Noah St. John grew up in poverty in Maine and attempted suicide at 25 before discovering a technique called Afformations to reprogram his subconscious. Starting with $800 and a basement apartment, he built SuccessClinic.com, got Jack Canfield's endorsement in 1998, and now claims his clients have generated over $2.7 billion in sales.
Why don't we get started with talking about your entrepreneurial journey? So, how did you become the mental health coach of the stars?
Well, I'm going to give you the condensed version, but I grew up poor in a rich neighborhood. Now, I know that's a total cliché. I know, but it's totally true. I grew up in this little town called Kennebunkport, Maine, which happens to be one of the wealthiest communities in New England. But my family was dirt poor. And I mean that literally because we lived at the bottom of a dirt road. in a drafty, unfinished house that my parents ended up losing to foreclosure. So from a very young age, I was painfully exposed to the gap, the chasm between the haves and the have-nots. The haves was everyone else in the community. The have-nots was my family. Now you hear these speakers, Ken, I know you've heard this and everybody listening and watching, I'm sure you've heard, you know, speakers get on stage and they say things like, well, you know, we were poor, but we were happy. We didn't know we were poor. Well, my family, we freaking knew we were poor. Because, you know, my mother, bless her heart, reminded us every day that we were poor and miserable. So no, it wasn't happy. It sucked. And so from a very young age, I hated that life of poverty and fear, lack, not enoughness. That's what I knew growing up in my family. But I saw right down the street, there's great wealth and abundance. So I said, how the heck do I get from here to there? Right? And of course, there was no one to help me. You know, I couldn't, there was no one to talk to. No one in my family, of course, could help me. So You know, you mentioned I'm known as the mental health coach to the stars. I'm also known as the nerdiest nerd in the personal growth industry. You know, I'm like the Sheldon Cooper of self-help. You know, you watch that show? I'm like the nerd. So as a nerd, you know, I just, and the reason is because when something is wrong, when there's an issue, when there's a problem, I just, I can't take it. I can't sleep. I can't rest until that problem is solved. So that's really what I faced even as a kid. And so I did the only thing that a nerd could do back then, which is I went to the library And just spent hours and hours at the library reading every book on self-help, success, personal growth, you know, Dale Carnegie, Napoleon Hill, Stephen Covey, all the classics, right? And I just really immersed myself in that world. But I really, really couldn't get it to work. It was so frustrating because I was reading all these books, really trying and really working hard, but I could never really succeed. And so at the age of 25, I decided to commit suicide because I was so depressed. I was so frustrated, so you know, angry and just felt all alone. I felt there was no reason for my being here on the earth. And at the very last moment, my life was spared. And I tell that full story in my books, my programs. But the point is, at the very last moment, my life was spared. I didn't know why. But I realized I'm still here on the earth for some reason. The problem is I don't know why I'm here. And so I went on another long journey. This was like a spiritual journey, more of an inner journey, right? To find why am I here? What is my purpose? And so In 1997, I actually had 2 epiphanies that changed my life and that caused me to start my company, which is called successclinic.com. And so the 2 epiphanies were when I realized, number one, what is missing in traditional success literature, really literally all those books that I've been reading all those years, what was missing, what they weren't telling us. And then number two, was how to actually reprogram your subconscious thought patterns using what we call now my Afformations method. And so really, it was those 2 distinctions, Ken, that really, well, was the impetus, the epiphanies that I had that caused me to start my company in a 300-square-foot basement apartment in 1997 with $800 and a book on HTML. That's all I had. I had no money. No marketing experience, no sales, no connection, no list. There was no funnels. You know, a funnel is something you poured water in and you put it in a pot. You know, there was no Facebook, YouTube, social. There's nothing. You know, but it's 25 years ago. So now all these years later, you know, as you mentioned, you know, I'm known as the mental health coach to the stars. I've published 17 books. My 16th and 17th books are coming out actually this year. 18th book coming out next year. And we've helped our clients add over $2.7 billion in sales Meaning, as you mentioned, you know, we help people make more in 12 weeks than they made in the last 12 months while also gaining back 1 to 3 hours per day and 4 to 8 weeks per year. So it's really been quite a journey. And then what was amazing is I actually met Jack Canfield in 1998. He loved my work, gave me my first celebrity endorsement over 20 years ago. And he sent my book, which was called Permission to Succeed, to the Chicken Soup publisher. And that's how I actually got my first publishing contract over 20 years ago. For everybody listening, you know, the lesson is, you know, there's so many reasons why, oh, I can't do it. Oh sure, it's easy for you, Noah, because you had this or I had that. I'm like, I had nothing. I had nothing. Don't give me that, right? I had no money, no contacts, no list, no nothing, and no money, you know, certainly no connections.
