Start With A Win - Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Life with Noah St. John

Episode Date: November 2, 2022

Many popular self-help books promote the use of affirmations to help people change unhealthy thoughts and behaviors. Dr. Noah St. John has spent the last 25 years teaching a different and more effective approach. Instead of using a disempowering “I am” statement that the brain immediately recognizes as false, he directs people to ask an empowering question that exemplifies who they want to be. By asking a question, the brain becomes engaged in finding the answer, thus creating a plan of action to achieve a specific goal. Noah’s strategy pushes people beyond magical thinking. The first step someone must take in order to live an empowered life is to gain clarity on what they actually want. Once the goal is clear, ask a question that confirms the goal has already been met. It is important to accept the truth of this new reality; in doing so, neural pathways in the brain are rewired towards a different end. Finally, the most important step is to take action based on the new reality created through powerful afformations. When people take responsibility for establishing new patterns of thinking and behaving, nothing can stand in their way on the path to a successful and fulfilling life. Main Topics:The difference between AFFORMATIONS vs. affirmationsWorking with the law of sowing and reapingNoah’s success with a client who lost over 200 poundsLying to ourselves or rewiring neural pathways to create new realities?The Four A’s of Noah’s Afformations strategy  Episode LinksMillionaire Afformations: The Magic Formula That Will Make You Rich by Dr. Noah St. JohnNoah's FREE training program for making more in 12 weeks than you made in the last 12 monthsConnect with Noah:https://www.youtube.com/user/noahstjohnhttps://www.facebook.com/noahstjohnfanhttps://www.instagram.com/noahstjohn/https://twitter.com/noahstjohnConnect with Adam:https://www.startwithawin.com/https://www.facebook.com/AdamContosCEOhttps://twitter.com/AdamContosCEOhttps://www.instagram.com/adamcontosceo/Listen, rate, and subscribe!Apple PodcastsSpotifyGoogle Podcasts

Welcome to Start With A Win, where we give you the tools and lessons you need to create business and personal success. Are you ready? Let's do this. Coming to you from Brand Viva Media Headquarters in Denver, Colorado, it's Adam Kantos with Start With a Win. Good morning, Producer Mark. How are you doing? I am so good. Nice.

Yeah, I stole your line there. I know, I like that. So good. I said today I felt like you had a Mr. Rogers vibe when you came in this morning. My zipper sweater? Yeah, you had like your zipper sweater. You were like kind of just peppy. I thought you're going to change your shoes or something like that.

Oh, I'll bring some slippers next time. Yeah, get comfy, you know, for the podcast. Not a bad idea. I love it. Oh, man. Well, hey, I'm excited for our guest today. This is going to be fun. Yeah, we got Dr. Noah St. John on the podcast this morning.

He's known worldwide as the mental health coach to the stars, working with Hollywood celebrities, eight-figure company CEOs, professional athletes, top executives, and elite entrepreneurs. He's also the author of the new book, Millionaire Afformations, the magic formula that will make you rich. Dr. Noah, welcome to Start With a Win. Welcome, Noah. Thank you, gentlemen. It's a pleasure to be here with you today. This is a really cool topic. And you coach a lot of amazing human beings. And I love your take on affirmations and how we've been kind of screwing things up for so many years, I guess you could

say. Well, sort of screwing things up, but getting close, I suppose. I want to dig right into this. You're known as the father of affirmations, and this is A-F-F-O-R-M-A-T-I-O-N-S. What is affirmations, and how are they different than affirmations? Right, right, absolutely. So for everybody listening and watching, this is a new word for most of you. It's affirmations, as you just said, A-F-F-O-R-M-A-T-O-N-S, not affirmations, which is, of course, what we've all been brainwashed to use for the last century.

Totally. Right. Okay. So the question, of course, is, well, what the heck is an affirmation and how is it different from the old way? So one of the things that I like to do, you know, you mentioned Yeah, totally. global ones of thousands of people. One of the things I like to do with my audience members when I'm speaking is I like to say, okay, everybody, we're going to do an affirmation, just like the gurus have been teaching us for a century. And everybody stand up and say, I am rich, right? And everybody goes, I am rich. And you know what happens next? Everybody starts laughing, right? Just like that. And then I go, and then so I say, I go, well, what are you laughing at? They go, well, I'm not rich. And I say, but you just said you were. And they go, yeah, but I don't believe it. Aha. Now, isn't that the problem with't believe it, right? In fact, a recent study, believe it or not, a recent study actually showed that for 75% of the people who use the old affirmation way, they actually ended up more frustrated than before. So imagine if you had a smartphone that didn't work 75% of the time, right? What would you do? You'd probably trade it in for a better phone, wouldn't you? So I invented a better phone, you know, one that works all the time. So an affirmation that I've been teaching for the last quarter century, I'd actually discovered in 1997, believe it or not. So I've been teaching over 25 years now. And instead of

a statement of something that you want to be true, it's an empowering question that where you assume that something already is true. Now, what does that mean? Let me give you an example. All right, so the classic affirmation, like I just told you, I am rich, and your brain goes, no, you're not. Your brain literally says in my books and my coaching programs, I call it the yeah, right response, because your brain literally goes, yeah, right, right. We don't believe it. Right now, the gurus said, well, listen, if you don't believe your affirmation, just repeat it a thousand million billion kajillion times until you believe it. Okay, for 25% of the people that work, 75% of us are going, no, I don't believe you, right?

And so an affirmation then is an empowering question that assumes that what you want is already true. So what we're doing with the affirmations, with my affirmations method, is we are engaging the embedded presupposition factor of the brain. Now, that's just a fancy way of saying that when you ask a question, your brain searches for the answer, right? So if I ask you, as an example, for example, if I were to say to both of you, right, why is the sky blue why is the sky blue i'd be now what just happened in your brain right there see you yeah you're searching the ocean and you know like right but do you know what that means your your brain is searching for the answer right i literally just asked you a question. Why is the sky blue? And your brain

goes, now, have you ever, and I'm sure we've all done this, right? You're searching your computer for a file, right? You do a file find, right? Or maybe you're a Google search, right? That's what you're doing. You're literally asking a question. Hey, show me all the restaurants, Chinese restaurants in Denver, right? That's this question. And so your brain is like Google. Your brain is like a computer, right? So it's searching its files. The sky is blue because, I don't know, but it's searching, right? And so I said, wait a second, if the human mind is automatically searching for answers to questions using the embedded presupposition factor, why are we going around making statements that we don't believe?

Why don't we just cut out the middleman? This was 25 years ago, remember, where I'm saying this, where I had this discovery. And I said, well, what would that look like? Well, let's see, you've got the statement or affirmation, I am rich, to which your brain goes, yeah, right. So then I said, well, what would the question be? And then I said, why am I so rich? Why am I so rich? Now, you know, again, like with my audiences, when I'm doing a keynote speech, I ask people, you know, what happened? So I'll ask you, gentlemen, what happens when you ask your question, when you ask the question in your brain, why am I so rich? What immediately starts to happen in your brain?

You think of reasons for something, you're answering the question. Exactly, exactly. So really what I've been teaching for this last quarter century now, and hopefully we'll be doing it for a while longer, right, is the law of sowing and reaping. As you sow, so shall you reap. Now, this is nothing new. This part is nothing new because it's been taught for centuries, right? As you sow, so shall you reap. It's an ancient law. And yet, what are we sowing? We're sowing seeds of thought.

And yet, what are most people doing? Sowing lousy thought seeds. Why am I so stupid? Why am I so fat? Why can't I lose weight? Why isn't my business growing? Why can't I get more patients or customers or clients? Why is there more month left at the end of the money? More month left at the end of the month.

Right. I got that. Yeah. Right. And I, so what happens when you ask lousy questions, what do you get? Lousy answers. Lousy answers. Right. And that creates a lousy life. Now you didn't mean to do it. Nobody does this on purpose, but it doesn't matter. Because of the law of sowing and reaping, you're sowing, you're reaping. Doesn't matter. So now, using my affirmations method, for the very first time in human history, we can take conscious control of the questions that we're asking, change our questions, change our habits, change our results, and thereby change our lives. I love that. So this is interesting. I hope everybody's really paying attention here, because ultimately what we're doing is we're reminding ourselves of the reasons why we're

where we are. I mean, it's like we're reinforcing the actions that we took to get there? Is that, is that? Well, not really, not really. What we're doing is we are forming what we want. Oh, okay. Watch how this works. Watch how this works. Because people ask me this all the time. Noah, where did you come up with the word affirmations? How did you create that word? Right now, the word, by the way, you know, I'm known as all those things. I'm also known as the nerdiest nerd in the self-help industry, right? I'm like the Sheldon Cooper of self-help. And so as a nerd, one of my, I mean, the nerdiest nerd, one of my favorite subjects was Latin, right?

I love Latin. And so there's so many Latin derivations in the English language, of course, right? So the word affirmation comes from the Latin word firmare, which means to make firm. Now, the word affirmations that I invented, and by the way, it's perfectly legitimate to invent a new word, right? When you have a new way of looking at the universe or a new technology, isn't it true we often need a new word like Facebook, YouTube, Google, webinar, internet, computer. These are all new words in terms of human history. They've only been around a tiny, tiny little bit of time. But of course, now we use them every day, right? A new word. I mean,

a new technology. We need a new word. Well, what I'm teaching, what I've been teaching for the last 25 years is a new technology of the mind, right? So affirmations comes from the Latin word formare, which means to form, to form or give shape to. So what I often ask my coaching clients and my audience members is, I will say, what if you're making something firm, but it's in the wrong form? That means you formed a life you didn't even want. Right, right. But let's say we're talking about, okay, you're asking yourself, how do I get healthy or something like that? I am in great shape. I'm sure that's probably happening around, you know, or I need to get in shape. You know, you want to get healthy. What does that look like? Because a lot of people just look at themselves and go, I'm fat, and then they believe that. Correct. because a lot of people just look at themselves and go, I'm fat. And then they believe that. And they're, they start going down that road. They keep reinforcing that aspect of their life. How do we break them out of that with forming this new concept? Is that, is that an adequate question for the affirmation? Perfect. I totally get it. And i'll give you a perfect example from one of my coaching clients so i had a coaching client come to me she was over 450 pounds okay i mean she was morbidly

obese and she had been told her whole life that she was fat and she was always going to be fat now how's that for a message in your brain right right you're fat you're always going to be fat thanks a lot there's a there's an affirmation for you if I've heard one. Exactly. Exactly. Only in the bad way, right? What did I just say? Lousy questions, lousy answers, lousy life. So she was getting lousy results. And so she came to me, she hired me and I just simply said, why don't we change the base question here? Instead of saying, why am I so fat, which you've been saying for, you know, basically your whole life, and you were told it too, right? So again, piling on, not just from herself, but from the people around her, how's that for fun, right? So I said,

what if we were to affirm, why am I so healthy? And she said, what? You know, like, huh? Right. And that's what happens usually for people, because guess what? You've been forming these lousy, as I call them, disempowering questions. And the reason I call them that is because a disempowering question does precisely that. It disempowers you. It takes away your power to act. If you're just sitting there saying, why am I so fat? What are you going to do? Continue to do that. Be fat. That's not your fault. But now, since you're listening to me right now, now it's your responsibility to take new actions so that you can get new results. Okay. So this isn't about blame. It's about responsibility and action. Okay. And so she heard me and she was like, I've never, you know, her brain was like,

you know, you could kind of see like a deer in the head, like, like what, you know, but it's still, she did it and she affirmed it. And then she took actions. Long story short, she ended up losing over 200 pounds, going from over 450 to about 200. And she's maintained that weight for the last eight and a half years. And so the point is, nothing had ever worked. And she I mean, she had tried literally everything hypnosis, and of course, affirmations, right? And diets and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And that's the point. See what people are trying to do, not just with weight, with money, with business, with career, with relationships. Think about this. What is one area of your life where your beliefs don't affect you.

That would be none. Right, exactly. That would be zero. There's no areas where your beliefs don't affect you. Your health, your wealth, your business, your career, your relationships, anything you want to point at, your beliefs affect everything. So last time I checked, wherever you go, there you are. So is this that you're turning the beliefs into the actual actions that need to take place instead of us lying to ourselves? Because I mean, it seems like when you

have all these people standing in the room and they're like, I am rich, and then they giggle because nobody can lie real well. I mean, ultimately, I used to be a cop. That was kind of the easy way out of figuring that one out, is they start giggling when they're lying to you. That's right. But the reality is you've got these people that are giggling. They're basically one step behind the lady who's overweight because she knows she's overweight.

But she's just come to terms with it, right? And she has to change her thinking in order to change her actions to get out of that. Is that, I mean, how do we take the lying to ourself to turn it into actions here? Is that formulating a new thought? You know, you talk about head trash and things like that. We have to make this, we have to flip this switch in our brain in order to get things to occur. So take us through that. Well, I have a question too, because what makes me think about the lying to yourself, I feel like, are you still lying to yourself when you're saying, I am healthy? Well, you're affirming. Why are you affirming? Start affirming.

Yeah. So, but if you're saying like, why am I so healthy? To me, I don't, I'm still kind of confused on like, well, I'm not healthy. Why am I healthy? Can you break that down a little bit? Cause you're saying this, but I'm still kind of thinking like, well, isn't it kind of a false affirmation, but we're just calling it an affirmation. I totally get you. I've been doing this a long time. I want to get a clear clarity out there because, yeah, in my mind, I'm thinking because I've heard that I've heard the statement where it's like, hey, if you want to be healthy, like start thinking like what a healthy person would do. Right. If you want to become ripped, start thinking like what would a gym rat do? And then it's like, OK, well, a gym rat is going to wake up early. He's going to drink some protein and then he's going to get to the gym and lift for an hour. And so then it's like, start, you know, telling yourself that like, I am a gym rat and then you're going to go there and start becoming a gym rat. So like, what's the difference there? I love this. This is great guys. I love these questions. This makes me so happy.

We're digging deep. You guys are paying attention. I love it. I love it. Okay. So let me see if I can unpack all those 92 questions you just threw at me. Sorry. Okay, so first of all, first of all, my affirmations method is not magic. Right. Okay? It's science.

Yes. Okay? So let me be very clear, and I've said this a million times, okay? No more magic hands, Mark. I know, right? You cannot affirm, why am I so healthy? And then sit on the couch, eat junk food and never exercise and expect to get healthy and lose weight.

Thank you. That's called magical thinking. That's what they taught in The Secret. Just think about money and money pours in from the sky. Wow, I wonder what planet that works on because I'm moving to that planet tomorrow. On planet Earth, we have to do this annoying thing called take action if we want results.

I love it. Gosh darn it. I know, right? It sucks, right? That's why they didn't say that in The Secret, because that wouldn't have sold 30 million DVDs. What sells 30 million DVDs is lying to people and saying, hey, just think about money, money, money. Oh, good.

Hello. Right. I literally have had clients. I'm not lying. I literally have had clients say to me no i watched the secret 37 times how come i'm not a millionaire and i go can you say facepalm you know what i mean it's like come on guys oh brother anyway so do you understand what i'm saying of course this is not magic all right so you don't say why am i a millionaire and a million dollars

shows up in your bank account next week i mean mean, but you know, generally no. All right. So we, and that's, I mean, that's what I talk about in the book. All right. So it is a four, I call it my four A's of my affirmations method. All right. So the first A is to ask yourself what you want. What is it you want? And everybody goes, well, I want more money. Okay. Here's five bucks. Go away. No, I mean, come on. We need to get a little clearer than that. Right. I mean, come on. So that's ask yourself. And believe it or not, it sounds crazy, but most people don't know what they want. Correct. You know, they're like, uh, I don't know. You know, well, hello, then we got to start with step one. What do you want? You know, it's like saying, I want a car.

Okay. Well, do you want a Yugo or a Ferrari? I mean, there's kind of a big difference there, you know? So again, just being clear, you know, 80% of people don't even know what they want, or at least pretend that they don't know what they want. That's a whole discussion. Yeah, what do you want? First A, ask yourself what you want. Then the second A is to affirm that what you want is already true using my method that I just described.

So you'd say in this case, why am I so healthy? Okay, that doesn't mean you just got six-pack abs by saying that. No, the third A is to accept the truth of your new questions. Now, what does that mean? Well, what that means is, and that goes to also my core four formula, which I teach you in the book, and that means there are four modes of human communication, reading, writing, speaking, and listening.

You have to do all four of those because what we are literally doing, and this goes to the neuroplasticity of the brain, we are rewiring your brain. Your brain has been wired. Let's use my client's example I was just telling you about. Her brain has this huge eight-lane superhighway that says, I'm fat, and I'm going to be fat my whole life. So I am now building a new road in there. I'm using the road analogy, right? A new road that says, well, wait a minute, why can I be healthy? Why am I so healthy? And the brain's going, what are you talking about? So that's why you have to do the reading, writing, speaking, and listening. It's not, again, it's not magic. You do it. And then the fourth A, which is the most crucial one, and this is the one, if you

don't do it, you're not going to get the results, is you must take action. Yes. You have to act. My favorite A word. Based on your new assumptions. But listen to what I'm saying. You have to act based on your new assumptions. All of us, every human, all 7 billion of us on this planet, we're all making assumptions every second about our life.

Every second we make assumptions. And then we act to make those assumptions true. I'm going to be fat about our life. Every second we make assumptions. And then we act to make those assumptions true. I'm going to be fat my whole life. Okay. I won't exercise. I'll eat junk food. See, I told you. I'm going to be broke my whole life. I'm not going to, you know, I'm not going to get that job or not going to get that promotion. See, I told you. See, we always make ourselves right. And so what I'm inviting everybody to do is I'm encouraging you to actually make yourself a little wrong here for a second. And by wrong, I mean questioning your assumptions. Wait a minute.

Do I have to be fat? Do I have to be broke? Do I have to never get what I want? Do I have to be lonely? Huh. Maybe we could have formed something different. Yeah. Hello.

Yeah. You know what? This makes me think, too, of like one of my mottos is everything is figureoutable. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Hello. Yeah. You know what? This makes me think too of like, one of my mottos is everything is figureoutable, you know? Oh yeah, totally. And, and I think I've had situations, right. Where I'm trying to solve a problem. And it's like you, like you were saying, your brain is, is like a Google. And so I'll put that thought into my brain. And then as I'm sleeping or like in the shower, like magically the answer will come. And I'm like, ah, I figured out how to solve this, you know, but because I kind of took this step of, of putting that question

into my brain. And I think it's similar, right? With, with anything you want to make more money or whatever it is, you kind of put that into your brain. And then, and it does seem like magic sometimes where you get an idea or some sort of inspiration to do something which produces results and, you know, helps you make more money or lose weight or whatever that is. Totally. Totally. I mean, this is incredibly powerful, Noah, and thank you for breaking that down. Before we go any further, where can people find your book? I mean, where can we go to get your book? Because all of our listeners need to go order this book and read it cover to cover and take note. I mean, highlight it, you know, dog ear, whatever it is.

But put it into action. Use that fourth A. Noah, where can we find that? So you can get the new book. It's called Millionaire Afformations, the magic formula that will make you rich. There it is right there. And you can get it. It's very easy to remember. It's getmillionairebook.com. Very easy to remember. Getmillionairebook.com. We actually

have $300 worth of bonuses also when you get the Millionaire Afformations book at getmillionairebook.com. And also, by the way, you can go to my main website, which is noStJohn.com. That's my name. And just like it sounds, N-O-A-H-S-T-J-O-H-N.com. We have lots of awesome resources for you there, videos and trainings and coaching, all of that at NoahStJohn.com. All right. Thanks, Noah. Make sure everybody, you check out Noah's book and look him up on social media. Noah, I do have a question I ask everybody on this show,

and I'm sure you have an amazing answer to this. Noah, how do you start your day with a win? The way that I start my day with a win is very simple. When I wake up, I thank God for all the gifts of my life. And, you know, it's so funny people say, well, that's easy for you to say, you know, you live in a big house and you've got all this money. Listen, I was thanking God for the gifts of my life when I had nothing, when I was $40,000 in debt working out of my parents' basement.

And so that just doing that one thing, just starting your day with gratitude and, of course, with affirmations as well. If you want to start a forming, which I highly recommend, is really the way that you can turn your life around. You know, whether you're not doing so hot right now, whether you find yourself in a tight spot or whether you're already doing well. This is really the way that because what you focus on grows and the more that you focus on what you're grateful for, the more that you will have to be grateful for. So that is really how I start my day with a win. Thank you, Noah. Hey, and thank you for listening to Start With A Win. If you want more great content,

head over to adamkontos.com. There you can get access to the Leadership Factory, downloads, a lot of great resources, and connect with us online. And until next time, remember, start with a win.