Why Conscious Habits Alone WON'T Make You Successful? Feat Erik Qualman

the power of these unconscious habits. When you're only working at the conscious level, you're at the 5%, right? So it's, you're, you're, it's not that it's wrong. You know, there's nothing wrong with working on your conscious habits. But the problem is, imagine if you have, you know, a football team and you have 5 guys going up against 95 guys. Which one do you think is gonna win? Right?

Yeah.

So that's the problem if you're not working on or even aware of these subconscious habits, it's not so effective. You're digging a gold mine with a teaspoon. So I want to give you the backhoe, which is these power habits.

Today we're going to get a lot of insights on how we can grow our business and also just have a better life. And we're going to be joined by Dr. Noah St. John, and he's known as the father of affirmations and mental health coach to the stars. So welcome to the show.

Well, it's great to be here.

Yeah, no, we'll start with that because our audience is always intrigued. Obviously, we kind of love celebrities. You've worked with a lot of top-level CEOs. Top-level stars. I'm not sure if you're allowed to mention who they are, but it'd be really interesting for our audience if you are able to say, here's who I worked with.

I can mention, like, Gary Vee. He's a big fan of mine. I've known him for a long, long time. There's a video of me driving him around in my car from 2009, and people go, I can't— what? How did you get Gary in your car? I'm like, well, I got him. So, there you go. You can check that out.

Yeah, that's good. No, Gary's great. I haven't seen him in a little bit, but no, he's fantastic. And he's been a friend of our shows for a while. But he's wonderful. And so, when you work with these folks and you try to grow, well, how do you start? What do you kind of approach them? How do you approach them? Because people are like, I'm trying to 10x or I'm trying to get bigger. I'm trying to get better at what I do, not only from a vocation but also from a life perspective. How do you approach it?

Well, I'm known for helping entrepreneurs make more in just 12 weeks than they did in the previous 12 months. While winning back 1 to 3 hours per day and 4 to 8 weeks per year. And the reason that that second part is very exciting to me and my clients is because, you know, there's a lot of the hustle bros out there, you know, and, and we all know who they are, and it's all about the hustle and grind. And, you know, you gotta be working 14, 16, 18 hours a day, and if you're not working on Christmas Eve, you're a loser and stuff like that. And I'm like, dude, hello? What? I'm like, I, I don't know about you, but I want a life, number one. And number two, I want my business to serve me, not the other way around. You know? And, and look, I get it. There's lots of, there, there are times in our business and in our careers where, where you have to hustle. You know, you gotta, you gotta do those late nights and all that stuff. And I get that. But, you know, I, like, for example, I've written 25 books over the last 27 years, basically averaging a book a year. And people ask me all the time, Noah, how did you write 25 books? You know, I can't even get one book done. You know, I got so much to do. I got too much to do in too little time. And I'm like, dude, you know what? I wrote them by writing them. That's how. And I know that sounds crazy, but it's just when you have something that's important to you, you don't find the time, you make the time. And so, that's really what I'm known for is, yes, helping people make a lot more money, but I feel more importantly, win their lives back.

No, that's good. And what's a common thread? They say, I don't have time. I've got too much going on. When you work with these folks And what's a common thread that you see when you sit down with these folks and go, oh, man, this is— I see this all the time. This is what you need to do.

I help people with what I call power habits. So, this is something that I discovered, invented, created, systematized over 25 years ago called the Power Habits of Unconsciously Successful People. Now, that sounds like a mouthful, but basically, what I discovered many years ago because I spent an insane amount of time reading every self-help book. You know, going to all the seminars and everything, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars only to find out that all those gurus, you know, all those marketing gurus can't teach their way out of a paper bag. So I realized that there are these habits that highly successful people are doing that they're not even aware that they're doing. Therefore, they're unconscious. Right? So a lot of people talk about habits, you know, like the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and things like that. But even when you read books like Think and Grow Rich from, you know, Napoleon Hill a long, long time ago, you know, it's a seminal book. Lots of people have read it. And they say, well, you know, how, how'd you become successful? Well, you do this, this, this, and this. Okay. Well, how come millions of people have read that book and not everybody's successful? Because what they talk about in books like that are the conscious habits. Like, you do this. But the problem is that we humans, it's, it's exactly like an iceberg, the iceberg principle of human behavior, right? Only about 5 or 10% is visible above the surface. That's our conscious thoughts, behaviors, and actions. Meanwhile, 95% is below the surface. That's the subconscious habits. And as I always tell my coaching clients, it's not the part of the iceberg that they could see that sunk the Titanic. It's the part that they didn't see that sunk the Titanic. And that's what's sinking most of us, right? And so that's why, that's one of the, the reasons why my coaching and training is different because I'm not just talking about conscious habits. Everybody talks about that. No, it's these subconscious habits that highly successful people are doing, but they can never teach you because they don't even know they're doing it.

And then how do we learn those subconscious habits? Or what is an example of a subconscious habit that, hey, if you did this, it'd be really helpful? Because obviously, the gurus or the experts in the field, like if you're the best at basketball, sometimes you're not a good coach because it just came so easily to you. So, subconscious habits, what are some examples of what those look like?

Well, if you look at habits that people want to break, right? Because if we're looking at habits, they usually fall into 2 groups, good habits and bad habits, right? So, what I like to say is productive versus unproductive, right? So, because everybody can immediately see, okay, is this a productive habit? In other words, a productive habit is a habit that is getting me closer to my goal. Right? And of course, an unproductive habit is a habit that is not getting me closer to my goal, right? And so, the— when you put it that way, it's a lot easier to see. So, let's take an example. Let's say, you know, you're entrepreneurs. Probably most folks watching this program are entrepreneurs, either starting up or maybe you've been in business for a long time. What's a typical goal an entrepreneur has? I want to make more money, right? But you also want to have more time with your family, right? Like I was just talking about, right? You want to make more money at the expense of your health? You wanna make more money at the expense of your family, at the expense of your freedom? And people say, when I put it like that, they go, well, no. I go, exactly right. So, it's not just about the money. Yes, it's money's important, but wait a minute, don't we want a life? So, even just that is a reframe for most people, right? Mm-hmm. And say, oh, well, you're right. No, I never thought of it that way. Then we have to get into, all right, so let's look at your productive habits that you're already doing, and then let's look at some of your unproductive habits. That you're also doing that are not getting you towards your goal. So, what's a classic unproductive habit? The classic unproductive habit is procrastination, right? We all know about procrastination. That's the number one unproductive habit that I help my clients with. And the point is, well, what causes procrastination? So, here's what all the other coaches are doing. All right, come on. Hey, come on, Eric. You know what? If you're procrastinating, stop procrastinating. Come on, let's do it. Come on, put your nose to the grindstone. Let's go. Let's move it. Great. Wow. Thanks a lot. That's so helpful. You know, it's, it's basically like saying to someone who wants to lose weight, well, if you wanna lose weight, make sure you lose weight. No, really? I never thought of that. No, kid. Thank you. That's not helping. You know, so they're really not saying anything that's very helpful.

Yeah.

So the point is we've gotta go beneath the behavior, right? Because you can't change behavior at the level of behavior. You have to go underneath the behavior. I'll give you a quick example of this. All right. Now, also a keynote speaker. So I get to do keynote presentations for teams, organizations, companies all around the world. One of the things I like to do at my keynote presentations is, you know, let's say I'm speaking to a group of 1,000 people, right? And I'll say, alright. Now everybody, we're gonna do, we're gonna have a new behavior here. Now everybody stand up and like each other. And of course, everybody starts laughing, right? Because I'm like, that's ridiculous, right? But saying something like that is totally ridiculous. What do you mean, like each other? I don't even, you know, I don't know half these people. How can I dislike people?

Yeah.

And I say, see, I just proved to you that you can't change behavior at the level of behavior. Now, if you met most of these people in this room, you'd probably like them. But you can't just start saying, like each other, right? That's a behavior. It's like saying, stop procrastinating. No kidding. Right? That doesn't help. So the point is we gotta get beneath the behavior, what's causing the behavior, and that's how my clients get hockey stick growth, meaning doubling, tripling, 800% increases and more. Yeah.

And I bet, like you said, the productive versus unproductive habits, I'm guessing that— so, procrastination is an unproductive habit. And so, you're trying to dig into procrastination. So, I'm just guessing for— I'll speak for myself or listeners is all of a sudden, let's say you actually wrote the book, like you actually made it that far, you've written a book. But then, what happens, like for me, I might write a book. And then it's done. And then I spend months waiting to send it out. And then if you unearth that behavior, it might be, oh, I'm afraid it's gonna get rejected. That could be it. That could be the unearth is like, yeah, I'm just afraid of the rejection. That's why I haven't sent it out. You've got it done. Or I haven't started even writing the book because I'm afraid it's gonna be bad. Do you have other examples you've come across over the years where I dug deep on this person and this is why they're procrastinating, And this was the unlock that allowed that person to then take off.

Yeah, exactly. You nailed it on the head. And let me give you a perfect example. So, getting rid of your head trash. In fact, that's the title of one of my books called Get Rid of Your Head Trash About Money. And you can go to my website and learn more about that. And you can actually get that book for free at our website.

Oh, nice. Get it for free. What's the website?

Well, it's actually— this one is sendmeabooknoah.com. It's very short.

Sendmeabooknoah.com.

Send me a book, Noah.

Okay. There we go.

So, sendmeabooknoah.com. And the book is free. Just cover the shipping. And again, so the point is head trash, right? So what is head trash? Head trash is the voice in your head that says, I can't do it because dot, dot, dot. Right? So using your book example, right? Well, okay. I wrote a book, but, uh, I don't think it's gonna be popular. I don't know if it's gonna sell. What if people don't like it? What if people criticize me? See? So all of that is head trash. And then that leads to a behavior, in this case, procrastination. Do you see what we just did?

Mm-hmm.

We just got down to the root cause. See, Thomas Jefferson many years ago said, for every 99 who are hacking away at the root, at the leaves of truth, there's one striking at the root. For every 99 hacking away at the leaves of truth, there's one striking at the root.

All right.

So I'll give you a perfect example. My, I was talking to one of my clients named Charles, and he said, I, I said to him, how much do you think your head trash is gonna cost you in the next 12 months if we don't Take it out. In other words, if we don't fix this one problem that's causing all your other problems, he said, $1 million. He said, Noah, if I don't fix this problem, this one problem, if I don't take out my head trash, I'm easily gonna lose out on $1 million just in the next 12 months. I said, number one, Charles, first of all, I hear that all the time. You know, people I talk to every single day, they say, Noah, my head trash is easily costing me half a million, $1 million, $2 million or more, you know, just in the next 12 months. I remember That accumulates. It's not just one time, right? So, it just keeps piling up if you don't fix the problem. That's number one. Number 2, I said, I tell you what, why don't you just give me 10% of that million dollars and I will find you a 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? And he goes, well, yeah, that's a good deal. So, he decided to hire me on the spot. You know, he invested $100K. You know, he paid me $100K to coach him for a year. And that's 10% of $1 million. Now, as it turns out, I coached him for a year. We— I helped him through this whole process. And as it turns out, I didn't find him $1 million in the next 12 months. Instead, I found him $1.8 million in just 10 months. So he gave me $1 and I gave him $18 back. Is that a good deal? No, that's a great deal. And it gets even better because he sent me an email recently and he said, guess where I am, Noah? I'm on a 7-week vacation with my wife. He said, this is a dream that I've had for years. We just bought a new motorcoach. I've wanted to do this for years, and I never had the time or the money. And so, I bought a new motorcoach. We're on a 7-week vacation. We're traveling the country, just me and my wife. We're taking 7 weeks off. He said, all because I fixed this one problem that you helped me fix to take out my head trash. Now, I have more time than ever, and I have more money than ever. That was some very powerful—

Oh, that's great. And we double-click it a little more on Charles. So, Charles. He's got this head trash. You've identified it. He's like, I'm in. I got to fix this. Obviously, Charles has probably tried to fix it before. Walk us through in the 10 months, what did we do? What did Charles need to do to get rid of that head trash?

Well, that really goes to my Power Habit System that I was telling you about. So, this is the system, okay? So, this is the system that I invented, discovered, systematized, over 25 years ago that has helped my clients make over $3.2 billion collectively. So, this is, these are the 11 power habits of unconsciously successful people. You know, you remember, do you remember a few years ago with, with P90X that, that those infomercials? Yeah. Yeah. The P90X. So, you know, one of the things that they came up with was this thing called muscle confusion. I'm sure we all remember that, right? If you, if you remember those infomercials, right? Muscle confusion. So, What they were saying is that, you know, the reason that you're in the gym for hours and still not losing weight is because you're not confusing your muscles. Well, my Power Habit system is similar to that because most people have spent a lot of time, as you mentioned, you know, they spent a lot of money, they've gone to all the gurus, and yet why aren't they getting that growth that, as I call it, hockey stick growth, right? Meaning, you know, a hockey stick, you're kinda going along like this, and then whoop, you go on along like that. Well, it's because of these unconscious power habits that I've identified. As a quick example of that, I have one client named Tamisa, is an entrepreneur out in Arizona. Now, she was a self-described seminar junkie. That's what she was.

And she—

that's her words, right? She was going to all these seminars, right? And just, you know, and she was doing really well. You know, she was at 6 figures in her business doing well. But, you know, she just had plateaued. It was just pretty much, you know, the same every year, every month, whatever. And so, you know, a friend of hers referred her to me. And, you know, I was walking her through my process, my Power Habit System. Well, in the first 2 weeks, she tripled her investment. In 2 weeks, tripled her investment with me. We hadn't even gotten to the money part yet. Now, why do I say that? What does this mean for you? What it shows is the power of these unconscious habits. When you're only working at the conscious level, you're at the 5%, right? So it's— you're, you're It's not that it's wrong. You know, there's nothing wrong with working on your conscious habits. But the problem is, imagine if you have, you know, a football team and you have 5 guys going up against 95 guys. Which one do you think is gonna win? Right?

No.

So that's the problem. If you're not working on or even aware of these subconscious habits, it's not so effective. You're digging out, you're digging for a gold, you're digging a gold mine with a teaspoon. So, I want to give you the backhoe, which is these power habits.

So, with Charles, like, what was the initial steps that he needed to take to get more productive? Essentially, how did he overcome that procrastination? What did he need to do?

Yeah. Number one, I want you to identify what are your top 5 goals for the next 12 months, right? What are your top 5 goals? Now, everybody talks about goal setting, right? Oh, goal setting, right? I've heard that a million times. Yeah, I know. But you still have to do it. And why? Because we humans are goal-oriented organisms. Alright? We are always constantly thinking about, focused on, dreaming about, wishing about, hoping for what we want. You know, whether it's a new home, a new car, or a ham sandwich for lunch. I mean, we're always thinking about what is it that we want.

Alright?

So that's, that is step 1. So that's what all the gurus say. And technically, that part is right. But here's what they don't tell you. So the second thing that we do is we say, all right, so now that you understand what it is that you want, and then by the way, it can be 3 things, 5 things, 10 things, 20 things. It doesn't matter how many, but think about the things that you want. Then I want you to write down, why do you think you can't do it? Mm-hmm. What are all the reasons you can't do what you just said you wanted to do? All right. So basically, it, for most people, it comes down to, oh, I don't have the time. Oh, I don't have the money. Oh, I can't afford it. Oh, I've got kids. Oh, I don't have kids. I'm a Martian. I mean, you know, there's a million reasons why we say we can't do the things that we want. But here's what I want you to realize. Everything that you just wrote down about why you can't do what you just said you wanted, those are all in the subconscious.

Mhmm.

Alright? So here's what I mean by that. Nobody wakes up in the morning and says to themselves, Wow, you know, this is a beautiful day. Ah, wow, the sun's shining, the birds are singing. You know what? I think I'm gonna hold myself back from success today. Right? I mean, no one has ever said that, right? Why? Because that would be a conscious thought. It's the 95% of the iceberg. Again, remember, you got 95 guys fighting 5 guys. Who do you think is gonna win? Right? So you could take, you know, like Tamisa, great example. You know, she was going to all these seminars and saying, come on, work hard. Tamisa, say you're almost there. And she was doing okay, but Didn't have that until we got her, you know, to the subconscious. So that, so that's the point is realize that all of those reasons you just listed about why you can't do it, that's precisely what's causing all these unproductive behaviors. Because think about this, if I may for a moment.

Yep.

Your goals are a destination, right? So think about if you wanna go down the street to the grocery store, right? That's a destination, right? But here's the thing. Number one, Nobody gets in their car, leaves their home, goes to the grocery store, walks around for an hour, and then comes back home. That would be idiotic, right? You would never do that. Why? Because you don't just go to the grocery store. You go for a reason. You need milk, eggs, bread, butter, whatever, right? So you're going for a reason. Well, it's just like that with your goals. With every single one of your goals, you have a destination. This is what I want. But why do you want it?

Hmm.

That's what nobody talks about. Well, why do you want that thing? Well, I want more money. Okay. Here's $5. Go away. No, we gotta get a lot more clear than that. Alright? So the point is, what is it you want? But here's the other thing, and this is where it gets way more subtle. And that is that, do you realize that most entrepreneurs are driving down the road of life with one foot on the brake? And that is that if you keep pressing on the gas harder while you have your foot on the brake, what's gonna happen to your car? You're just gonna ruin your car faster. You're not getting your goals. You're not reaching your goals faster. That's what all the, that's what all the gurus are saying. All the coaches are saying, come on, Eric, let's go work hard. Set your goals. Come on, move it, move it. Come on, let's go. Okay. I already knew all that. Thank you.

No, I love that. It's a great metaphor, the foot on the brake. It makes all the sense in the world. And when you dig into some of these subconscious pieces, because they'll write down, why can't I do it? So, they'll write down time. I'm sure you unpack, well, let's look at how you spend your time. Oh, you can grab some time here, some time there. You're just not prioritizing. So, you can find time on this piece. Some of them, though, are a little more difficult. So, if they say, It's money. They want to compete with Google and AI. So let's just say that they've got this vision. Okay, Google's been broken for 20 years. Search just isn't really that good because if it gave you the answer, then I wouldn't click on any of these ads. So I've got a new idea. I know Perplexity is out there, but I've got this new idea for search. Wow, this is really expensive. I don't have the money to do this from a personal level. I mean, when there are hurdles like that, like how do they overcome that? Because people overcome them. But like, what do they do when it's like a— it's a pretty legitimate reason that they wrote down?

So, who is your invention going to benefit?

Yeah. Let's say it's going to benefit society, people that are time-starved because they don't want to have to click through all the links on Google so that they just get the answer right away. They put it in and they get the answer right away.

In order to get investors, because it sounds like what you're looking for in this example is you're looking for investors. Right? So how is the investor going to benefit? All investors care about is their money, right? So how am I gonna make a, you know, 4x return, let's say? How am I gonna make a 4x return in X amount of time? So until and unless you make it so that it's very, very clear to that investor how they're gonna make their money back, you're right. You probably won't make any money or you won't, you know, be able to raise any investment capital, right?

Yeah.

So that's an example. I'm not saying I'm an investment expert because that's not what I do, you know? But yeah, I mean, it's obvious that we have to break every, every, every major goal has, you know, dozens or sometimes scores of subgoals, right? So, you have to break them down, break them down each little step. But the point is that this is, again, a great reason to procrastinate. You know what? This just seems too big. I think I'll go watch Netflix, you know?

Yeah.

No kidding, right? Because the human brain doesn't want to work so hard. We're like, you know what? This is really hard. I think I'll just go watch Netflix. Okay, that's fine. I'm not saying don't watch Netflix. I'm saying, well, maybe we can reach your goals too. We could do that and you can still watch Netflix.

No, that makes sense. And it's very similar to what you mentioned for the individual is like, why do you want to do this? And so, why would the investors want to invest in this? So, that makes all the sense in the world. And I love the fact that sometimes you've got your foot on the brake, but also, you have your fingers and your toes and your ear on the brake as well. So, you kind of systematically remove one at a time and everyone helps that subconscious layer of, okay, why didn't I do any writing today? We're sticking with the book analogy just so we stay with one analogy. Why didn't I do any writing today? And you write that down and then you go, oh, well, if I overcome that one piece tomorrow, then at least get me to that sentence level. And then maybe the following day I remove another thing off the brake and then I can get to a paragraph level. So, no, that's really good. I really love that. Any— as we start to wrap things up time-wise here, is there anything that we should have asked you that we didn't cover?

I just want to say one thing real quick. When you look at the gurus in this space, they really usually have just one success story, and that is themselves. That means they've made a ton of money promoting themselves. They're great self-promoters, great self-marketers. Nothing wrong with that. My question always, however, is, have you helped anyone else? Have you helped anyone else make money? Because at the end of the day, I don't care about your money. I care about my money. Right? I care. I don't care about your success. I care about my success. Says everyone. Right? Everyone is saying that or should be saying it that way. So the point is that what they've done is they've, they've brainwashed us to think, wow, okay, they've made all this money. That means they can teach me how to make money. The answer is not so much. A lot of times, they, they basically suck at teaching because you should be looking for a system-driven success, not a personality-driven success. That's how you know that it can work for anyone.

No, that's good. I like that it's also tailored, specific intentionality, as you mentioned earlier. It's like an individual that's, say, in their 20s, doesn't have any kids, doesn't have a wife. They're like, it's all about my season of life right now is just making as much money as I can. Whereas, you talk to someone in their 40s that has 3 kids at home, they're married, they're like, this is the amount. Yes, I know I could make $10 million next year if that's all I did was work. But then, that's not my number one priority. My number one priority is my family. So, for me, it's really trying to figure out— I'm talking about this metaphoric person, but for 3, I want to make $3 million and then make sure that I've got a really great family life. And so, it's about that intentionality.

Exactly.

trying to figure out, okay, so what you said, write down the goals, but also, I like that you said, what's preventing you from getting to those goals? And then systematically in that subconscious, that below the water level, all those items that are kind of that foot on the brake, how do I systematically kind of remove these one by one so that when I do hit the gas, there's no brake? It's, you know, it's all gas, no brakes.

Right.

I've actually got that sign in my garage. I made it up with my parents up in Michigan. We did this whole, Event. So we've got above our fridge that says all gas, no brakes. What we teach our our kids basketball team as well. It's like all gas, no brakes. Let's go, let's go, let's go. So this is awesome, super helpful. And then how do we find out more about you? What's the best best place to go? I know you mentioned a bunch, but if you had to just go to one spot, what would it be?

Yeah, I'd go to breakthroughwithnoah.com. Definitely that one. And and my main website is just my name, noahstjohn.com. You can go there too, and there's. Lots of resources, books, coaching, mentoring, uh, online courses. noahstjohn.com, that's our main site, but breakthroughwithnoah.com to book that, uh, breakthrough consultation, complimentary.

No, I love it. That's Dr. Noah St. John. He's known as the father of affirmations and the mental health coach to the stars. Certainly helped us with some of the tips you've given us here today. And I know it's just scratching the surface of all the books that you've written, which is, uh, just proof in the pudding itself that you kind of drink your own champagne, that You actually practice what you preach to get stuff out there on the productivity side of things. You don't procrastinate. So, uh, thank you so much. Thanks for joining the, the Super U Podcast and, uh, wish you all the best of luck.

My pleasure. Thanks, Eric.