Today we are joined by Noah St. John, author of 15 books, including the new book Power Habits®️: The New Science for Making Success Automatic®️. Noah is known as “The Power Habits®️ Mentor”, and is famous for helping people get rid of their head trash and make more money and have more satisfaction in life.

Noah is also the ONLY author in history to have works published by Hay House, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, Mindvalley, Nightingale-Conant, and the Chicken Soup for the Soul publisher. He also appears frequently in the news worldwide, including ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, Parade Magazine, Entrepreneur.com, and The Huffington Post.

I really enjoyed this conversation. I think there are so many valuable nuggets that Noah has to share. Unfortunately, we didn't get them all out of him today because we ran out of time, but I think you'll really enjoy this conversation.

In the episode, we talked about success. We talked about limiting beliefs. We talked about some of the concepts that Noah has identified in his journey, working with people, and what really stops people from succeeding  (whatever that means to you) to the extent that they want to.

Enjoy!

-Jonathan Levi

Click here to grab a free copy of my new book, The Only Skill That Matters! I've purchased a lot of copies, and I want to send you one for free – I'm only asking for you to cover shipping costs. Click on the banner to find out more!

In this episode, we discuss:

• Who is Noah St. John, what does he do, and how did he get here? [2:40]
• How to figure out what works for YOU [7:00]
• How many people are held back by mindset vs. by circumstance? [9:25]
• What is “success anorexia”? [12:55]
• A framework that everyone can use [19:00]
• How can you change your belief system to support you? [26:55]
• What are some other things that you can do? [29:50]
• What made Noah capable of bringing all that to the surface? [34:30]

Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

• Success Clinic
• Permission to Succeed by Noah St. John
• Power Habits®️: The New Science for Making Success Automatic®️ by Noah St. John
• Afformations
• How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie

Favorite Quotes from Noah St. John:

Transcript:

Welcome to the award-winning SuperHuman Academy podcast where we interview extraordinary people to give you the skills and strategies to overcome the impossible. And now here’s your host, Jonathan Levi. 

Jonathan Levi: Hey, listen up and don't skip over this. Before we get started, I want to let you know that I am giving away completely free copies of my latest best selling book – The Only Skill That Matters. This book is going to teach you how to upgrade your memory, read faster, learn more, and conquer your dreams, and it contains all new content written for 2020. Now again, I am giving away completely free copies of this book, all you need to do is pay shipping and handling. So to pick up your free copy as a listener of this podcast, visit freelearningbook.com that's freelearningbook.com.

Greetings Super Amigos! And welcome, welcome to this week's show where we are joined by Noah St. John, author of 15 books, including the new book Power Habits®️ -the new science for making success automatic. Noah is known as the Power Habits®️ mentor, and he's famous for helping people get rid of their so-called “head trash” to make more money and have more satisfaction in life.

He's also the only author in history to have works published by Hay House, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, Mindvalley, Nightingale-Conant, and the Chicken Soup for the Soul publisher. He appears frequently on the news worldwide, including ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, Spray Magazine, entrepreneur.com and HuffPo. I really enjoyed this conversation.

I think there are so many valuable nuggets that Noah has to share. Unfortunately, we didn't get them all out of him today because we ran out of time, but. I think you'd really enjoy this conversation. We talk about success, we talk about limiting beliefs. We talk about some of the concepts that Noah has identified, uh, in his journey working with people, and really what stops people from succeeding, whatever that means to you to the extent that they want to.

So I hope you enjoy this conversation with Noah St. John.

Mr. Noah St. John, how are you my friend? 

Noah St. John: I'm doing great, Jonathan and yourself?

Jonathan Levi: Yeah. I'm kind of living the dream man. Kind of live in the dream. So really excited to chat with you today and, uh, and share some of your wisdom with our audience. But before we get into that, I'd love to hear in your words, you know, when people ask, what do you do and how did you get to that point?

What do you tell them. 

Noah St. John: What I do is I help people get rid of their head trash so they can make more money. I found out my coaching clients, uh, add over two point $7 billion over the last two decades, and I do that by helping them master. What I call inner game and outer game. And our game is everything that happens between your ears and outer game is everything else.

Everything you see on the earth. So, you know, we felt people add multiple six and seven and even eight figures to their business, uh, while working less. And so, um, you know, that's what I do. And that's really been a, an amazing journey. I started many, many years ago, uh, in 1997 in my college dorm room with $800 and a book on how to do HTML, you know, and since that time, we've had people, you know, tens of thousands of students and clients in over 125 countries according to Google analytics.

And so, you know, it's really, like I said, it's been an incredible journey and I just really enjoy, I love bragging about my clients and their success and all the amazing results that people are getting as a result of using my methods. 

Jonathan Levi: Fantastic. So trace that path for me from, you know, the one room with $800 an HTML book to where you are today.

What did that journey look like. 

Noah St. John: Well, it actually, it started before that because I grew up poor and a rich neighborhood. And I know this is totally cliche, but it's true. I grew up in a little town called Kennebunkport Maine, which happens to be one of the wealthiest communities in new England, but my family was dirt poor.

So from a very young age, I was painfully exposed to the, the chasm between the haves and have not say hazards, anyone else. The community and have nots was my family. So. I really hated that life of poverty and fear and lack and not enoughness. That's what I grew up with in my family, but right down the street I saw that there was.

Great wealth and abundance. There was another way to live. And so I really started studying when I was very young. Um, I just went to the library and started reading books on self-help, personal growth, and I really, really tried to get them to work, but I couldn't get them to work as hard as I tried, as hard as I studied, I just could never seem to get the results that I wanted.

So at the age of 25, I decided to commit suicide because I couldn't see a way out. And yeah, at the very last moment, my life was spared. I share that story in my books, but long story short, I realized that, you know, my life had been spared for a reason, but I didn't know why. And so I went on a journey, a spiritual journey to find why I was here on the earth, and so that all of that led me to that college dorm room in 1997 when I had two Epiphanes that changed my life and made me realize my purpose here on the earth.

The first epiphany was in, I discovered my affirmations method where I discovered how to change your subconscious thought patterns in less than five minutes a day. And the second epiphany I had was when I discovered the existence of success, anorexia, a condition that causes self sabotage and people to hold themselves back.

That and I discovered it in a way that no one else had ever talked about before. And so that's what really inspired me to start my company. Success clinic.com. Um, you know, knowing nothing about business, I didn't know anything about marketing or sales or online. You know, there was no podcast. There was no, no, uh, blogs, no YouTube, no Facebook, no social media at all.

You know, it was a long time ago. And so, but I just had this dream, a desire of deep burning desire to help people to make a difference, to get my message out to the world, which I know, of course a lot of your listeners have. And so I'm really, that's what I'm. Propelled me, uh, to, to do what I do now. Um, you know, having written 15 books that are in 18 languages, and, you know, like I said, helping people make a lot of money, but also not just money, but also to overcome addiction.

Um, quit smoking, find love, save marriages, uh, and also save people's lives. I've had many people call me. Over the last two decades, or, you know, write to me on social and what have you, and say, you know, that they read one of my books, or it came to one of my events, or took one of my online programs and decided not to take their own life.

So, you know, it's really, really powerful. Uh, what we've been able to do and, and I'm very proud of my students, my clients, uh, you know, and the results that they've gotten for themselves using, you know, using my methods. 

Jonathan Levi: Incredible, and I love the piece where you talk about, you know, I couldn't get the books to work for me, so I had to go out and find my own way.

And I think a lot of people have this binge mentality with self-help, and I'm guilty of it too, by the way. We're, we want to read one more book. We want to learn one more lesson from one more really smart person, but at the end of the day, what's actually gonna make the differences is either implementing what you learn, not accumulating more, but implementing or figuring out your own way to, to succeed.

Noah St. John: Well, you know, um, you're right, because we certainly live in the world of information overload. And you know, as you know, I'm sure most people listening to this program to other over a billion blogs. Uh, on the internet today. So there's certainly too much information we more information we could possibly consume and 10,000 lifetimes.

And so, you know, at this point in humanity's existence, information is no longer, uh, you know, there's an old saying, knowledge is power. But that was when knowledge was held by the very few well, knowledge or information, if you will. Is now ubiquitous. It's everywhere. We're drowning in information, and so it is no longer information that is power.

Uh, but what we're looking now to what we say, you know, at success clinic.com at my company, we have a saying, which is, there's no lack of information, but there's a definite lack of implementation. And that lack of implementation leads to a lack of results. And so that's the point, is that, you know, one of the things that my work does is it helps people to stop stopping themselves from the level of success they're capable of, uh, to what I call get their foot off the brake.

And so, um, you know, most, most people, many people, millions of people are driving down the road of life with one foot on the brake. And you know, you keep, uh, trying to learn from all these different people. And that's not wrong. But what I'm saying is that at the same time that most people want their goals, they are also unconsciously stopping themselves from reaching their goals.

That's what my work fixes. That's what my worry, in fact, one of my clients many years ago said, no, what. You know, your, your methods fix the problem that causes every other problem. And I think that's one of the reasons we've seen so many amazing results from, you know, from our clients. 

Jonathan Levi: That's fascinating.

I really want to get in and learn more, but I do want to ask, do you really believe that. I mean, what percentage, I guess, do you believe of people being held back is mindset versus, obviously there is some element of circumstance, there is some element of, of capability or, or you know, calling passionate. I mean, how much of it do you really think is, is just you're, you're putting your foot on the brake from a mindset perspective?

Noah St. John: Well, I don't use the term mindset. I know that term is bandied about a lot. Uh, you know, nowadays, I have never used that term mindset because to me. Mindset is subsumed by the other parts of, you know, what I call inner game. So inner game is everything that happens between your ears, um, that you can't see directly, but it affects everything that you do.

So, for example, at my live events, we have a live event called freedom lifestyle experience, where I teach people how to master inner game and outer game. But, um, you know, one of the things I'll ask at my live events or when I'm speaking to an audience doing my keynote speech, I'll say, what area of your life.

Do your beliefs not affect you? And of course people will go and I go, exactly. There's no place. Your beliefs don't affect you. Right? Your beliefs affect your health. Your beliefs affect your wealth. You know your finances, your business, your career, your relationships, your marriage. You know what?

Everything. There's no place in the world where your beliefs don't affect you. However, you can't see a belief. Right? You can't, you can only see the effects of it. And so, you know, for example, somebody could be do doing really well in their business, but maybe their health is suffering, or you know, they're doing well in their relationships, but maybe their finances are, they're stuck, you know?

So it's not cookie cutter, one size fits all. We really have to look at the individual person. That's one of the things that we do, you know, with our clients. But the point is that, you know, that is. Your beliefs are not just about mindset. So when people say mindset, um, I always, it's like nails on a chalkboard because that term is really misused in my opinion.

You know, nowadays. Uh, because of what I'm saying right now, it has much to as much to do with what you do with your, what's your, with your beliefs. You're in, again, I call it your inner game. But it, it does. It's not just beliefs. I mean, it has also to do with, you know, things that you can't see, like your values, your desires, your thoughts, your priorities, decisions.

See, so that encompasses much, much more than mindset. But then we also have the outer game. See, we can't forget that the outer game are things you can see directly. That's your habits, your lifestyle, your systems, your strategies, you know, so forth. Entrepreneurs, for example, it's all the blocking and tackling that we have to do every day as entrepreneurs, all the customer facing market facing things.

You know, your, your lead magnets, your sales pages, your marketing funnels, all of the marketing, digital marketing stuff that, you know, so many people have spent all this time and money and effort on. But it's only when you master your inner game and your outer game that you have the phenomenon called success.

So the example that I always give is, you know, look, look at the people who. Um, are rich and famous, and yet they sabotaged themselves. You know, examples like Robin Williams, Chris Farley river, Phoenix, Heath ledger, Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe. I mean, you know, there are literally hundreds of these examples, you know, sadly, these are of course, cautionary tales, but that's just one example of how we need to master both inner game and outer game.

Jonathan Levi: I love that, and I think it's, it's, you know, that old saying of you put a Ferrari engine in a Ford escort, 1989 is still a Ford escort, 1989 right. It's like the best, the best knowledge in the wrong vehicle is not going to do anything. Is that what you mean when you use the term success? Anorexia. 

Noah St. John: Success.

Anorexia is a condition that I discovered in Iraq on October 20th, 1997 when I realized why so many smart, creative, talented people are holding themselves back from the level of success they're perfectly capable of. Now, I'm just to tell you the brief story of how it happened. I, uh, as I have a background as a former professional ballet dancer, so I'm the only person in the.

Personal and business growth industry who made a living, lifting ballerinas. And so my point is that, um, I had, my body was not built for ballet. I had, I, when I was very young, I had, um, braces on my legs, like far as gun. So I took dance classes to strengthen my, my legs, my pediatrician, you know, suggested to my parents that I do that.

Well, I ended up becoming a professional. At the age of 18. Um, but then I had a career ending injury at age 22. So it was a very short career. But the point is that, um, you know, in that career, I met lot, uh, many, many people who unfortunately were struggling with eating disorders. Well, in October, 1997, I was at a seminar on eating disorders to find out why people develop eating disorders.

And what I realized is that just like people. Uh, millions of people, mostly young women are starving themselves of food. What I realized is that millions of people are also unknowingly starving themselves of success, and I was the first person to ever realize that and put the, you know, put two and two together in that way.

And that was really what led to. The creation of my very first book called permission to succeed, which was published by the chicken soup publisher. So what I realized is that for millions of us, millions of people all around the world, we don't need any more how tos of success, you know, cause so many people, of course, they've spent billions of dollars on the how to succeed methods, right?

How to succeed, how to make more money and so forth. Not that there's anything wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with that. However, what I realized in that moment, that flash of insight was that at the same time that we desire success, that we're, you know, we have our foot on the gas trying to get towards our goal.

Millions of us are also unknowingly, unconsciously, unwittingly holding ourselves back from that level of success. In other words. What I call driving down the road of life with one foot on the brake. And so that deals with the subconscious reasons why we hold ourselves back. Hence, I called it success anorexia, and now we call it, in my new book, it's called my new book is called power habits.

The new science for making success automatic. And what I do is I show you what I now call the power habits of unconsciously successful people, highly successful people, what I call the naturals of success. Are not doing this right. These are all the gurus out there. The gurus are who most people are learning from going all these seminars and so forth, and yet they're still stuck.

Why? Because the person on stage is unconscious. They're unconsciously competent at allowing themselves to succeed. So that's why when we look at, um, this, this phenomenon, this, uh, discovery that I had called success anorexia, that is what millions of people are unknowingly. Suffering from, and they're not getting the right treatment.

So that's why, you know, going back to my, uh, my story, uh, of starting a company, you know, success clinic in my college dorm room, that was what galvanized me to start this company and to get the word out about this, this condition that no one else had ever talked about before. And, you know, now I've written 15 books on the subject of why people hold themselves back from the level of success they're perfectly capable of.

So this is really about. How not just how to succeed, but how to stop stopping yourself from the level of success you're capable of. 

Jonathan Levi: Yeah. I guess I want to make sure I understand. So is, is this, is his success, anorexia and your perspective, is it similar to, you know, people talk a lot about self-talk, right?

And this idea of like the words that you say to yourself in your head. You know, between your ears. I like your term. They really matter. Right? And if you're walking around every single day going, you know what? I don't deserve to make that much money, or I don't. Just, in my case, I had a real belief around.

Uh, well, I guess I had success in erect SIA around relationships where I had a deep, deep seated belief. I didn't know it even, but when I did the work and I dug deep and I went to those unpleasant places and did the journaling, did the meditation, I realized, wait a minute, do I actually believe that I deserve a loving, healthy, happy relationship?

Is that 

Noah St. John: kinda what we're talking about? Yes, it is. That's, that's exactly right. And as I stated earlier, you're, you know, what I'm talking about is your inner game, which affects everything that you do. So yeah, you can have success anorexia as it pertains to money, you know, physical success, wealth status, and so forth, 

Jonathan Levi: because that's where.

Noah St. John: What's that 

Jonathan Levi: fitness as well. I see this all the time. I have an X and therefore I can never have a body that I'll be happy with. 

Noah St. John: That's right. Exactly. 

Jonathan Levi: My left knee hurts sometimes, so I could never, never get to just 20 pounds overweight, you know? 

Noah St. John: Well, look, the four areas that I fixed, you know, that my program fixes is, you know, money, wealth, abundance, right?

Health, uh, relationships and stress. Right? And notice that stress is caused by one of the three, right? It's caused by money, health, and relationships. So really those four areas, money, health, relationships, and stress. That's what this program, or you know, my programs fixed is, is all of those areas. But you can be starving yourself of success.

To use my terminology, you can be starving yourself as success in any or all of those areas. So as I mentioned earlier, it's not cookie cutter, one size fits all, but it is very customized for each individual person. 

Jonathan Levi: Now, I'm not going to ask you, just just tell me all of it. No, I'm, because you've written 15 books on this, but I want to ask you for a framework that people can learn from this and get an introduction and a, and hopefully along the way we discover what AF four mentions are.

Because I love that idea. If it is what I think it is, I love it. 

Noah St. John: Yes. Well, so when I just got success anorexia, I realized that I had discovered the problem, that it was literally the moment my life made sense for the first time. Because as I mentioned, you know, I had been reading all these books on how to succeed, how to succeed, how succeed, and none of them were wrong.

They just didn't fix my problem. My problem was I was starving myself of success, but of course, no one had ever said that before, right? No one, there was no language for that. So it's w you know, when you have a new way of looking at the universe, you often need a new word or a new term to describe it. So that's why when I discovered, Oh my gosh, this is what's holding me back, I realized I had to come up with this term and I named it success anorexia because that was the perfect name.

Jonathan Levi: Yeah, and I liked the metaphor as well, right? Because if someone is interact sick and they're not eating, you can put the most nutritious food in front of them. Right. You could have read the best books and, and I don't think either of us have anything against books. Right. It's like that's the nutrition, right?

Learning and new things. But I could put the best books in front of you if you don't believe that you deserve right, or that you are capable of what those books contain. I think that's really interesting and it's something I work with my certified coaches to tell them, you know, a lot of times people are going to buy our courses and our programs, but they're going to believe that something's wrong with them or wrong with their memory, wrong with their brain.

And your job as, as a coach is to convince them, you can do this and you deserve to be able to do this, and you will do this. Because otherwise they would have gone through the course and figured it out themselves. Right. They wouldn't have needed a coach or as you put in a guru. 

Noah St. John: Right. Absolutely. And so when I had that discovery, that epiphany, I literally said, Oh my gosh.

This is exactly the problem that I'm facing. And I knew I wasn't alone in this. I mean, Emerson said, what is most personal is most universal. So I knew, I certainly wasn't the only person I knew. There had to be millions of tens of millions of people just like me. And it turns out I was exactly right. Now, so then I, the next thing I did though was when I sat down to write my first book, permission to succeed, I said, okay.

Well, now I've got to fix the problem, right? It's, it's one thing to know you've got a problem. It's another to say, well, now how do I fix it? Right? And so that's the point is I had to come up with this, this, um, a solution, right? A methodology, a formula, a, a system of blueprint in order to, to fix this problem, you know, that I had identified.

And so it became my first book called permission to succeed. Now, and now through, you know, many iterations, as I mentioned, you know, 15 books now, my 15th book called power habits. We now call it the power habits. The full title of my system is the power habits of unconsciously successful people. Now, I know that's a mouthful, but let me just break that down for your listeners very simply, because when we humans want to master a new habit, right?

When we're, whenever we're trying to master a new habit or a new skill, we always go through four stages of competency. The first stage is unconscious incompetence. That means you don't know. You don't know. The second stage is conscious incompetence. I mean, do you know? You don't know. The third stage is conscious competence, which is, you know, you know, and the final stages, unconscious competence, which is you do without thinking.

So the example I was given, my live advanced, or when I'm doing keynote speeches, is driving a car, right? Yep. So for probably most people listening to this program, you went through these four stages when you were learning how to drive a car. The first stage was you didn't know. You didn't know how to drive a car.

Nobody comes out of the womb and says, Hey, where's my car? Right? The second stage is you get to about eight 10 12 years old. Like, man, I want to get away from my parents how the heck I want to get, but I only got a bicycle. Oh man, I really want to know how to drive a car, but shoot, I can't drive a car. Now I know I don't know how to drive a car.

Then he gets a third stage, which is you learn how to drive a car. You go to driver's ed, get a license, and then of course now today, for most people listening. Does this program you do without thinking you're driving a car and you are literally not thinking about it. You do without that. So literally, there's dozens of things we do every day that you went to these four stages, eating, sleeping, you know, reading, writing, speaking.

Getting dressed, bathing, and so forth and so on. Right. So the point is that what I realized, Jonathan, is that these highly successful people, the gurus, what I call the naturals of success, have become unconsciously competent at allowing themselves to succeed. What that means is they aren't. Not holding themselves back from success.

Now, I've had the opportunity to interview over 200 millionaires, multimillionaires, very, very successful people, the biggest names in the industry. And what I realized is that these people, by and large, are unconsciously competent. I and I can prove that because I will ask them a question, like I'll say, have you ever noticed that you do such and such that you do this?

And so, and they'll pause for a second and they'll go, yeah, you're right. You know, I do do that. I never thought about that before. Well. Hello? What does that tell you? It tells you they're unconscious, right? They're literally unconsciously competent. Well, that's the very point. This is precisely why people come to my events are hiring me as a coach after they gone, all the gurus, and there's still stock because the gurus aren't saying anything wrong necessarily, but they're also unconscious.

So it's like they left out all the good stuff. It's like they're giving you a pizza. Without the cheese and the topics. Yeah, 

Jonathan Levi: I completely agree. And I, I recognize this also in myself. I'll admit, like when I first started teaching about learning and memory, I was at that point where like, Hey, all my life I struggled.

I didn't know how to do this. Someone just told me the secret night I got taught it. But as I've become. Consciously or unconsciously competent. I no longer even remember what it's like to have memory issues. Like it's a good thing. I wrote my books and courses and all that other stuff back then. Cause today if you asked me like what do you do when you struggle?

It's like, I don't. 

Noah St. John: I don't, 

Jonathan Levi: I don't, I don't remember what it's like to not remember something that I wanted to remember, you know? And, uh, and I mean, that's why we train coaches and we train them in how to, how to channel into that. But you're absolutely right. And so, you know, it's, it's a very select few people who have been able to push through that, like yourself and, and do the work to go, okay.

I see what I don't see. When you see someone like Tony Robbins who's been confident for the last 30 years, you know what I mean? He's done the work to go in and he understands enough about where people are, even though he doesn't even remember what it's like to suffer from depression. I think. 

Noah St. John: Well, that's a great example.

And it's more like 50 years by the way. But anyway, that's that. That is a great example because, you know, people come to my events, I have to go on all these goos and they're like, how come I spend all this money and I'm still stuck? And it's like, well, cause they left out all the good stuff. They didn't teach anything wrong necessarily.

But you know, they're basically saying things like, we'll set your goals, think positive, believe in yourself, and you're like, yeah, okay. You know, like, that's not the 

Jonathan Levi: right thing to do. 

Noah St. John: Right, right. You know, and not cause like I'd hear all these groups, I go on all these sounds, I went to all the same ones everybody else does.

And you know, like that was one of my favorite ones. They'd say, well, the secret to success is you gotta believe in yourself. And I'd be sitting in the back on, yeah. But I don't believe in myself. What am I supposed to do? You know, and that's the point. Million. Most people, millions of people don't believe themselves because I mean, it's, it's really common to not believe in yourself.

It's very uncommon to believe in yourself. You see? And you see what I mean? So that's just one example. They're not saying anything that's precisely wrong. It's just they miss the point. And that's why, you know, took the nerdiest nerd in the industry. That would be me to break it down to the molecular level and go, Oh, here's what they were trying to say, but they left it out.

Jonathan Levi: Tell me how. Yeah. 

Noah St. John: Right, right. Exactly. Well, I mean, it actually is very simple. The answer is that you, first, you have to have someone believe in you. What I realize is that they're not saying anything wrong. They just, they just did it backwards because this, the actual secret is you have to have someone believe in you first.

Going back to what I said a moment ago, that I've interviewed all these highly successful people in 100% of the cases when I would ask them, did you have someone believe in you? You know, long time ago, very, and every single ones, Oh yeah. You know, my mother believed in me. My dad believed in me, my grandpa, you know, or a teacher or whatever.

They 100% of the time, they had someone believe in them first. And so ironically, that is the secret to believe in yourself is you need someone else to believe in you first. That became one of the power habits that I teach is to find people who believe in you first. It sounds counterintuitive, but if you really think about it, you know anybody out there who.

Maybe struggling with believing in yourself. You realize you actually can't do that. And so unless you have that person believe in you first. And I have, you know, two decades of proof of that. But you know, that's just one simple example, but it's a very, very powerful example of, you know, what? So 

Jonathan Levi: much sense.

It makes so much sense, Noah, because you know, if you're in a place where the whole world around you. Has communicated to you that you're not a value? How are we supposed to believe that you're a value? And I think by the way, the other way is true, right? Is. You know, once you do have people that believe in you.

I, I realized when I was 15, I, uh, I was coming out of a really, really serious depression, self hatred for many, many years. And I had many people around me. I had loving parents, loving mentors, loving. I didn't have many loving friends, but I had the loving parents and loving mentors. And I came up with this saying one day, which is, you know, Jonathan, if you don't think you're worth anything.

Why will anyone else? And so it was once my, my kind of, I don't know what term you use, but I would just say like my, my rocks, the people that my, in Hebrew, we say like my thing that I can lean on, there's a nice word for it. And we, and it like once I had my, my solid ground to stand on and then I had to take that step and go, you know what?

I, okay, I am worth something. And it wasn't until I believe that I was worth a damn that other people besides my mother. Started believing that I was worth a damn as well. 

Noah St. John: Well that, that, that's a great, great example and yeah, that, that's, uh, it's really, really important to, to look beyond the cliches, you know, because as I said, you know, the cliches have a grain of truth, but there's a big difference between a grain of truth and the whole truth.

Right? And that's the point is, you know, that's one of the reasons why so many people are spending billions of dollars on, you know, these, these goos, the seminars, but they're just not getting better. So, you know, that's why I'm on a mission really, to, to help people who have been left behind by a lot of these, um, I guess cliches or, or.

You know, the, the things that just aren't quite right. They're not wrong, but they're not exactly right either. 

Jonathan Levi: Well, I think that's fantastic. Tell me a little bit more, I mean, what are some of these other incredible habits that, that go against the, the cliched advice? 

Noah St. John: Well, that goes back to your question earlier about my affirmations methods.

So that is. You know, really the foundational power habit of unconsciously successful people. It's what it's when unconsciously successful or people are doing unconsciously that they can never teach you. Um, but you know, this is one of the foundational power habits is my discovery of affirmation. So of course everyone listening to this program knows what an affirmation is, right?

And affirmation is what we've been taught for decades. It's a statement of something you want to be true, like a. At my live events or at my keynote speeches. I liked it. It had my audience stand up and say, okay, we're going to do a traditional affirmation ready. Everybody say I am rich. And he goes, I am rich, and know what happens next.

Everybody starts laughing and I go, well, what are you laughing at? And they said, well, I'm not rich. And I say, but yet, you just said you were. And they go, yeah, but I don't believe it. Aha. See, that's the point, right? We say these statements, just like we've been taught, but we don't believe it. Right. For millions of people, you know, millions of us.

And so this is what happened to me. I'd read every book, you know, for 20 years, and I did everything they said, I wrote it on the wall and I put stickers on my wall. I'm happy. I'm rich, I'm successful. No, I'm not. I'm broke. I'm miserable and unhappy. Right? So it's like, well, what the heck? You know, I'm following your instructions.

Why isn't this damn thing working? So one morning is April, 1997 I was in the shower thinking about all this, right? You ever have those shower moments? You know, in my, in my books, I call it the shower, the change, everything, the shower, the changes, everything. Cause in this particular shower, I was thinking about this very point of why.

Doing these stupid affirmations for years and they never worked for me. And I said, well, what are we talking? We're talking about beliefs, but what's the belief will I believe is just the thought? Well, what's thought thought is the process of asking and searching for answers to questions, not statements.

So I said, well, wait a minute. If the human mind is automatically searching for answers to questions, why are we going around making statements? We don't believe, why don't we cut out the middle man? And I said, I don't know, what would that look like? Well, let's see. Let's take this statement or affirmation.

I am rich to what? Your brain replies. Yeah. Right. You know, in my programs and my books, I call it the yeah. Right. Response. Because that's literally what your brain goes. Your brain goes, yeah. Right, right. So I said, well, if that's the statement, what would the question be? And then I said, why am I so rich?

Why am I so rich? No one you asked that question, what starts to happen in your brain. You start to search for the answer, right? 

Jonathan Levi: Human brain can't resist a good question. What we teach is learning courses. 

Noah St. John: That's, well, it's called the pre embedded or the embedded presupposition factor and of the brain. And so the point is, I said, now wait a second.

Um, what? Cause it, what we're talking about is the law of sowing and reaping as you sow. So shall you reap. But what are we sowing? We're sowing seeds of thought yet. What are most people doing sewing lousy thoughts. Seas. Why am I so stupid? Why am I so fat? Why can't I lose weight? Why isn't my business growing?

Why is there more month left at the end of the money? When you ask lousy questions, what do you get? You get lousy answers, right? And that creates a lousy life. So I said, well, wait a second. What if instead of asking lousy questions that leave the lousy answers and create a lousy life. What if we just flipped the whole thing on its head, start asking, empowering questions that lead to phenomenal answers and create a wonderful life.

And as I was standing there in the shower, April, 1997 I said, Holy cow, I think I just invented something. And so I had to give it a name. And the name that I gave it was AF formations, a, F, F, O, R, M, a, T, I, O N, S, L, formations. And you of course, get and go to F formations.com and learn more about my affirmations method.

But really that's, that's really the. Foundational power habit. Because what I realize is that what highly successful people, what what the nationals are doing, is they're unconsciously asking these empowering questions. Why am I good enough? Why am I so happy? Why am I so smart? But they don't even know they're doing it.

So they can't teach you. So that's why when I discovered  formations and named that process and created the method, then I realized, Holy cow, now the rest of us can do it. And that's what's so exciting is when you see people, you know, learn by affirmations method and start doing the work and taking the actions, and they start to make more money.

They start to grow their business or write their book or quit smoking, overcome addiction, find luck. It's just absolutely incredible and you know, you can go onto our websites. It's just see just a fraction of the amazing stories and true life stories that we have over the last two decades. 

Jonathan Levi: No. What do you think was different about you that that allowed you to kind of bring this to the surface and teach it.

Noah St. John: I've always been a nerd. I, when I started reading before I was two years old, my mother was a teacher and, uh, you know, so I just love books. Um, I read Dale Carnegie's how to win friends and influence people when I was seven years old. I know that doesn't sound believable, but you can ask my mother. I read that book when I was seven, and so I've just always been fascinated by human behavior, and I was also very annoyed by the fact that I, even though I was studying all this stuff, wasn't getting the results in my life, you know?

Um, I mentioned, you know, my, my suicide story, I mean, I wasn't suicidal. I went to do it. So, you know, I, I remember that very, very distinctly that I was going to take my own life. So. You know, the dichotomy of that, of how much I had tried to succeed and how much of a failure I was, that that is, I think what really propels me even to this day, because I know how hard people work.

I know that human beings want success, but yet at the same time, we desire success. We also fear success. And so that is the eternal struggle, you know, and within many millions and millions of people. So that's what I believe that I was put here on the earth to do, is to teach people about this and to say, it's okay.

Don't beat yourself up, but here is a process. Here's a methodology, here's the blueprint, here's a step-by-step method that you can use so you can stop stopping yourself from success. And, you know, it's, it's just very, very humbling to get letters and, you know, people posting on social. I had an email the other day from a client who said that, um, he had been trying to quit, uh, smoking and caffeine and, uh, you know, marijuana for 17 years, and within two weeks of, you know, using my program, he quit all of his addiction within, within two weeks.

So, I mean. Just stories like that are really, really incredible. I mean, along with the people who went from making 5,000 a month to 75,000 a month, people who went from $60,000 in debt to a six figure income in less than a year. And you know, that's what makes it so worthwhile, so fulfilling and makes me just, you know, keep going every day.

Jonathan Levi: Fantastic. And I know, I know we've pretty much come up on time here. Anything else you want to share about the method that we didn't cover that maybe you want people to understand or should they just refer to one of the 15 books? 

Noah St. John: Well, yes. Uh, you know, you could go to our main website now, let's say john.com.

That's my name, Noah st john.com or as I mentioned, AF formations.com to, uh, to learn about my affirmations method and get my app formation system. And of course@noahstjohn.com you can also learn about our live events and our coaching and our online programs as well as all the different books and DVDs.

Um, but yeah, we have, uh, we have just a, a number of resources to help people and I just want to make sure that people know that there is hope, there is help and that they don't have to struggle alone. 

Jonathan Levi: Fantastic. Now, before I let you go, I do want to ask any other things that you do, any hacks that you have that, uh, keep you performing at a higher level besides the inner game and outer game stuff.

Noah St. John: No, because that's everything. That's the inner game, an outer game. That's pretty much life. So, you know, the formation is definitely, uh, you know, help can help keep you sharp. Um, but you know, there are 11 other, I should say, there are 11 total power habits. So in addition to affirmations, there are 10 other power habits.

Um, but really it's, it's a daily practice. Habits are, you know, just, they're never any fun to, you know, nobody wants to change. Nobody wants and says, Oh, goody, I get to change. No, we humans like to stay there just the way we are. But what I would just say to the people listening is, if you're not happy with the results you're getting.

You know, if you want to have more money or more time or you know, better relationships or better health. I mean there is a solution. No power habits. Uh, another one of my clients called it duct tape because, you know, my system says it's like duct tape cause it fixes everything. 

Jonathan Levi: Fantastic. Well Noah St. John, thank you so much for coming on the show today. I had a total blast. I know our audience learned a whole bunch as well. 

Noah St. John: My pleasure. 

Thanks for tuning in to the award winning SuperHuman Academy Podcast. For more great skills and strategies or for links to any of the resources mentioned in this episode, visit SuperHuman.blog. While you're at it, please take a moment to share this episode with a friend and leave us a review on iTunes. We'll see you next week!