Things You Don't Know About Afformations | Ft. Annmarie Hylton

Welcome, Dr. Noah St. John.

Thank you, Annemarie. It's great to be here with you.

I'm so excited to be talking with you and to get your insight on where we're going in this crazy world.

Yes, indeed. Well, here we are.

Yes. So before we dive into the questions, I always like to understand how somebody became who they are and why they chose to do the things that they do in life. So why did you choose to focus on mental health?

I grew up Poor in a rich neighborhood. And I know that's a total cliché, but it's totally true. I grew up in this little town called Kennebunkport, Maine, which is 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 when I was just 15 years old. 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, and the have-nots was my family. And you hear these speakers all the time, you know, like a motivational speaker. They get on stage and they'll say things like, "Well, you know, we were poor, but we were happy. We didn't know we were poor." Well, in my family, we freaking knew we were poor because 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 being poor. I hated that life of poverty, fear, lack, not enoughness. That's what I grew up with. But I saw that right down the street, there's great wealth and abundance. So I said, how the heck do I get from here to there? Now, of course, there was no internet back then. There was no, you know, no coaches or mentors or anything like that. So I did the only thing I could think of to do, which is I went to the library and I read every book in the self-help section. I just went to the self-help success section. I read every book, all the classics— Dale Carnegie, Napoleon Hill, Stephen Covey— and I really, really tried to apply them. I read every book and I tried to apply them. The problem was, as hard as I worked, as hard as I tried, I just couldn't get it to work. So at the age of 25, I decided to commit suicide because I was so, you know, just frustrated and depressed, and it just wasn't working. And so at the very last moment, my life was spared, but I didn't know why. And so I realized, I've got to find what am I doing here on this planet? What is my purpose here on the earth? And so I went back to the library, and this time I read every book in the spiritual section and all the spiritual thinkers of our time. And then fast forward 5 years later, I made discoveries, these discoveries and epiphanies that I had where I realized exactly what was missing in the traditional success literature that I'd spent all those years reading. And so I realized, well, I've got to write my book. And so I wrote my first book. As you mentioned, it was entitled Permission to Succeed. It was published by the Chicken Soup for the Soul publisher. in 1999, and now 24 books later, you know, we've helped our clients add over $3 billion collectively. That means, you know, I help people add 6 and 7 and 8 figures— companies, teams, organizations, individuals, entrepreneurs from all around the world. And, uh, that's really how I got here.

Wow. So, you, you know, um, this is actually the perfect topic for you because, you, um, you know, when I was doing the introduction and talking about those, uh, statistics, especially for Young, young people in the 18 to 25 range, you literally personally experienced what the young people are experiencing to the point of thinking of suicide.

Well, decide— I didn't think about it. I decided to do it. I mean, I went to do it. And then at the very last moment, my life was spared. So it wasn't like I'm thinking about it. I went to do it. And so when people come to me and they're in a situation like that, I Definitely can. I say to them, you know, I can certainly empathize because I was there. And, you know, I want people to realize that there is hope, that there is a way out, and that they don't have to take that awful step.

Yes.

Wow.

This makes me want to ask like 2 questions at once in helping people. And so I'm going to ask those 2 questions. I'm going to ask a big one that's going to make you feel that you're on stage for a beauty pageant.

Okay, I'm used to that.

Okay, what do you think that most people are seeking in today's global society?

The answer to that question is something that I work with my coaching clients on all the time, whether one-on-one or group coaching, and that is a sense of meaning and purpose. And and that is exactly what was missing in my life when I decided to take my own life because I literally said. What the heck am I doing here? You know, and why bother? That really was what I said. And I, you know, at that time, I didn't have an answer. And that's why I went to do that. And I think that's what most people are looking for. And keep in mind, excuse me, keep in mind that, you know, there's a lot of miserable millionaires out there. So this doesn't— it isn't just about money. I know I talk about money because money is easy to measure. You know, when, you know, let's say somebody comes to me, they hire me to coach them. And, you know, before they were making X and now they're making, you know, 10X. Or 20x or more, you know. So it's easy to measure money because, you know, you can see before and after. It's kind of like weight loss, you know. Before I was the size this, and now I've, you know, I lost x amount of weight. So that's why we talk about money, just for that simple reason. But it really is much more than money. It is about meaning. And that's what I believe that most people are missing. And when you don't know why you're here on the earth, It really is very hard to go through life. It's very hard to get up in the morning and you know go to a job, and most people, as we all know, most people don't like their jobs or they hate their jobs. And you know, what am I doing here? And just to get a paycheck, and this this sucks. And you know that that's where all of that mindset starts to to just come in, which is very very understandable. And so you know that's part of my a big part of my job helping people helping you know whether it's my clients or with my my keynote speeches or presentations to really. Find that meaning, and yes, make money too. Don't get me wrong, but really it's about that meaning and purpose that I feel is what most people are searching for.

Yeah. So do you find? I'm going to assume yes, but but how? I guess here's the thing: the the I'm going to be the the person that comes and you know when people are down and depressed, they're going to be like, well, how do I find the meaning? And is it really that easy? Because if you make it sound easy.

Well, it's not necessarily easy, but there is a strategy, a process to do it. That's what I didn't have back then, you know, when I was searching. That's why it took me all of those years to find the formula to actually find your purpose. And so now I help my clients do that. So I wouldn't say that it's easy necessarily, but it's a heck of a lot easier when you know what you're looking for. It's kind of like building a house, you know, and, and, you know, there's a lot of people out there that say Okay, go build a house. Go ahead. You can do it. And you're like, well, that's great. Where do you want me to start? Well, go go ahead. You can do it. Do what? Yes. No, I mean, yes. So that's the point. It's like no. And that's what that's why I I am not a motivational speaker, even though some people call me that. But in fact, it's funny. I was actually speaking at a at a conference for you know a Fortune 500 company, and you know I I was finished my presentation, and a woman came out of the audience, actually one of the top leaders in that company. And she said to me, you know, Noah, you're not a motivational speaker, you're a motivating speaker. I said, oh, that's actually really interesting. What do you mean? And she said, well, you know, a motivational speaker gets on stage, they tell a bunch of stories, stories, stories, and then, you know, you leave that experience, you're like, well, that was great, but what am I supposed to do now? And she said, you know, I took 6 pages of notes while you were speaking, and now I know exactly what to do, and I know where to start, and I know how to, how to do it. So you, you motivated me. And I thought, I thought that was pretty neat.

Yes. Yes. Because, you know, I've seen motivational speakers and, you know, you have that high for that moment. And then, you know, a few hours later, you're like, okay, back to, back to the world we were in.

What do you want me to do now?

Yes.

Right.

So what do you find is the biggest barrier holding people back from being their best, their best selves?

This is what I've written 24 books about. And it is really this phenomenon that I call head trash. So as I've been teaching it for over 25 years, head trash is the voice in your head that says, I can't do it because... See, so for everyone listening to this program, I want you to think about your goals for the next 12 months, right? Whatever they might be. They might be in terms of your career, your business, could be in relationships or health, whatever it is. So again, I want to reiterate, it's not just about money, although money's part of it. But you know, think about you know your life goals or your life's mission, what have you. You know, and people say, "Well, no, you know I want to make more money. I want to have a happy relationship. I want to lose weight. I want to get in shape. Whatever it might want to pay off my debts. Whatever it might be, right?" But here's what happens: People set their goals, but then the very next thing that happens for most people is they say, "I probably can't do it." You know, so they it's not the problem isn't that they don't set goals. The problem is they set a goal and then they think they can't do it. And see, what happens is we humans have an infinite ability to make ourselves right. So if you are saying, well, Noah, you know, I really want to make more money, but I don't think I can do it. Well, guess what? You're going to make yourself right. I'll give you an example of this. I was talking with one of my coaching clients and his name's Charles. And I ask all of my clients this question, whether they're one-on-one or group coaching. Clients. And I said, I asked him how much, because he had been reading my books, you know, he understood about my philosophy and, you know, what makes my coaching different. And he said, or, you know, I said to him, how much do you think your head trash is going to cost you over the next 12 months if we don't get rid of this head trash, if we don't fix this problem? How much do you think it's going to cost you in the next 12 months? Without batting an eye, he said, $1 million. He said, Noah, if I don't fix this problem, if I don't get this head trash out, it's easily going to cost me $1 million. And I said to him, you know, I hear this every day. People, you know, I talk to people every day and they say, Noah, my head trash is costing me, you know, half a million, a million dollars or more this year. And so I said to Charles, I said, I tell you what, just give me 10% of that million dollars that you're going to lose if we don't fix this problem. Just give me 10% of that and I will find you that million dollars in the next 12 months. In other words, if you give me $1 and I give you $10 back, is that a good deal? He goes, well, yeah, that's a good deal. And he, so he said, yeah, let's do it. So he paid me $100,000. That's 10% of a million, right? So he paid me $100K to coach him one-on-one for a year. Well, as it turns out, I didn't find him a million dollars in the next 12 months. Instead, I found him $1.8 million in just 10 months. So he gave me a dollar, I gave him $18 back. Is that a good deal? No, that's a great deal. And he actually sent me an email recently, said, Noah, guess where I am? I'm on a 7-week vacation with my wife. We just bought a new RV. With all this money, this is the dream that I've had for years, you know, to buy an RV and travel the country with my wife in this new RV. So we're spending a 7-week vacation, you know, traveling the country. So he said, not only do I have more money than ever, but he said, now I have more time than I've ever had in my life. So that's an example of how, you know, what can happen when you get rid of your head trash.

Wow. And, you know, here's the other thing that I have found. Like, I understand what you're saying personally about head trash. But I think, I don't know if sometimes I think people don't realize that how powerful I guess they are and how powerful their, their mind is, because I think it takes a certain level that you have to get to, to realize that you have head trash. So I guess what do you think? I guess, how do we get people to that level? Because I believe this is just my own beliefs, is that I don't know if people are even at the level from a large— I'm just taking a large percentage of the global population are at the level to realize that it's them, it's their mind. So how do we get people there?

Most people have some Awareness that they're holding themselves back. You know, so like using my example many years ago, I knew I was holding myself back from the level of success that I was capable of. But see, at the time before my books, there really was no help for this. In fact, before my books and my coaching, the treatment for self-sabotage because that that's one of the symptoms of head trash is self-sabotage. That's what everybody calls it. Well, do you know what the treatment was before my books and my training? If you're sabotaging yourself, don't do that.

That's it.

Oh, thank you. Wow, that's great. I never thought of that, man. That is so helpful. Thank you. It's like saying to someone who has anorexia, well, why don't you just eat? Oh, wow. I never thought of that, man. Thanks a lot. You see? So it was so dumb that it never helped anybody. And so what I had to do was I had to go beneath the behavior to what's causing the behavior. And no one else had ever done that before. So that's why You know, when I wrote my very first book over 25 years ago, I was the first person to understand, wait a minute, these are the causes of self-sabotage. Self-sabotage is a behavior. You can't change behavior at the level of behavior. And so what I want people to realize is, yeah, if you're holding yourself back from success, that's a behavior. But you can't just change the behavior just by telling yourself, okay, I won't sabotage myself anymore. I mean, it's not like somebody wakes up in the morning and goes, Wow, this looks like a great day. You know what? I think I'm going to hold myself back from success today. You know, I mean, that would be insane, right? Nobody has ever said that because that would be a conscious thought. So what I teach is the power habits of unconsciously successful people. These are all habits at the unconscious level, which very simply means people aren't even aware they're doing it, and therefore that's why they're not able to actually fix the problem. So like, you know, with Charles, I mean that he knew he had a problem. He knew he was holding himself back, especially after reading my books. And he said, "But wait a minute! I need some help to get you know get rid of this address. It's holding me back." And you know the results spoke for themselves.

Now, yeah, that's I love the fact that you take a deeper dive. I'm going to call it like looking under the hood and looking at you know and checking out each of the the parts. Because maybe the— I'm taking the analogy of the car. Maybe the car still gets you from point A to point B, but you could have got there faster, maybe safer, because you maybe don't realize you have an oil leak going on and something could happen later on that you could have prevented. And so I love that you start looking at the different pieces because I think— Yes, I just know from just personally growing up, if you were doing something and it wasn't working for you, everybody would just say, just stop it then. Right. And you're like, okay, but I can't. That's the problem is like, I can't stop it.

Exactly. Exactly. It was, and that's what I've been teaching people for a long time is you can't change behavior at the level of behavior. And I'll give you another example. You know, like, another— as a keynote speaker, you know, I get to do keynote presentations all around the world, you know, whether live or virtually. And one of the things that I like to do for my audience members to, to make this point obvious is I say, all right, now everybody stand up. So there might be 100 people, might be 1,000 people in the audience, and I'll say, okay, now everybody stand up and like each other. And of course everybody starts laughing, you know, they're like, well, what do you mean like each other? And I go, exactly, that doesn't work, right? I, I, I just told you to change your Behavior, but that doesn't make any sense, right? So it's painfully obvious when I say that, and of course they laugh because that's how silly it is. You know, if you're sabotaging yourself, don't do that. Okay, thanks a lot. You know, so no, that that that approach is never going to work. And frankly, that's why so many people are frustrated because you know they've tried all these things, and you know it's just talking about the surface level. So that's why we go beneath the surface level to the causal level. What's actually causing the behavior? Now when you meet people and you know. you find you have things in common and you, you know, have things like that you enjoy together. Of course, that's when you're going to like people, right? So that's when you get the behavior of liking. But it's only because you found, you know, those, those common areas or those commonalities, which is the cause of liking. So it's just like that when it comes to success.

Yes. And you, you know, you got my mind and my heart excited about a few different things because I started thinking about how you do that to your audience and tell them, you know, start liking but understanding, you know, the cause and effect relationship. And I think right now in where we find ourselves globally, and I think not only from our own personal standpoint of dealing with ourselves, but individuals is trying to understand, we all want, you know, I'm gonna say, I guess maybe there's, you know, one, I don't know, one evil percent that doesn't want everything to be better on the planet. planet, because there's always people that you can't say everyone, right? But I think majority of us want to work towards building a better future for everyone globally. And I think it takes more, it's more than just like you were saying, it's not just about behavior and actions. we have to go deeper and understand the cause of how we got there. And so the things that you're talking about right now, I think, are just so needed. And so how do we start to— this is another big question, but how do we start to, I guess, dive into people's mindsets and start changing those? I guess let's first talk about what mindset is because I believe, you know, these words these days get thrown around a lot, like, you know, mindset, mindfulness, you know, resilience. But what are these things? So let's start, I guess, at the definition or how you define it.

Well, I never use the term mindset. And that makes some people upset because every— as you said, everybody talks about mindset. And I have been teaching for many years, mindset is not enough to create Success. It just isn't. I mean, because it's it's exactly like you know well I'm I'm really positive and I'm feeling great, and you're driving east looking for a sunset. You know you're you're just doing the wrong thing. So there's an old phrase which we all know: actions speak louder than words. But they also actions speak louder than thoughts. So the person that is taking action is going to beat the person that is thinking positive. 9 ways to Sunday, every single time. And so what's ironic about that is that you see people who really aren't that intelligent, aren't that smart, who are making a lot of money and being very successful because they don't think they can't do it. They're not smart enough to think they can't do it. Meanwhile, you got these really smart people who are holding themselves back from success going, oh no, no, I don't know if I can do it or not. It's kind of sad really, and it's frustrating too. When you see other people who aren't as good as you are and aren't as smart as you are, don't even work as hard as you do, and they're being way more successful than you. You're like, what the heck is going on around here? And sometimes, you know, we really do get in our own way. So, you know, as I teach it and as I've been teaching for many years, mindset is certainly— it's one part of it, but to me it's a very small part of it. I would rather see someone just take action, you know. And what's also interesting about taking action and the reason that most people don't take the actions that they know they should be doing is very simply because of fear. You know, and so a phrase that I use all the time with, you know, both myself and my clients is everything you desire is on the other side of fear. When you think about what fear is, fear is a message from yourself to yourself saying, hey, what if doing this causes me more pain than the pain I'm currently feeling? See, everybody, all those motivational speakers, of course, say fear is false evidence appearing real. No, it is not. That's just— somebody came up with that and everybody says it. That's not what fear is whatsoever. That's just a clever acronym, but that's no bearing on reality. No, fear is a message from you to you saying, hey, what if doing this causes me more pain than the pain I'm currently experiencing? And so that's why we don't do things, because we're afraid of them. And so fear is a very natural thing. Everybody feels it. But the point is that highly successful people have learned to face the fear and do it anyway, you know, and that goes back to acting with courage. The word courage comes from the Latin word cor, which means heart. When you're acting with courage, you're acting from your heart, not your head. Your head will always tell you to stop. Your heart says, let's go forward, let's move, let's do this. Let's move forward even though I'm scared.

I love that. And I think you hit on a crucial point of what we need to be thinking of globally. And I think you, you opened my mind that, yes, so we're all afraid of something to some extent. But when we get courage, and perhaps, I don't know, perhaps that's what we are missing in society. And that's why we find ourselves in this, you know, place is that, you know, because we've been living in a state of fear, and we've been using our minds instead of our hearts is why that we find that we haven't been able to move forward on a lot of these issues that we just see in a continuous, like, I'll just say a hamster wheel, right? They never seem to go anywhere because we live in that. I always let— if you look at the hamsters, they always do, their eyes bug out as they're running. They look terrified. Terrified.

A lot of humans look like that too. Right.

If we are like these hamsters running on this wheel in fear, even though we're just not even going anywhere, how can we expect to level up? How do we even get past any of these issues? One of the reasons I was very excited to have you on our show is that I really believe that in order to change, I guess, you know, being kind of, I guess, a little Michael Jackson, you have to start with the man in the mirror. And so we have to do that, that, you know, that self-awareness. Looking to reach people who believe what you believe? Advertise on the Project Good podcast. Contact us at projectgoodpodcast@gmail.com. Work/podcast. Advertise today. And so I want to touch on a little bit of— I'll go to goals, and then I want to go a little bit deeper into, you know, a global society kind of look. But when each person is looking at themselves individually, there's different things that are thrown out there, I guess. In this society that is, I guess, changing and blooming in different ways, we find ourselves looking at 2 things a lot. There's a lot of things about being self-aware. And then there's also this thing about open-mindedness. I know they're 2 different things I'm throwing at you at the same time. But I think they're important because I think they go together in an, in a in a way in order to, I guess, build each individual. So I guess let's start with the big thing, I guess, for me is this new push of open-mindedness to everything. How do you think, or do you think, I guess, is there a— should we have like limits to how open-minded we get? About ourselves, where we're going in society? I know it's a little bit political, but you can take it in a mental health or any direction you want.

Well, I believe there are limits and more importantly, there are boundaries. And this is the example that I always use with my clients or, you know, in my keynote presentations when this question comes up. And that is, you know, how do we support other people The important people in our lives, and how far does that actually go, and where are our boundaries? And so the example that I give is something that anyone can relate to very easily. So imagine if you're a parent, you know, let's say you're a mom or dad, and your teenage son or daughter comes home one day and they say, hey, Mom, hey, Dad, I just wanted you to know I've decided to embark on a new career and I'm going to be a meth dealer. Now, would you say, "Oh, that's great, son. Sounds great." All right. You know, would you want some help with that? You know, raincoat. You you would not do that. You know, no mom or dad in their right mind would go, "That sounds great, son." They'd go, "What? Are you nuts? Why? What the heck is going on?" You know, they would you would go nuts, right? Because why? Because anyone with standards, anyone with boundaries, anyone with Half a brain would go, excuse me, no, you don't become a meth dealer.

Right?

So you see, I use these silly examples to make my points, right? So that anybody can get it. And so the point is that it is not, you know, people talk a lot about open-mindedness, and of course that's good to be open-minded, but there's got to be a limit. There has to be boundaries. And that is a great example of what I just gave you. And so naturally, that is up to each person to decide where those boundaries are for you, you know. And that reminds me of a great quote that I also use all the time, which is, I tried the middle of the road once and I got run over by traffic going in both directions. And so, you know, if you're just in the middle of the road, you're going to get run over both ways. So, you know, you do have to set boundaries. And I used to be The example of how not to do this, because I was— I had very low self-esteem. I had no self-esteem, you know, growing up and in high school, because as I mentioned, you know, my family was poor and we were around all these rich kids and I felt like, you know, not good enough and hand-me-down clothes and on and on and on. And so, you know, I had no self-esteem. And so as a result of that, I had no boundaries. And so people would just, you know, they could basically say to do anything and I would just do it, you know, just because I wanted people to like me. And it took me a heck of a long time to realize, wait a minute, this is not a good way to go through life, just letting everybody else tell me what to do. And believe me, that cost me a lot of money and a lot of, you know, pain and opportunity that I missed out on because I didn't listen to myself. And so it took me a long, long time and a lot of painful experiences to realize, wait a minute, I don't—

I need—

I have just as much of a right to say no as anyone else. But it took me much longer than I would have liked because, as I mentioned, you know, since having no self-esteem, I just didn't have any boundaries. So I, of course, I'm all for open-mindedness, but at the same time, it is essential that you know your boundaries and then that you enforce them.

Yes. And, you know, that kind of answers the question about self-awareness with boundaries. And so one of the things that this applies to then is protecting, I guess, our overall belief system. And I guess, not to put words in your mouth, but I guess it would be for you boundaries. Is that what you would say of how you would protect belief systems that each individual has? Because that's what we are encountering, I think, right now in the society, or we've been encountering as each year I feel it's like, I feel like the game Jenga, we keep stacking and stacking. Yeah. Stacking blocks and it keeps getting higher and higher. And I think that we are like the real— the game is belief systems. And so deciding like, you know, what you protect and what you let go. So I just deducted from what you were saying that your answer would be boundaries, I guess. Is that true or is it a little bit different? Of how you protect beliefs.

Oh, I think that is true. I, yeah, I mean, I believe each of us knows inside what we feel is right and wrong. And the thing about that is you also have to respect other people's beliefs about what they believe is right and wrong. And that is, of course, what we have here in this democratic society. And that can lead to chaos many times. But, you know, I am also a firm believer at the same time that you enforce your boundaries is seek first to understand Then to be understood. What Dr. Covey talked about, Dr. Stephen Covey, in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Seek first to understand, then to be understood. But notice he didn't say just seek first, or just seek to understand and then don't say anything. No, there's a two— it's a two-part equation. Seek first to understand, then to be understood. Which means, hey man, I get to say what I want to say just as much as you get to say what you want to say. And see, that was the part that I always left out. I would let other people walk all over me, and then I would never say anything. So I just let people totally take advantage of me. And as I mentioned, you know, that cost me a lot, and it was very awful. So I forgot the second part, which is then to be understood. So now my boundaries are very good. And but there's things you have to enforce every day, because the fact of the matter is everyone has their own agenda, and it's not yours. And so nobody's going to look out for yourself. You have to look out for yourself. At the same time, if you are in any kind of, you know, a team or an organization, or even if you're an entrepreneur and you want your teammates, your, you know, your employees to do something for you, yes, you have to tell them what it is, but you also want to engage them so it's not like a top-down approach, like you're telling them what to do from Mount Olympus. You're saying, well, okay, here's what we have to do, What are your thoughts? What are your ideas? Here's what I think we should do, but I really want to hear what you have to say. And that's how you get that camaraderie and that esprit de corps that really can make a huge difference.

Yes, it's creating that sense of community with people and that they have an input and not, you know, just on a leash.

Yeah, right.

I wanted to now talk about, you know, get into how people can now if I think it's a Perfect time after talking about boundaries, self-awareness, and to talk about how to set and pursue goals. So now that you know people understand about having boundaries, I think boundaries help you then, I guess, create goals. So how should people look at goals? Or I've even heard some people say like throw goals out of the window. What's your feeling about goals?

We humans are goal-oriented organisms. We are always going after the things we want, whether it's a new car, a new house, or a ham sandwich for lunch. So there is no way to throw out goals. However, many people are going about goals very incorrectly because, of course, there's a lot of misinformation out there, a lot of people spouting off all these different ideas that have no basis in scientific reality. And so, you know, one of the things that I help my clients with is to reach their goals 10 or 20 times faster than they ever did. Or ever thought they could. And you know, one of the ways that we do that is by the being, doing, and having goals. So what a lot of people don't realize is that there are three actual types of goals when we talk about the human organism, and that is being, doing, and having. Right? So goals of being are: I want to be happy. I want to be healthy. I want to feel fulfilled. I want to feel important. I want to feel like I matter. Right? So those are being type of goals. Then you have the doing goals. I want to go on a trip to the Grand Canyon. I want to take my family on a trip to Hawaii. I want to write a book or start my own business or grow my business or whatever. So that's the doing. And then the having. I want to have, you know, $1 million in the bank. I want to have a happy marriage. I want to have a good, healthy family life and so on. So when you have the being, doing, and having goals, when you look at it in that way, A lot of times it's a lot easier for people because they've kind of shoved every goal together under this this umbrella of goals. So when you think about your goals of being, doing, and having, a lot of times for you know everybody that I've ever coached, it makes like wow I never thought of that before, and it makes a heck of a lot easier. Number one. Number two is realize that for most people going back to my point about head trash, right after you set a goal, most people say ah I probably can't do it. Well Noah, you know I want to grow my business, but I don't have the money. I want to write a book, but I don't know where to start. I want to grow my own business. I want to grow my business and scale up, but I don't have the time. Right? So everybody has these excuses of why they can't do it. Meanwhile, they go and watch Netflix for two or three hours every day, and they go, "Well, geez, I don't have the time." Really? You don't have the time?

Hmm.

Interesting. So anyway, the point is that you know head trash is is a is a very common thing that is keeping most people from reaching their goals. But when you, you know, follow my formula, it really, really works. I'll give you a quick example of that. I have this program called the 12 Week Breakthrough. It's a coaching program where I help people make more in just 12 weeks than they did in the previous 12 months while winning their lives back at the same time. So it's not about working harder, it's about working smarter. And so one of my clients in that program was— her name is Catherine. She's a business owner in Pennsylvania. And she came to me and she said, you know, Noah, I've tried lots of things. I've gone to all these seminars and all these gurus, spent all this money. But, you know, And she was just hitting that income ceiling. She was making, you know, okay money, but really just couldn't break through that ceiling. And so, you know, we talked about goal setting, we talked about head trash, and I, you know, walked her through my process. And she sent me an email in week 5 of a 12-week coaching program. In week 5, she sent me an email. She said, Noah, I just raised $185,000 today in private money, and it's because of what you taught me. And she said, I Finally believe in myself because you believed in me, and that's that's just another example of when you help when you take out your head trash. I mean, just the amazing results that can happen.

Yeah, no, it's it's you know these things are amazing because you just I think well you know even myself you just don't realize the barriers that you are creating in your in your your mind. And how much it holds you back. And because everybody always likes to, I think, play the blame game. It's this, it's that. If this was happening, then this would be different. But I guess taking out the trash clears the way for a new life. I want to talk about what I would say is your signature thing is affirmations versus affirmations. And that's with an O, everyone. Afformations. I want you to explain what the difference is because I think everybody, you can go on your Instagram or your Facebook and you have these sayings like, Today is just the start of the rest of your life. And you're like, first say it 3 times and you believe. You hear those things.

Right.

You hear those things. But does it work? I'm not sure. So I wanted to have you explain what's the difference between affirmations versus affirmations?

So everyone who's listening to this program, of course, have heard of affirmations, the old way of doing it, which is a statement of something you want to be true. So one of the ways that I like to demonstrate this in my keynote presentations, I have everybody in my audience stand up and say, all right, all right, everybody. I tell them, all right, we're going to use an affirmation just like the gurus taught us. And everybody say, I am rich. All right, there we go. I am rich. And you know what happens next? Everyone starts laughing. And I go, what are you laughing at? And they go, well, I'm not rich. And I say, but you just said you were. And they go, yeah, but I don't believe it. See, now isn't that the problem with the old affirmations way? The way we've been taught for decades is, you know, you say these positive statements and you're supposed to believe it someday. Well, for most people, we just don't believe it. In fact, did you know that a scientific study was done on this very topic and they found that 75%, get this, 75% of people who use the old affirmations method technique actually end up more frustrated than before. So imagine if you had a smartphone that didn't work 3 out of the 4 times you went to use it. You'd probably get a new phone, wouldn't you? Well, that's what I invented. I invented a new phone for the mind. And so in 1997, I invented this process called the Afformations Method, which is spelled A-F-F-O-R-M-A-T-I-O-N-S, Afformations. And you can go to afformations.com and learn more about My affirmations method, and so an affirmation or my affirmations method is rather than saying a statement that you don't believe, you make it into an empowering question. Right? So instead of saying, "I am rich, I'm happy, you know, I'm good enough," and your brain goes, "No, you're not," right? So what we do is we ask an empowering question: Why am I so happy? Why am I enough? And see, when you ask an empowering question, what happens is you. Engage the embedded presupposition factor of the brain, which is just a fancy way of saying when you ask a question, your brain searches for the answer. And so that's what I invented many years ago. And my Afformations Method is one of the power habits that I teach, part of my Power Habit System, and one of the ways that I help people make more in just 12 weeks than they made in the previous 12 months while winning their lives back. I'll give you an example. I was talking about my 12-Week Breakthrough Program earlier. Another one of my clients is a business owner in Arizona named Tamisa, and she was a self-described seminar junkie. She was going to all these seminars, and you know, she was doing well. She was making six figures, but she just couldn't break through that income ceiling. No matter how many seminars, how many gurus she went to, she joined my 12-week breakthrough course. In week two, she tripled her investment in just two weeks of coaching with me, and we hadn't even gotten to the money part yet. And that was just as a result. Of using my affirmations and you know helping her get rid of her head trash. So I mean the results are really really amazing when you start to affirm instead of affirm.

Wow, and this is just you know and and the amazing thing about this what I was thinking is that like you don't like we all have access to this right? It's not something that you need to necessarily like you don't have to go run out and and I guess. Get it and take it home with you. It lives with inside you. And so, and it just needs to be, I guess, ignited or turned on, right? And so just—

well, people just don't know it exists. That's the problem. You know, I discovered Afformations one day in the shower in April 1997. I call it the shower that changed everything. And so, you know, if you've never heard me speak or you never heard of my Afformations method, you just You just don't know what's in there. And so that was one of my, you know, the aha moments that changed my life when I realized, holy cow, I can just change the questions, change my habits, change my results, and thereby change my life. And that is, yes, anybody can do it. But, you know, you have to know how to do it. And again, it's not just like, oh, go build a house. No, you have to understand how to do it. But frankly, you can do this in less than 5 minutes a day. And so you literally— and I have so many stories. I mean, you talk about stories and examples and case studies. I have more than anybody in the industry. When you go to my website, if you go to NoahStJohn.com and just click on reviews, you'll see literally hundreds and hundreds of case studies and examples of people who've used my methods and literally just transformed their life. One of my clients literally bought a bought her own island in the Caribbean as a result of my method. So you know, I mean, the stories just go on and on. So but that's the beauty. That is the beauty of it. Yes, it is right inside of you.

Yes, and so one of the things I wanted to kind of do a look, because you've worked with people that are in 40 different countries. And so do you find, I guess, is there a different— do people in different countries need to approach this differently, or does it work just across the board? Is there anything that has to be like, you know, here's the US, but if I, you know, go to, you know, Barbados or, you know, I go to Peru, do I have to approach Like development and how I can make this work for myself differently?

My books have been published in 18 languages, and as far as I know, humans are humans all around the world. So no, it doesn't matter what country you're in. It doesn't matter what language you speak. It doesn't matter your background or your age or anything. I mean, I have, I have little kids who are using my Afformations method, you know, 5, 6, 7, 8 years old. You know, teenagers, you know, 80, 90, 100-year-olds too. So I mean, anything in between, men, women, and children, you know, 7 and 8-figure CEOs, professional athletes, Hollywood celebrities. So I mean, yeah, it just doesn't matter because the human brain is the human brain, human behavior is human behavior, and human nature is human nature. And it is not going to change anytime soon. So that's the beauty of it. It really is a global language.

Wonderful. I love that. And then I have a couple other questions before we wrap up. I wanted to talk because right now, as you know, if you turn on the news or you read all these different publications, we have multiple global wars going on. We have in the US, I would just say a big question mark of where we stand. We have, you know, global unrest. As you can see, there's, you know, people protesting for this, protesting for that. And I believe it is, you know, I believe it's contributing to a lot of the feelings that people are feeling. And I'm going to answer kind of one of my questions. I believe it's adding to an uptick in mental health issues. I guess, would you say that you feel that it's attributed to all these things that are going on, or do you think it's much deeper?

Actually, it's different than that. These mental health issues have always been around, but nobody talked about them because it was not okay to talk about it. I've been teaching mental health for over a quarter century, and even 5 years ago, if you said mental health, people would say, oh, let's cart him off to the loony bin. But what happened was, as a result of the pandemic, all these celebrities started talking about their mental health. Simone Biles and athletes, celebrities, Adele, Lady Gaga, and on and on and on and on. And so what happened was when these celebrities started talking about it, everybody goes, oh yeah, I got it too.

No kidding.

It's like, really? And then, and then, you know, so I'm sitting here going, geez, guys, thanks for joining the party. I've been here for 25 years. Nice of you to show up, you know. So no, and I mean, of course, but you know, look, I've been around for a while now. I'm 56 years old. So I've, you know, I remember back in the '70s it was the energy crisis. Then in the '80s we were gonna be blown to kingdom come. In the '90s it was the recession. I mean, there's always just crises and problems and blah blah blah blah blah. So It's not that we have more problems now, it's just more people are talking about them. And of course, back then you didn't have social media, so now everybody's talking about it, you know, and it feels like, ah, and it's all the, you know, just constant negative news. So it's just— and quite frankly, I'm happy that these celebrities, you know, got it out of the closet and started— everybody made it okay for people to talk about because it's always been here, but you just couldn't talk about it. It was a taboo subject. I'm grateful to these celebrities for bringing it out of the closet and saying, hey, oh man, I have trouble with that. Oh yeah, I do too. No kidding, right? So anyways, like I said, it's nice that everybody finally showed up to the party that I've been throwing for over 25 years now.

So, yes. And yes, I believe, yeah, those— definitely these issues have been floating along and for a long time. And so it comes— one of the big other things that people talk about now is about resilience. Do you think that resilience is something that people are born with, or is it different?

Let me give you an example of this. And now this is a story that is probably an allegorical story, but I think it serves as a good example. So there were 2 brothers, and one brother was a billionaire and another brother was a convict. And so an interviewer decided to interview these brothers, and he interviewed the billionaire, and he said, so why did you become a billionaire? I mean, what was it that drove you to become a billionaire? And the man said, well, you know, my father was an alcoholic and he left us early, and, you know, he wasn't around, and so I didn't have a strong male role model. So I really realized I had to do it on my own, and I set out to do it for myself, and I was able to become successful with the help of a lot of other people. And so, you know, the interviewer said, well, thank you. And then he went to the convict, his brother, and he said, why did you— why do you think you ended up here? And the convict says, well, my father was an alcoholic. He left us when we were early. We didn't have anyone around. I didn't have a positive role model. And so I realized that I was on my own and I just had to make the best of it. And I ended up on the streets. And you see the point of the story, you know. So we can all use excuses of saying, oh, you know, my parents did this or they didn't do that or this. And I had all these, you know, things against me and blah, blah, blah. But we can also point to people have had so much worse and, you know, really bad situations and they went on to great success. So, yeah, resilience, I believe, is inborn, a big, big part of it. But I think it also can be learned. But it's kind of like being funny. You know, you're pretty much either funny or you're not.

Yes.

I don't think it can be learned. It can be honed. But it's really, you know, you really can't teach someone how to be funny. You can hone the skill, perhaps. But if you don't have that natural ability, it's not going to happen. You know, Robin Williams doesn't just sort of happen. It's who he was. He was just a genius that, you know, we'll never see again the likes of him. And so, you know, but as far as resilience, I think we can study it, we can do it. But if you don't have it, it's going to be a heck of a lot harder. But I think we should still all work at it.

Yes, I love that. I love how you explained it. And I think that hopefully gives people A little bit of insight because I, I've seen people running around using that word a lot lately. And I have 2 questions. So my last 2 questions for you is, what is the real key to success in life?

I believe the real key to success in life is to have a balance of 4 elements. And I teach this in my coaching and my books and my classes. And that is to have a balance of time, energy, relationships, and money. When you have a balance of those four elements, I call it the freedom lifestyle formula. When you have an abundance of time, then you don't feel rushed. When you have an abundance of energy, then you feel good and happy and grateful throughout the day. When you have an abundance of healthy relationships, you feel connected to people. And when you have an abundance of money, it's a heck of a lot easier because you get to make better choices in your life. So I've you know I help people with all those things. Of course, I help people have more time, more energy, better relationships, and more money. But, you know, I also want people to remember that I came from nothing. I mean, you know, and so it's not like I was born knowing any of this stuff. It took me, you know, 30 years of— more than 30 years of studying this to really come up with these formulas and these, these methods. So my, my job is to help people get there, frankly, much faster than I, than I did. And, you know, what I always say to my clients is my pain is your gain.

And I really, I love your personal story because I always think it makes such a big difference when somebody can, you know, start out with nothing and show people that you can, you know, overcome this and that. And in so many ways, because, you know, it's a, you know, I guess what I've, I guess, learned in life is like, if you really want to live, The number one thing you must do is you must confront yourself. And I think a lot of people are not willing to confront themselves, so they never feel that they really live. And so if you had to pick one thing that everyone must do to improve their lives in 2024, what would it be?

Understand your head trash. Understand what it's costing you if you don't take out your head trash, and then do whatever you need to do to take out your head trash. Of course, If you go to our website, we have lots of resources. You can get my book called Get Rid of Your Head Trash About Money. You can get that for free on our website. But, you know, of course we have coaching and mentoring on that, one-on-one and group coaching and online courses. But, you know, no matter what you do, you need to understand if you don't take out your head trash, it's going to cost you. It might be costing you $10,000 a month, $50,000 or $100,000 a month or more. But there is no question, if you don't take out your head trash, you will be holding yourself back from the success you're capable of. So if you want to stop holding yourself back, do what you need to do to take out your head trash. Again, we're here for you. If you want to reach out to us, we're here and we're happy to help.

Thank you so much. Thank you, Dr. Noah, for your time and insight. To learn more about Dr. Noah St. John, go to noahstjohn.com and to get his free new book, 7figureexpertbook.com.