The Secret Code of Success

7 Hidden Steps to More Wealth and Happiness

Noah St. John

• Publisher: HarperCollins e-books
• Year: 2009
• Print ISBN:
  9780061715747
• eBook ISBN:
  9780061977084
• Topic: Personal Development
• Subtopic: Careers

Americans spend more than $11 billion a year on self-help products—everything from books to diet pills to career coaches to seminars. So why—with all this time, money, and energy being spent—are so few people living the life they really want? Why are millions of smart, talented, motivated people still going through life with one foot on the brake? Here's the real Secret: You don't need any more how-to-succeed information to reach your full potential.The problem isn't lack of motivation or lack of information. The real problem is that most people focus on the "how-to" aspects of success taught by traditional self-help programs, without coming to terms with what productivity expert Noah St. John calls your "head trash"—the subconscious, emotional roadblocks that prevent people from acting on their real hopes, dreams, and ambitions. In this groundbreaking book, based on work with thousands of clients around the world, Noah St. John has created a remarkable, step-by-step approach that helps you achieve long-term happiness, success, and wealth. In The Secret Code of Success, you will learn how to: - Eliminate the causes of self-sabotage and fear of success - Allow yourself to make more money - Remove stress while dramatically increasing personal productivity - Improve relationships with coworkers, family, and friends - Experience enhanced feelings of happiness, connection, and love The Secret Code of Success shows that, when it comes to success, the conscious mind is exactly the wrong place to start. It's only when we first conquer the self-sabotage of our subconscious (which accounts for 90 percent of our behavior) that we can truly begin to enjoy a life filled with success. This insight is at the core of The Secret Code of Success and leads to Noah's revolutionary 7-step method for eliminating these psychological obstacles. True financial freedom and personal success is possible at last!The Secret Code of Success shows you how to get your foot off the brake and start living the life you deserve.

ACT II

THE CODE

CHAPTER 4

Step 1: Afformations

Every sentence I utter must be understood not as an affirmation, but as a question.

——NIELS BOHR, NOBEL PRIZE–WINNING PHYSICIST

April 1997. A crisp spring morning like any other in New England. I was living in a dorm room at the college where I was a religious studies major. The dorm room itself was sizable enough, in that, simply by standing in the middle of the room, you could touch the walls on both sides.

It was the morning of The Shower That Changed My Life.

The night before, I’d been looking around my diminutive dorm room and realized that I had posted lots of sayings or affirmations around the room to make myself feel better. If you’ve read a self-help book or been to a success seminar in the last forty years, chances are you’ve heard of affirmations. Why? Because nearly every traditional success teacher tells you to use them!

As you know, an affirmation is a statement of something you want to be true in your life. So, examples of traditional affirmations are, “I am happy, healthy, and wealthy,” “I am good enough,” and “I am rich.” Now, since I’d spent so much time and money studying traditional success literature, and since every traditional success teacher tells you to use them, I’d been writing and saying affirmations for years.

But, for some reason, my life still sucked.

THE SHOWER THAT CHANGED MY LIFE

That morning in The Shower, my mind wandered. I began asking simple but profound questions about the nature of life—my life. Questions like:

“If I’ve been doing what they told me to do, and saying these affirmations for so many years, how come my life still sucks?” And:

“If I’ve been saying these positive statements to myself for years, how come I still don’t feel good about myself?” And:

“There must be a better way to get me to believe something good about myself. But what is it?”

That’s when it hit me. (No, not the soap.)

I realized that the human brain is always asking and searching for answers to questions. In that moment, I realized that thought itself is the process of asking and searching for the answers to questions.

If that’s true, I reasoned, then a simple question formed naturally in my mind—The Question That Changed Everything:

“If human thought is the process of asking and searching for answers to questions…

Why are we going around making statements that we DON’T BELIEVE?”

I couldn’t think of a good answer to that question.

That’s when everything changed for me—and for my tens of thousands of Students (who call themselves The Faithful) around the globe who’ve since learned how to apply what I discovered in The Shower.

Let me show you what I mean…

WHY AFFIRMATIONS DON’T WORK AS ADVERTISED

We all know that an affirmation is a statement of something you want to be true. So an example of a traditional affirmation might be: “I am rich.”

All right, let’s try it.

Say to yourself right now, “I am rich.”

Try it again. “I am rich.”

Did you hear what just happened in your mind?

A voice…a voice that said something like:

“Yeah, right!”

Let me ask you a question. Tell the truth. Do you honestly believe your own affirmations—or do you doubt them?

The plain and simple truth is that most of us doubt our own affirmations. Why? Because we’re trying to convince ourselves of something, and our minds don’t believe that it’s true.

Now, traditional success teachers (most of whom, remember, are unconscious at allowing themselves to succeed) realized that you may not believe your affirmations. So they told you, with good intentions, that all you had to do was repeat your affirmations a thousand…er, million…uh, kajillion times until you eventually, um, believe them.

Let’s say you realized you were holding onto negative thoughts (for example, “I’m poor, I’m lonely, I don’t have enough” ). You decided you wanted something better…said positive affirmations (for example, “I am rich, I’m happy, I have enough” )…and then had…

Absolutely nothing happen?

Me too. And about a gazillion other people. Hey, we were only given chainsaws, so what else were we supposed to use?

But why? Why didn’t affirmations work for most of us? If it were as easy as the traditional teachers said, why did nothing happen for the rest of us? Were we simply incapable of thinking a positive thought? Were we not smart enough, motivated enough, educated enough…or did we just not try hard enough?

The answer is: none of these.

The answer is: You were given the wrong tool to do the job.

You were told you could change your mind using statements…when your mind responds naturally to questions.

You were told you could overcome negative beliefs using statements…when it’s so much easier to overcome them using questions.

You were told to tell…when you should have been shown how to ask.

What in the world do I mean?

WHAT EVERY PROBLEM YOU’LL EVER FACE REALLY IS

We typically fear, try to avoid, ignore, or get away from problems. But really, a problem is simply a question that hasn’t been answered yet.

Any problem, from the trivial to the tremendous, is really a question searching for an answer. Here are a few serious global problems and their associated questions:

Global warming: “How can we stop destroying the Earth and still live the lives we want?”

Poverty: “How can we equally distribute the wealth of the world so that people don’t have to go without the basic necessities of life?”

Unemployment: “How can we get everyone working in jobs that produce wealth for themselves and help society function better as well?”

(Notice I didn’t say these were easy questions. That’s why we haven’t found all the answers yet!)

What about the problems people face on the personal or professional level?

Wanting to be more successful: “How can I be more successful in my life and business?”

Lack of organization: “Why can’t I find what I’m looking for?”

Wanting companionship: “Why can’t I meet the person of my dreams?”

If you want to change any of these, you could use the traditional affirmation method by saying things like: “I am a success, I am organized, I am good enough,” and so on.

You may believe these statements, and you may not. Now, if affirmations work for you, that’s great. If, however, you find yourself not believing your affirmations (like most of us), and you’re not totally satisfied with the results, why not try something so simple, yet so powerful, that the traditional success teachers skipped right over it on their way to breakfast:

Rather than making a statement you don’t believe…why not ask a QUESTION that can transform your life?

HOW YOU CREATE YOUR LIFE

The staggering realization I made in The Shower on that fateful morning in 1997 was that you are creating the reality of your life at this very moment in two ways: by the statements you say to yourself and others, and by the questions you ask yourself and others.

Traditional success teachers have focused a great deal of energy telling you to change your statements. But until The Shower, no one had fully realized, or shown how to harness, the awesome power of what happens when you change the questions.

Your mind has what you might call an Automatic Search Function, which means that when you ask yourself a question, your mind automatically begins to search for an answer. (Psychologists have referred to this function of the human brain as the embedded presupposition factor.)

The greatest teachers throughout history have taught the truth of the statement, “As you sow, so shall you reap.” This is often called The Law of Sowing and Reaping (Emerson called it First Law) or The Law of Attraction, which means that what you focus on (the thought-seeds you continually plant) will grow and bear fruit.

Traditional teachers told you to change your thinking if you want to change your life. And that’s quite correct. What they told you, however, was almost exclusively to change the statements you’re making—while almost completely ignoring the questions you’re asking.

Yet even as far back as Biblical times, we’ve been reminded, “You have not because you ask not,” and “Ask and you shall receive.”

If you only change the statements you say without changing the QUESTIONS you ask, you’re missing out on the fastest, easiest way to change your life that’s ever been discovered.

HOW A 13-YEAR-OLD GIRL CURED HER COMPULSIVE WORRYING

I got a call one day from Mary, a professional salesperson from Wisconsin who had attended one of our Secret Code of Success workshops. The first words out of her mouth were, “Your work has been life-changing to me!” When I asked her what she meant, she told me the following story:

After attending your seminar and learning how to use Afformations, I realized that if it could work for me, it could also work for my 13-year-old daughter Stefanie. She’s a high achiever who gets all A’s in school, but she’s also a chronic and compulsive worrier.

Stefanie worried so much that she had severe sleeping problems. She’d lay awake many nights worrying, until finally she’d come into our bedroom and wake us from a sound sleep so we could comfort her.

We tried everything. We read to her. We prayed with her.

We were even considering taking her to therapy. Still the worrying—and the sleepless nights—continued. She would cry and ask me, “Why do I worry so much?” It broke my heart because I couldn’t help my own daughter.

Finally, when I heard you teach Afformations at your seminar, I realized this could be the answer I’d been praying for! When I came back from your seminar, I taught Stefanie how to use Afformations, and we talked for a long time about what questions would make the most difference in her life.

She wa...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Foreword
• The “Secret” of Success in Life and Business
• Act I
• Act II
• Act III
• Additional Resources
• Acknowledgments
• Searchable Terms
• About the Author
• Copyright
• About the Publisher