Dr. Noah St. John explains how "head trash" – the self-limiting inner voice – blocks achievement, and describes his "question-based affirmations" method that replaces "I am rich" with "Why am I so rich?" to rewire belief. Over 28 years he has helped clients add more than $3 billion in value by removing this mental sabotage.
We are live here on the red carpet at TEDxMeisnerBoulevard with one of our speakers here tonight, Dr. St. John. How are you tonight?
I'm great, Laura. How are you doing?
I'm doing fantastic. And it's so wonderful being able to have you here talking about ideas that really matter in this world. Your talk tonight, you're going to tackle head trash. Yes. Talk to me about that.
Well, head trash is the voice in your head that says, I can't do it because... So all of us have goals that we all want, right? We want to make more money, lose weight, be happy, grow our business. But so many people have those goals, but then they say, ah, I can't do it. I can't do it because I don't have the time. I don't have the money. I can't afford it, and all these things. So what I've done for the last 28 years is help my clients add over $3 billion by getting rid of their head trash. So that's what I'm going to be talking about tonight.
Talk to me about your authorship. How has that helped you inside of being able to deliver your message?
Well, when I was a kid, I dreamed about being a writer. You know, a lot of boys dream about being an astronaut or baseball player. I wanted to be a writer. So now I get to live my dream. I've written 28 books. My first children's book just came out. My wife and I just wrote our first children's book. It's called I Ask Better Questions, teaching kids the power of questions. So I just love writing, and it's really a dream come true.
Talk to me a little bit about what somebody could do today to start removing the trash from their head.
Well, one of the things that I teach is my affirmations method—not affirmations, but affirmations—and that's the power of questions, right? Something I invented in 1997. So I've been teaching this for 30 years now. Instead of saying, "I am rich," which your brain says, "No, you're not," you say, "Why am I so rich?" Or "Why am I so happy?" Why am I always in the right place at the right time? See, these are affirmations rather than affirmations. So an affirmation is a statement of something you want to be true, but. 75% of the time we don't believe it. So instead try using affirmations. Why am I so happy? Why am I so rich? Why am I always in the right place with the right people? You know, like great people like yourself. And you affirm it and then it becomes firm and there's your life.
When you leave the stage tonight here at TEDxMeisnerBoulevard, what do you want people to take away from your speak?
Well, really I want them to know that they can achieve more than they ever thought possible. So many times when we're holding ourselves back, right, as I call it, we're driving down the road of life with one foot on the brake. And when you have one foot on the brake, it's going to take you a long time to reach those goals, no matter how hard you're working. So it's really more important to take your foot off the brake than to step on the gas harder. So that's one thing that I hope people take away from my talk tonight.
Incredible ideas worth sharing right here at TEDxMeisnerBoulevard. Thank you for joining us on the red carpet, and good luck inside. I know it's going to be a great success. Thank you very much.
