Noah St John Interview – Afformations: The Miracle of Positive Self-Talk
Intersections Match Talk Radio – Professional Development Spotlight Series: Live Your Potential – A Monthly series on Professional Development Topics.
“Afformations: The Miracle of Positive Self-Talk”
Jasbina Ahluwalia interviews Noah St John
Jasbina interviews Noah St John, Communication Expert, Keynote Speaker and Bestselling Author.
In Noah St John’s book, you will discover:
- 4 simple steps to reach your goals faster than you ever thought possible
- How an unhappy employee went from chronic debt to a six-figure income using this method
- The 5-word phrase that will attract your desires on complete autopilot
- The 10 words that will help you lose 10 pounds—and keep it off!
- How to think like a millionaire in less than 5 minutes a day
Noah St John is a communication expert, keynote speaker, and bestselling author of ten books. He is famous for inventing Afformations®, a positive self-talk tool that helps busy people remove mental barriers, build confidence, and make more money.
Noah is a media veteran who has appeared in hundreds of TV, radio, and online interviews including ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, The Hallmark Channel, NPR, Parade, Woman’s Day, Los Angeles Business Journal, The Huffington Post, Chicago Sun-Times, Forbes.com, Selling Power and The Washington Post.
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(00:47): Hello everyone. Welcome to Intersections Match’s Talk Radio, a monthly holistic lifestyle show focused on the continual evolution into the best versions of our authentic selves. This is Jasbina, your host. I’m the Founder of Intersections Match, the only elite national personalized matchmaking company focused on singles of South Asian descent nationwide in the US.
As a coach and matchmaker to high-achieving South Asians who are interested in designing lives of significance, I’m always interested in fresh perspectives from authors, researchers, experts and leaders in both the South Asian community and broader mainstream communities beyond. Aligned with designing lives of significance, we have our monthly Professional Development Spotlight Series, Live Your Potential.
Today’s guest speaker is Noah St John. Noah St John is Founder of the Success Clinic of America and bestselling author of two books, Permission to Succeed and Afformations: The Miracle of Positive Self-Talk. Jack Canfield of Chicken Soup for the Soul calls Noah’s work, “One of the most significant breakthroughs in the study of success in decades.” Welcome to the show, Noah.
Noah St John
(1:58): Thank you, Jasbina. It’s great to be here.
(2:01): It’s a pleasure to have you. What are “afformations” and how did you go about discovering them?
Noah St John
(2:10): So that everyone knows, we’re using a new word here. It is “afformations,” not “affirmations.” As we all know, an affirmation is a positive statement of something that you want to be true, like, “I am happy. I am wealthy. I am rich. I am successful.” The problem is, a lot of times we say these positive statements but we don’t really believe them.
Many years ago in 1997, I was in the shower one morning. I was thinking about these things. I had been using these positive statements for so many years. I realized that the human brain operates using questions. For example, if I were to ask you, “Why is the sky blue?” Your brain automatically starts to search for an answer to the question.
I said, “Why are we going around making statements we don’t believe when the human mind automatically searches for answers to questions?” In the book of Afformations, I call it “The shower that changed everything.” An afformation is an empowering question that assumes that what you want is already true.
Because of the embedded presupposition factor of the brain, which means your brain automatically searches for answers, it makes it so much easier and faster to accept and make these positive changes in your life.
(3:28): Again, that is “afformations” as opposed to “affirmations.” Speaking of making those changes, you say that the belief gap is the reason so many people feel stuck. What is the belief gap and how does it keep us stuck?
Noah St John
(3:48): Whenever we want to make changes in our lives, let’s say we want to find the right person for us. We want to make more money. We want to start a new business. We want to get a promotion at work. We want to get a new car. We need to go from where we are to where we need to be. Where we are right now is what I call your CPR, your “current perceived reality.”
Where you want to go is what I call your NDR, you “new desired reality.” That’s where you have the thing that you want, such as the relationship, the money, the business or the car. Between your CPR and your NDR, there is a gap. For most people, it’s a belief gap. So many people are working really hard to get their goals, yet, they are saying to themselves, “I can’t do it because…”
For all of the folks listening, when you look at your “I can’t do it because,” you might be saying, “I can’t do it because I’m too old. I’ve made too many mistakes. I’ve tried everything already. I didn’t graduate from college. I’m a woman. I’m too young.” Whatever it might be, that is your belief gap. That is why so many people feel stuck. They’re listening to that voice in their head that says, “I can’t do it because…”
(5:12): What’s on the other side of the “because” is a limiting belief that is getting in someone’s way. That’s what’s really keeping us stuck.
Noah St John
(5:24): Exactly. The way that the human brain works is that we always make ourselves right. If you say, “I can’t do it because I’m too old,” then you’re going to find all the reasons to make that true. This is what I encourage my clients to do. I say, “Write down all of your “I can’t do it because” statements. Then I want you to find reasons why that’s not true.” Then you will start to take better, more inspired action. That means you’re going to get new results in your life.
(5:56): I have read your book. I think your work is profound. Let’s look at an example of “I can’t do it because…” I work with a lot of singles. Let’s put this in the relationship space. Let’s change that into an afformation. Walk the listeners through taking the limiting belief and creating an afformation out of it.
Noah St John
(6:33): In the book, I talk about the 4A method. That is to ask, afform, accept and act. Let me take you through that. The first step is to ask yourself what you want. I’ll give you an example from my own life. When I discovered afformations, I was a broke college student. I was lonely and frustrated. I had no money. I couldn’t get a date to save my life.
I wrote down everything that I wanted in my dream woman. I wrote down, “I want her to be blonde and beautiful. I want her to be petite because I’m not that tall. I want to look tall in pictures when I stand next to her. I want her to be loving and fun.” As I was writing all these things, I said, “There is no way that’s going to happen.” My “I can’t because” was because this woman doesn’t exist. She’s too perfect. That will never happen. I heard that voice. I said, “I don’t care. I’m just going to keep writing.”
The next step is to afform. That means you ask the question. You form an empowering question. It could be, “Why is my true love coming to me now? Why is my soulmate so magically attracted to me?” In the book, I give hundreds of afformations about love, relationships, spirituality, money and overcoming addictions. That is an example of how you afform.
Then you have to give yourself to the question. You have to accept it. I wrote about it. I journaled. I prayed. I meditated. We even have “iAfform” audios. You can listen to your empowering afformations. We have that on our website, where people can download and listen to them over and over again. People do that all the time.
The final step is to take action. In my case, I was living in New England. I was broke and miserable. I said, “I have this feeling that I’m supposed to be somewhere else.” I was talking with a friend of mine. He said, “Why don’t you move here to Ohio? It will be really fun?” I said, “Ohio? Fun? Really? How does that work?” There was something in me. I had that gut feeling.
If you’ve ever had that higher knowing and it doesn’t make logical sense, well it didn’t make any sense to me either. But I moved 1,000 miles away to Ohio. That one friend who I knew when I moved here introduced me to another friend. That friend introduced me to a gorgeous blonde named Babette who is not my beautiful wife. She not only fits all the criteria that I wrote, she’s better than anything that I could have written. I am the perfect example of how afformations can not only change your life but change your love life as well.
(9:34): Thank you for walking us through this. How is this different from what we’ve been taught about what’s commonly perceived with the Law of Attraction?
Noah St John
(9:53): For example, in the very popular movie, The Secret, they said, “Just think about money and money will fall in from the ceiling. Think about love and the love of your life will just show up.” I don’t know where that works. On the planet Earth, we have to do this annoying thing called work to get the things that we want.
I use a very simple example like losing weight. Let’s say that you want to lose 10 pounds. You think about losing weight. Meanwhile, you continue to eat junk food and never exercise. Are you going to lose the weight? Of course not. The point is, what we’ve often been taught with the Law of Attraction is just to sit there and say it. Then the stuff magically happens.
It doesn’t work that way on planet Earth. Of course we have to think positive. Of course we want to have those good emotions and feelings. Yes, that’s very important. But, I say that it’s like building a house. If you sit there, stare at the wood and expect it to build itself, it’s not going to happen. Someone has to pick up and swing a hammer.
In my case, it was totally incredible with what happened with me and my wife. I still had to take action. I had to get in the car and move across the country. I’m not suggesting that people have to do that. I’m just saying that you have to show up. You have to listen to your gut. You have to listen to your higher self and take that inspired action.
(11:26): I love the term “inspired action.” It’s about asking the questions. The questions then guide the universe and the higher power to provide opportunities to take that inspired action. It’s still up to us to seize those opportunities.
Noah St John
(11:45): That’s exactly right. One of my friends talks about the people who have watched The Secret 57 times and they’re still waiting for their money or love. He calls them secret survivors. They’re just sitting there, hoping that life is going to happen. It’s like you’re waiting to win the lottery. You have a better chance of being struck by lightning twice than winning the lottery. Get out there and take inspired action.
(12:16): We talked about love. You can really apply this to all areas of life. We have listeners who might be looking to increase their prosperity.
I know that you can apply this system to all areas, including prosperity. As I understand, many experts are calling Afformations, “The missing piece to stress-free prosperity.” Why is that? What do they mean? What is this stress-free prosperity that they speak of?
Noah St John
(12:55): This is one of the terms that we use at SuccessClinic.com. We use the term “stress-free prosperity” to talk about the four elements of life that we want to have, and where many people get stuck. That is time, energy, relationships and money. Those are the four elements that make up an abundant life, or a life of stress-free prosperity. Imagine if you have $1 million but you don’t have any time. Imagine if you have $1 million but you don’t have any energy or anyone to share it with.
Yes, we focus on money a lot. Money is important. I grew up poor in a rich neighborhood. I know very well that there’s nothing good about being poor. There’s nothing good about not having money. I’m an advocate of adding value to the world and making money. My point is that, if you don’t have that time, energy or the right relationships, you won’t feel like you’re living an abundant life.
The reason that many people are calling Afformations the missing piece is that many people have been using affirmations, yet they’re feeling frustrated. They say, “Wait a minute. I’ve been saying these positive statements all these years. Why am I not manifesting the life that I want?” I have people write to me on social media, in emails and sending me notes and cards. They say, “Noah, thank you for giving me the missing piece that I’ve been looking for, for 20 or 30 years.”
(14:28): We have entrepreneurs and business owners among our diverse audience. How are people in this field using your system? I know that they are big consumers of your system. How are they using your system to accelerate the value that they add to their clients’ or customers’ lives, thereby increasing their prosperity?
Noah St John
(15:04): Let me give you an example from one of our students. When you go to our website, you will see dozens of case studies from real people. We have thousands of them. Susan was a woman who came to us from California. She heard me on a show just like this. She was $60,000 in debt. We found out that she had spent over $60,000 on every self-help program out there, yet she was bankrupt.
She was just about to declare bankruptcy, and in fact, was going to lose her home. She was literally at the edge. She heard me talk about afformations. She thought, “Wait a minute. I think this is the missing piece that I’ve been looking for.” She got my book. She got my online programs.
She went through them and started to change her brain. She started to use the empowering questions. Six months later, she landed her dream job. Within a year, she was making a six-figure income. She has just published her first book based on her experiences with afformations and other things that she had gone through in her life.
My point is that she went from $60,000 in debt to a six-figure income in less than a year because she applied this method. We have dozens of stories just like this from people around the world who have doubled or tripled their income, gotten out of debt, saved their marriages and found the love of their lives.
What I always say about afformations is, “Wherever you point it, it works.” If you point it at money, you’ll increase your income. If you point it at relationships, you’ll get better relationships. If you point it at health, your health will get better. It really is all about the questions that you’re asking.
(17:02): You said that the client you just mentioned, as well as others, have used other self-help programs prior to taking advantage of your system. What makes your system different? What differentiates it from all of the other self-help programs out there?
Noah St John
(17:23): One of the things that my clients say makes this program different is that it talks about the “why.” They were stuck because they had been shown the “how” but didn’t understand their own “why.” They also didn’t understand that, at the same time, as they were going through life trying to get their goals, they were unknowingly stopping themselves from reaching their goals because of unconscious reasons.
The analogy that I like to give is that most people are driving down the road of life with one foot on the brake and one foot on the gas. At the same time that you want the relationship, health, money or business, there are also things inside of you that are unconsciously stopping you from that. That is your foot on the brake. Most other programs say, “Just step on the gas harder.”
Meanwhile, that will ruin your car faster. If I show you how to get your foot off the brake, wouldn’t use reach your goals faster, easier and with far less effort? Of course, the answer is, yes, you would. That’s why we see these huge increases in happiness, peace of mind, relationships, income and wherever people point the system.
(18:39): I personally believe that the choice of a life partner is extremely high stakes. I don’t know of any decision of a greater impact that reverberates in all areas of your life. As a happily married man, you speak fondly of your wife. Do you have any tips for singles with respect to choosing a partner?
Noah St John
(19:08): I encourage you to write that checklist of what you want. Just be brutally honest. Do it like I did, even if you don’t think it’s possible. I never thought that it would be possible to meet a woman as good and as beautiful on the inside and outside as my wife. Let yourself dream. Let yourself go. Let yourself talk to that higher self.
Then start afforming. Why is it possible? I was just talking with a friend of mine who is also a client in London. He has been using afformations for about the last year. He just manifested the love of his life, someone that he didn’t think was possible.
You have to begin with what you really want so that you’re not just settling for someone who just shows up. I try to be that example for people. Let yourself dream big. But then you have to take that inspired action. Don’t just wait for it to happen. Get out there and take action.
(20:21): I love that. I understand that you’re generously offering our listeners the whole first chapter of your book, Afformations, for free. How can they access this offer?
Noah St John
(20:41): They can just go to our website. It’s NoahStJohn.com. There is a big orange button there that says, “Send me the free chapter.” Put in your name and email and I’ll send that to you as a digital chapter. In fact, you get the first two chapters for free. We do recommend that you get the book, whether you get it on Amazon, Barnes & Noble or your local bookstore.
We do encourage you to get a copy for yourself and for a friend, family member, loved one or a team member for those of you who are in business. We see teams, couples and families who are studying the book together. They are using afformations. We have teenagers using it. This is to become the afformations revolution. We say that we’re part of the afformations revolution. You can join the “Afformers.” That’s what we call ourselves, those of us who are using afformations.
(21:51): Thank you so much for sharing your insights with us, Noah. I’m wondering if you have a last thought or take-home message that you’d like to leave our listeners with.
Noah St John
(22:01): Let me give you five words that have changed my life and the lives of many of my clients. That is to give yourself permission to succeed. It’s not always about going after what you want. It’s about letting yourself have what you want. It’s about giving yourself that permission to succeed, getting your foot off the brake and asking these better questions. I think you’ll find that it can work wonders for you, too.
(22:29): Thank you so much, Noah. It’s been an absolute pleasure.
Noah St John
(22:34): It’s my pleasure.
(22:37): In case you joined us late or if you’d like to share this show with people in your life, a recording of this show will be archived and available as a podcast on Intersections Match’s website, which is www.IntersectionsMatch.com. I appreciate you hanging out with us. Make sure to join us for our next show. Take care, everyone.
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What do you think?
Would you like to add to the insights shared in the Noah St John interview? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
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