Last Updated on August 24, 2023
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Noah St. John is known as “The Father of AFFORMATIONS®” and “The Mental Health Coach to The Stars.” Founder of SuccessClinic.com, Noah leads an 8-figure global peak performance and business growth company from his home in Northeast Ohio. Working with Hollywood celebrities, 8-figure company CEOs, professional athletes, top executives and elite entrepreneurs, Noah is famous for helping his clients make MORE in 12 weeks than they did in the previous 12 months before hiring him. Noah has appeared on over 1,000 media outlets including ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, The Hallmark Channel, NPR, Entrepreneur, The Jenny McCarthy Show, Selling Power and SUCCESS Magazine. You can learn more about Noah at noahstjohn.com or get a copy of his new book at SendMeaBookNoah.com.
Noah, thanks so much for taking time out of your day to speak with us. We really appreciate it. Can you tell us a little bit about your background?
I grew up poor in a rich neighborhood, which I know is a total cliché, but it’s true. I grew up in this little town called Kennebunkport, Maine, which happens to be one of the wealthiest communities in New England, but my family was dirt poor, and I mean that literally because we lived at the bottom of a dirt road in a drafty unfinished house that my parents ended up losing the foreclosure. So, from a very young age, I was painfully exposed to the gap, the chasm between the haves and the have nots. The haves was everyone else in the community. The have nots was my family. You hear these speakers all the time. They get on stage, they say, well, we were poor, but we were happy. We didn’t know we were poor. Well, my family, we freaking knew we were poor, because my mother, bless her heart, reminded us every day that we were poor and miserable.
So, it wasn’t happy. It sucked. And so I hated that life of poverty and fear, lack, not enoughness. That’s what I grew up with in my family, but I saw right down the street, there’s great wealth and abundance. So, I literally said my whole childhood was like, how the heck do I get from here to there? How do I get from not enough to enough? And that’s really how I started this whole thing was just a search born out of frustration and poverty and not enoughness, and so that’s why I say, if you go to our website, you’ll see that one of my missions in life is to eradicate not enoughness from the world. That’s really where that all came from.
You talk about the frustration growing up. Is that the “head trash” that you talk about?
Well, one of the things that we do is we help people take out their head trash, which is why I’ve written all these books really, and we do have this book for free, available for everybody watching and listening to this program, but my point is that head trash, really, the way that I’ve been teaching it for the last 25 years, head trash is the voice in your head that says, I can’t do it because… So, for everyone listening and watching, if you think about your goals, think about what you want, and everybody out there, all the groups say set your goals and set your goals and then think positive and take massive action and all this stuff. Now, that’s not exactly wrong, but it also, oftentimes doesn’t really work. And so what I do is instead I say, look at what it is that you want, but realize that at the very moment that want it, you also are afraid to go after it.
Photo courtesy of Noah St. John
That’s what I call driving down the road of life with one foot on the brake. So if you think about reaching your goals as reaching a destination, it’s like getting in your car and driving to the grocery store down the street. The grocery store is a goal is a destination, but the point is you wouldn’t just drive to the grocery store, walk around, out for a while and then get back in your car and go back home. You’d be like, well, why would I do that? You wouldn’t do that, but that’s what a lot of people are doing. They don’t know what they want, but even more importantly, there are millions and millions of people right now who are driving down the road with one foot on the brake and they don’t know that they’re doing it.
That’s what I call head trash. And by the way, one of the big problems that happens is the person’s frustrated. How come I’m not reaching my goals? How come I’m not moving forward? How come I’m feeling stuck or I’m plateaued, or I keep reaching this point and then I can’t go any further. This is what our clients say to us all the time. And so what happens in this industry, the personal growth industry I’m talking about, a guru will come up and say, well, you know what your problem is? You need to put new gas in your car. Your gas isn’t good enough. Put this really expensive gas in. So, you put expensive gas in, but you’re still doing the same habit, getting the same result. Another guru says, you need the new set of tires.
Get these really expensive tires. That’ll do it. You get the expensive tires, spend more money, but you’re still doing the same thing, same result. Then finally the third go comes around and they say, you know what your problem is? You need to get a new car. I drive this really expensive sports car. You need to get a car like me. You’re like, man, do I really, really? You spend all this money and you get back in your car, but you’re still doing the same habit. What I do that’s different and that I’ve been doing for the last 20 plus years is I come up and I go, did you know, you have your foot on the brake? And you’re like, no. And I say, well, do you know if you get your good off the break, you can actually reach your goals a lot faster and easier.
And they go, really? I say, yeah, this is one of the ways that we help people make more in 12 weeks than they made in the last 12 months. We’ve done this hundreds of times, literally helping people make more than 12 weeks than they made the last 12 months, and they go, great. Where do I sign? They get very excited because it’s like, hello, who wouldn’t want more with less? That’s the whole point. It’s not about the hustle and the grind. Again, not that’s wrong, there’s a place for that, but really we just help people do it a lot faster and easier with a lot less stress.
You’re called the Father of Afformations. You say that Afformations are the fastest way to change your life. What are Afformations and how are they different from traditional affirmations?
Right. We’re saying a new word here for many of you who’ve never heard of this. This is something I invented over 20 years ago called Afformations. If you look at, this is my book from Hay House. It’s called A-F-F-O-R-M-A-T-I-O-N-S. If you go to afformations.com, you can learn more about that. We’re not saying it wrong. It’s a new word that I invented. An affirmation, as everyone knows, is a statement of something you want to be true. I do keynote speeches or teaching at virtual events or live events all around the country, around the world, and one of the things that I do with my audience is I say, okay, we’re going to say an affirmation, just like they taught us, like the guru say, and I say, everybody stand up and say, “I am rich.”
Everybody goes, “I am rich.” You know what happens next? Everyone starts laughing and I go, what are you laughing at? They go, well, I’m not rich. I say, well, you just said you were. And they go, but I don’t believe it. See, now that’s the problem. That’s the problem with the old method is they said, well, you just say these statements over and over, and then eventually, someday you’ll believe it. Now, for some people that work just fine, but for millions of us, it’s didn’t work at all. That’s why 25 years ago, I invented this method that I call the Afformations method instead of the affirmations method. Afformations are using the brain’s embedded presupposition factor, and that’s just a fancy way of saying that when you ask a question, your brain automatically searches for the answer.
So, instead of saying something like I am rich and your brain goes, yeah right, you would form a question like, why am I so rich? Why am I so happy? Why am I always in the right place at the right time? And by virtue of the embedded pre-supposition factor of the brain, your brain automatically searches for the answer, and then when you’re searching for the answer, that actually can help you change your habits and change your results and thereby change your life. That’s why my Afformations method literally is the most powerful and yet the simplest and most effective method for belief change that I’ve ever seen.
You say that willpower is one of the worst ways to change a habit. Why is that so?
As you mentioned, millions of people, actually over 80% of Americans resolve to change one or more habits every year, but yet only 8% succeed. Why is that? Well, one of the reasons is because we’re actually not taught what a habit actually is. Instead we’re trying to use this method called willpower, which is what the gurus are teaching, and basically what willpower is is think about it like this. Imagine if you’re in your kitchen right now, and someone brings in a plate of just out of the oven chocolate chip cookies. They have that chocolate chip cookie smell. They’re waft in there. You can smell it. Your mouth is watering. And you’re like, man, that looks really good. Smells great. And then they say to you, okay, now don’t have a chocolate chip cookie. Whatever you do, do not have a chocolate chip cookie.
Photo courtesy of Noah St. John
I’m leaving right now, but don’t eat a cookie. Now, they leave. What are you going to do? You’re going to eat 10 of them, because they’re literally telling you don’t do that thing that you want to do. That’s what we, humans, are like. We don’t like to deny ourselves of anything. We don’t like to have something that we can’t have. That’s why this is one of the reasons why diets don’t work, because they’re saying don’t eat that. Don’t eat that. I really want it. That’s why you’re up at three in the morning. It’s lots of things like that. That’s just an example. My point is that what I do is I teach what I call the power habits of unconsciously successful people. That’s what we teach in our programs like Power Habits Academy and 12 week breakthrough, which is what highly successful people do unconsciously that they can’t even teach because they’re not even aware they’re doing it.
That’s why some people have said about my work that my work starts where Think and Grow Rich left off. Books like Think and Grow Rich, they talked about what highly successful people do. Well, how come everybody read that book and everybody’s not successful? Well it’s because of all the stuff they left out. So, in terms of willpower, the point is that what we really need to do is understand what a habit actually is, and then instead of trying to force yourself to either deny yourself of something or force yourself to do something that you don’t really want to do, instead, you can use something like, you know what? Maybe I’ll just have one chocolate chip cookie and that’s okay. You know what I mean? It’s really all right if I have a chocolate chip cookie. You’re not wagging your finger at yourself saying you can’t do this or you have to do that. It’s really understanding what a habit really is, and then using that knowledge and using that power, that system really to really get better results and change your whole life really very quickly.
Several things you’ve said today have peaked my interest. So, I’m sure it’s going to be same for our viewers too. So, where can people go? Where’s a good place to start their journey with what you offer? Is it your book or your website? Where should people go?
Absolutely. So, one of the best just to go is if you go to sendmeabooknoah.com, very easy to remember, sendmeabooknoah.com, I will send you a book. Send me a book, Noah. This book is free. We’ve covered the cost of the book, and then we just ask you to cover the shipping. So, the book is called, Get Rid of Your Head Trash About Money: How To Avoid the 3 Big Money Mistakes that Even Smart People Make. I know everyone watching this program is very smart, but you may be making one or more of these mistakes without even knowing it. So again, that’s sendmeabooknoah.com. The book is free, and then if you want to just learn more about me, just go to noahsaintjohn.com. That’s my name, noahsaintjohn.com, just like it sounds, and if you want to book me to speak at your event, you can go to booknoah.com. Again, easy to remember. Who should we book? booknoah.com.
Note: Influencer Spotlight interviews are edited for time and clarity.
Andrew is the Head of Client Services for Intellifluence and has a background in communications. He is committed to helping brands get the most out of their campaigns and is the co-host of the Influencer Spotlight series.
