Autoshop Ministries Episode 7: Who Told You? Breaking Free from Labels and Limiting Beliefs

What's up, family? Happy Sunday. This is Joe Adams with Adams Automotive, the number one shop in America. This is Master Tech to Millionaire, presented by Autoshop Answers, where we talk about the transition from technician to business owner and CEO. We are here with Pastor Devontae Tidwell. How are you doing this morning, Devontae? I'm doing great. I'm doing great. You know, like I said, as always, like, man, I am excited to get into everything with everybody. I hope they're doing well. You know, I hope your Sunday is starting well. I hope your week has been going good. And if you've been listening, let me just talk to the people who've been listening. Now we got enough episodes in. Now we got some OGs, some veterans. You know what I mean? If you've been listening and you've been impacted, please feel free to let us know. Man, we would love to hear from you what has been really impacting you and really

just kind of shaping or reshaping some of the ways that you've been thinking. And we're glad that you've been sticking with us up to this point. So let's go. Yeah, hit us in the comments for what do you want us to talk about, man? What questions? No, I'm just kidding. But man, that's good stuff. So I guess let's get right into it. What are we going to be talking about this week, Devontae? Yeah. Actually, I'm going to start it off with a question for people. It's who told you? And they're going to be like, what do you mean? Who told you? Who told you what, Devontae? I'm glad you asked. I didn't hear you ask anybody out there, but I'm just going to assume that you asked. Genesis chapter number three, it's actually where many people know this is the fall of man, the story of Adam and Eve in the garden. Very popular story. A lot of people know the story that aren't even Christian, that aren't even believers.

And I want to talk about it today because God says something to Adam and Eve that I think is really, really profound that I think we can learn from. So I'm going to skip down a little bit because it's going to be like 13 verses, but I want to skip down to verse number eight. No, I'm sorry, to verse number seven. Then the eyes of both of them were opened. This is after they eat the fruit on a tree. They eat the fruit on the tree. They're deceived by the serpent. And God tells them that he gives them everything that they can have. They literally, it puts them in the middle of a garden and says, do whatever you want. Eat everything you want. Name all the animals, all the good stuff. Just don't eat from this tree of knowledge, right? And so the serpent comes and deceives them. Verse seven, it says this. Then the eyes of both of them were open and they knew that they were naked and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.

Then they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day. And the man and his wife hid himself from the presence of the Lord among the trees of the garden. Then the Lord God called to the man and said, Adam, where are you? He said, I heard the sound of you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked. So I hid. And he said, who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree, which I commanded you not to eat? The man said, the woman you gave me to be with, she gave me from the tree and I ate. Then the Lord said to the woman, what is this you have done? He said, the serpent deceived me and I ate. Who told you? God says this to them. Who told you that you were naked? And honestly, a lot of this is like a very interesting question to ask ourselves. It's who told us something that made us see ourselves a different way? Because before the fruit, before this interaction with the serpent,

before being deceived, they were fine being naked. They were fine walking around in the garden. They were fine doing everything that God had told them to do. And then when they were told something different, they started to behave differently. So then they started to see themselves differently. So what happens is a lot of times in our life and in our leadership is we start to believe a lie, a label that people have placed on us, a limitation that people have given to us. And it starts to make us see ourselves differently. And when you see yourselves differently, you react differently. Adam and Eve, totally fine. They believe one thing and now they're hiding. Didn't need to hide before. Didn't need to sew fake leaves together before. Didn't need to cover themselves before, weren't afraid of talking to God in the open before. And one lie that they started to believe changed the way that they saw themselves,

saw God, saw their community, saw their space, and ultimately changed the way that they behaved. So I want to ask people today, who told you? And I want to give you a list of some limitations that people can place on you or some that we place on ourselves. Like, oh, I'm not good enough. Or, oh, well, you know, I always run out of money at this point, at this time of the month Or, oh, you know, I'm just not good with numbers Oh, well, you know, I just have always struggled this way Or, man, I just can't keep a good admin, I'm just hard to deal with. I just, I'm a loner. I'd prefer to be by myself. And some of these things, Joe, are things that sound good in theory, and sound like an explanation for our personality in theory, but they actually are labels that we've started to believe and place on ourself that again, have now changed the way that we interact, changed the way we do business, changed the way we do life and leadership.

And those things now become a limitation because if you've bought in and believed that narrative, guess what? You're not going to try to challenge it to do anything different. So if you always believe that you run out of money at this point in time in the month, guess what's going to happen around the 24th? You're magically going to see Amazon packages start showing up. You're magically going to start spending money. It actually isn't magical at all. It's because you started to teach yourself a narrative that now you have to keep up with. And you don't even realize that you're doing it. Like, oh, well, I've always just been bad with numbers really, or did you just not go to tutoring that one sophomore year and just believe that for the rest of your life and now you're 50 like you know what i mean you've, you could have i'm like man i just i struggle to learn a second language are you sure or have you not downloaded duolingo like i don't know if that has just

been the truth or if you've started to believe a lie that somebody else told you even if it's you, but you believe this lie and now it's changed the way that you see yourself, the way that you act, and the way that you interact with your community. Does that make sense? Yeah, I think it works in reverse too, you know? And Todd, he's so good at this. He will literally say, we are the best company on the planet. And like, you believe him when he's saying it. You know, I'm like, yeah. And then, you know, logically, like. I'm sorry, Todd, if you're listening to this, I think we're up there, but, you know, like, NVIDIA is worth $5 trillion. Like, you know, Apple makes $100 billion a year in profit. Like, we're getting there. But, you know, he almost kind of puts that label on our company. Like, we are the best in the world. We are the best, you know? And it kind of works in the opposite effect, too. You know, it's like, you really start to believe it. Whereas five,

six years ago, I was like, who is this guy? You know, What people don't know who maybe are listening to this for the first time, we had a very small business. We had a good business, but it was like a very normal blue-collar, independent automotive repair shop. And he got this guy coming in saying, we're the most disciplined NFL football team auto repair shop in the world. And you're like, dude, stop taking it so seriously. Relax. And then after five years, six years of putting that label on you, you almost like feel obligated to like live up to it. And 100 percent. And I feel it. It's like I feel it now. I'm like, man, we are the best on the planet. You know, it's kind of I think it works, in the opposite effect, too. So I don't know if that's it. It does. Yeah. That is where I'm going. And because ultimately what you believe will determine how you behave for sure. Good or bad. You know, I read this book one time and I don't know if there are a lot of readers

out there. Maybe there are people who don't like to listen, but they may want to read. I read this book called What to Say When You Talk to Yourself. And, you know, the author is a Christian as well, but he's actually a like a psychologist, like clinical psychologist and does all this stuff. I'm kind of a nerd about this kind of stuff. Well, he does a whole study, Joe, and says that he found that the brain does not determine what you believe and how you behave based on right or wrong. Like the brain doesn't pick that way. Do you know what the brain picks how you're going to behave based on? Um, I don't know. You tell me quantity. Okay. Your brain believes whatever it hears the most. It doesn't matter if it's right, wrong or indifferent. If you tell it enough times, it will start to, it will start to rewire the way you think towards it. Isn't that fascinating? Yeah, that's crazy. I, um, I heard about,

I started, I read the one time that your entire brain is, is formed like 90% of it by the time you're two, you know what I mean, it's like, it's just whatever you're being exposed to, you know, over and over and over again. It makes sense. So then imagine, that's why you can, you know, you can tell a child so many things like, hey man, you're so great and you're so beautiful and you're so special and you're so smart and you're so, and ultimately that's what they'll be, right? Because you are consistently reminding culture, your life, your leadership, your brain, your marriage yourself whatever, whatever you hear the most is going to determine how you live so that let that be a warning and the bible says talks about this life and death is in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit like whatever you say the most whatever you use the most whatever is coming out of you the most whatever you're hearing

the most will be the direction your life goes in. So you cannot have a positive life with a negative mind. On the opposite side, you will not have a negative life with a positive mind. So whatever you're telling yourself, you need to go back to the source of who told you. Because if it came from God, then you need to absolutely absorb it. You need to tell yourself that as many times. You need to say, man, God, your word says that I am the head and I'm not the tail. That I am above and I'm not beneath. That I am blessed. That I am called. That I am chosen. That I am in the line of a royal priesthood. I am good because you are good. I am righteous because you're righteous. I am whole. I am happy. I am full of joy. All the things that the Bible says about us. On the opposite side, if you say that I'm just not good enough, I've always been bad with numbers. I'm just going to be in this position forever. I'll never be able to do it like

Joe. I'll never be able to have the Adams Automotive kind of company story. I'll never, I'll never, I'll never. Well, guess what? You're going to make sure that's going to happen. You will live on whatever level you settle for. I'll say that again for somebody that's listening. Your life will look like whatever level you settle for and how you settle is what you're listening to, what you're feeding yourself over and over and over. And I want to congratulate everybody that's listening right now, because this is the kind of stuff you need to listen to over and over. Like you need to listen to stuff like this over and over that uplifts your spirit. That's not just a one-time experience. It's a reminder. You're training your brain on how to things like, no, you can do it. No, you are capable. No, there is more in you. No, you're not inferior. Yeah, you absolutely are the head and not the tail. Yeah, you are successful.

Yeah, you are the best company in the country. Yeah, you are the best communicator on the planet. Yeah, you are good with numbers. You are a good mom, a good dad, a good husband, a good wife. You are a good leader You are a good CFO All of these things are important And I hope that even that last 60 seconds that I just did You rewind and just go play again And then play it again And then play it again So that your life can start to look like what you listen to the most, Good or bad But I hope that is good. Yeah, we talk a lot about how our business model is kind of like a language. You kind of have to learn the language of business. And so it kind of sounds sales pitchy when we tell people in the training, we're like, man, you got to come back. You got to listen to all our podcasts. You got to come back to our class every month. And yeah, we have run a business and it costs money to be up there and run the show and everything.

And so you have to pay money to get into the class. But the podcasts are free. You know, what we tell people is like, you just can't, you can't figure it out in two days, man. You have to like expose your brain to whatever we're saying. And it's not like this one nugget or sentence is going to blow your mind. You can't read the Bible in two days and be, you know, like just totally advanced in a journey. You know, you can't learn Spanish in two days. We just say like, you know, you just kind of have to be immersed in it for six to 12 months to really start to like process the business the way that we do and the way that Todd does. And I think the same applies to your spiritual life as well. If you just keep telling yourself you're a loser and you have, I don't care if you're not a Christian. I don't care if you're whatever you believe in. If you tell yourself you're a loser every day, you're going to be a loser.

And not in a bad way. I'm not trying to make fun of people who maybe struggle with that. But I mean, if you declare over yourself, I'm going to win today. I am going to do everything I can to create the life that God's created for me, then there's something to that. It's for sure. Anyway, I'm rambling, but I 100% subscribe to what you're saying. You're absolutely right, man. And I think, let me read another scripture for people. Second Corinthians 10 verse five says that we destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God and take every thought captive to obey Christ. Yeah. Like, do you hear how aggressive that language is, Joe? Yeah. To take the thought captive. It's not like, let me just, oh, well, you know, the passive negative language, it can live there. It can kind of exist side by side with some of the things that God has said about me. No, he's like, no, take it captive. Literally snatch it up, pull it out,

throw it away, destroy the argument. Like, it's that serious. The language has to be aggressive. And I want people to get that serious and aggressive about those opinions, about those lies, about those labels, about those limitations, because otherwise what happens is if you're not, if you're passive with it, it starts to just move to the background and it's still background noise. It may not be forefront, but it's background noise. I want people to get rid of it. I don't want it to be on play at all. I don't want it to be on repeat at all. I want people to be like, listen, yeah, I am. And I'm going to give people instead of a challenge this week, I'm going to give them some things to write down that they can recite this week, some declarations they can recite this week for our challenge in a little bit. But I want people to destroy those arguments, those I'm a loser, that nothing ever goes right for me, that it just wasn't in the cards.

That I didn't come from the right environment, that I'm just from a different side of the train tracks. Whatever it may be, you know, whatever you want to say, whatever the lie or the limitation is that people have started to believe, I want them to destroy it because that's what scripture tells us to do. I want them to take that thought captive, literally captive, put it in handcuffs, put it in shackles, chain it to the wall and say, you can't live here. You have to live somewhere else because I don't want it to be alive in my heart and alive in my mind. It does. It's too damaging for me to hold on to. And I care too much about my future. I care too much about being the version of me that God has created, that God identified when he put me here for 2026, when he said, you are supposed to be alive at this time and you could have been alive at any other time before or any other time after, but I need Devontae in 2026.

I want to be the version that he looks at and he says, that's why I wanted him there because that's the version that I saw when I sent him, you know, to this time, for this era, for this stage of. Because it says before he formed us in our mother's womb, he knew us. He has plans to give us, to prosper us, not harm us, to give us hope in the future. That is, that's positive language. That is, hey, there's more ahead. There's better ahead. This gets better and better. You go from glory to glory, from strength to strength. There's new levels you get to go to. But there are so many people that, and I'm getting passionate today. So, you know, I hope y'all had your coffee this morning. But there are so many people who have started to believe lies that are so damaging and they're wondering where life went wrong as if it was just a collection of experiences. And I don't want to minimize people's experiences. There are some things that

happen to people that are heinous and that should never happen. There are some things that people have gone through that I wouldn't wish on anybody. But there are some other things that we are now responsible for, and that is our response. How do we move forward? What do we do from this day on? What do we do from this point on? How do we see ourselves? How do we get in alignment with what God is saying about us? And we can really destroy the negative. OK, so what happened to me or I made a mistake. Does that make me a mistake? No. Right. Like I am in a space now in my life where I am looking at things and saying, hey, that's I'm not signing for that. Right. Like UPS can come through and give us a package. Right. And have some. Hey, this requires a signature. Somebody told me this when I was in college and I've never forgotten it. Say, I want you to see every negative thought, like you get the option to sign

for it and accept it or don't sign for it and refuse it. Right. So now we say, I'm not signing for that. I'm not signing for that idea. I'm not signing for that limitation. Yeah. I'm not signing for that lie. I'm not signing for that. That may have been your lid. It's not mine. That may have been your limitation. It's not mine. I'm not signing for that. That's such a good way to think about it. I've heard it described as, you know, imagine you're, like, it's easy to think that you are your thoughts, you know, like whatever you're thinking in your life, like that's who you are. And it's like, imagine you're a five-year-old version of yourself and somebody, your thoughts is somebody telling your kid version of yourself like lies or whatever, you know. It's like, and you'd be like, oh, why would that person be telling five-year-old version of me all these horrible things? It's like, well, that's, you're not your thoughts. Like you choose to sign for

it. That's a good way to, that's a good way to frame it. And one way that we like to think about it in our business is, you know, One of the leading indicators for success in your life and in the business world that's often measured by various KPIs, blah, blah, blah. One of the number one indicators for whether or not somebody's going to basically be successful in their career is, it's called internal versus external locus of control. Basically, somebody who's got an internal locus of control. They think that they're in control of everything that happens to them or everything that happens in their lives. And so I'll give you an example. Todd is extremely far on one end of internal locus of control. He's like, so for example, if car count goes down or revenue drops or gross profit drops, he's gonna be, his first instinct is like, we drop the ball somehow. There's something that we are doing, whereas most people in the industry will

say like, oh well it must be tax season or it must be january and everybody spent money on christmas presents or oh it must be back to school or it's it couldn't be me you know it's like yeah it absolutely couldn't be me it's like, basically they externalize uh you know the things that are happening in their life so it's like some people some people just like life is a series of events that happens to them and some people uh, kind of you know have the worldview that they're in control of their own life. And so we look for that in interviews, whether or not people throw their old employer under the bus or their resume is just a series of things that happen to them and how they're the most unlucky person in the world. But pretty much what you're saying is you got to declare it over your own life, man. You got to speak it into existence and not just, it's not just little old me all the time. No, no, no, no.

It's not at all. And it's not passive. Again, remember how aggressive this language is. You know, I'm writing it down because I want to look into that. The internal locus of control is actually something that I concepts that I hadn't heard before. But thank you for sharing that because I want to I want to get into that a little further. And honestly, like, you know, that makes me ask you, maybe there are some people who are out there. They're like, man, I'm in the same or I'm in a similar spot. Do you have any areas maybe in the past, you know, or maybe there's somebody that's listened that started early on. And, you know, you could think about the difference when you said, you know, six years ago, and it's like, man, like, I'm thinking this way, or I'm thinking smaller. What are some limitations that maybe in the past, you know, that you started to buy into that maybe you don't necessarily see anymore, or that, you know, other people are dealing with,

you know, or could be dealing with that are like, man, like, if you believe this, this is absolutely a limitation, you know, that's not God's best for you, whatever, you know, if there are any. You mean like in the business or. In life? Yeah. So maybe just personally where you said, man, like, like, cause you're, you're a young leader, right? Like maybe it could be for personal, it's like, man, like, am I too young to lead this many people? Or, you know, do I have anything to say? You know, those are some of the ones that I've had when I was in my younger days, I used to look around and say, man, like, are people going to follow me because I'm so young? You know, are people going to listen to me? Like, do I have enough to say? Or the one that I've actually was just counseling somebody through is, um, am I ready? And it's like, well, you know, or I'm not ready yet. And it's like, man, like most of the stuff in my life, I was not ready for.

It's like, and like now I've gotten to this point in my life where I say, man, I didn't need to be ready, but ready became a limitation and an excuse that I use, right? Like the external locus of control, like, oh, well, there are things out there I'm not ready for yet and I don't have this certification and I haven't done that and I don't have this stake in the game or skin on the wall, you know? And that was just for me. So I was just wondering if there were any other ones like that for you that ended up, that were a limitation that you say, man, now that I'm older or more mature, more experienced, that like- I don't think that's a limitation anymore, you know? Yeah. I have to really get aggressive. Yeah. Yeah, I guess I could. Maybe one example would be kind of like you were saying, like, you know, external locus of control is kind of basically just saying that your life is mostly determined by circumstance or luck or fate or whatever situation

you're in. And so for me, that might've been, you know, I might have to wait till I'm 35 or 40 to, uh, to run the business and for people to have any level of respect for me. Um, and internal control might be, you know, like my choices and actions have an impact on the situation. And so like, I'm in, not that I'm in control because I do believe God's in control, but like, God still wants you to work. I firmly believe that. And, um, you know, what I came to find out is like, you know, if I put in the hours and people see me working and people see my impact on the business it kind of like has an opposite effect it's like oh like yeah he's he's in his early 20s or whatever and doesn't have to work this hard or doesn't have to like care about the business as much but he does, um and so it's almost like a, double-edged sword you know it's like yeah it kind of worked in opposite of the way i thought it did uh it's like oh he's he's,

you know it sounds like i'm patting myself on the back i don't mean to sound that way but it's like oh he's got this wisdom about the business like he clearly has spent a lot of time, especially for somebody in their 20s, thinking about the business. And he's got wisdom in this particular area. It kind of works in opposite of the way I thought it would, which was I need to be in my 30s for people to respect me. So the idea is it really doesn't matter what your position is in any part of the business or company for whatever shop that you're a member of. It's like information is free nowadays with technology. Anybody can learn anything. And you put your head down at work and perform and declare that you are a champion and that you're a winner and that God's got a purpose for you in your life. I don't care if you're 21 and you're a general service technician in a rural part of the country, you'll rise up in your company.

It says in Proverbs, this is one of my favorite verses, it says, do you see any truly competent workers they're gonna work for kings one day. That's what it says. And I always pause on that one because it's 100% true because, I believe that whoever the king is in whatever circumstance, it's very obvious when there's a competent worker, when there's a competent servant who treats it with an owner mindset, like they own the place and they carry themselves. And that's one of my dad's rules. He says. People rise to the level of their own incompetence. But if you do the work and, drive to make yourself better and become more competent, And I 100% believe that you'll just continue to rise in whatever circumstance you're in. So anyway, I'll get off my soapbox, but I love that stuff. No, no, that's incredible. And I thank you for sharing that because I think some people need to hear it. And I think with this concept, when you say who told you and tracing it all

back, I could spend four episodes on breaking down who told you, why understanding the source is important. I could break down when did you start believing it because timelines matter. You know, I mean, I could break down all of that into another episode and maybe we'll get into it another time. Maybe do a Who Told You Part 2. But, you know, there's a really powerful thing that people can do right now. And I want to give them that challenge. I alluded to it earlier because understanding what lie you're believing will help you unravel it. So what we need to do is unravel it. And I want to give people language because sometimes I realize that people just don't know what to believe. All they've known is the lie or the limitation because it's come from a parent from back when they were a child or it came from a grandparent or a coach or something. And they're like, man, like I just always thought that because that's always what I believe.

So I want to start with a few. If you got your journal or you got a piece of paper, write it down. I want you to start at the top. Just say, I am the head and not the tail. These are based on scripture. I am above only and not beneath. I am above only. I am blessed in the city and in the field, right? It means everywhere. I am designed to win. I am crafted for a purpose. I am a child of the most high God. And I think those are just a good starting point. If you put those on a sticky note and put them on your mirror when you're brushing your teeth and start reciting those every day, you have no choice but to start being a winner. You have no choice but to start thinking more highly of yourself and stop thinking of yourself in the limited version. So do that. Put it on a sticky note. Slap it on your mirror. And it's going to stay there as long as you don't have like crazy steam in the shower. But you know what I mean?

Put it on the mirror. Brush your teeth every morning and just recite it. Even if you don't get it. Like you just got a mouthful of toothpaste. You know what I mean? just whatever it's going to take so that it gets in your head and just rewiring the way that you think. So I hope that that helps people this week. Dude, I believe this stuff, man. I forgot to say this story, but one of our partners, Charlie Salakos, he's got two stores in Boston. And I don't even know if you know the full story, Devante. He was a Greek immigrant and he spoke four words when he moved here when he was 17 and he had a hundred dollars. The four words were cat, hat man dog and uh anyway so he works at a gas station for 15 years it's funny most people listening to this podcast know charlie so it's funny that i'm explaining you uh the context, but he works at a gas station for 15 years and then opens his own shop and he's doing like no revenue um you know but,

he's got this dream and he meets todd one day and todd starts helping him and charlie puts a check on the inside of his mirror um. And it was a million dollars on the inside of his Vanity or his bathroom mirror. And he was like, he was doing $20,000 in revenue per month, which is like no money. That is like, he was having to sell diagnostic time to his customers. He would say, hey, I need to test drive your car overnight. I'm going to drive it home and I'll drive it to the shop tomorrow. And he would sell them the diagnostic time because he couldn't afford to put gas in his car. And he was the hardest worker ever anyway. So, you know, fast forward, he can cash that check now. And it's like, he wasn't even a believer back then. And thank God he is now, but it's like, you put a million dollar check on your mirror and you see that every day. It's like you have something to live up to. And you just have a way of doing it.

That's, I don't know if it's neuro, it's the plastic in your brain or something. At 100%, I subscribe to everything you're saying. And so with that story, let's make it a great week. Devante, you got anything else or you want to pray this out? Yeah, I pray everybody out for sure. Father, in the name of Jesus, I thank you so much for every single person that is rewiring their thinking, rewiring their belief. They're getting aggressive about destroying those arguments and taking every thought captive that's not from you and pulling it away, God, because... We need it. We need to be the one that you designed, God. We want to live up to our divine design. So Father, I just pray that somebody out there today that needs to hear this, hears it. And I pray that you help them be closer to you as they get in alignment with what you already said about them. Let those sticky notes, God, be something that changes their life.

Sort of like the check for Charlie. In Jesus' name, amen. All right, well, happy Sunday, everyone. Let's make it a great week. And as always, may the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you. And may the Lord turn his face towards you and give you his peace. Thanks so much, Devante. Happy Sunday. Let's go make it a great week. Let's go. For more information, reach out to Todd Westerlin at 925-980-8012 or visit autoshopanswers.com. You can get more information about Key to Key to Callbacks, Courtside. We have a VIP Rack Attack Day where you spend an entire day in the trenches with our team learning this perfected business model. We offer leadership classes. We have an AI academy and also get more information about auto shop callbacks. We have auto tech training. We are literally your one-stop shop. Once again, that number for Todd Westerland is 925-980-8012.