, where am I?

How did I get here?

Right? We got into the room and I said, I immediately, I just told my wife, Nikki. I said, you know what, we're not sleeping here. This is no good. This is our first time in Europe. I came here to get beautiful pictures for my mind.

Right, right. I need to be surrounded in this. I don't want to be surrounded in this.

So, so I went back to the receptionist and said, you know what? I said, and there was this rail track that went by the hotel and it was making noise and our children were young. I said to the lady, I said, you know, the trains make so much noise. You know, we have young kids, we want to be sure they'll be able to sleep. She said, oh, what do you want to do? I said, we'll go, we'll move somewhere else. She said, oh, can I call the taxi for you? I can call the taxi for you. I said, oh, thank you so much. Thank you so much. That's how we moved to the five star hotel. Because as we arrived, the Potters were outside, you know, opened garden, brought the trolley. I say, yeah, that's what I'm talking about.

That's what I'm talking about.

I came to get here. In other words, we, we saw it as an opportunity to invest in our thinking, in our dreams.

Yeah.

And eventually that became our norm.

Right, right. Because we're never going to see it with our eyes open if we can't first see it with our eyes Closed. Got to see it inside of us. And then it surrounds us. And I love the last step. I just wanted to. To end with this. This last step. Succeed. Your word here is your actions lead to success. No, you're not dreaming. I love that. I love that. Because I truly believe that there's power in dreaming. And God wants to give you the desires of your heart. And he doesn't like small dreams. Don't honor a big God. He wants the big dreamers.

Thank you, Hannah. Abraham was brooding over their baroness. His baroness with Sarah.

Yeah.

And God said, look, come out of your house. Come out of that tent. How much can you see when you stay inside the tent?

Yeah.

Look up to the sky. As many as those stars are, so will your descendants be. Quit worrying over one child. I'm bigger than that. I'm bigger than that. Dream big. And that's what we want to say to someone today. It doesn't matter what you've been through, how difficult it has been. You can't afford to focus on the past, you know, like you've said they can. We can't afford to focus on what is not been working. We need to focus on God and what he's prepared for us. You remember when the snakes, poisonous snakes, were killing the Israelites And God told Moses, you make the same shape an image like that thing and put it on the rod and lift it up. Tell them not to look at what is killing them. Tell them to look up.

Yes.

And those. The poison will not be able to act on them anymore.

That's right.

New picture. And today what we have is the son of God. We do hung on a tree, lifted up. Lifted up where? And he's taking our sins and taking all the consequences. Taking all the pain and the sorrow and the poverty and everything that is evil. And on the other side of that, we are free from all that. And we can believe God for the very best.

Beautiful, Beautiful. Sam, thank you so much for hanging out with me today. I just, I. I know this has been such a blessing to so many people. Thank you very much. And guys, we're gonna put this in the show notes, but make sure you grab a copy of Shifts. It is gonna bless you like crazy.