In this episode of the Creating Wealth podcast, Jason Hartman covered new information about the upcoming GOP tax plan and what it means for the majority of people. He also gave updates about the ending of the 5 Year Plan contest and the Meet the Masters of Income Property event in January.
Noah St. John, the guest for the day, helped explain what head trash is and how we can address and get rid of it. He discussed the dialogue people frequently have with themselves, telling them that something they want is out of reach. It becomes an excuse for our shortcomings, and St. John has a system designed to combat it.
Because this is a 10th episode, Hartman explored a matter of psychology, the psychology of real estate investing, and how people can actively work on their minds to create the desired outcomes for themselves both personally and professionally.
Alexa, Where’s Santa Clause?
Hartman begins the episode by pointing out a fun, holiday-related feature of the Alexa device by asking his home device where Santa Clause was. Alexa answered that at that moment (on Christmas Eve), Santa Clause was in Nairobi, Kenya and would be in Ethiopia soon. Alexa also presented a few facts about Santa, stating that his sleigh was faster than starlight and that it was also seventy-five candy canes long. Hartman advises that if you have an Amazon Echo, install the Norad Santa Tacking application. He states that the Santa facts mentioned earlier that St. Nick weighed an estimated 260lbs at the beginning of his journey and over 1000lbs when it was over.
5 Year Plan and Venture Alliance Updates
Hartman mentions that the contest for the 5-Year Plans will be wrapping up on December 26th, and that there are several prizes available for the winners, namely the grand prize that is worth up to $4,300.
There are also four spaces left for people to join the elite access ticket upgrade to attend the Friday evening dinner with Ron Paul.
Hartman states that he has streamlined the Venture Alliance memberships by reducing the time commitment. He has reduced the expectations by one weekend trip a year, and added one optional ADD-venture Alliance event. These are once in a lifetime, bucket list-type trips, with this year’s being a visit to an ice hotel. Hartman is waiting for enough people interested to greenlight the trip but still requires five or six more people. For more information about this trip, visit www.jasonhartmanicehotel.com
Now, instead of four weekend retreats a year, Venture Alliance members can look forward to two weekend retreats, Meet the Masters, and the optional ADD-venture Alliance event. Memberships are now $8,000, rather than the standard $10,000 and the Meet the Masters elite access is included with the memberships.
The GOP Tax Plan
Hartman announces that the new GOP tax plan is now the law of the land and that the clear majority of people will benefit from it. He took his first in-depth look at the plan with CPA Ryan Schellhous, who will also be attending the Meet the Masters event. Hartman plans to have a 2-episode interview with Schellhous aired in the near future.
He explains that some of the confusion regarding the new tax plan comes from the media and their spinning of untrue information due to their hatred of President Trump. Hartman explains that while he understands that Trump has given people many reasons to hate him, the tax plan is not going to be one of them. Only a small number of cases are going to have taxpayers paying more money to the IRS than they did in previous years.
Hartman also states that if you don’t directly benefit from the tax plan, you’ll indirectly benefit from it. He predicts that the plan will be extremely good for the economy, and that there is going to be a good deal of money flowing back into the US. There are a lot of tax savings to take advantage of, even though the left says that the plan will add money to the deficit. Looking back, Hartman mentions that both former President Obama and former President Bush Jr. added a good deal to the deficit and debt. The tax plan is not going to add much, and the economic stimulus will make up for it.
He mentions that it’s possible that Obama and the political left might be right about the deficit, but it doesn’t matter that much. When the US has the reserve currency and the biggest military in the world, how the matters look on the books isn’t as important as it seems. The US is the biggest commercial brand name in the world when you consider that countries are a lot like big corporations.
What is Head Trash?
Hartman introduces his guest, Noah St. John as the Power Habits mentor who helps entrepreneurs and investors realize their potential. He has works published by Hay House, Harper Collins, Simon and Schuster, Nightingale Conan, and more. He has also appeared on media outlets like ABC, NBC, CBS, Parade Magazine, Fox, Forbes, and Huffington Post.
St. John explains that we really are our own biggest obstacles and that head trash is the person in our heads that tells is that we can’t do something because of a factor. For example: I can’t start a project because I don’t have time, or I don’t have enough money.
He states that the power of the human mind makes us to where we always make ourselves right. If we believe that we cannot achieve something, we make it so.
St. John points out that we all have the same amount of time, the same 24 hours in a day, but when we have head trash, we make excuses for ourselves. When we have head trash, we need to become aware of what it is and how to get rid of it, and St. John discusses how this impacts the psychology of real estate investing with Hartman in this episode.
Hartman agrees, stating that he finds that investors are their own worst enemies. He says that we all live in a space where we can see that we are the source and that we are responsible for determining our own success. It’s a powerful position to be in. There are times when this philosophy isn’t always true. Sometimes there are circumstances that people face placing them at a disadvantage, but it depends on how we look at the things around us.
Our Own Beliefs Hold Us Back
St. John mentions a story that he was reminded of, about an investor client named Brian. Brian heard St. John speak at a real estate conference having never heard of him before and his speech affected Brian deeply. He signed up for the program, told St. John that achievements were taking far too long with his business and that he was running into a good deal of distractions. He’d spent money on other programs, but after this one, he understood that he was holding himself back. He learned about how to focus and was able to assess his goals and work on them. In twelve days, he made $95,000 in commissions. Later, he was able to raise $1.2 million to build an addition to his church, and he lost 30lbs. It was a matter of looking at his habits.
Hartman mentions that he sees people basically telling themselves that they can’t accomplish something because another person is luckier than they, that they need to take more courses, spend more money on more gurus, and other excuses. He sees people who have been to every seminar they’ve heard of, hired coaches, read books, and spent money on training. He states that with the money they spent, properties could have been already been purchased. It goes back to the belief system people have where they feel that th
ey need to know more, connect more, and have more information. It becomes an excuse over time.
He states that education is a good thing, but that there is a quality to learning by doing. Scramble through a challenge as well as you can because life is on-the-job training.
St. John states that he has a new, free book available that explains the three big mistakes that even smart investors make. One of the biggest has to do with having too much information and no implementation. In his work he often says that there is no lack of information, but there’s definitely a lack of implementation.
It’s easy to take classes, but it’s hard to implement the information because there’s a risk of failure and it scares people. He offers an analogy, stating that everyone is in CPR, their Current Perceived Reality. These people are standing on a ledge, looking at their NDP (New Desired Reality) on an adjacent ledge. This is the end of their rainbow, the goal they’re looking to achieve. There is a gap between these two states of being, called the Belief Gap. Most people don’t believe in themselves and they’re constantly saying, “I’m not enough.”
People try to fill this gap with taking courses, but the information has to be implemented to work.
Hartman asked how someone who has been told they can’t do something, are not good enough, and has believed this of themselves, can change this belief? What are the mechanics of this transformation and why is it important to the psychology of real estate investing?
St. John explains that he teaches people the mechanisms to change their beliefs and gives an example of something that everyone can do to start now. Write down your head trash. What are you telling yourself that corresponds with the default belief that you are not enough? The practice might be uncomfortable, and it’s supposed to be. Write it down.
St. John compares negative subconscious thoughts to being in a dark room and being expected to rearrange furniture. His aim is to help people turn the light on so that they can see what needs to be changed and how to do it.
Hartman mentions an old saying that encourages doing a thing to become the thing. It’s a feedback loop, what we do is a reflection of what we believe, and what we believe is a reflection of what we do. We have to force ourselves to do something. For example, buying a property. Once the first one is done, the second and third won’t be so scary because we’ve done it. We don’t know what we’re capable of until we do it.
The Habit Loop
St. John mentions a neurological concept called the Habit Loop, comprised of five different elements. The trigger, the routine, reward, craving, and belief. The trigger is what happens in our lives, an event or occurrence. The routine is what a person does when the trigger is triggered. For example, if you’re bored (trigger), you might decide to spend a few hours getting lost on social media (routine). The reward is what happens to the brain during the routine. In this scenario, the reward is safety. Our brain is mainly concerned with keeping us from being dead. It cares primarily about survival.
The craving is what we want to happen in the reward. Our minds crave the safety presented to us in the reward. The belief element is tricky. We believe we are not enough and that’s what we become. We have to change our routines, like Brian did. Change the belief after the routine and that’s what changes your life.
Hartman mentioned something said by a former senator of California, S. I. Hayakawa. He stated that self-fulfilling prophecy is neither true nor false, but it’s capable of becoming true if it’s believed. And this applies strongly to the psychology of real estate investing.
Finding Your Own Power
As human beings, we create our own reality and in that sense, people don’t realize how powerful they truly are.
St. John mentions having clients who are elite athletes, people who are in peak physical condition, yet still controlled by their minds. They can psych themselves out, believing an opponent is better than they are, and they check out early. We make ourselves right in that sense. We hold ourselves back so that we don’t get ourselves hurt. We get to be right, and for some people, it’s more desirable than being happy or successful.
Much like a rocket ship taking off, it takes a lot of energy to get off the ground. It also takes a lot of energy to pull us out of our own biases. Once we escape the pressure we place on ourselves, we float freely in space.
St. John recalls a story involving a client named Bill. Bill came to an event and stood up to speak, telling St. John that he initially planned to call him out as a fake. Bill had spent a lot of money on training and programs, but he stated instead that he felt that in three days he learned more from St. John than he had in twenty years. Bill is now engaging in multi-billion-dollar deals and all that was holding him back was his lack of belief.
Head trash effects people. Bill was holding himself back and he identified it so that he could change to do better. Tell yourselves, what is your, “I can’t do it”?
Even “Positive” Traits Can Be Negative
Hartman mentions that he grew up fairly poor, and as such he always felt like a worker bee. He works hard even after becoming financially independent. He has always believed that having a strong work ethic was a good thing, but sometimes he does things that are less efficient than they need to be because he feels that he has to earn what he has. It’s definitely better to work smart than it is to work hard, but there are times when Hartman doesn’t consider it.
He states that he critiques himself at times and he has to truly feel that he has earned something to be happy with it. This seems like a no-brainer when it comes to work ethic being a positive trait, but even positive traits can be negative. If you’re going to be successful, it doesn’t come from strong work ethic alone. It needs leverage. Hartman mentions that with his properties, the money works for him, the tenants work for him, and the banks work for him.
St. John also grew up poor in a rich neighborhood. His family lived at the end of a dirt road in an unfinished home. As a kid, he was exposed to the line between the “haves” and the “have nots”. He saw how his parents worked hard and sacrificed, but they never could get ahead. Hard work is not the key to success. Something was missing. There are people that are naturally unconsciously confident and that was what he became known for. People come to St. John when the have tried everything else.
He states that 99% of humanity drives down the road of life with one foot on the break. It isn’t a bad thing necessarily, but people need to be aware of it.
Affirmations vs Afformations
St. John mentions that there is a difference between affirmations and afformations. Affirmation is a statement of something you would like to be true. For some people, affirmations work, but for millions of people, it doesn’t because we don’t believe it. We do not believe that we are strong, capable, independent people and everyone we meet envies us.
An affirmation is a question that we ask ourselves to address a truth that we want. Ask yourself, “Why is it easy for me to…”
The brain has to answer it. Posing a question in a way that you’d ask Google is a powerful way to use your brain. It can answer the question with a lot less stress involved.
Afformations in Relationships
Hartman mentions that one aspect of his life he has struggled with was finding love. It’s hard to visualize because with love, there is a person involved rather than a concept.
St. John points out that this is where Hartman’s belief gap lies. He advises writing down the characteristics that he is looking for in a partner, a checklist of sorts. St. John did so earlier in his life and he met his wife, a woman who had everything he was looking for and more.
St. John also mentioned a man from Germany that wrote to him. He was very close to divorcing his wife. The papers were drawn up and on the table when he heard one of St. John’s speeches. He used afformations with his wife and they worked out their differences, tore up the divorce papers, and are still together today.
Ask yourself empowering questions that begin with “why”. It engages the brain by telling yourself what you want to believe in a way that your brain will believe as well.
St. John offers a couple of examples with real estate afformations.
Why are these great properties coming to me so easily?
Why am I doing exactly what I want to be doing?
St. John closes the podcast by offering a $200 bonus package with his book at www.afformationsbook.com. He also has a website at www.sendmeabooknoah.com and www.noahstjohn.com.
