EP.018–Owning and Having Confidence in your story w/ Daniel Adesiyan

Last week we began the conversation on the importance of nurturing our environments properly so we can execute effectively. This week's conversation serves as an extension but with so much more! I'm joined by my guest Daniel Adesiyan who speaks on the power of community, vulnerability and the importance of sharing experiences. It was amazing to hear how open and honest he was on his experiences and our conversation served as a reminder that vulnerability will never be a weakness.

Daniel is a lawyer, podcaster, spoken word and voiceover artist. His passion and enthusiasm for growth amongst his peers propelled him into starting The Risen Generation initiative, a platform aimed at enlightenment and the embracing of progressive paradigm shifts.As a lover of sports, during his free time he plays and watches various sports and is an ardent supporter of Arsenal Football club.

You honestly don't want to miss this conversation and this is your reminder there is no shame in your experiences they don't shape you.

Rhieme: Hi Daniel thank you so much for joining us today. Can you please tell us about yourself?

Daniel: Hey Rhieme, thank you for having me. I'm really honoured that you asked me to do this. I appreciate the work that you do. I really do. I feel like it's really liberating and you know it gives people a voice that they normally would not have. So thank you for having me. My name is Daniel, I'm 24 at this point and 25 in a couple of months, I'm really looking forward to that. I'm a lawyer that's my profession but I work as a consultant. As an individual I'm really focused on contributing value and doing whatever I can to bring value to the community that I'm in and to the people in my life. I'm an arsenal fan just to put that out there.

Rhieme: Thank you very much for sharing Daniel.So we're just going to get straight into it. What does owning your story mean to you? Most of the time when people enter a new phase they're almost ashamed of what they've experienced you’ve been very open about your experiences.

Daniel:The first thing for me is owning your story is really about understanding that we're all different. I strongly believe in uniqueness and individuality. Growing up my dad would say this, ‘you’re not like the other kid’. I didn't understand what that actually meant and when now I do. So for example, if I go to my dad, I say, oh, that I want a pair of shoes. He says why I say Oh, because x has it. My dad said to me no but if that's the reason why you want to have it, it’s simply comparison. I think that's something we struggle a lot with in this generation. Comparison complex, that we're constantly comparing ourselves to other people. It might seem like we compare ourselves based on the number of likes or how many followers or how rich you are the type of lifestyle you live.That subconsciously goes into how we experience life. So I feel like for me it just got to a position where I started to realise that uniqueness and being embracing yourself as an individual is such a great asset because no two people are the same. Think about it. Everyone is different it got to a point where I wanted to separate myself from other people because I didn't want someone else's glory. Like I want it to be my own self I like to do my own stuff and I like for people to see me and say this is Daniel. I don't want them to sit down and say this is Rhieme’s friend, I want you to know me for who I am. And I just feel like that's the most important thing. Your story's always been written. That's just the honest truth. Everyday you write in yours and I constantly say to myself at the end of my life, what are all my stories? I don't want my story to be a bad story or one I'm not happy to speak about. So it's just constantly knowing that I need to be myself as an individual and also knowing at the end of the day I want my story to be one that liberates one that blesses people. I have no control over the past I can really control what happens in the future.

Rhieme: That's so good especially what you said about comparing yourself to other people and not taking someone else's life as yours. That’s something I've had to work on. For the longest time even the smallest of things, I'll use Instagram and was feeling like my page had to look a certain type of way. I remember the time when everyone around me almost had like a faith highlight and at some point, I felt pressured to do the same thing. But I remember one day God was like I didn’t ask you to make one, it’s not something to show, it's more of a lifestyle. But definitely what you said about owning your story and not taking someone else's life as yours because there's no point doing that it wouldn't work. I feel like at the end of the day, everything catches up to you so there's only so far you can try and mirror someone else's life you will get tired.

Daniel: You definitely will get tired. There's a scripture in Colossians chapter 2 verse 9 that speak about how every joint, every branch is supplied to the body as a whole. I also see me being my real self as my contribution to the world. There's something I call the synthesis of differences where different bits of individuals come together and that's what makes the world what it is today.If everyone was a doctor that would be a serious problem. So it would be an injustice to myself and to the world at large for me to try and conform because my difference is going to impact the world in its own way. So just imagine you weren't doing this there would be X number of people who are being deprived of the growth and the liberation. The fulfilment they get from what you're doing. It would be such a great injustice to the world and a great justice to God who has asked you to do this.

Rhieme: Definitely I just wish more people would just step out in their own unique way. Because sometimes you may feel like God is asking you to do something you’ve never seen done before. So like when I started this I was like God why am I recording stuff as if it’s a podcast and He was just like, don't compare it to what you've seen, because at the end of the day, everyone is supposed to bring something new to the table and there are so many aspects to God so why put Him in a box?

Daniel: I mean Jesus brought salvation, no one else has brought that. So you know, everyone's different.

Rhieme: Okay, so what's your journey in being confident in yourself been like so far?

Daniel: This is actually a funny question because I'm not going to lie I've always been a confident person. My parents just told me as a kid I would literally walk up to people and be like can I pray for you? But I feel like the journey changed when I realised I was confident in the wrong thing. That was so important for me. So I was a confident guy in the sense that growing up as a kid in high school I would pursue multiple women multiple women would have some kind of affection for me and I will be confident that like, oh I'm good with women or that girl likes me.The problem was never confidence. I feel like ever since I started to change the things I put my confidence in, that made a whole difference. So first of all, being confident in my faith with God is it for me. It’s probably the greatest thing I’ve ever found. A lot of people are vocal about their faith because they feel like it's cool to be a Christian. I mean, it is cool to be a Christian, don't get me wrong, but it's much more than just the Instagram caption or having a faith reel, sorry for that shade.It was being confident in the fact that I'm going to be able to tell people that God had convicted me massively about my relationships with women. How I view the opposite sex, my addictions. Very few will tell you I used to be addicted to pornography and God convicted me about that and I had to change. So it's more about just being confident in the right thing. So being confident in my faith, being confident in myself as an individual, because I realised that I had a lot of insecurities because I was always trying to compare myself to the next person.

Rhieme: Thank you so much for sharing I've struggled with it. Personally, I think mine was more of seeking validation from people. But it’s shown me that true confidence has nothing to do with people to be very honest and has everything to do with what you're rooted in. So if you want to do something at the back of your head, I mean this happened to me, I was like how many people would even support? I remember when I was starting this, I didn't share it until I knew 100% I was going to do it because I didn't want to be doing it because x person said it was a good idea.

Daniel: It's so funny you said that because I had the same experience with my podcast. I thought about the podcast idea July of last year and then I didn't start till September, because I was like nobody's going to listen to this, everyone listens to FK and Jola.First of all, it's like you don't even talk about the things that people would care about that was literally me until I released it and the feedback I got just blew my mind. I always tell myself, one thing that really helped me was anything I do, if I impact one life or change one life, I'm never going to stop doing it, including my own, that life might be mine. Sometimes I listen back to some of the things that I say on my podcast and I’m like hold on that’s not me.

Rhieme: I love what you said about including yours, because I feel like a lot of the stuff we do is to help other people but then it helps you at the same time. When God asks you to do something, He also cares about you as an individual. You're doing this for people, but you're doing it for you to.

Daniel: Yeah you're going to get off this call and be like that was an amazing call you would feel the greatest sense of fulfilment. I'm sure each time you put up a poster each time you do something you just have this internal satisfaction. Let me tell you a funny story. When I my law school exams I had a paper on a Friday and Monday I usually would release a podcast episode. So imagine Sunday evening I'm supposed to be reading for my exam but somewhere deep inside of me I just feel so uneasy, like I need to release that episode. I found myself the morning before my exam editing to release a podcast episode the morning before my exam and I edited it. It literally gave me the greatest satisfaction and even made me start .So I feel more than everyone else it also affects you and that's why sometimes I don't even hesitate to take a break on social media or stop releasing episodes.

Rhieme: Definitely what you said about switching off. I do the same thing like I already told myself I'm not opening Instagram till six.

Daniel: Oh my gosh, you’re in my head! Because I literally said the same thing this morning. Sometimes it actually happens like it’s such a reflexive thing.

Rhieme: Definitely,I would say I’m more of an introvert than an extrovert and I thrive better in my own space. So if I'm around people for too much I get tired. Even if I'm not and I'm online constantly and haven't like switched off, it affects everything I'm doing. I likedoing things from a place of ease.

Rhieme: How were you able to find your voice?

Daniel: When I saw this question, I was like wow this is such a good question because I feel like I still haven't found it to the degree that I would want to. That's something I have to point out. First of all, I mean there's God because God is the most important thing for me. God literally enabled and helped me to do it. There was a point in my life where I felt like I had so much in me and I couldn't do anything with it. So it's one thing to feel you can't do something right and then you don't do it. Another thing is probably even more painful to know that you have potential and then just sit on that potential. That's one of the worst feelings ever. Sitting on potential was hurtful it would really hurt. For example, in football there are some players who are sat on the bench and in their heads they’ll tell you they were just itching to get on the pitch because they knew they could actually do a way better job than the guys playing. So for a while I certainly felt inadequate. For a couple of years I felt like what did I have to say? I have no experience, I’m just a young kid. But as I began to get closer to God, God began to show me. There are two scriptures one in Timothy, it says don't let any man despise your youth. I started to spend more time with God and began to feel a lot more conviction about speaking out and being more vocal. So that was the first thing. The second thing was my family and my friends. Like I said I'll be having conversations with my friend and they’ll say guy, you're wise you’re a smart guy. It was the little statements that gave me the confidence to start my podcast. I had to buy a mic, editing software and everything. My sister paid for podcasting course for me. I didn’t have a laptop that was good enough at that point but my brother bought me a laptop. So when I think about those things, I'm like wow, having the right circle of people around you is so important. When I started one of my friends actually bought me a second mic. So that I could, I could have two different mics.

So when you think about how important having the right environment is, you're probably not going to do anything you're supposed to do if you don’t have the right people. One of my friends would send me YouTube videos of people like Joe Rogan and be like listen to this episode, listen to this idea and listen to the intro I feel like you should overlay this with your voice and I just use this concept.

Basically I just tried to find ways of just equipping and just encouraging myself to actually do things. Not just do things but how to do things properly. How have I been so blessed to have you guys surrounding this I always say one of the greatest blessings in my life is the people God has surrounded me with. I feel like having a having a great support system is really important. Of course you have to invest in yourself it's not easy to be up on hours recording and editing. I never just come up with stuff I usually would take an hour to meditate, write down stuff. Literally God would wake me up at the weirdest times like, I don't have a sleep schedule anymore. I honestly don't. Because I could be up by like 1 or 1:45 and I'm just like guy, why are you waking me up? I don't want to be awake then I start to calm down and try and tune into what He's trying to say. So everything will literally flow from somewhere. He’ll say to me get a particular scripture and out of that scripture ideas just start flowing. If I open my you-tube page you'll be so surprised because from TD Jakes, Steven Futrick people who have gone ahead of me and have started to release content to pave the way for the next set of guys. It takes time to sit down and listen to these guys speak. I watch how they speak, their gestures all these things helped me find my voice. Helped me speak better, to understand.

Rhieme: Okay, I'll try and summarise everything you shared. What you said about having the right people around you and stuff that's something I've experienced slash still experiencing. As you said sometimes you can feel it when you have more to you. From last year I felt very uncomfortable I just knew there was so much more to me and part of the reason was because I was limited by the people around me, I couldn't really see a lot of people like expressing themselves properly. I mean, you don't have to do something but just seeing the same thing constantly and mirroring that made me feel very uncomfortable. The closer I got to God, the more I became free. When you're just talking to God and you're free everything you do flows from your relationship with Him and what He's telling you to do. Now I’m surrounded by more people that are aligned.

Daniel: I mean here we are.

Rhieme: Like you and some of my friends. We're not doing the same thing we all have different interests, but we’re very intentional. It's just so key that people actually believe in you because you may have so much potential and no one pulls it out.

Daniel: I mentioned God, I mentioned people but I feel like people should also be careful about partners. I'm saying this because we live in a generation where everyone tends to have a person of interest. I feel like at some point in life, it would no longer be down to your guys it's going to be down to your partner, the person who you spend the most time speaking with because you start to talk about the people you spend the most time around with and if you have a partner who doesn't enable your voice, you will actually suffer for it. Now I'm not going to call out anyone but it got to a point where I had to drop certain relationships because I didn't feel comfortable expressing my voice because I would say something. I would say something about an Instagram live or something and then I would have to start to worry about how it made my partner feel.

Rhieme: But no, I feel like that's so important.As you said, you will eventually spend more time with that person. I feel like your partner should be your number one cheerleader like what are you embarrassed about? If someone finds themselves with someone whose discouraging, the problem is with them. Like why will God want you to be with someone who will limit you? Just going back to that whole thing of being intentional or having your own standards, one is my partner shouldn’t limit whatever God is asking me to do.

Daniel: Absolutely, that's probably why I personally feel as you start to go with God, He will begin to pull you out of relationships. So I had this experience where for whatever reason in the relationship or whatever it was I started to realise I was actually getting some serious insecurity. Like the craziest insecurity ever like you said it's actually your fault. Because, you know, you shouldn't be taking that.A lot of us try to use our partners, we try to blame our partner, as opposed to ourselves because you know if you see something and you're more comfortable with that then you can take that to legitimise your insecurity and that's what a lot of us do. So we're insecure, hurt people hurt people. It's just the very vicious cycle. So yeah, I feel like everyone should just be careful about their partners.

Rhieme: On your podcast, you've been very open and vulnerable about your experiences.How have you been able to get to that point?

Daniel: One thing God told me was there’s power in vulnerability. Everyone says that and it’s so true.The second thing was when you're vulnerable there’s nothing to lose but pride and I want you to loose your pride.A lot of us are proud because we’re not vulnerable. If you’re vulnerable enough you speak about your flaws, you speak about how inadequate you are you'll be forced to break your pride. When God told me there's nothing to loose but pride I was like whoa that’s a lot sir. The second thing is I see my life as one of the several ways through which God helps people. Everyone’s life really, we're actually supposed to help people. The Bible tells us God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life. Essentially, Jesus Christ came to save us. Jesus Christ says I shall do great that works not speaking about salvation speaking about being there to help people. Really, I just want to be able to help people and I always say all the time I cannot afford to go through everything I've experienced in life and then gone through them, grown through those things, and then keep those things to myself. That will be such a huge disservice to God and everyone else.God wants us to go through life, learn and then help other people. The Bible says that Jesus Christ was a good High Priest, because he has been touched with the feelings of our infirmities and He has been tempted in every way that we were tempted, yet without sin. So He is capable of helping us because he has experienced everything.The problem in our world is that people go through all these things and then use it to beat people on the head and be like you’re a bad person. However, I want to be able to say look, I know what you feel, I've been there. I'm not out of it yet but I've actually been there and I want to be able to help you because I've been through it.

So again, I was speaking about how I had dealt with addiction for the longest time and I would like to feel like I've overcome it. I don't deal with addiction anymore and I'm free. There was a point in my life where I never thought I'll never be able to do any of this but God has been merciful and has helped me. A couple of weeks ago, some guy reached out to me, and was like I'm dealing with this, I keep going back, and I really want you to help me. I mean, I can't help you, in the sense that I can't deliver my friends, only God can. But the point I'm trying to make is if I had not been vulnerable enough about my weaknesses and how I had dealt with addiction he would never have been able to message me to say please help me and I did help him. He's been making progress. For me, it's really humbling because I know God didn't make me go through all that stuff so that I can keep it to myself. But yeah, I just feel like it's part of my calling.

Rhieme: Thank you so much for sharing, honestly. As you said, what do you lose? I definitely relate to what you said about what's the point of going through something and then you can't speak about it to other people. I feel like why would God do that type of thing in your life and you keep it to yourself? I'm used to seeing so many people showing you end product. I feel like true freedom and confidence comes from when you can actually speak about what happened to you. Not attaching it to yourself because you're not in that space anymore but you can speak about it without guilt. I always say no matter what you do, that's not you. Who you are for me personally, is everything God says you are.

Daniel: That's literally so funny because Peter denies Jesus and Jesus says Peter strengthen your brethren. I'm not just going to show you the good parts and bad parts. The bad parts are what made me what I am.There are a lot of good people, but what makes the difference, what makes a person of impact is the person who can actually help you through that you're going through. So it’s like a trail so someone has been through something it helps you, you then go through your own, you help the same person. That's the way God designed the world to be. So what He means by be fruitful and multiply. It means bear fruit and multiply, let people see how you bore your fruit and let them reproduce after their time.

Rhieme: That's good. I just feel the way God has set things up when you share what you have earlier than the last person did, someone wouldn't have to go through the same thing or at least they will learn faster.

Daniel: That's what it is. Be fruitful and multiply because God wants us to multiply, He wants you to be fruitful He wants you to actually bear fruit.

Rhieme: What advice will you give anyone who's finding it difficult to own their experiences and themselves?

Daniel: Surround yourself with good people. The difference between a tree that doesn't grow is the circumstance, it’s the condition. Give me two of the same seeds you plant one in the wrong soil, it won't grow. That one of the right soil will grow. It's just the condition so you have to surround yourself with good people because that's the only way you can grow. Second thing is understand you are not your experiences. The process of your life what you go through makes you who you are. Gold is only gold because it has gone the melting. So you are not your process. You are not your shortcomings, you're not you’re addictions.

The third thing for me, which is probably the most important thing is, men need to read the Bible. And I'm saying this because I'm vocal on my faith, and I believe in it and that is the only reason why I can sit down and speak to anyone If you're not a Christian is one thing I always say to my friends if I don't believe in the Bible and least read a book. A good book that actually builds your mind because the Bible tells us you're not conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. So you can prove what is perfect will of God that’s Romans chapter two, verse two. It focuses on the mind if you can change mind, you can change your life and change everything. I agree that God wants us to focus on the Bible and live life according to the Bible. But here's the thing I've noticed, there are a lot of non -Christians, unbelievers, who are rich, non- believers, who are who have good marriages, a lot of non -believers who have good morals, why? They don't read the Bible, they don't go to church, it’s all principles. When you read the Bible, you find out the principles that are in the Bible. What unbelievers have done, they're smart enough to look for the principles that lead to a successful life and they deliver those principles. So I really want people to actually begin to start to take the principles that cause us to live successful lives and then live life of those principles. I mean I want all of us to actually start to read our Bibles and go back to see what God actually has to say because that's where the freedom is. God created each of us so in His omniscience in His magnificence, He knows what is needed to unlock us. If we go back to the original manufacturer, which is God and go back to what He says, His word you live a great life.

Rhieme: Thank you so much. Do you have any last words, advice? Anything on your mind?

Daniel: Yes please make sure you put what I’m saying. Don't stop what you're doing. I honestly cannot say it any other way because you don't know how many lives will be changed by what you're doing. One thing I've noticed is God always gives us the seed then the seed becomes a tree, then branches and fruit. The day that one person is in the world stage and has to say something they might not remember what they read in the book but they might remember what they heard on your blog. Martin Luther King felt like he was only speaking to a black audience but today here we are. Every time there is an impact, everyone's looking for value. So I just don't want you to just make an immediate positive impact but I want you to continue too.

How did you find our conversation? Any key-takeaways? Share below in the comments! Make sure you check out The Risen Generation platform, The Unsaid Podcast and Broken by Grace podcast.