This Question Will INSTANTLY Change Your Life! - featuring Jenny McCarthy

The Jenny McCarthy Show on SiriusXM Stars. Noah St John. I'm excited to talk to him. Listen to this. Did you know that asking a new kind of question can immediately change your life? One morning in 1997, college student Noah St John was in the shower when he asked himself a question that changed his life. Why are we trying to change our lives saying statements we don't believe when the human mind responds automatically to something even more powerful? I cannot wait to ask him more about this. Noah St. John, are you there?

I'm here, Jenny. How you doing? Good.

Welcome to the show.

Thanks so much. It's great to be here.

So Noah, you've written a bestselling book called The Book of Afformations: Discovering the Miracle of Positive Self-Talk That Everyone's Talking About. So what are afformations?

Well, as you know, if you've ever read a self-help book, an affirmation is a statement of something you want to be true, right? Like, I am happy, I am wealthy, I'm successful, right? We've been told to say these statements over and over, and then we're going to get the things we want. Well, as you mentioned, back in 1997, I was a 30-year-old college student. I've been doing these Affirmations for years, just like they told us, except I wasn't successful. I was miserable. I wasn't happy. I was broke. I mean, nothing was working. And I had all these statements plastered all over my room, just like they told me to do. And so I was in the shower one morning, as you mentioned. In the book, I call it the shower that changed everything because I was thinking about this. And I said, you know what? We've been saying these statements. I've been doing everything they told me to do, and I'm not getting what I want. But I was thinking about, what are we talking about? We're talking about the human mind. And what is thought? Thought is the process of asking and searching for answers to questions, not statements, but questions. For For example, if I ask you, why is the sky blue? Your brain automatically starts to search for the answer, right?

Correct.

So I said, well, why are we going around making statements we don't believe when the human mind responds automatically to questions? And I said, well, let's take a classic statement. I'm sure you've done this, Jenny, and I bet many of your listeners have too. And you say, I am rich. That's what they taught us to do, right? I like to do this at my live events. I have everybody stand up and I say, all right, everybody, we're going to say, I am rich. And they go, I am rich. And you know what they do? They start laughing.

Yeah, exactly.

I go, what are you laughing at? And they say, well, I don't believe it. I go, yeah, You just said it. Yeah, but I don't believe it. So the problem, Jenny, is not the statement. It's that we don't believe the statement. And so that's why millions of people have been going around saying these statements and they're still frustrated. So I invented something called Afformations. So an Afformation is an empowering question that when you ask it, it immediately changes the subconscious thought patterns in your brain. So let me show you how it works.

I'm loving this.

Please. Good, good. So instead of the statement, I am rich, to which your brain says, yeah, right. I mean, that's what most people do, right? They're literally saying— I call this the yeah, right response. Like, I am happy. Yeah, right. I'm rich. Yeah, right. I'm thin. Yeah, right. And what you're trying to do is pound your brain into submission. Now, listen, for some people that works, but for millions of us, it didn't work at all. So here's how the affirmation works. Instead of saying, I am rich, you ask, why am I so rich? Now, when you ask, why am I so rich? What immediately starts to happen in your brain?

You search.

You start to search. Exactly. And so on our campus, at my company, successclinic.com. We call that using the law of sowing and reaping. Now, the law of sowing and reaping, of course, is nothing new. It's been taught for centuries. As you sow, so shall you reap. But what are we sowing? We're sowing seeds of thought. But what are most people doing? Sowing lousy thought seeds. Why am I so stupid? Why am I so dumb? Why am I so fat? Why can't I lose weight? Why is there more month left at the end of the money?

Yeah.

When you ask lousy questions, what do you get? Exactly. And that creates a lousy life. Now, nobody's doing this on purpose, Jenny. I mean, obviously, no one would go around doing this consciously, but it doesn't matter because of the law of sowing and reaping. It doesn't matter if it's conscious or unconscious. And so that's how I invented and named this process called Afformations. A-F-F-O-R-M-A-T-I-O-N-S. And that is why— and just to finish the story, you know, I've been doing this for 20 years now. I started online back in 1997 in my college dorm room, and I've been teaching this now. We're in over 120 countries. And we've had people to make more money, to double or triple their income, lose weight, quit addictions, quit smoking, even save people's lives. I've had people write to me or call me and say, Noah, I was going to take my own life. I read your book and I decided not to commit suicide. Wow.

I mean, I absolutely love this. And this is why I always tell people, or try to sometimes, the power of stillness or the power of like having space, because I feel like ideas like this are born. This is brilliant because I have been guilty myself of having vision boards that go I have stuff right now on my Post-its on my mirror. I love you, like guy smiley. You're good enough. And gosh darn it, people like you. I'm guilty of all those things. Now I want to take it a step further just so we can understand more. So, I am rich. Why am I rich? Let's have the mind answer that question and I'll try to be a general person listening. I'm rich because I have a house. I have a job. I'm able to feed my family. I afford something that I really want. Am I answering those correctly?

Absolutely, Jenny. And the point is, it's of course different and unique for each person. So that's why in the book of Afformations, I actually walk you through the 4 steps of the Afformations Method. And we call that the 4 A's. The 4 A's involve asking those empowering questions. The first A is to ask yourself what you want. What is it you want to manifest? So do you want to lose weight? Do you want to make more money? Do you want to just be happier? Do you want to have less stress? Whatever it might be. And then I give you— there's 10 main areas of life that we walk you through in the book, from health and wealth to overcoming addiction and overcoming fear and so on. And so you ask yourself what you want, then you afform.

What is it?

You afform an empowering question. that assumes that what you want is already true. So like you just said, so it's, I want to have more money. I want to feel rich. I want to be rich. Why am I so rich? Then the 3rd A is to accept. You accept. We call that giving yourself to the question. So you can read your Afformations. You can write them. You can listen to them. We have tools on our website that you can actually use to listen to them over and over, even while you sleep. And it can change your subconscious thought patterns while you're busy doing other things, while you're not even paying attention. And then the 4th A is to act. You must take action. You know, this isn't magic. It's science. Your brain is already using Afformations. And see, this is what I want to teach people around the world, Jenny, is that we are already— all human beings are already using Afformations. The point is 99% of people are using them in a negative or disempowering way. What do you think those questions like, why am I so dumb? Why am I so stupid? How come I'm so fat? Why can't I lose weight? How come I can't make more money? Those are just negative, disempowering Afformations. So believe it or not, you're already— everybody listening is already using Afformations. Now we're just teaching you how to do it for yourself instead of against yourself.

I love this, and I want to repeat something you said, which we've mentioned Mm-hmm. Before on the show, but I think not enough, which is the action part. Because that's where I think people got stuck with The Secret. Everyone thought, just make a vision board and sit back. And, it does take actual action. And, it doesn't even take— I've noticed in the stuff that I've manifested in my life, it doesn't really take that much. It takes like, you know what? I'm gonna post a Craigslist thing that says, looking for someone interested in, you know, t-shirt making. And then, all of a sudden, that connection comes through that brings me to another connection, to another connection. I mean, I've noticed that just a little tiny It's a baby step, but it is action nonetheless.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I'm sure you've heard— I'm sure you've heard the statement, 80% of success is just showing up. And that really is true. People just don't show up for themselves. And a big reason for that is what I call head trash. So many people have so much what I call head trash that's holding them back from the success they're capable of. Your head trash is basically that guy in your head that says, I can't do it because... and then you just fill in the blank. Well, I can't do it because I'm too old. I can't do it because I don't have enough money. I can't do it because I'm too tall. I'm too short. I'm too this, I'm too that. I'm not enough of this. And guess what? You know what's amazing, Jenny? We always make ourselves right. We always make ourselves right. If you say I can't do it because I'm too old, then guess what? You're going to be right. I can tell you all the stories about like Colonel Sanders, who, you know, started his business at 65 or whatever, you know what I mean? But you're still going to say, oh yeah, well, sure, but I can't do it. You don't understand, Noah. I can't do it because I'm like, well, guess what? You just made yourself right.

Right.

So if you just stop making yourself right about the wrong things, you're going to be a lot happier. And you're going to be able to get unstuck so much faster.

I love that term head trash. That makes so much sense to me. There's been people along my way, my journey, including family members where I've tried to help them, you know, get deals or something. And just before it was about to manifest, like literally sign on the dotted line, they would implode it. And I would always be shocked. A handful of people in my lifetime where I can say, oh my God, I cannot believe they imploded that just before it happened. What happens at that point?

Well, that is your head trash kicking in. See, this is what I've been teaching people since 1997. I also invented or discovered something called success anorexia.

That's interesting.

People are actually suffering from success anorexia. That's another book I wrote called The Secret Code of Success where I show you how to overcome success anorexia. People are actually starving themselves of success. So when you got that deal, this is a perfect example of what I've been teaching for 20 years. When you got that person that deal because you were helping them with their, what I call their outer game, meaning here's the deal, right? It's here, sign on the dotted line. But because they hadn't evolved enough on their inner game, which is the stuff that happens between your ears that you can't see, You don't see directly, but you see the effects of it. And so you were basically handing them an outer game deal, but because their inner game hadn't caught up to their outer game, they couldn't do it. They imploded, they self-sabotaged. And that is ironically a function of success anorexia. That is the condition that actually caused those symptoms. That's why my clients have added over $100 million over the last few years, you know, in terms of business owners and things like that, because I've showed them how to get rid of their head trash. And so 90% of that is just getting rid of their head trash. And so they're able to manifest these things. They go, my God, this is so much easier than I was— I was working so hard. But it's like you're driving down the road of life with one foot on the brake and one on the gas. When you just get your foot off the brake, everything becomes so much easier.

It's so fascinating to me. I'm absolutely in love with this. The book is called The Book of Afformations. I'm not done yet. I want to ask one more question. Just to get more specific on that head trash, is that self-talk, the subtext, I'm afraid of success or I'm afraid of failure? What is that head trash conversation usually?

It's of course again depending on each person, but what I have noticed in a lot of clients that I've worked with, Jenny, is that it's actually both at the same time. And I know this sounds contradictory and counterintuitive, but you can be afraid of success and afraid of failure at exactly the same time. And so just to give you a quick example, we had one woman who came to me, a client named Susan, and she had been buying all these self-help books. I mean, and going to all the gurus, all the big names. She spent $60,000 on all the stuff out there, and she was about to go bankrupt. She was about to lose her home. She was about to lose her marriage. Her husband said, I can't take it anymore. You know, he was going to leave her. And she actually heard about me from a friend. She got my Afformations book, got all of our programs, actually all line. And then she started to realize, wait a minute, I have been sabotaging myself and nobody, none of those gurus were telling me what was going on in the inner game. And then using my methods, she actually was able to manifest her dream job. She's now a TV producer for a national TV show. She's been nominated for an Emmy twice. She's got a 6-figure income and she's just written her first book. So all of that happened.

Wow!

I know. And this is all on our website. You can just go to our website and go to noahstjohn.com and look at it. But my point is that there's thousands of stories just on the website. You'll see dozens of people, real people, real stories. That's what's so exciting to see people's lives turn around after they've tried all this other stuff and we're still stuck.

It's so true. I absolutely love this. I feel like, I mean, I've been on this self-help journey myself since, you know, for 25 years and watched it evolve over the years and meeting people like you who take it to the next level. And I absolutely believe you did. You found something magical. Noah St. John, The Book of Afformations: Discovering the Miracle of Positive Self-Talk. You guys can get your copy of Noah's book at affirmationsbook.com. That's the correct website. Right? Or Noah St. John?

Both of them. Afformationsbook.com. You can actually get the book of Afformations free. We just ask for a small shipping charge. And then at noahstjohn.com, you can actually get my— another book of mine called Get Rid of Your Head Trash. So afformationsbook.com and noahstjohn.com.

I can't wait. Thank you so much, Noah. Real pleasure talking to you.

I'll look forward to doing it again, Jenny.

I think I manifested you, buddy. Thank you so much.