Believing Your Desires Are Attainable Results In Success

Hey, it's Mark Ponolski, the land geek with the landgeek.com, your favorite niche real estate website. And I'm super excited for what will be called today's cheapest therapy you've ever gotten for today's guest. But before we introduce today's guest, I want to remind everybody that there is somebody who's co hosting the podcast. You know him, you love him. Six Sigma Scott Todd from scotttodd.net, landmodo.com and most importantly, if you're not automating your craigslist postings, postingdomination.com landgeek Scott Todd how are you?

Mark I'm awesome and feeling pumped up and energized for our guest today.

I'm really excited for the guests and I'll tell you why. I was reading Tools of Titans the other night, which is like Tim Ferriss massive book. And in the book he interviews the creator of Dilbert, Scott Adams. And Scott Adams starts talking about using affirmations and it sounds really hokey, but he wrote I, Scott Adams will be a New York Times bestseller. I, Scott Adams will be a cartoonist or a famous cartoonist or whatever. It was like he did all these affirmations and he would write them down like 15 times and sure enough they all came true and there's some science behind it. So it's really, really interesting because I'm now starting to use affirmations after reading that. But better to have as a guest to help us clear out our mental headspace than Noah St. John. Noah St. John is a keynote speaker and best selling authority who's famous for inventing affirmations. Now I said affirmations as actually afformations and helping busy people achieve financial freedom. His sought after advice is known as the secret sauce for business and personal growth. As a leading authority on how to eliminate limiting beliefs, NO delivers live programs and online courses that is coaching clients called mandatory for anyone who wants to succeed in life and business. He's the author of 10 books that have been translated into over a dozen languages. No's engaging and down to earth. Speaking style always has high marks from audiences. One of the world's most sought after experts on personal growth and professional development, NO appears frequently in the news worldwide including abc, NBC, cbs, Fox, the Hallmark Channel, npr, I mean, Forbes, Washington Post, the Huffington Post.

Right?

Finally, he's on a, you know, a respectable media outlet. The Art of Passing the podcast. Noah St. John, congratulations. How are you?

Hey, great to be here guys. Thanks.

I want to ask you how the hell does Noah St. John become? Noah St. John, the affirmations expert?

Well, I tell you, back in 1997, I was a broke college student. I was a 30 year old college student. It was my second time in college and I was sitting there, I've been reading lots of self help books because I grew up poor in a rich neighborhood. And so I was painfully aware of the difference between the haves and the have nots. The haves was everybody else in my community and the have nots was my family. And so I really, really wanted to learn how to be more successful. So I was reading all these books on how to do it. And one of the things, of course that they told you is to use affirmations, these statements, like you were just talking about saying, I am rich, I'm happy, I'm successful. And you write them down and you say it's been said a million times. And so I was doing everything those books told me to do. But meanwhile I was sitting there, I wasn't successful, I wasn't happy, I was miserable, I was broke, I was divorced. I'm like, this is not working for me. What am I doing wrong here? I'm following all the directions and doing everything. They said, what's missing? And so I was in the shower one morning in April 1997 thinking about all this and I said, what if there was a better way to do this? What if there was something they didn't tell us? There's got to be a better way to change our beliefs and change our lives that maybe nobody's told us. And I started thinking about it and I said, well, there's the human mind when you think about it, we're talking about beliefs, but what is a belief? A belief is a thought, but what's a thought? And I realized a thought is the process of. Human thought is a process of asking and searching for answers to questions. For example, if I ask you why is the sky blue? Your brain immediately starts to search for the answer. And so I said, well, if the human brain is automatically searching for answers to questions, why are we going around making statements we don't believe? And so I said, what if we just cut out the middleman? And that's how I invented this process that I named and I discovered. And it is called afformations. Not affirmations, but afformations afford m a t I o n s. And so I basically put up a website and wrote a book. And now, Now I've got 10 books. As you mentioned, my new book is called The Book of Afformations from Hay House, and I've got a book from HarperCollins. So now I'm actually the only author in history that's had works published by Hay House, HarperCollins, Mindvalley, Nightingale, Conant, and the Chicken Soup for the sole publisher. So that's kind of how it all started.

That's amazing. That's amazing. So, Scott. Todd, if I say I am going to dunk a basketball six weeks, right, being 45 and, you know, having absolutely no, you know, leaping ability, it doesn't matter, right? Like. Because I don't believe it. Scott, like, what do you think about the affirmation thing?

Well, I mean, I don't, like me personally, I don't sit there and write affirmations and read them out loud. And, you know, I've read about that. I've heard about it. I know other people that do that, and I don't do that. What I do do on a regular basis, daily, is I write down goals of things that I want to accomplish, and I do write it as if it has already been done. Okay? So I'm not sitting there reading it, but in a way, I'm kind of applying the same, I think, logic behind it. You know, I want this amount for passive income. I want to. This is the life that I want. And whether it's, you know, I mean, I don't really know the science behind it because I haven't studied it. But I can tell you that the things that you tend to write down, especially if you're doing it on a regular basis and you're dreaming it and you believe that you can do it, then you will accomplish it. But if, to your point, Mark, if you don't believe that you can do it, then it's just these words that are out there. And so I do take time to kind of. As I'm writing down these goals, I do take time to think, like, okay, I see myself there. You know, like, I want that house on the beach.

And I.

When I'm writing it and I'm thinking about it, I'm there at the beach, and there's things that I've written down. I mean, I. A long time ago, I made a. Like this. I don't know, you want to call it a bucket list or what? You know, a hundred things that I wanted to accomplish or do. And you write that down, you put in a book, and then you forget about it. And then you go back and you look, and it's amazing how much of that stuff you've completed. You know, like, I remember one of the things that I had written down many, many years ago is, okay, well, I want to, you know, I want to replace my wife's wedding ring, engagement ring. I want to replace it with something bigger. Because when we got married and having money and then, you know, went and did it, you know, and it was, when I, when I went and did it was many, many years later, and I had forgotten I even wrote that down, you know, and maybe that was the wish or the desire that I wanted. But all these things that you tend to write down, they will come come true if you keep working for them.

Noah.

Like, you know, Oprah talks about vision boards, Scott Adams talks about affirmations or, you know, hypnosis. But what's interesting is if we don't believe it, then you're saying it won't be effective. And what is the science behind that? And also, well, how can, how can we get rid of limiting beliefs? Because I might want to, you know, I might. I might really want to be like a New York Times best selling authority. I might say I mark it off to be the New York Times best selling author, but I don't really believe it because I think my writing might suck. How do I get rid of the limiting belief that my writing sucks and I will never be a New York Times bestselling author?

Okay, well, you asked me about 12 questions in there, so I'm going to sort of try to unpack what you just said.

Yeah, yeah, sorry about this.

No problem. I got it. I got it. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to start with the first one that you asked, which is about how our desires affect our beliefs, affect our lives. So in the book of affirmations, I talk about what's called the D bar cycle. D bar stands for desire, belief, action, result. Now, this is how our lives work. We start with a desire, right? So you mentioned you want to be a New York Times bestselling author. So that's your desire. So it could be to replace your wife's wedding ring. It could be to lose weight. It could be to find your soulmate, it could be to grow your business, whatever your desire is. All right, so that's where we start. The next thing that happens is your belief. That's the B in D bar. So the belief is, I can have that thing or I can't have that thing. Now, what I do is I ask my audiences this on my webinars, my live events. I say, what do you guys Think the default human belief is I can or I can't. And what does everybody say? I can't. Exactly. So everybody knows that that's the default human belief. Why is that the default human belief? Because we're just programmed with all this negative shit and we just, that's what we're passing pounded into our brains for 100,000 years. So just the default human belief is I can't. Now when you look at the next step in the D bar cycle, the A stands for action. Now let's just walk through it. Let's say you have a desire for something, you believe that you can't do it or have it or be it, what do you think your actions are going to be?

Nothing.

Nothing. Exactly. Or very half hearted or half some other part of the anatomy. Right? So it's like, you know, it's like, well yeah, I'll try it. And then, oh, it didn't work. And so you just give up. Right? This is why the gyms are full on January 2nd and by January 30th they're empty again. Right? Because oh, I didn't lose £20. You're not going to lose £20 in 30. I mean that's not going to happen. But see, we just have this negative belief says, oh, see, I told you I couldn't do it. And then the R in D bar stands for results, right? So your results are if you don't take action. What are your results? Nothing. Right? So, so the point is it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. That's why we humans always make ourselves. Right? Isn't that interesting? Right, so you have a desire for the thing, you believe, you can't do it, you don't take action, you don't get a result. You go, see, I told you. And the point is it's totally self defeating. You just walked into the room without even bothering to start. So what I say to my clients is, listen, why don't we just change that belief? What if we could change your belief from I can't to I can or what if I could? Right? Just I'm not even. What I say to people is I'm not even asking you to believe it yet. Just what if I could do it? Oh, what if I could? Well, if you could do that thing, what would you do? What actions would you take? Well, I do this, this, this, this and this. Right, so with a New York Times bestseller. Well first, you know, you maybe write a book proposal, you find an agent. I mean, you know, there's 20 things you could do. Today, Right. And none of them are really that hard. So then what's your result going to be? And so here's the other thing I share with my clients. I say, so when you have a desire, you believe you can do it. You take action. You always get what you want, right? And they go. I'm like, no, of course not. You don't always get what you want. Right. That's not how life works. That's the sucky thing about life. That's what's so frustrating. That's why most people give up, because, oh, but I tried and I did it and I didn't get it. And then I tell them the story, which I also tell in the Book of Affirmations. I talk about my friend Jack Canfield, and he wrote a book called Chicken Soup for the Soul with his partner, Mark Victor Hansen. Do you know how many publishers they were rejected by? 144. 144 publishers said, no thanks, slammed the door in their face. And how many people do you think would have given up after 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 30? 100, 140? I mean, are you kidding me? So do you understand that just because you want something and you believe and you take action doesn't mean you always get it on the first, second, or 100? That's the whole point here, is that just because we don't get it on the first time doesn't mean you're not going to get it, doesn't mean you're not supposed to have it. But that's why we have to use all of the whole system. That's why I wrote another book called the Secret Code of Success where I talk about the power habits of unconsciously successful people. So afformations is the first power habit, but there's a heck of a lot more we have to do.

Yeah, but no, this sounds so woo woo. Is there any science behind this?

No, not at all.

It's all just made up. So. I just made it all up. I love that you asked that. No, I mean, is there science behind it? I mean, I don't know. The point is that what I have done is I've studied this for 35 years, right? I've been. When I was a kid, I was reading books like how to Win Friends and Influence People, you know, and you know, that book was written in the 1930s, and this is only, you know, 60 million copies later. So, I mean, the science behind it is what I talk about is what makes what I teach different from what they teach in the Law of Attraction. So in the law of Attraction, what they basically say is you sit and think about money and money pours in from the ceiling. I'm not sure what planet that works on, but it's not the planet Earth, right? I mean, I mean, last time I checked, we have to do this annoying thing called work to get the things we want. Whether it's make more money or lose weight or have a happy relationship. It's not going to happen just because you sit there and think about it, right? So I mean, when you ask about science, I'm talking about real life, you know, So I mean, the point is that I think we all know from our experience what happens. And that's why I give lots of examples. I mean, just in the book of affirmations alone, there's over two dozen real life examples from people who had tried everything, I mean, spent $60,000 and you know, were deep in debt and had tried everything. So they thought, then they came to me, now they're making six figures. We've helped people get. You make seven figure businesses help people get their first books published, find love. We've helped kids to improve their grades, improve their self esteem. We've had people who didn't, you know, didn't take their lives, they were suicidal and they decided not to take their life because they learned how to change their beliefs. So I mean, we've literally got thousands and thousands of real life stories from real people. You can go to NoahSaintJohn.com and just click on the praise button and just see some of the examples not only from real people but, but also from the biggest things in the industry. People like Jack Canfield, Joe Vitale, John Gray, Neil Donald Walsh. I mean, it just goes on and on.

So let's say that Scott's got an affirmation, right? A belief. How often, how often does it happen where that belief is maybe not really well thought out. I'm sorry, not the belief, the desire, right? Like let's say for example that Scott's desire is he wants a yacht, which you could see from an eagle point of view is a great desire, right? But then it gets into the weeds of doesn't make him happy or you. Or let's say it goes to you and say, this is my affirmation, I want to get a yacht. And kind of you're like, well, you're going to do this, this and this and this. You're going to get a yacht and you're going to go through all this work and then you're going to get it? And you're like, well, I want to sell it, right? The two best days of a yacht owner, when they buy it and they sell it. And you kind of know this based on all this experience. How often do you say to somebody, well, maybe your desire. Maybe you got to think more about your desires first.

I think that's a great point, because whether you want a New York Times bestseller or you want a yacht or, you know, you want to lose weight, there has to be, you know. And I talk about this in the Secret Code of Success, what I call why to's and why not to's. So anytime we're going for a goal, it's like driving a car. In a car, you have two forces. There's driving forces and restraining forces. The driving force is your foot on the gas. The restraining force, your foot on the brake. We humans are exactly the same. So the foot on the gas is what I call your Y tubes, your why Tubes Excel. Why do you want that yacht? And I mean, I want to enjoy the sun. I want to have time with my family, or I want to feel like I'm important. It's for my ego. It's so that other people are envious of me. I mean, there's dozens of things that are reasons that you could want that yacht or that book or that to be healthy and so forth. And so the point is, a lot of times when we have that extrinsic desire, meaning it's really for purposes that don't really fulfill you, then you're going to have trouble with that goal whether you get it or not. So what I'm looking for, as people call me the Millionaire mentor or the Power Habits mentor, what I'm looking from a mentoring point of view is, okay, I'm more interested in your why to's and why not to's than what you want. What you want is important, but what's more important is the why to's and why not to's. So the why to's are the driving forces that are driving you towards that goal. But what are the restraining forces? What's holding you back? Why don't you have it right now? Right? Why have you been stopping yourself? Is it what I call head trash? A lot of times that head trash is that belief that says, well, I just. I can't do it. You know, I'm not smart enough, or I'm not talented enough, or, you know, I'm too old, I made too many mistakes, or I don't have the right. I don't have enough money. I don't have the right connections. There's tons of head trash that we can have, and that's what's going to hold you back.

So how do we get rid of the head trash?

Well, one way to get rid of the head trash is to, first of all, use afformations. All right? So affirmations are empowering questions that immediately change your subconscious thought pattern. So a classic affirmation, a statement is, I am rich, right? You write that down. I am rich. You say, and I do this at my live events, too. It's just really funny. I say, all right, everybody, we're going to stand up and say, I am rich. Everybody goes, I am rich. And then you know what happens? They'll start laughing. I'm like, what are you laughing at? They go, well, I'm not rich. But you just said you were. Yeah, but I don't believe it. You see what I mean? So the problem isn't the statement. The problem is we don't believe the statement. So an afformation is an empowering question. So an example empowering question might be, why am I so rich? Why do I have so much? Why am I just at the right place at the right time? Why are the right people coming to me right now? Now, when you ask a question by virtue of the embedded presupposition factor of your brain, your brain starts with a lot of words.

Embedded presupposition factor.

What is that? Embedded presupposition factor. So when you ask a question like why is the sky blue? Guess what happens in your brain? You're searching for the answer, right? So that's what psychologists call the embedded presupposition factor, right? So it's you. You just ask a question, and by virtue of you asking it, your brain starts to search for. So that's how I put two and two together. I was in the shower. That might call it the shower that changed everything. And I said, why don't we just cut out the middleman and go right to the question? Instead of saying, I am rich, which I don't believe, why don't you say, why am I so rich? And then your brain has to search for the answer. And then by virtue of just you asking, it, has to set in motion as long as you take action. Okay, so that's what.

Why am I a New York Times bestseller?

Yes. Right. But it's not magic, right? This isn't magic. You can't say, why am I New York Times best selling? Okay, where is it? All right, you got it too Yay. Right? You got to take the action, right? And so, like I said, that's why I had to write several books. But I mean, the book of afformations goes deeply into how to change your brain using these afformations or empowering questions. And the secret code of success goes into the power habits of unconsciously successful people. What highly successful people do unconsciously that they're not even aware of, number one, and therefore, number two, they can't teach it to you. So. So notice that when you go to all these seminars, this is one of the reasons that people have spent tens of thousands of dollars before coming to me. They're still stuck. Then they come to me, and for the first time, they start to make more money, they start to grow their business, they get their books published, they have success in whatever they want, because I showed them how to do what highly successful people do unconsciously so the rest of us can do it consciously.

Scott, Todd, are you buying this?

Why am I on my yacht right now? I got to go do the work.

To do it, you do, right? You have to take the action.

Want to do that, do you? I don't even think you want to do that work.

Yeah, I want to do. You know, Yeah, I want to do the work because if I want. If I want to be on the yacht, I gotta do the work, right?

What's your why to.

What's my why to do it?

Is that right? No. Am I using the right word?

Yes, perfectly. Yep. Yeah, I gotta think that one through, Mark. You know, I mean, now he's not gonna. Because look just like driving a car, right? Yeah. Let's say you want to go on a trip, because going from where you are to where you want to be is taking a trip. A virtual. A real trip. You know, it's. It's a journey, right? So the point is going from where you are to where you want to be, there's always going to be roadblocks, detours, you know, red lights, things we don't expect. So what most people are doing is waiting in their driveway for every light to turn green before they leave the driveway. Well, when is that going to happen? Never. It's never going to happen. So most people are waiting for everything to be perfect before they take action. And so what I. You know, one of the things I say to my clients is, hey, guys, nothing's ever perfect. We have to take action, and we figure it out as we go. That's how I started my company, my college Dorm room, with $800 to my name and a book on how to do HTML. This is in 1997, 20 years ago. I had no idea what I was doing and I had no money, no experience, no, you know, no business skills, no people skills really. And I figured out how to do it. Now I'm, you know, a best selling author. I have those books that I mentioned and I mean everything's happened just one step at a time with a lot of twists and turns. But I figured it out as I went and that's what I mean. Anybody can do it.

Why are my kids so happy and independent and good people? Good one.

Yeah. A lot of parents love afformations and kids love afformations. How old are your kids?

So I've got 11, 13 and 16.

Kids love, love afformations. I can't tell you how much they love them Mark. So definitely share the book with them, they'll love it. We've had so many. In fact I tell a story in the book about a 13 year old girl, Stephanie from Wisconsin and she was nervous, she was losing sleep, she couldn't sleep. She was very smart girl, but just very nervous and losing sleep. And her parents tried everything. They were considering taking her to therapy, they just were pulling their hair out. The mom heard me speak at a conference, talk about affirmations. She was so excited she immediately shared the book with her daughter. Now her daughter that very night started using afformations. She never lost another night of sleep. She literally cured her insomnia in one night using afformations. And now she's, you know, she's. Well she's basically a nice, very confident young woman and it really totally changed her self esteem or self confidence. So anyway, we got lots of kids using affirmations to improve their grades, build their self confidence. So parents and kids love affirmations.

I really love this Scott Todd. Just because it makes you think about the real questions in your life.

Yeah.

And it makes you start to work through the how you're going to get there and the why and it brings to you new problems.

Yeah, I mean it feels a little woo woo to me. Almost like the secret feels woo woo to me. But I'll tell you what, I think that there's a lot of value in just asking those questions. And who screwed the science? I don't know how electricity works. Right.

You know how your car works?

I don't know how my car works.

Or a computer.

I don't know how a computer works.

Exactly, but it works.

And I'll give you an example, personal example and know it Maybe you can speak to this. Longest time, a couple years now. I've been obsessively like a drug addict. Checking email on my phone, right? Stoplight, Check email. You know, I feel a little anxious. Check email. You know, eating dinner with the kids and the family. Got to go to the bathroom. Don't have to go to the bathroom, just go to, just, you know, got to go check my email. I get like these little dopamine hits and I'm excited to check email. Like, what's going on? What's going on?

Right?

And then a few, like a week ago I said to myself, commencing shutdown. Like I checked my email one last time, like around 5:30, check my schedule for the next day. I say to myself, commencing shutdown. Which sounds a little hokey, I admit, right? I'm telling you, every night I've been doing this at 5:30. I have checked email twice a day, no cheating twice a day, weekends, twice a day. I put in my schedule. I feel great. I'm more present, I'm more relaxed. My wife likes me again, my kids like me again. And you're shaking your head like, is that an affirmation? Like, why is that working?

Well, I mean, you didn't do it as a conscious afformation in the way that I teach in the book, but what you did is great. I love what you did. And you definitely did one of the things that I talk about, which is to be present. Okay? So this is one of the things that is a huge problem for people is all these constant interruptions and distractions. And my argument is 90% or more of them are self done. In other words, you were causing that self distraction. Get my little play on words there. Self distraction, self destruction. See what I did there? My point. You see my point? So the point is you, you just for whatever reason something hit you. There was probably, I'm guessing there was some kind of event or some awareness that you just said, hey, what am I doing here? You know, either somebody, you know, your wife said something to you, or a kid, or again, it was just came from inside of you, wherever it came from. But there was a mitigating circumstance. Isn't that true? Just something occurred to you.

It was awareness of how much time I was not being present, Distracted I was.

Right.

It suddenly became like a light. Like I kind of know it intellectually, but finally, like I really felt it.

Right, exactly. And that's a great example of that. We can know something up here, but until it gets down here, then we really don't Take action. We humans are emotional, not logical. And so the point is you. I mean, you did it. And so you don't, you know, listen. Affirmations aren't like a cure all for everything, even though they are a great tool to use. So, you know, when you say it's woo woo, my response to that, Mark, is that, what does woo woo actually mean? See, nobody really knows what that phrase means. What I take, it's fuzzy science.

Like there's no science, Right?

Okay. But what I take it to mean is that when you, when you just think of something, then you're expecting it to happen. That isn't science. That isn't reality. On planet Earth, right? On planet Earth, like I said earlier, we have to do this annoying thing called work. That is reality. Now, where's the science behind that? It's called you live. Right, you exist. You get it, that you have to do work. I mean, is there a scientific study that says you have to do work in order to get a result? I don't know. I'll have to look that up when we get off this call. But my point is, I think when people think of woo woo, that's what they think of. They think, oh, if I just think of something, I'll get it. Which we all know is bullshit. You see what I'm saying? And I am calling bullshit on the law of attraction crowd. And by the way, I'm not speaking out of school because everybody in the Secret is in my book. Everybody in the Secret, as a Raf, I mean, as a Raf wrote the foreword for the book. Canfield wrote the foreword for my other book. You know what I'm saying? So if you go to noassstjohn.com, you'll see that everybody in the Secret knows what I'm saying and endorses me. So they know that. Because look, what the Secret did was they had great marketing, which is they told everybody what we wanted to hear, which is if you just think about something, you don't have to do anything. You'll get everything you want. Gee, who doesn't want that? I don't want to work. I'm lazy like everybody else, right? I want to sit around and make money by doing nothing. Unfortunately, that created millions of what I call secret survivors. Right? Secret survivors. Hey, I literally have people coming to me in the summer. Not so much now because it's 10 years old. But I mean, they say, no, I watched the Secret 37 times and I'm still not a millionaire. Okay. You doing anything? Yeah, I'm sitting there thinking about money and I go, all right, step over here, please.

Yeah, I really get your point. I get your point.

I will tell you, Mark, I have a lot of respect for Jack Ganfield, right? I read a book, I mean, here's a guy that, you know, as Noah said, he went out and, you know, published Chicken Soup for the Soul. But then he wrote this book and I think it was like 2005 or six called the Principles of Success. And I read this book, it is a life. To me, it was a life changing book, right? Like, it's a mind shift, a mindset shift that you take place. And right from the first, like chapter, he is punching you with reality. You know, like, hey, the reason that you have what you have is because you've created it. You know, it's all you. You own it and get over it. Now, now let's proceed. And here's how I did it. And here's a guy that, you know, he had the vision boards. He had all this stuff and he made everything on that vision board come true, including where he lived. He basically bought the house that he had put onto the vision board. So I mean, here's a guy I got a lot of respect for. And so I kind of think, you know, it's not just necessarily foo fu. I think that there's something there.

So, okay, no, you know, he brings up Jack Canfield. Who are your guys? Like, you're writing a lot and you're creating a lot, but who are you learning from? Like, who do you go to to get inspiration to think about these sort of, you know, become a thought leader, right? You know, I forget the. I think his name's Steven Johnson. The adjacent possible, right? So Tony Robbins might be saying this and Jack Canfield might be saying that, but then all of a sudden, no. St. John takes both of these adjacent possible big thoughts and creates something big new, right? So who are your people?

I would say the two biggest influences on my work have been the work of Dale Carnegie and Stephen Covey. So Dale Carnegie, of course, wrote, you know, the classic book how to Win Friends and Influence People. And in fact on my. I have on my Facebook page, every day I do a Facebook live on it's noanation.com and right now we're actually, I'm going through and walking people through this book, how to Win Friends and Influence People. So that was really, that is the progenitor of all self help books. And then the second book, which was a big influence on me was the seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey. And of course, that book came out in the 80s. And I actually had the opportunity to interview Dr. Covey before he sadly passed away a few years ago. I was actually in college at the time, and I was studying leadership studies. I was very consciously following in the footsteps of Stephen Covey. And I got to interview him on the telephone for 20 uninterrupted minutes. So I had 20 uninterrupted minutes with Stephen Covey. And that, I'll never forget it, it changed my life. And he was perfect. He was exactly what you would have wanted Dr. Stephen Covey to be. He was humble, he was brilliant, he was wise. And he just had such total humility. And I asked him a question. I never forgot the answer to this. I said, Dr. Covey, what do you do when people worship you? Because he has so many fans and all this stuff, I wanted to hear his answer to that question. And he said, noah, he said something I'll never forget. He said, noah, I want people to leave my programs more impressed with themselves than with me. And I said, wow, that was powerful. And so I never forgot that. And so you see in marketing, in my industry, you see all these guys, and here's my Ferrari, here's my yacht, here's my house, and. And da, da, da. And that's fine for those guys. And I got no problem with that. I mean, hey, we all want nice things, right? It's not like we want to be following a guy who lives in a van down by the river. I get that, you know what I'm saying? To borrow Chris Farley's line. But my point is that that's never going to be me. That's never going to be what I show to the world. Now, I'm sure I'm losing a lot of people by not doing that. They want to see the car and the house and all that stuff. And where I'm coming from is, listen, you have power inside of you. You have strength and skills and brilliance inside of you that isn't being fully addressed, isn't being fully expressed. And so one of the biggest highlights of my career is when I did get an endorsement from Dr. Stephen Covey. It's actually on the back of that book, the Secret Code of Success. And I was able to get that before he passed away. And that was one of my. One of my proudest moments.

Phenomenal. I'm going to ask you kind of a personal question. You don't have to answer if you don't want to. What are Some of your affirmations.

One of my biggest affirmations, and I'm happy to answer that. One of my biggest affirmations that I'm using right now is why do I appreciate my present? And, you know, similar to what we were just talking about, Mark, which is that, you know, being in that moment and realizing, hey, I'm here now, in fact, so I'm about to turn 50. I'm going to be 50 here in a few weeks about the time of this recording. And so, you know, when a man turns 50, of course he, you know, he looks back and he looks at all the things he wishes he would have done. And, you know, of course he's looking ahead and, you know, wondering what's going to be next. And so I'm like, you know, there's living in the past and then there's living in the future, but what about living right here in the present? And so that's, you know, one of my big affirmations right now is why do I appreciate my present? By the way, the word appreciate comes from the Latin word pratium, which means price or value. And what most people are doing with their present is depreciating, right? They're saying everything that's wrong and what they don't like, and they're complaining and criticizing and condemning. And so it's easy to do that, right? It's very easy to fall into that. So what I do, and it's not natural for me, I grew up, like I said, poor, in a rich neighborhood. So I grew up with lack and poverty and fear. Not enough. That's what was shown, shoved down my throat every second. So for me to have to do this, that's one of the reasons I wrote these books, because I needed them. I really needed to learn how to change my brain, get rid of that head trash that I grew up with. And so that's why I use that affirmation.

I'm going to ask you one more question before we get to the tip of the week. Do you feel like now, at 50 and doing what you've done, do you feel like you're enough?

No, not really. No. No. And the reason I say that is because I know that there's so many more people that I wish I could have helped. And that's why I do what I do every day, because I hear people write to me and they write to me on social media, they email me, and they say, noah, your work changed my life. It changed my marriage. It saved my life. And I love those stories. And that's why I do the work that I do. And frankly, I just want more of those. And I wish I would have had more of those. And I look at all the times that I, that I made mistakes, that I screwed up, that I trusted the wrong people and gave money to people who took advantage of me. Because I'm just a very gullible, trusting person. Because when I say something, I only say it when it's based in fact. Unfortunately, a lot of people out there aren't like that. So I got. Took advantage of a lot. And unfortunately that took a lot of time away from what I wanted to do. And so my point is that. Am I enough? Yeah, but I. Have I done enough? I don't think so. I really would love to do more. And I mean, I'm not trying to make myself sound like something I'm not, but it reminds me of or when I saw that movie starring Bradley Cooper. American, American shooter. What was his name, anyway? The guy who, you know, with the Clint Eastwood director.

The sniper.

Sniper, yes. And he said, you know what, what haunts me is the guys I didn't save. And I feel the same way. Again, I'm not trying to compare myself to that guy who was a real actual hero, but I feel that way. I do feel that way. And I do wish, you know, like, we've had celebrities that have passed away and I know, like Robin Williams, you know, I could have helped him and I could have, you know, I'm not saying I could have saved him, but I, I wish I would have had the opportunity to help him or Chris Farley or guys like that, you know, just recently and of course, just everyday regular people. That's why our mission@successclinic.com is to help 10,000 small business owners double their performance and profits. And that's just a real way that we can crystallize our mission at my company. So we know, hey, we got, you know, we're just going to keep Moving forward, help 10,000 small business owners double their performance and profits. And, you know, we've helped several thousand, so, you know, we just want to keep going with that.

I love it. I love it. Scott. Todd, why have I closed a thousand more deals than you this year?

You haven't, but I've closed a thousand more than you have.

We have a competition going on who closes the most deals in a year and he beat me in 2016, so I am hell bent on taking him down.

There you go. Does he want to. Yeah.

So what book do I start With Noah, do I start with affirmations or do I start with head trash?

I start with affirmations. And that gives you a great Overview. There's over 400 unique afformations in the 10 major areas of life, everything from health and wellbeing to money and spirituality, overcoming fear, getting rid of bad habits, and so forth. So that's a great one that's available from Hay House. I mean, that's, you know, on Amazon or anywhere books are sold. And then the Secret Code of Success is where I teach about the power habits of unconsciously successful people. And so that gives you a great overview of the entirety of the system, of the whole habits. And of course, you can also go to powerhabits.com and you can get my free video training series on the power habits of unconsciously successful people. So all of this is just available@noahsaintjohn.com, our main website. You just go to the products page. We've got tons of products to help people get rid of their head trash, find their voice, automate their business, and help you double your performance and profits.

Audio or text, what do you recommend?

Everything. We've got everything. The book of Afformations is also available in an online course. Just go to afformations.com a f f o R M a T I o n s afformations.com that's the. And you can get the Afformations system, which has audios, videos, a downloadable guidebook. I mean, it's a. It's an amazing program. And Also, again, at powerhabits.com you can learn about. My program is called Power Habits Academy, and that's where I walk you through the Power Habits system in full. That's mostly video training. So you can again, check that out@powerhabits.com or afformations.com all right, fantastic.

Scott, Todd, what is your tip of the week?

Mark, in case you want to know why I beat you this year, 2017, by a thousand properties, it might be because of this little app called, hey, Focus.com. you heard of this thing?

I'm gonna get it right now.

Go look at it. Hey, Focus.com. and basically, is it iPhone app?

Wait, no, no, no.

It's.

It's for your Mac. It's for your computer.

Okay, so Mac App Store.

Yeah, Mac App Store. Or just go to heyfocus.com right? And check it out.

Okay.

And basically what you can do is you can set up blocking for your websites or certain apps that suck the life out of you, and you can also Set it up for time so that if there's. If there are certain websites that you need to whitelist or blacklist whichever way you want, or apps, then you can whitelist or blacklist those. So if there's apps that you're working in because you really need to work a certain time frame, well, then white list those. If there's websites that you want to avoid, like Gmail, and you only want to have a certain window, well, now you can put in that window. And then when the windows up, your time is up. Time to move on.

Oh, this is good.

Yeah. All right.

I just bought it.

Purchase.

Focus. How much is this thing? It's okay for three max. It's 30 bucks for one Mac. It's 20 bucks.

Yeah, 20 bucks.

It's like. That's like, you know. What's 20 bucks, Noah?

Not much.

Yeah, I mean, come on. It's like free.

It's like. It's like a lunch.

Yeah, yeah, it's like a nice lunch. But think about how now you can really control. You can really control your email checking.

Like, literally, because, you know, clear the.

Client, the mail client from your computer, only use the web and use the website, like Gmail or something, and then only give yourself two out two windows a day. And if you miss it, big deal.

Remove it from your phone.

Big deal.

All right.

Well, all right. I'm going to get this.

Look at this. This is. This is action.

He is taking advice and springing into action.

The only thing is that it's not on the App Store, and I like getting it on the App Store. Oh, Mark, there's. Yeah, that's the only thing.

Yeah, that's okay.

I'll get it. Okay. It's done and done. So, Noah, what is your tip of the week? A website, a resource, a book, something actionable. With Art of passive income, listeners can go right now, improve their businesses, improve their lives. I think your mentorship on this podcast has been absolutely invaluable. Like I said in the beginning of podcast, the cheapest therapy I've ever received. And I'm looking forward to learning more and just using affirmations to literally have the best year of my life. And that includes beating Scott Todd by one deal.

There you go. I appreciate that, Mark. Thank you. And I actually, literally have had people at my live events come up to me and say, noah, I've been in therapy for 20 years and you just fixed me in three days. I'm like, thank you. I mean, it's not me, it's the system. So it's really nice to hear that. What I would say is just for folks out there, go to NoahSaintJohn.com and download my new book. It's called Get Rid of youf Head Trash and it is free. Alright, so you can get that free resource@noah.john.com and just there's a little button at the top that says get access to my five best mindset hacks for free. And it's called again, the book's called Get Rid of youf Head Trash. And I walk you through the three massive mistakes that even smart people make when it comes to making more money and attracting more abundance and having more wealth and freedom in their lives. So again, that's Noah St. John.com and get my new book free.

I just got it says confirming your email. Your free ebook will be sent to the email address you've write. It may take a few minutes to get there. Please whitelist. Oh, now it's gone. Oh, look at this, Mark. And I'm watching your video and I've.

Had this book now for like 30 minutes.

You already got it.

I got 30 minutes ago. I'm way ahead of you.

I'm.

This is why I'm gonna win. This is why I'm being this one.

Well, he was talking more.

Well, that's action.

That's not fair. You know what he's knowing it's come back on the podcast and let Scott. Anytime, gentlemen, that I can go. And, and just while you're talking, be completely distracted and start doing my affirmations.

Oh, I was focused, man.

Completely unfair.

I'm taking every advantage.

I'm going to let you two just finish this, okay? I mean, I don't want to get in the middle of a marital spat here.

Noah, what's the affirmation for this relationship? Why are Scott, Todd and I the best business friends and partners in the world?

Yeah, I think that sounds great.

That is a good question, right?

No, I think it's a great one, Scott.

So why are we.

We bring all the good qualities out of each other.

Yeah. You know, it's funny because I ask people when we're looking at a deal, like, why is this going to go bad? Right. I do ask that a lot. Like, where does this go wrong? I really think that it's tremendously valuable. Tony Robbins has a great quote about questions. Do you remember what I'm talking about, Noah? I can't directly quote it.

I believe he said that the quality of our life comes down to the quality of our questions.

Thank you. Exactly the quality of our life comes down to the quality of our questions. Do you believe that?

I've written several books about that. So yes, I believe it. And what he did. And I mean, you know, Tony Robbins is great. What. But he didn't actually go into any detail on that. He kind of just let it kind of sit there and that was it. So what I've done with my work is I've taken it to the house. You see what I mean? That's what afformations are, is actually teaching you how to ask empowering questions, walking you through precisely how to do that. And then, as I mentioned in the book, giving you over 400 unique examples of afformations so that you can get started. And of course, you can customize your own affirmations to suit your life like you guys just did right here, live with us. But. But yes, I would agree with that. But again, you know, I'm the guy, if you'll forget the phrase, who wrote the book on the subject.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Why is my teenager listening to everything I say and reading affirmations?

I've had, yes. And I've had a lot of moms and dads, Mark, who. I mean, their relationship with their teenager. I remember there's one story in particular who a dad was having a lot of trouble with his teenage son and they were just, you know, at loggerheads all the time. He read the book of afformations and he realized, wait a minute, I'm. I'm asking the wrong questions. Like why isn't my boy shaping up? Why is he doing all the wrong things? He didn't, of course, he wasn't doing this consciously. Right. Most of these aren't conscious, but it doesn't matter. You're still sowing those seeds. So he changed his questions. He wrote to me later, he said, noah, my relationship with my son has completely changed. We are now best friends. We hang out. Before he didn't even want to talk to me. Now we're hanging out, going to ball games. It completely changed their lives.

I love it. I love it. Well, I want to just. Thank you and I want to remind all the listeners, please learn more. Go to Noah St. John.com I'll have links to the site of links to the book. And this has been fantastic. Noah, was there any questions we should have asked you that we didn't ask you?

You'll have to have me on another show, gentlemen, because we could be here all day. Believe me, I do a three day event and I never stopped talking the whole time. So, yes, I'll be happy to come back on, but there's tons more to talk about.

All right, fantastic. Well, thank you so much. I'll send you the booking link for sure because I think there's a lot of value there and I know this is like a real estate business podcast, but if you're not really working on yourself first, you can't go out in the world, really create value for your family and yourself or anyone else. I do think this has a lot of value. So thank you so much. And I want to remind the listeners the only way we're going to get the quality of guests like a Noah St. John to come on the podcast is if you rate, you subscribe rate. Review the podcast. Send us a screenshot of the review. To support thelandgeek.com we're going to send you for free the $97 passive income launch Kit. Please give Scott Todd some love. This podcast has been sponsored by postingdomination.com thelandgeek start automating your Craigslist postings. I'm Mark Podolsky, the land geek. Thelandgeek.com I want to thank everybody. Scott Todd.

Let freedom ring, baby.

Freedom ring. Thanks, Noah.

All right, Bye bye.