TURN YOUR DREAMS TO REALITY

INTRODUCTION
If you have been in the business of dreaming before or creating a
vision for yourself, if you've taken practical steps towards
fulfilling your dreams and you've made some progress, it's
fantastic! But this is not the end of the race. You and I know that
we only reach milestones on the road. We're not done until we
are done in this life; therefore, it's time to dream again.
Just in case you're pretty young, and you're just starting out, or
you've known frustration all your life and things have not
worked the way you wish they could, then this is also for you, so
that we can check and find out where to make adjustments and
do it together. This book is not for the person that is looking for
magic. Principles don't work that way, even though miracles
come when you align with principles.
This is not for the person that wants to get rich quickly. It is for
people who understand that our world is governed by principles;
that is what we believe in Success Power. There's tremendous
power controlled by those principles. It's like gravity. You jump
from the roof of a three-story building, and you're coming down.
There's a force that pulls you. It's invisible, but it's real. It's so
predictable that if you jump like that 10,000 times, you will
come down 10,000 times. It's a universal fact. It happens
everywhere on the face of this planet.

You have the power within principles and various principles

govern various areas of life. Here in Success Power, we explore
the principles that govern success, because they make success
predictable and possible. Perhaps you've been wondering, "Why
have I not yet executed my ideas? How do I know what next
steps to take? Is there a system I can follow for success?" I was
there many years ago. Every door I tried to open was closed. It
was frustrating. At a point, I had to ask myself the mystery, "Is
there a system for success? Is there a structure? Or is it just a
matter of luck or chance?" I tell you, I was grateful when I
discovered that success is not a matter of chance, but a matter of
choices, when you know the principles and the system. You may
be wondering also, "Am I wasting my time trying to achieve my
goals?" Or you may be asking, "What am I doing wrong?"
Nothing is wrong; you just haven't been applying the principles
of success correctly.
My team and I seek to give ourselves paradigm shifts; a shift in
perspectives, so we can see possibilities and life changes from
thereon. Also, I want to explain how you can get the same
support and access we have provided to top-performing
executives and entrepreneurs across the globe via this short
book. We've been doing this for twenty-five years, and we have
amazing stories of transformation.
My name is Sam Adeyemi. I am the CEO and founder of
Success Power International. I also head a few other
organizations. Success Power has been around for some twenty-
five years, teaching people principles for success, laws that have
no respect for persons or locations. We have tremendous stories
and testimonials to share. I've helped and inspired thousands of
people through ministry work which is not for profit. The
principles that we teach are universal, so they also work for the
church. We have tens of thousands of people participating in that
church vision. I have also created and invested in businesses that
matter to me, and almost all of them have to do with sharing
knowledge and wisdom.

I've worked with other notable influencers around the world who
are inspiring people and sharing wisdom with people. I mean
people like John Maxwell, Sam Chand, Simon Bailey, and quite
a host of them. I coach executives and entrepreneurs on how to
grow their businesses and to align them with their objectives or
purposes. I hold the Doctor of Strategic Leadership degree, and I
do consult for organizations. I also do training for the
management team of organizations and their senior executives. I
do executive coaching for big-time business owners too. I work
with people at practically all levels, and it's all just to help
people succeed.
I've seen many people do things right. As you can imagine, over
twenty-five years and more, I have interacted with thousands
and thousands of people. I've shared a lot, I've taught a lot, and
I've seen lots of people apply the things that we teach. I've seen
many people do things wrong. What do I mean? Most people
that succeed usually fail the most. Why? Because they
experiment more than the average person does. Most people try
it once, and when something doesn't work, they're gone to
experiment with something else.
Highly successful people know that success grows out of failure.
I've seen people do a lot of things wrong. I've even done much
failing on my own. To get to where I am now, one thing is sure:
I'm not afraid to try. Once I know something is right; it's a
vision, it's a goal, I simply go for it. I sidestep the fear.
Sometimes, I even carry the fear along with me; the fear of
criticism, and the fear of failure. I've done a lot of failing, but I'll
tell you, I've gotten many successes grown out of the failures. I
tell people, "You try 99 times, and it doesn't work, the 100th
time that you try, and it works, that one time compensates for the
99 times that did not work." It's a principle of success at work.
How did I get from failure to freedom? From failing and trying
to figure things out to leading Success Power for over twenty-
five years, pastoring one of the fastest-growing churches in
Nigeria and Africa with some 40,000 members over the same
period, speaking at conferences all over the world?

WHY DO YOU NEED THIS BOOK?

§ You have an existing vision, and you know you should be
growing professionally, but you're not sure what to do, and you
feel stuck. The world around us is changing. It has changed and
is still changing at a fast rate, and you may have questions.
§ You are not happy with your current situation, but you know
there is potential, but you just don't know how to move forward.
Are you on a hamster wheel and you're asking, "How do I grow
myself personally? How do I break through this growth ceiling?
How do I get to the full vision of what God has for me in my
professional life?"
Now, imagine if you were able to live stress-free, not worrying
about how to achieve all the things you can imagine. Imagine if
you learned how to leverage your talent and opportunities and to
take more risks at work that will lead to your advancement.
Imagine if you knew exactly what to do to change your mind-set
and to create new opportunities instead of waiting for them. I tell
people, "Don't wait for life to happen to you, happen to life."
In this book, I'll be sharing with you the keys I've used in my
own life to advance my future and career. I will also be walking
you through the new way to view your situation, and the mind-
set needed to move forward. Life is two sides of a coin or a coin
with two sides. What some people call problems, that's exactly
what some other people see as opportunities. It's amazing the
way it works.

CHAPTER ONE
A WISH OR A DREAM?
I have known the frustration of unfulfilled dreams. Let me share
some of my stories of disappointment. I had the dream to travel
from Nigeria where I grew up, to the UK to speak at
conferences, and to travel to other countries to speak at
conferences. It was many years ago. A friend invited me to
speak at their conference in the UK. I was happy. I was ecstatic.
I applied for the visa and went for the interview. But then the
visa officer said, "Well, I'm sorry, I won't be able to give you the
visa today." I got a refusal. It was painful. I knew I wasn't
running away from Nigeria, and I was going back, so it made it
even painful. “What's the big deal?” I wondered. Because this
officer's idea was, "From your circumstances if you leave, you
aren't coming back." My boss then said, "Oh, sorry about that.
Well, I'm travelling very soon to Cote d'Ivoire." We used to call
it Ivory Coast then, a neighboring West African country to
Nigeria. Of course, they are some three countries away but the
flight is just about an hour.
So he said, "Come along." My brother and I were to go along
with him to speak. On the day we were to travel, we set out from
my house while he departed from the hotel. We got to the
airport. We saw the aircraft on the ground, but we did not see
him. We did not even see any of the people that went with him
to the airport. And then they told us actually that check-in was
closed. But we saw the aircraft as we approached the airport. We
just used our initiative. Again, this was a long time ago; it was in
1994. Please understand, there were no mobile phones, so
nowhere to call him to ask, "Where are you? What's going on?"
We just used our initiative, asked which was the next flight,
bought the tickets, and got on the plane. It was when we arrived
at Abidjan at Cote d'Ivoire that we met someone holding a
placard in his hand that said, "Adeyemi". We approached the
man, and he said, "Adeyemis?"
We said, "Yes."
"Oh, a telex message just came from the airport in Nigeria that
you both should return to Nigeria on the next flight."
I am serious. The very flight that brought us, the aircraft that
took us to Abidjan, we got back on it. They did not even stamp
our passports that we arrived in Abidjan, so I have no record of
that visit to Cote d'Ivoire. And then we got back to Nigeria and
discovered that our boss had actually also missed the flight. It
was like, "Oh my God, what is this?" By the way, some months
ago I was back in Cote d'Ivoire. That was the next time I would
be there since that first incident. I told them the story. This time
they stamped my passport. Interestingly, I got a royal welcome.
Anyway, when Cote d'Ivoire did not work, my boss then said,
"Wow, sorry about that. In a few weeks, I'll be out to Kenya.
Would you guys come with me to Kenya?" We said, "Oh, sure.
Sure. Sure." By then, I was getting frustrated. I was really sad.
At that time, you had to get a visa. Even from Nigeria, you had
to get a visa. The visa was actually a stamp on your passport.
We filled the visa form, and the Kenyan High Commission took
our forms. They brought back all the passports, and everybody
had the visa stamp on their passports, except me. I was not given
the visa because of a mistake on the form. I could not believe it.
I was refused the British visa; I could not get into Cote d'Ivoire;
I couldn't even go to Kenya! What was going on? Well, I
corrected the mistake, they gave me the visa, and we went to
Kenya. I wasn't really excited about that trip.
At that point, it was like, "What is going on?" This is just to tell
you that you are not the first to experience disappointment or
failure in seeing your dreams come true. I've been able to learn
how to dream and the process of moving from ideation to
execution. Let's start from the basics. We are talking about
turning your dream into reality, but we've got to ask you this
question, do you have a dream of a better future? Do you? Is the
present more real to you than what is possible? Is the present
more real to you? Are your present circumstances more real to
you than the possibilities that will happen in the future?
This is very important because without a dream, you are sunk!
Creating a dream, creating a vision is a profoundly life-changing
experience. It aligns you with the principles that control our
world; that's why it's so powerful. When we say dream, what
many people have are wishes; just a wish, not a clearly defined
concept or personal ideology that is strong enough to drive your
life. This is our foundation, where we need to start. A wish
remains a mere wish, but when you really have a dream, it
changes you. I said that having a dream aligns you with the
principles that govern our world. Now, this is one powerful
principle for creation; all things are created twice. Keep that in
mind forever. All things are created twice. There is first a
mental creation and then a physical creation. Look around
you right now. There's no valuable thing created by man that did
not first exist as an idea in somebody's mind. All things are
created twice.
When you are creating an idea of your future, you are literally
creating your world. You are joining the class of people that are
not victims but victors in our world. It's either you gain mastery
in this world, or you are mastered. When you go through the
process of mental creation first, then you stand a chance of being
part of those that do physical creation in our world. I started it,
and I did it. I exercised my imagination for this principle in
January 1997. I sat down and wrote; I had to think. I had to use
my imagination, dream of the future and then wrote down what I
was dreaming. Today, I'm happy to tell you that I am living the
dreams that I wrote. Its many years down the line now. I want us
to go through the process together. Many people that say their
dreams are not being fulfilled don't realize the problem is with
the dream itself. The problem is with the dreaming process.

CHAPTER TWO
CREATING YOUR DREAM
If you want your dreams to metamorphose into reality, there are
practical steps that you need to take when creating them.
Find a quiet moment to stay in a quiet place. You will need
focus. You will need concentration to do this job. Remember, it's
a creative process. So put a notebook or journal and a pen in
front of you or, of course, you may have your laptop open and
possibly maybe your tablet or your phone. Write the topic, my
life on July 30, 2025, or whatever the date it is you're starting,
exactly five years from that day.
Good, I just wanted to make important guidelines clear before
you start: reject thoughts that may want to truncate your
dreaming processes such as past failure or possible obstacles
like what you have or what you don't have. For many people, the
problem actually is with the dreaming process. Why? Many
things will fight against your creating a new dream of yourself
and your future. You have to keep these things beneath you.
Have you ever heard of the story of the elephant and how it is
conditioned for circus shows? The baby elephant is taken close
to a tree or stake; a chain is tied to the leg of the baby elephant
and tied to the stake or tree. It is left there for months. It's left
there for a long time. The baby elephant, of course, will try to
roam, try to walk, but when it gets to the point where that chain
is fully extended, of course, the chain holds it down, so it turns
back. They found out that after months of doing that, when you
take the chain off the leg of the elephant, anytime, the elephant
gets to that outer limit where the chain held it back before, the
elephant would stop and move back. Isn't that remarkable? This
is how I describe it: the chain has moved from the leg of the
elephant into its mind, and a chain in the mind of the elephant is
as effective as a chain on the leg of the elephant.
A lot of people, especially from the developing part of the
world, have grown up in limiting environments. Some of us
have known, like me, how to have taps with no water running in
the taps. You have to fetch water. When you say, "I had a
shower," what you're saying is very different from what
somebody in another country is saying because, in your shower,
you have to scoop the water and pour it over your own head.
Normal for us in terms of the road network is roads with
potholes. A lot of us are accustomed to mediocrity. The old
normal can spring up. You will fight battles in your mind, but I
want you to win. Many people don't know it's a battle. It is a
battle, and I want you to win. So I want you to actively reject, I
want you to actively throw down, I want you to actively kill
thoughts that may want to frustrate your dreaming process.
Usually, questions will pop up in your mind like, "You've never
done that kind of a thing, do you think you can do it?" Or, "How
much will it cost?"
You don't do that during the dreaming process. No! You assume
that the resources are there. You can't afford to clip the wings of
your imagination; that way, you won't be able to fly. You should
perish thoughts such as what you have, what you don't have, the
qualifications you have, the ones you don't have, your
background, every challenge. Keep your mind free. Give your
imagination the freedom it needs to do its job of creating the
new you. See only the possibilities. Your imagination is your
opportunity to overcome your limitations. I want you to say this
to yourself repeatedly until it sinks into your subconscious. Your
imagination, being the process for creation, is your opportunity
to overcome your limitation. But how does this happen?
The imagination is the place where a poor person can take
wealth and add it to their own picture, and the two would fit
together comfortably. The imagination is where someone who
has never owned a car can take his or her picture and take that of
a beautiful car and put those two together, and they will stay
together comfortably.
The imagination is the place where the clerk can move into the
office of the CEO and sit down comfortably. The imagination is
where you break your barriers; the imagination is where you
shatter your limitations. I'm inviting you into that process today.
That is it. Jump over those barriers, jump over those limitations.
Most of them are created by people, jump over them. Take away
all the excuses right now. Are you ready? Right, let's do it. Let
me share some strategies with you for creating your dream.

Step 1:
Imagine your career. Remember, this exercise is titled “My life
on … (the day you're reading this book)’. Imagine your career
exactly five years from today.
Let's start from the level at which you are adding value, because
somebody may be thinking, "How about my finances?" We'll
come to that later. I want to align you with principles. I know
that most of the time when you read books like this, that's where
you start from. But I want to align with the principles that
govern our universe. It is when value goes from you that value
will come to you. So your house, the car you drive, the money
you will have, that's the value that will come to you after value
has gone from you. So let's focus first on how you would be
adding value. Can you predict from where you are now in what
way you are going to be saving your world five years from now?
Imagine your line of career or business, what you'll be doing in
five years' time. Okay, switch. We're in five years now. Let's
assume that you get to read this book in 2020; the next five
years would be in 2025. Think as though you're in 2025; where
do you see yourself? So where are you working now? It's July
2025, where are you working currently? At what level are you
working now? Are you, CEO? Are you in politics? Are you in
government? Are you in business? Are you in a multinational
corporation? Are you heading a non-profit organization? Are
you changing your world? It's 2025, at what level are you
adding value?
Are you at the top of your industry in your country? Or have you
extended and built a big brand on your continent? Or have you
gone global? It's five years later. At what level are you adding
value? I don't know. For me, I'm coaching, advising and working
with government officials at the highest level in so many
countries. What is it for you? Good, let's move on.

Step 2:
Imagine your financial situation. This is important. Remember,
you're serving at a high level now. You have a high level of
expertise, and you serve with excellence. Your sphere of
influence has expanded. This is 2025, so you're ten times or
twenty times or fifty times or a hundred times your size back in
the year 2020. Imagine your financial situation now. What kind
of rewards are coming to you? Imagine your daily income.
Imagine your annual income. Remember, as you create these
thoughts, you write them down.
You know what your income has been in 2020 or annual income
before 2020. In your thoughts, this is 2025 now. Your dreams are
coming to pass. What will be your income? You need to write a
figure. You need to fix a target, so you just project an annual
income. The other picture I want you to dream about is how
much you have in investment because when you are financially
literate, you know that what makes you rich is not how much
you spend, it is how much you gain, save, and invest. Your
objective on the long run is to have so much money in
investment, that the investment yields returns to you to the
extent that the profits from the investments can pay your
monthly bills comfortably. That's your financial goal. That's
your ultimate aim. That is what you should work towards. So as
you are dreaming the increment in your finances, please also
dream of the increments in your investment.
I mean, let's say that on the average, you earn $100,000 per year
for five years, that's half a million dollars. How much of it are
you going to have in investments? I know you may likely be
making $1 million a year, some $2 million a year, so you want to
take it to ten or make it 50, you want to take it to $100 million.
So how much of it is going to be in investment? And actually,
you want to speed up the process of having investment such that
if you invest that amount of money in investment; let's say, for
example, you have $10 million in investment. This is an
investment in real estate, in stocks, maybe in your business, and
so on. The returns that you get, the dividend that you get, rent
and so on, you add everything together in a year, let's say it's 5%
per annum. Now 5% of $10 million is half a million dollars in a
year. That's a little over $40,000 a month. I think that's good to
enjoy, isn't it?
This is how wealthy people think. If you are dreaming and being
financially free is part of your dreams, I'm just telling you how
to get realistic dreams. Because sometimes some of the dreams
are not realistic, that's why they never come to pass. Imagine
your annual income in 2025, how much you have in investment
by 2025; the kind of house you're living in and where it is
located. You need to describe this. I don't know what your
preferences are. Maybe you want it with the swimming pool.
Perhaps you want it with a games room where you can play
poker with your friends or ping pong, table tennis. Maybe you
want it with a movie theatre. We have different tastes, right?
Good. Therefore, describe the house and where it will be. I'm
sure you know, you're doing this for five years, it's good to also
do for ten years and then for 20. You can dream as much as you
want.
Once you are able to get the five years, it would be easier to
project. Focus on what kind of car you're driving. In your mind,
remember, this is 2025. You've been able to assess, here's the
level of your income, and you are also investing. However, some
assets are wasting assets, depreciating assets like cars. You find
with people that build wealth; they don't start from there. They
shift most of their money into investments and spend less on
cars. But then later, just remember what I said, if you're earning
over $40,000 a month from your investment, just imagine the
kind of car you'll be able to afford at that time. That's what some
young people see. They see some people driving flashy cars,
beautiful cars, sports cars, the coupe, the latest model, and they
don't realize that those people are buying the cars from the yield
from their investment; what we call passive income. Out of
ignorance, they go about chunking out a great deal from the real
income itself, from their seed money. Those are two different
levels.
Well, write down your thoughts in your journal. Take time to
write down your thoughts that describe your quality of life.
That's how I put it. That's a major part of dreaming.

Step 3:
Imagine your health. This is important. Why? If you take health
out, just knock out all the other goals. Nothing else is going to
work. Yes, you need to dream of how healthy you will be in
2025. First, imagine yourself in perfect health. Imagine what
you are eating to stay healthy - got to be balanced food and
healthy food. Imagine also what you are doing to stay fit. Maybe
in your house, there's also a gym, or you belong to a gym. Of
course, it's good to factor in the fact that once in a year, at least,
you take your annual physical, or we call it a medical
examination.
An important dimension to it is recreation. What are you going
to do to rest? That's a fundamental principle of life; rest, and
recreation. We're not designed to run on full-steam like that, full-
blast forever. We're not. So write down what you will do. Take a
vacation? Have some hobbies? Play games? Do anything that
helps you to relax. Have plans to engage in anything that makes
you happy.

Step 4:
Imagine your family. This is where you're going to find a very
powerful reason why your life has to change, why you need to
dream. Imagine your family. Are you married? Remember, this
is 2025. Imagine the quality of your relationship with your
spouse, children, parents and siblings and why you are going for
vacation with your family. Write down your thoughts. Have a
picture of what you'd want your family to look alike.

Step 5:
Imagine your other relationships. How often do you call or see
your friends? What groups, clubs, or associations do you belong
to? This is very important. We need relationships. Actually, the
major part of the joy that we get in life will not come from
things; it will come from the quality of our relationships with
other people. Write down your thoughts. Remember I said it's a
profoundly life-changing experience. It's sweet, it's beautiful, it's
powerful, but it is created.
CHAPTER THREE
GETTING YOURSELF INTO ACTION
The next stage is setting yourself in motion towards the
achievement of your dreams. Get pictures, physical or digital,
that reflect the new you and put them where you can see them
daily. We, humans, are visually stimulated. We're visual
creations. We're visual beings. So when you take in information,
about 80% of it is likely to be visual. You should also do this
because this is what I learnt to do. Cut pictures from magazines
or anywhere. Print pictures from the internet. Stick them on the
wall where you can see them every day or put them in your
dream book. Some people have a dream book. Put the pictures
there.
Put them as a screensaver on your laptop or desktop. You want
something you can see every day that stimulates you. I also
write goals on plain sheets of paper and stick them on the wall.
Yes, you need to be visually stimulated. I promise you, even if
you do not consciously look at those pictures, if you put them
around you, your system will pick them up every day and
reinforce them, and they will influence the decisions that you
make. You need to distract your mind. Remember, you're going
to bed in the night; the last thing you see is your current
environment, your current room. That's what your mind works
on all through the night. You wake up in the morning, same
room, that's what you see. That will keep you stuck in the same
place. That's why I'm saying in the room; you need to put things
that describe your future.
So, now imagine how you will feel when your dreams are
fulfilled. That's what I want you to do. Get into the emotion of
this day five years from now. Get into the emotion of 2025.
Yeah, so five years from the day you take this exercise. How
will you feel then? So I want you to do something. Bring some
of the joy from that day into the present. When you do this
dreaming exercise, sometimes you don't know when you begin
to smile at yourself. The joy is coming, and the happiness is
coming, okay? So these dreams will motivate you to act on your
goals every day. This is the principle running through this whole
experience. What you see consistently over time will enter your
heart. It's a law. And whatever has entered your heart has put
your life on autopilot. You will be amazed how this dream will
begin to influence your life, give you hope every day, motivate
you to start and provide you with direction when you have to
make choices.
You will be amazed by how this dream will inspire you. And
you'll be surprised how this dream will help you to be persistent
and not to give up when things don't work perfectly. This has
been my journey. I came a long way, and I remembered many
years ago, this would be some 33 or 34 years ago when I read a
book titled Dream Seeds by Dr. Mike Murdock. He emphasized
on the power of dreaming, the power of the imagination. And
then later, I read from Dr. Paul Cho from South Korea, The
Fourth Dimension. He taught the same principle again,
reinforced it; how the physical or natural dimension has only
three dimensions. I did engineering, so that's part of what we
studied in technical or architectural drawing - three dimensions.
Then he said the invisible dimension which operates through
your imagination is the one that you superimpose on the three
dimensions in the material world.
Ultimately, the material world shifts itself to adjust to your
dreams. I remember when I fought the battles in my mind after I
graduated from school, and I could not get a job for quite a
while, for over a year. I got that breakthrough in my
imagination. I saw the future. It burned in my soul. I began to
tell people, "I can never be poor for the rest of my life. I can
never be poor for the rest of my life." I began to tell people, "I
am not a local champion. I'm a world champion. I'm not getting
trapped here. I am going to the world. I'm going to influence the
world." It sounded so ridiculous because it was totally contrary
to my natural situation. I want to ask you, how do you respond
to challenges in your life? Do you break down crying and then
sink into depression and allow everything to go gloomy? Or do
you go to that one dimension where you can superimpose a new
reality on that current disaster? That is what I did. I'm grateful I
did because today I'm living the dream. It was once a dream, but
now it's a reality. I should not need to tell you that I have new
dreams already for a greater future. This principle works.
As you go through your dreaming process, imagine your career.
I want you to start first from the level at which you would be
adding value to your world. Next, imagine your financial
situation and then visualize your health. Then imagine your
family, and then imagine your other relationships exactly five
years from today. Deliberately take conscious steps in this line
and watch your dreams come alive.
ABOUT THE BOOK
So many people have desires, but only few people have passions
that move from dream to reality. Why is this so? Having your
dreams come alive requires much more than day-dreaming and
putting down unachievable plans. You have your part to play. If
you have been frustrated on the path to bringing your dreams
alive or you have never even taken a step concerning your goals,
you have found the right book to help you out.
The book contains explicit and actionable strategies that have
worked for thousands before you and can still work for you if
you put them to use.