Miracle Mindset with JJ Virgin & Jim Kwik

So I'm really excited to have a very special guest expert on Limitless Together today. She's a dear friend, a longtime friend. She was really also really integral to helping us launch this book and even workshop this book even before it came out because she has a number of New York Times bestselling books. The one that I grabbed off my shelf, which I have a few of them, is The Virgin Diet. And so JJ Virgin, welcome to Limitless Together. Thank you for taking some of your time and your talent to be here with everybody.

Well, first off, congratulations. I'm so proud of you and pubbing during such a crazy time, hitting the New York Times. Go you. It is so deserved, my friend.

Yes. I appreciate that. Only a few more, only a few more books to do to be able to catch up to yours. I have another one of your books year called Miracle Mindset. And I wanted to ask you about this book. I recommend everyone get this book. And you have it by— it's 2 different titles, right?

I do, just to confuse people. Because actually, I was doing an interview with our buddy, Dr. Mark Hyman, who wrote the foreword for your book. And they said, we had to have you on this interview. It was for Broken Brain because you're such a warrior mom. And I went, oh my gosh. So you can retitle books after the fact. I just felt like, you know, it was such— as you'll hear the story today, it was such a perfect title, whether you're a mom or a dad.

Amazing. Can I read actually the intro to your book?

Sure. I wonder what it is.

To set the context for this book. Again, if you're just joining us, we're with J.J. Virgin, New York Times bestselling author, iconic book, The Virgin Diet. Okay. Celebrity health expert and 4-time New York Times bestselling author JJ Virgin never dreamed the stamina, intuition, and determination that helped her create a blockbuster wellness empire would be the tools she needed to save her son's life and her own. In 2012, JJ Virgin sat in a hospital room next to her 16-year-old son who had just been struck by a hit-and-run driver and left for dead. Doctors said he wouldn't survive that night and told her to let him go. This is hard to read for me. With every reason to believe them, JJ's intuition, inner strength, and hope kicked into high gear, and she determined that she would find a way to help her son not only survive but thrive. And in her new book, JJ shares how one heart-stopping, life-altering event for her to live in the moment, trust her instincts, question everything, and make life-or-death decisions that often meant going against expert advice. So, um, I just got goosebumps, just to say.

Me too. I haven't heard that for a while. Um, and you know what's so interesting is you held the first book up, The Virgin Diet. What people don't know is while that was going on, while I was sitting bedside with my son in a coma as the sole financial support for my family, My book was coming out. Now imagine as an author, and if the book didn't go, I would be bankrupt and not be able to help my son. And I had vowed to be limitless. I mean, talk about a limitless goal. I decided that first night in the hospital when the doctors told me to let him die and we decided to overrule them, that I was going to help my son be 110%, that I wasn't just going to see what I need to do to help him, you know, make it through. It wasn't enough just to survive, that I was gonna do whatever it takes to help him be better than before the accident.

I love that, whatever it takes. We have a comment here, what a mother, wow, wow, wow, wow, congrats. We have a lot of wows here right now.

Well, I'm happy to say, because they always want to know, did he make it? Actually, Grant is better than before the accident today, but you The bigger thing is we all are. Our family is. And, you know, and we've now helped so many other people who are in a similar situation. And although that situation may sound like extreme and something hard to relate to, we all go through tough times, especially now. And the things you've gone through in your life prior to this point, they're the research and development that you need to help you show up the way you need to show up in these situations.

I love that. Research into our community, they're really, really big note-takers. And so they're putting the note, this is preparation.

Yes, it is. I mean, when, when I went through this, and again, here I am, I've, you know, single mom, and I'm launching this book, and I've invested everything into the book, and my son is now literally like life and death situation. He was in the ICU for months, the hospital for months. And it took us years to get him out through all of this traumatic brain injury, torn aorta, multiple fractures. And I was so fortunate in that when I was 30, I had a mindset mentor who trained me on— and here's one of the simplest ones, Jim, because everyone can use this one. This is the first thing she had me do. She was going to help me become a successful successful businesswoman. And the first couple months I was with her, I'm like, when am I going to learn how to be successful in business? She goes, you're not ready. It was, it was my Mr. Miyagi. She said, I have to teach you mindset first. And the first thing that she trained me on was being able to recognize when I was having a limiting belief. And so she would have me wear a rubber band on my wrist. And every time I did something that was like critical, negative, judgmental, or just a limited belief, I had to snap the band. And boy, I thought I was going to have no skin left on my wrist, right? Because it is amazing. And it like, now it's so important. You know, there's so much negativity in the world. And if you are not managing your environment so carefully, you can get so caught up in this and you don't even realize what you're living in.

And what did that rubber band— and this is, I love this because this is something anybody could do.

Right? Simple.

But just, you have a rubber band on your wrist and every time you had a negative—

Negative thought, limiting belief, I can't do that, I'm not good enough. I was the biggest, like, I was the poster child for imposter syndrome, Jim. And so, so much of I'm not good enough, I could never do that, that will never work for me was going on there, so a lot of wrist snapping.

I would imagine that experience really did prepare you for that. Now, people right now, a lot of people are uncertain. Maybe they've lost their job. Maybe they've lost a family member. They're in a very difficult place for them right now. And so what would your advice be when it comes to mindset? What would your words be? Because I know you have a large community. A large community of fans and followers, clients that you've worked with that call on you. And it's not necessarily an easy answer.

You know, when this whole thing started unfolding, I felt kind of like I was catapulted back to that first night in the hospital. And as I was standing there, after I got through the initial freakout shock, you know, what you would go through as a parent facing the possible death of your child. The first thing that I realized was that I had to so control my environment. I would not even let the thought that he could potentially die into my head. In my mind, I got such a clear vision of him being 110%. And I just made sure every day I was taking a step towards that, at least something. And so we can use that all now because, again, I couldn't control— and when I was writing that book, He had such a severe traumatic brain injury that he was super suicidal. He tried to kill himself multiple times. And here I am writing this book, Miracle Mindset, and I had to come to terms with the fact that I wasn't writing a book about my son surviving. I was writing a book about how to show up in uncertain times when things are hard. It wasn't about anything more than that because, you know, I kept thinking, what are the publishers going to say if my son dies in the middle of me writing this book? Oh my gosh, you know, like, like— What do I do here? And I thought, you know, all I can do is stay as positive as possible. Wake up in gratitude every morning, write down at least 3 things I'm grateful for. Work with him on his mindset as much as possible. Help him move through those, those really dark times that happen when you've got a brain injury. Help him stay strong and realize his name is Warrior and that he's stronger than he thinks. And that he can get through this. When he'd start to get really dark, I'm like, honey, a car hit you going 40 miles an hour. You won. You know, you, you beat having a torn aorta that kills 90% of people right on the scene. You're telling me that you can't get through this? You are so much stronger than you think. And then he would kind of like shift through the darkness. So, you know, right now I would take you all back to where I was standing in that hospital when I was looking at this situation. I went, How do I get through this? How do I make sure that I can show up for the people around me, but most importantly, show up for myself? And I thought, I have to put my self-care first. And at first, that sounds so selfish, right? But the reality is that is the most selfless thing you can do, because if you focus on making yourself strong, keeping yourself healthy, then you can show up for everybody else around you. If you're not, then you're the burden to them.

Hmm, I just got goosebumps again. I'm getting a lot of these goosebumps. I call them truth bumps.

That's a good one.

No, this is— folks, this is great. Wow. Now, how long, how long was that process of being in the hospital?

So I still remember this, Jim, when he was in the hospital the first couple days, and he was first at Harbor-UCLA. He, he got hit in Palm Springs And that was probably why we got the initial prescription of let him go, because they were used to seeing way older patients rather than a 16-year-old. When he was airlifted to Harbor-UCLA, you know, and they said he'd never survive the airlift and he wouldn't survive the surgery. And even if he survived both, he'd be so brain damaged, it wouldn't be worth it. But once we got him there, it was like game on, right? And one of the doctors said, you know, I've seen kids come back where like, They lost half their brain. He's going to be fine. Now, they— and then one of the doctors said, well, when he wakes up, it's going to be ugly. And there's no real instruction manual for helping someone come out of a brain injury. I mean, there are now, but back then there wasn't a lot of information. I did a lot of things with the help of a lot of my doctor friends behind the hospital's back, basically. But they just told me that it would be ugly. They didn't tell me it would be ugly for years. And so I was in the ICU with him. He was in a coma for a couple of weeks. And I thought that when he came out of the coma, he would wake up just like in the movies, you know, they wake up, they look at you, and I thought he'd say, I love you, Mom. And that is not what happened. He opened his eyes. And by the way, the way he opened his eyes, they had a huge— this big neurologist who was standing over him and was literally giving him, I kid you not, titty twisters and yelling in his ear, wake up! And I'm like, this is like, would be a really scary way to wake up from a coma. You know, this, I don't think this is a good idea. But anyway, he wakes up and he says nothing. And he can't make eye contact. He's staring off into space. And he just has, he's, everything is in He's got casts on his— on one arm and two legs because he had to have his femurs rotted. And he just moves the other arm back and forth all day long and stares off into space. Now, I have no idea if this is— is this it? And that's why I say I had to manage my mindset and see him where I knew he could be. And, you know, there was no signs pointing to my son was going to be an athlete again. My son was going to be fully recovered and better than before. Like, Nothing was pointing to that. So I'd find little— what I called my little miracles. Every day I practice what's what I call my JAM: gratitude in the morning, appreciation to someone during the day. When I was getting down, I'd change my state by texting someone and tell them what I appreciate about them, you know, giving to someone else. And then what were the little miracles at night? And I would find something because every day he'd make some progress. And sure enough, I started to sneak all the stuff in the hospital, like little popsicles, so he'd start to taste. And I had that little tennis ball to help him start to catch. And I was putting classical music on his ears. I gave him his iPhone. That started to get him to move through. I brought him pictures. So I started to do all the things I could to wake back up his senses. And he started to make eye contact. One of the first things he said, Jim, that made me so proud of him is he was pointing to the hospital food, which I brought in my own food every day for him. And I had a NutriBullet there and I was making him smoothies, but he said disgusting to the hospital food, which made the nutritionist mama proud. But it was, it was 2 and a half months at the first hospital, 2 months at the next hospital. We overruled them and took him home because I felt like he needed to be there and we could do a better job. And then it really took a good 5 years to get him through the most difficult part of this.

That's astonishing. And I just want to really point out, because I think a lot of people could relate to when the environment is not supporting you, either other doctors are 100% certain and they tell you what, you know, their opinion. These are still just opinions.

They're opinions. We had these orthopedic surgeons come in and he had a crushed heel. Now, when you have a son with a torn aorta, that's your immediate concern. That's going to rupture sometime in the next 24 hours. Once he was through this, now the next concern is he's in a coma, because if you don't come out of a coma, then that's going to be the thing that's going to take you. Once he's out of the coma, now we've got, you know, he's got the broken legs and— but he's got a crushed heel. And he's got this weird pin sticking out of his heel and a wound that won't heal. And the orthopedic surgeons came in and they said, ma'am, we're just trying to get him to be able to walk again. First of all, I ushered them out of the room because I didn't want him to hear anything. I knew he could hear everything. And in fact, one time, Jim, he said— You know, the gray man came down and asked me if I wanted to live or die. He totally went into the other side, and he said, it's so, it's so amazing over there, and I wanted to stay, but I kept hearing your voice, so I said I'd come back.

Wow.

Yeah, more chills, right? And then, so these— I take the orthopedic surgeons out, and I said, and at the time, rest in peace, I said, I want you to pretend that's Kobe Bryant in there in bed. And I don't think you'd be saying that to him. So treat, treat my son as if he's Kobe Bryant because he's an athlete and he will run again and do what you need to do. And if you cannot see that for him, if you can't visualize that, you are the wrong doctors.

Yeah, good for you. Good for you.

Yeah, go mom. That's why I called it Warrior Mom.

Because you have to be able to stand. And it's interesting. And this is fascinating because I think a lot of this mirrors what we're going through. It's just, you know, when people, you know, you set your vision, you set your, you know, your goal, your outcome, and you kept it constant no matter what the external environment was giving.

Mm-hmm.

And, you know, and look at that result, you know, and because there are a lot of lies out there. I talk about in the book, lies stand for limited idea entertained. It's just like, these aren't truth.

Right.

You were saying, obviously, because you proved them, you know, to the contrary, but just with, you know, was it pure force of will? Have you always been like that? Like with things that—

Stubborn. I just, uh, when I had my mentor at 30, she was very pre-law of attraction, right? But she taught me back then, she had me listening to Og Mandino and Zig Ziglar and Jim Rohn. And she taught me that thoughts create, you know, everything is created twice, first in your mind, and that thoughts were so powerful. And that we have to really be careful with this. And so that was probably my number one thing in the hospital and after the hospital was to really manage my thoughts. I was so scared that if I thought he'd never walk again, he wouldn't. And so I just held those visions. And I think that is so key for all of us to do right now. In every level, like right now on the level of Ourselves and our family and maybe friends who are struggling in our career and in like for the planet and what's going on and all the disruption and chaos is just see the peace, you know, see great health, see prosperity and abundance.

You do this. It's amazing for him, a blessing that you were there for him. And then you go through this process also as well. And I just— a reminder to everybody that we all need Somebody to encourage us, you know, to be able to support us, to cheerlead for us, to be able to have our backs. And if you haven't found that person yet, to be that person for somebody else also.

Yeah.

So to be that person for yourself, because you started this conversation with self-care, and especially how do you maintain— how do you have certainty for a family member or a loved one, you know, and faith if you don't have it for yourself?

Exactly. And it, it was the number one thing I did. It was the decision at the first, at like the 24-hour mark. I was standing in the hospital and I thought, only way I'm going to pull this off is if I make sure— I mean, I have no margin for error. I cannot get sick. You cannot walk into an ICU in a hospital sick. I was already having to wear a mask and gown and gloves. And so I just put that as the top priority. And I credit that with How I managed to get through this with my son, make sure my other son was okay, and basically launch a New York Times bestseller bedside with my son in a coma. I mean—

That's amazing. And so your final advice for people who are watching, I remember JAM. I love acronyms too. Gratitude, Appreciation, and Miracles. For somebody who's going right now, you know, this session is all about mindset right now. And you really are this mindset of a warrior, right? Independent of what's going on, you hold this constant, independent of what experts and all these people that have authority are saying. What would your advice be, a good starting point for somebody who feels like they're going through a difficult time, or maybe someone they love is going through some difficulty?

Well, first of all, the best way you can help other people going through a difficult time is to be that light, be that beacon, be the role model. And I do think that JAM is the easy acronym that I set up because when people ask me, how do you do this? And really, I mean, I lived with this mentor woman for 6 months and she just infused herself, all of this into me. So it became who I was. And it didn't happen overnight, but it happened over time. And the first place that we started beyond that limiting beliefs, which is so easy to do, is by doing that JAM. And if all you did was say, you know what, I'm going to look for 3 things I'm grateful for every single day. I'm going to write them down. I'm going to take a pen to paper because there's something different in your neurology when you do that. And that is what I commit to do every single day and start there. The shift will be dramatic.

And then the appreciation, do you do—

Yeah. So the appreciation is fantastic because there were some times in the hospital when I started to go sideways, especially like Friday nights alone in a hospital in, you know, bad part of LA. It was really tough where I was walking out by myself scared at night. And you send an appreciation text to someone else, you know what you get back?

Love.

You get back love. So, you know, it's one of those things where everybody wins. So that's the easy thing. And then of course, and we all tend to do this. Gosh, Jim, I remember I was sitting with our buddy Bo Eason and He was like, OK, what great things have happened to you over the last 6 months? And I thought, nothing's happened. And it turns out I'd actually published Sugar Impact Diet, which had become a New York Times bestseller. I forgot. And we do that. We forget our wins. And so wins don't need to be that size. Wins, to me, can be the littlest thing going on. Like, a win right now is that my 23-year-old son is downstairs making this amazing dinner. It's like a huge win. Like, how lucky am I, right?

So—

Look at those little wins at night, too. That jam of the gratitude in the morning, appreciation at some point during the day, and the little wins at night, the miracles, that's less than 5 minutes. The impact on your immune system alone is dramatic. In fact, they did a study of positivity on the immune system, and it drops your viral load significantly.

That's amazing. If you're just joining us, we are— or came in a little late, we are with New York Times bestselling author JJ Virgin. Health wellness warrior, mom, and author of The Virgin Diet, and also many other books. But the one we're talking about happens to be Miracle Mindset, which I highly, highly recommend. I would challenge everybody to do this if you enjoyed this. By the way, let's show some love for JJ, is to take a screenshot of this conversation right now and, and tag JJ. And myself so we could see it and show some love her way. And also, obviously, get her books. Thank you for the amazing work that you do for, you know, not only me, but just for the planet in terms of being that inspiration for so many people and being that example. And I think right now we need that more than ever.

Well, thank you. And see, this is appreciation right here. I'm just feeling it and taking it all in. That's so kind. I so appreciate it.

So there you go.

You already got done one part of the jam right there.

There you go. 5 minutes. Little becomes a lot. What you appreciate definitely appreciates. And everyone achieves miracles. Team together, everyone achieves miracles. JJ, thank you so much.

Thank you, my friend. Proud of you.

The way you show up. And we'll talk to you soon.

Hi, Kwik Brain. It's your brain coach. I want to thank you so much for watching this video. 3 things to do. Number one, make sure you share this because when you teach something, you get to learn it twice. Update your learning so you can update other people's learning as well. Number two, make sure you subscribe to this channel so you don't miss a thing because if you miss a video, you miss a lot. And finally, make sure you hit that bell so you're notified and you find out when we put out the latest and the greatest. One extra thing, if you want really close attention, then text me. Here is my phone number.

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