The Miracle Mindset with JJ Virgin - Genius Network Episode #21

Welcome to the Genius Network show. In this episode, you'll discover the miracle mindset, how to build more courage and resilience into your life, whether the right habits can give you more freedom and more with Genius Network member JJ Virgin. JJ Virgin is a celebrity nutritionist, fitness expert, author of the New York Times bestsellers the Virgin Diet, the Sugar Impact, and more. If you would like access to the special resources and show notes for this episode, please visit geniusnetwork.com or that's geniusnetwork.com2 1. Hello, this is Joe Polish. In just a moment, I'm going to be interviewing a very special guest of mine and also a dear friend. I want you to know who this person is before I get started. So here is their bio. Celebrity nutrition and fitness expert JJ Virgin teaches clients how to lose weight and master their mindset so they can lead bigger, better lives. She's the author of four New York Times bestsellers, the Virgin Diet, the Virgin Diet Cookbook, JJ Virgin's Sugar Impact Diet, and JJ Virgin's Sugar Impact Diet Cookbook. Her memoir, Miracle A Mother, Her Son, and Life's Hardest Lessons, explores the powerful lessons in strength and positivity that she learned after her son Grant was the victim of a brutal hit and run accident. JJ hosts the popular JJ Virgin lifestyle show podcast and regularly writes for the Huffington Post, Rodale Wellness, and other major blogs and magazines. She's also a frequent guest on TV and radio and speaks at major events. In addition work with nutrition and fitness, JJ is also a business coach and founded the premier health entrepreneurial event and community, the Mindshare Summit. You can find articles, recipes, helpful online programs, and all kinds of great stuff at her website, which is her name, JJVirgin.com so let me welcome JJ Virgin. JJ so great to be with you. I don't know how many interviews we've done in the past, but it's always great to be talking with you. So how are you?

I am good. Yeah. The last interview we did, I came over to do it. And you decided to invite a ton of friends over too.

Well, that's sort of how I roll. Was that the one where we did that with Robin Sharma and Tony Robbins and a whole bunch of people? Or was that even.

That was the Tony Robbins one that we did. We all did on the phone. This was another one we did for Sugar. And I remember I came over and you're like, oh, I invited a couple friends to watch too.

Oh, that's right. That's right.

Yeah, that one.

You know what? To this day, I still send that out to people because of all the work that I'm doing in the field of addiction, you know, addiction, cravings and whatnot, sugar is one of the biggest, you know, gateway drugs.

It is the biggest of all.

Yeah, you're right. It is not just a big one, it is the number one gateway drug. Even my buddy Tommy Rosen, who works with so many people struggling with addictions, people ask the question about marijuana, about different sort of drugs, and he says the number one gateway drug is sugar. And so in your world of nutrition and fitness, you've done. I mean, you've helped. Literally you've reached hundreds of thousands, probably millions of people. Well, millions. I mean, I shouldn't say probably. I know you've reached millions of people through TV and books and videos and all the stuff that you do. What I'd like to focus on, on this interview is your new book, which is called Miracle Mindset. And like I'd mentioned in the bio, the subtitle is A Mother, Her Son and Life's Hardest Lessons. And it's. It's pretty powerful. And I appreciate also you share a little bit about my story of struggling with my own addictions and just some great shout outs that you've given me and Genius Network, where you're such a huge part of that community. So let's, let's talk about. Let's talk about your new book.

I mean, it's out. I'd be willing to bet, Joe, that if we surveyed all of the Genius member networks and really think about the people or members that we admire who inspire me, that all of them have gone through some big adversity like I talk about in this book.

Totally. Totally. I mean, I think many of the most successful people I know, including anything in my life that I would consider successful, usually came out of a negative adverse situation and figuring out how to transform it into not only the lessons, but into actions and then into something that ultimately turned my life around, turned other people's lives around. And I would say that's for most successful people that I know. And that's sort of the. The secret. Although it's not really a secret if you talk to enough people like you mentioned, but there's a lot to be said. People look at people that have achieved great things in life and they don't realize the pain that was attached to a lot of it. And I think you've gone really deep and this is your first. I guess you would call this a personal development book, although I would argue that everything you've ever Written is personal development. It's personally developing you. But this is sort of a new venture into this space. So let me ask you why you decided to document all of this, and then we'll talk about what happened.

I know, because honestly, I didn't think it through before I decided to do the book. And then I decided I should do a documentary, too. And you would think going through all of this, because it is. I went and just opened the kimono and went, if I'm going to share this story, I have to share all the things that led up to this event happening, because all of that accumulated to make me be able to handle what I was able to handle. So it's all relevant, which means it's all like. It's like you're opening up the kimono and showing all this challenging stuff. Because when you think about it, like, I can't think of any time in my life where I had these just a beautiful experience happen. And I went, wow, I really grew from that. Right? We only grow from the challenges. And so when I started to write the book, it really got down to how do I push this past a memoir and really put some muscle into it so that someone reading this not only will, yes, the story is inspiring, but the lessons in the book are universal. And that's what I really set out to do, was create something like I've done with my health books. And you're right. These all, when it comes down to it, how do you be super healthy? It's fitness, it's nutrition, it's mindset. They're all part of health, and they're all part of personal development. And what I sought to do was create the book, the documentary, the Academy program, in a way that people could take these lessons and apply them into their own life, build their own miracle mindset so they could maybe just even get unstuck. So many people are in a rut or just know that they can handle these things, because we all know these things are coming. Like challenges are coming. They're there all the time, and you can't avoid them.

Part of it, too, is what I mean. I think this is shown throughout your whole book, is that you actually embrace them now, whereas a lot of people are deathly afraid of bad things happening to them, and they try to do everything they can to avoid it. And there's the situations that happen in life. No matter how much you plan prepare, you're just going to get smacked and there's going to be stuff that's going to go down that is really bad. And so, I mean, in your particular life, I don't know how many situations like this happen. And I want you to describe what inspired the miracle mindset, but I really would like to right from the get go. What would you say about embracing challenges? Because a lot of people are like, my life's filled with challenges. I don't need anymore. I can't handle anymore. But what you describe is that you have no idea how powerful and how strong you are until these things sort of happen.

Right? And we're never better than when we're challenged. And, you know, the one thing we do all know for sure is these things are going to show up. And if you try to avoid them, it actually just becomes like, festering. So everything I'd gone through, what happened early on in my life that I kind of forgot about, to be honest, was one of my first mentors in my 20s, and I signed up to become part of a big network marketing company, which I think everybody should have to do network marketing for a year and survive like so many lessons in that. But I signed up for this. This woman was one of the top leaders in new skin and she was known as their mindset trainer. And so she took me under her wing. I literally stole my business at the time and moved into her house so she could just. She. She was just going to coach me. I was one of the fastest growing diamonds in that organization way back when. But the way she taught it was through mindset. So all of this stuff became super just. And I think one of the biggest things that can help someone facing challenges is the more that you can develop these things as habits now. So they're just how you roll. One of the habits I had in place from way back when was one of the ones that allowed me to handle this fear. Because I think there's this idea out there of being fearless that's ridiculous. We are always going to feel fear. If you're not feeling fear, you're not playing a big enough game. It's not about being fearless. It's about knowing how to feel the fear. Roll through it with courage so that you can step up and continue to take on bigger and bigger challenges. Because each time you do, that comfort zone expands and you can take on bigger things. But the easiest way to push out the fear is with gratitude. And this is one of the things this woman taught me early on was to wake up every morning, get out a journal, physically write down three things or three people I was grateful for. And truthfully, in the hospital Every morning, I would write out what I was grateful it saved me because I was so scared of what was. Here's my son. He is teetering between life and death at the same time. I'm about to launch my New York Times bestseller. But at the time, I had everything invested. I borrowed. If this book didn't go, I'd be bankrupt. So, I mean, talk about being completely. I could have been paralyzed by fear, and I would not have a son and I would be bankrupt. So that was not an option.

Right, well, let's do this then. Just for people that have no idea what the story is and why you were in the hospital that you just described and your son was there. Let's go back to that period of time because that's what inspired you to write this book. And here you were. Your life was just. You're right on the cusp of everything working. Your son Grant, who struggled with bipolar, was just finally starting to. Things were just starting to work out for him. And then what happened? And why don't you go back to that and talk about the version of what inspired this story? And of course, you go in great detail in it in the miracle mindset in the new documentary, but let's talk about it.

Yeah. So this was literally a couple weeks before the Virgin Diet was getting ready to be published. So it is the craziest time for an author. I had all these interviews. I had a public television show coming out, and I really felt like this book was going to be my big credibility boost, like the door opener. So I'd invested the entire advance. I borrowed money. I mean, like, I was all in. I burned all the boats. I was taking that island. Right. And as you described, my son, who is bipolar, and, you know, we have had good times and bad times over the years growing up. In fact, that was, you know, training grounds for what happened because I'd gone through some heavy situations with him prior to this, but he. He was in a really good space at this point. His life was finally getting together. He had a girlfriend, he was going to school. Everything was working. I got home that night from taping some things for the book, and he was in a bad mood and got mad at me and stormed out of the house. The next thing I knew, my other son ran in and told me that there had been an accident. He'd been hit by a car and airlifted to the local hospital. So my ex husband and my son Bryce, who was 15 at the time, ran to that hospital. My son Grant was 16. And when we Got there. The doctor didn't even take us in to see Grant, which, you know, this is bad, took us into a conference room and he told us that my son had a torn aorta and that kills the 90% of people on the scene. And his was hanging on by an onion skin. And the only way he'd be able to survive is if it got repaired. But the challenge is it's a super special surgery. Very few surgeons can do this type of surgery because we had to do it without a blood thinner, because he had diffuse axonal injuries, major brain bleeds going on. So if we did it the typical way, his brain would bleed out. So it was like you can have the brain or the heart, but you can't have both. And this doctor, as he's telling us this, says he'll never survive the airlift to the other hospital. And even if he were to survive that, the chance he'd survive the surgery is really slim. And even if he survived that, he's going to be so brain damaged it wouldn't be worth it. And Bryce looks at this doctor and says, so like a 0.25% chance. And the doctor says, that's about right. And Bryce looks at him and says, well, we'll take those odds. And, you know, I mean, when you think about it like, he had no odds if we stayed there. So, you know, so we overruled the doctor, got him to this other hospital. He survived the airlift. We didn't know as we were driving there in the middle of the night if we were going to pick up a corpse. We get there, they are total different attitude at this hospital. There's five surgical teams on board. Game on. And this amazing surgeon who did the surgery without a blood thinner, saved him, and then came in to tell us that it was all good, he'd saved him, but he didn't know if he'd ever wake up because that's not his part. That's the neurosurgeons. So literally I'm in the ICU with my son. He is in a deep coma. No one knows if he is going to ever wake up from this or not. And that's the stage I was at with my son in a coma, me next to him in the hospital. Third leading cause of death is death by doctor, especially in these situations because there's so much going on and they're learning hospitals. I didn't realize this. It's also the leading cause of death in kids are brain injuries. So I'm not leaving there. And I also know that I have to make this book even more successful than I'd already been planning because I'm the financial support for my family. I'm looking at my son, and, you know, I've decided that he's going to be 110%. I'm going to do whatever it takes to get him there. And I'm telling him this because I know he can hear me, which he told me later he did. And so I knew that I had to make this book go, and I knew that I had to be there for him. So everything else got banished. That's all I did. Took care of him, took care of the book, and took care of myself. Yeah.

And you know what? You have a lot of this documented in your documentary. Talk a little bit about that, because all of this ties into what I'll spend the rest of our time talking about, which is a miracle mindset. But I just want people to get a gist of the, you know, sort of the driver behind all of it.

The driver behind all of.

Behind writing the book and doing the documentary was what happened to Grant. But in. In the documentary, I mean, I saw it. I mean, he was. Yeah. I mean, he was mangled, basically.

At bones. He was mangled. Yeah. My other son describes him as a heap of a human, literally, road rash down one side of his body. I was picking out glass and gravel for months, bone sticking through his skin. I mean, it was like. I remember at the time, it felt like I was in a movie. I think your body must do that to protect you. Like, it felt so surreal. It's like, this could not be possibly happening. And I've always said, you know, I can handle anything as long as everything's good with my kids. But it's amazing what you can handle. You know, like, every bit of me came up and said, fight for your kid. And I had to have a goal so big that could keep me going forward in those dark times. And that's when I just went, you know, he's going to be better than he was before the accident. And that was what the goal I set, that I went with all through this, and I wrote the book and I did this documentary because so many people have asked me over the last couple years how my son is and how I did that. And, you know, at first I looked at how I did that, and truthfully, I was on such autopilot, which is why these habits are so critical to have in you. I was on such autopilot. I was just like, what do I need to do? To save him. And then I started to reflect back and go, okay, what has allowed me to do this? And that's where this book came from. Because when you think about it, just that decision that first night, how many people, when a doctor says, you need to let your son go, would say, oh, okay, right, versus no, we're overruling you. And then when the doctors say, oh, we don't think he'll ever wake up, I said, well, then I want doctors who think he will, because you're not going to be on my team unless you believe he'll be better than he was before. We had to do so many things all along the way that required us to have massive courage, to ask for a ton of help, to take action even when we had no idea if what we were doing was going to work and to really be open to possibility. I just was like, he's going to be 110%. What do I need to do to get him there? As you know from hearing the story, we were doing a lot of things and still are. Right now we're doing experimental intrathecal stem cells. You know, it's like we are open to doing what we need to do to get them there.

Yeah. Interesting, interesting. So when you. How often did you literally just. I don't know if lose it is the right word or the way to describe it, but where you were just completely lost, were you? I mean, you're sitting there looking at your son, you don't know if he's going to live or die. He's just broken, he's beat up. I mean, when people see the documentary, they can, you know, they will see videos of all of this. And then, I mean, it was a journey.

Those were the cleaned up videos, by the way. Those are like the clean. Those are him looking good, those frightening photos of it. And, you know, here's the thing. I actually can only remember totally losing it once. And I just like reamed someone on the phone in the waiting room because I just finally had had enough. But overall, I was scared. I mean, like, terrified. But I was doing everything possible to stay focused on him being 110%. And I had all of these things put in place so that when the fear crept in, I had ways to push it out because I did not. I couldn't entertain the, what if this doesn't work? All like, you know, so the morning gratitude to help push it out. I would look for all the signs that he was getting better. You know, this decision. He was going to be 110% was usually little 1% moves, like his eyelids fluttering or him squeezing my hand. And I just held onto all of that stuff. It's like there. I couldn't let the doubt get in my consciousness because it's. I would go be consumed by fear. So I had to stay in action. And staying in action, just doing is such a great way to push out fear, to feel like, okay, I've got this. I can do next. First it was, what do we need to do to fix this? They order it. Next was, how do I help them come through this coma? It's just been, what's next? What's next? And staying in motion.

Right. Wow. Well, so let's talk about miracle mindset. And what I'd like to have you do is what. Define what is a miracle and how do you describe mindset? And then let's talk about why it matters.

You know, it's. It's funny. You can look in the Wikipedia and you get the definition. Like, the definition miracle can go all the way from the super religious to, you know, the supernatural. And to me, I look at, like, there are miracles around us every single day. I just look at as something extraordinary. And when you really think about it, there's extraordinary stuff every single day. We're just so busy, we don't see any of it. I never thought of this as a miracle mindset. It's what my. My agent actually used my experience as she was going through a similar situation with her babies when she was pregnant, and she kept, like, talking through it, and I was like, huh? And it made me look at this and go, all right, if this is in fact a mindset, a miracle mindset, and we can develop it. You look at Carol Dweck's work out of Stanford, and she talks about two types of mindsets. There's the fixed, which is the victim. Life happens to you. There's nothing you can do. And then there's that growth mindset that life happens by you, through you, for you. You have control over this. You can develop yourself. You can change the way that you think, right? Your attitudes, your behaviors, your beliefs. And that's what I look at here is the miracle mindset, to me, is a muscle that we can develop. And what I did was look at you and Dean and so many of the people in our lives that have gone through the challenges and are people who I admire and respect and aspire to. And I went, what do we have in common? And that's what I put as the attributes of the miracle mindset. Are these seven different things we have in common? In fact, I created an assessment, a scorecard that Dan helped me do. Dan Sullivan and inspired by him, so that you could track it. And then I created the book has lessons and the documentary has lessons. But I actually created a program to take people through developing each of these attributes because I know that the big thing that holds everyone back in their life is not a shortage of strategies. My gosh, look at all the strategies around and nowadays there's like you can get them all free in two seconds online. It's not strategies that are the shortest year. Our limitation will always be our mindset.

You're absolutely right. I mean there used to be a time I was just having this conversation, I can't remember who I was having this with about five days ago or so, four or five days ago, about how the sayings like you can't get something for nothing and that used to probably be true at some point in the world, but now there are tons of things you can get for nothing in terms of knowledge, in terms of advice. You can do a Google search, I mean where people are listening to this. We're giving this to people for free. And if it inspires them and they find it useful, they've just been given something without a financial investment. The thing though is the strategies are endless. Like you mentioned. The real key though is developing that mindset and that's why you're putting this work out here and you're setting it up the way you have to really affect change. And so why does. I mean you've already said it, but I want you to go a little deeper with it. Why does our mindset matter so much?

So it's really ultimately going to dictate your life. It's interesting, I was listening to someone talk the other day about toleration and they said what you tolerate is what you become. I look at it as your limitations will become your life. So as you think, so be it, right? And what's so cool about this is twofold. Number one, when I was looking at all this and I'll be honest, I'm like, okay, I'm going to write this book but I'm very left brained and what you measure you can manage and improve. So I had to have a way to measure this and then I had to have a way to develop this. I'm like, can you really develop this? Is this like going to the gym? I come from nutrition and fitness so I'm going to either weigh you or do a waist measurement. Or check your muscle mass. But I'm like, how do I do that with mindset? And that's where that scorecard came in, and that's where these exercises come in. And what has been amazing, because my hypothesis was, and I've done this with every single one of my books, I come out and I go, all right, how do we have someone rate themselves to begin with? Because I believe that we should all go through our personal discovery process, right? So how do you rate yourself? And then once you figure out where you need to improve, what are the scientific simple little hacks like, they have to be based on science, and they've got to be things that can easily get put into your life. You can't say, okay, now every day for an hour, you're going to go sit in this room and chant. You know, the average person never will do this. So what can I do in minutes a day that will absolutely shift this? I took 150 people through this. And my hypothesis was, when your mindset up levels, even if you are not having putting direct goals out on what you want to do with your health or what you want to do with your money or your business or your relationship, it will impact those positively. So up level your mindset, set all those areas of your life up level. And what was so interesting is we went through this first pilot group who were brave souls, because I said, I'm not quite sure what this is going to be, but we're just, you'll go through it with me. And they're like, okay, is that these were people. Some of them had been in my health community for years. They were stuck in a rut with their weight, or they'd gained weight back, and all of a sudden that problem resolves. They're going further in their career. They're going for things they were afraid to go for before. So it's really interesting when you start to look at this just again, just to embrace the idea your mindset is a muscle, which means that if you are not developing it, it's not just staying still. You know, if you're not growing, it's going that this is something that we need to pay attention to. And I would argue that this is the single most important thing that you need to pay attention to for every area of your life to thrive.

I love it. I love it. There's a thought I'm having in my head right now about the whole notion of being overwhelmed. And we live in a day and age, and when I say we, I mean, I can only Speak to the people I hang out with, my own life, America, most my things that I observe. So there's a million people having experiences that I couldn't even comprehend what those experiences are. But for the most part, I think most people that are listening to us, us, many of the entrepreneurs in my world, they deal with overwhelm too many. Electronic addiction, social media, constant things to read, watch, observe, businesses to run, juggling many balls, being the chief cook and bottle washer, and all the things on and on, raising children, trying to improve and better their life. And a lot of it is. Can be overwhelming or at least perceived that way. And I'm sitting there thinking about what you were going through with Grant. You have this book coming out, which is your livelihood, and things are looking up, and then all of a sudden, as our friend Dan Sullivan says, boom. A big bang in life happens where something incredibly adverse and painful and negative. Your son gets hit by a car, and now you're trying to navigate him surviving. And that had to be pretty damn overwhel. I mean, incredibly overwhelming. And in the midst of this, you not only needed to save your son's life, you also needed to have the financial resources in order to do it and to keep the family together. And just the intensity of all of that now, relative to just running a business, we all know how many challenges there can be just in the mere fact of running a business, but it had to be overwhelming. And when I think of me and you've worked out a lot, and you're very much. I mean, your world is fitness and exercise and nutrition, and to build a muscle, you overwhelm it. Not to the point of hurting it, but you actually add pressure, you add stress, and you grow. And I'm sitting there thinking what this would be most helpful for is people that just are. Are feeling overwhelmed or are overwhelmed. But the question is, is that a mindset or is that a reality? Because I can easily put myself into an overwhelmed state by just the way my brain catastrophizes how difficult things are. And then I can step back and say, my life is blessed in a million different ways, and I'm doing this to myself. You know, I mean, like, am I really overwhelmed? The fact that I have a bazillion emails that I can't keep up with in the scheme of things, how do I interpret? So my question to you is, what is overwhelm in your opinion, from your definition, and how do you deal with it? Because what ended up happening here is you've now created some lessons that are going to probably transform thousands and thousands of people as a result of what you've gone through. And you want to equip other people to be able to go through it. I know you well enough to where there's a million different ways JJ Virgin can make money selling books. And it's probably easier to sell how to lose weight than it is to change your mindset. So I know for you, this is motivated by a genuine desire to share what was so important for you with other people so that you can help other people reduce suffering and go through the pain and adversity that's going to come in their life anyway. But I think overwhelm just has so much to do with it. So I'd like to have you talk about that.

Yeah. And you know, it's interesting. We. We built that into the miracle mindset academy because I was like, there were a couple things that showed up that I was like, oh, we need to address these. It was dealing with difficult people because, you know, and as you can imagine, when you start doing these types of, you know, as your mindset starts to up level, there are people going, we don't want you to, you know, be happier, be stronger, be better. Right. We want you back where we were. And then procrastinating, having to have everything perfect and being overwhelmed. And ultimately, when you look at all those things, they're all choices. We just don't realize that they're choices. When Grant was in the hospital, I looked around that first day in and I went, huh? I have to make this book work and I have to be here for my son. So everything else, and you give us that tool in Genius Network, it's like, what do we need to say no to? Well, when you're faced with those things, you look and you go, I just went, everything that isn't saving my son's life, making sure my other son's okay, or pushing this book forward is out. And so the only thing that stayed in above that was my own self care. Because I knew that if I couldn't show up at my best self. So I to decided take uber great care of myself. Sleep, exercise, eating, everything else was gone. I either automated it, delegated it, or deleted. And I deleted a lot. And that's actually one that I'm working on, really making sure I carry forward in my life. Because I notice with myself, I teeter on the edge of overwhelm. It's like if I don't have enough to do. I remember you telling me I had to take free Days I'm like, what do I do during that time? If I don't have enough to do, I'm anxious. But if then I have too much to do, I'm anxious. So what's that? Happy medium. And I think that's one of the most powerful things that we can do. You look at the most successful people and they say no more. And that when someone's in overwhelm, it's completely their choice. And I think a lot of it, like I had this one girlfriend, I actually kind of went, I can't have this woman in my life anymore because she's driving me batty. Because every time you call her she goes, oh my God, I'm so slammed. I'm so busy. I'm like, you know, I finally said to her, I go, you know, I don't actually know one person who's not busy in slam. So you don't like you're talking to all of us. It just goes without saying. But you choosing to be chaotic, it's terrible to be around. I mean, you see these people who are in overwhelm and chaos and everything and they're not accomplishing any more than any of the rest of us. Here I am raising kids with two companies and I don't feel chaotic and overwhelmed. So it's a decision and a choice. But the biggest one is what are your priorities? What is the clear thing that you have to accomplish? And if you want to take the island, burn all the boats, what things need to go away to really take that thing on.

I love it. That's really great. The whole statement, if you want to take the island, burn the boat. Easier said than done. And when people have a really nice boat and it's a comfortable boat and it might be a painful boat, but it's comfortable, they don't want to get rid of it because there's this scary unknown or oh my God, what if I fail? What if it doesn't work out? But that whole motivation to take the island, describe that. I mean, what is that mindset?

You know, it's so funny. Think about all the people who are just comfortably unsatisfied.

Yes. I mean, like that's almost like everybody. And so. I know, yeah.

It's just because the fear of what? Like you have this thing out there that you really want, that you actually don't even want to admit to people that you really want. It's that big goal that you're like. And it brings up all your self worth issues and you know, imposter syndrome. And all that, so you don't really want to admit it to anybody. So you sit back there in this comfortably uncomfortable, watching your life go by because you don't get another chance at this. This is it. And to me, that's the scariest one of all. The scariest one. They talk about dying with your song inside you. And the only way I can see to get out of that is to build your courage. And every time you do this, and it's the four Cs that Dan talks about in Strategic Coach, every time you make a commitment for something that's a little outside your comfort zone, that requires courage, every single time you do that, it's going to increase that comfort zone. It's going to give you bigger confidence to go after the next one. And I love that statement of do one thing a day that scares you. That is my litmus test. I know that if everything is easy, you know, and things are just, just sailing along and I'm not, not really scared by anything, I'm also not really excited by anything. And so you've got it. You got to look for that goal that, that seems out of reach. That scares you a bit to go for.

Yeah. And you know, I mean, it's an interesting time in my life too. I just turned 49 years old and had a recent birthday and I spent a couple of hours Yesterday with a 78 year old friend of mine who is dying of lung cancer. And we spent literally most of the time just talking about, you know, once you get to a point where there is no return, you know, and I always, of course, can only see the world through my own eyes and my aspirations and ambitions and I'm sitting there talking with my dear friend who I've known for 20 years and you know, she lost her husband last year and two sisters in the last 18 months. She has no children. And I'm one of the, I mean, me and one other person are the closest people in her life and just sitting and talking about fear and what it feels like. And I have beliefs because both my parents died of cancer, that trauma and repressed emotions and stuff just not only cause a lot of disease, but if there's things that cause it, from toxins to things that hereditary things that I do or do not know, there's still so much that your brain does to bring you through it. And I, you know, a couple years ago I had her trained on how to do transcendental meditation. So she meditates and we're just having this really intense conversation and about fear and about dying and about like, where do you get to when you're, you know, you don't have goals anymore? Where you're at a point where you're not going to be able to build that business, you're not going to be able to have that relationship. You're. You're kind of at that point. And it left me with not only a lot of aha's, but also sadness and just pain and getting in touch with kind of my own fears and looking at your own mortality. And it was critical for me to be very strong in that moment with her because I, you know, and I was saying to her, you know, I, you know, I've been around a lot of deaths and I've had very close people die. And, you know, I don't even know what to stay here. You know, I don't even, you know, and part of me always wants to encourage you. And she wasn't expecting me to say anything. I mean, she just wants me there with her and she knows that's enough. So, I mean, and I think I handle those situations relatively well. It's just that, man, when you have. It's that whole saying that I love, which is, he who has their health has a thousand dreams. He who does not have their health has only one. And when you've lost that ability to be healthy and you've got nothing else, you would do anything to get it back. So to go back to what you're saying about being, you know, uncomfortably comfortable or uncomfortably dissatisfied, what did you call it?

Comfortably. Comfortably dissatisfied.

Yeah, sorry, sorry. Comfortably dissatisfied. I mean, for anyone that is listening to that right now, and there's a lot of areas of my life where I'm comfortably dissatisfied and I break through a lot of them and I work really hard at it, and I do surround myself with people that are amazing and I read a lot and I go to events and I exercise and I have a very clean diet and thank God I read books and developed those habits and those rituals because, man, if people would have seen me when I was a teenager and when I weighed 105 pounds from freebasing cocaine at my worst state, after being a total drug addict and nearly dead, never in a million years would I even imagine that I would be able to do the things that I have done in my own life. There is that survivor sort of instinct. And the more that I can install that in other humans because all of this shit that I do with marketing and, you know, and I run a very successful business and I Mean, I've got a great reputation and all that stuff. I mean, if I had all the money in the world, I would literally put it, you know, into helping people with addictions. I hate human suffering. I hate seeing people that are just in pain and cannot get out. And some people are so far gone, all you can do is reduce their suffering. I mean, you're not going to get them back to a state of where they're going to have a fabulous, joyous life. You can just try to minimize pain. But that's not most people. Most people have no idea how far they can go, how much they can change a situation, how much they can transform, how much they can get out of a hellish situation. Because I talk to addicts all the time. I mean, every week I'm on the phone with dozens of people. It's just part of what has become my world with all these addiction, you know, my addiction platform and everything that I've been building, which is a passion project, and that's what I love so much about your new book here is because the, you know, the mindset and all of the lessons have so much to do with it.

So super universal, not just to addicts. And you said something really important there. Because again, I'm willing to bet that nearly all of them, you might get the person who's so far gone there on death's door and they've just burned everything out. But I'm willing to bet the majority that's not the case, that they can come back and have the best life ever. Like Grant before the accident. He is a way better person now than he was before the accident. And there was no one telling us this was going to be the case. I mean, everybody was telling us to let him go. He is 110% now. But that is because of the decisions that we've been making. And they all came from where we were. And you said something else really important when you said you've been sitting with your friend and you didn't know what to say. And when Grant was in the hospital, I had so many people show up, it blew my mind who showed up at that hospital. But the crazy thing about that, Joe, was it was not the people I thought would show up at the hospital. The people I thought would be there weren't there. And the people I never would have thought would be there were there. And I realized later I had a friend dying of cancer. And I kept talking to him on the phone going, oh, I'll come next week. Like, I didn't want to really admit there was something really, that he was dying, and he died before I got there. And I think for a lot of us, we just don't know what to do. So we don't do anything. And in these situations, you don't really have to do anything. You just have to be there. That's all that person's looking for. So I just want to put that out there. If someone's going through this because, as you saw with your friend, they don't want anything but just presence.

Yeah. Yeah, you're right.

Yeah. It's a weird thing, right?

Oh, totally. And what's even more fascinating is that usually it can be more mentally painful and challenging for the person than is there as a visitor or as a guest than it is for the person going through it. I mean, so the best thing you can do is just show up. I mean, and give love. I mean, when in doubt, just be there with your presence, and that's the best you can do. And try to have as much compassion and as much understanding. And the other thing, too, is not, you know, a lot of times it's not even telling someone what to do. I mean, I know with this person at this point, there's all kinds of recommendations and things that I could do, but I also know that some of it is just. They don't want to hear it anymore. You know, they've heard so many things from other people. So you just, you know, you just be as responsive as you can. And when I. Whenever I have to do things like that, I always make sure that I did yoga right before I went over. I just knew I wanted to be in a place, you know, in a place where I could really be as present as humanly possible. And so it was. It was really wonderful, and it made her day. And she's texted me several times about how it was so valuable to have me over there. And so I, you know, I'm spending as much time as I can in the midst of, you know, life to do these sort of things. And I think the person that people need to show up for the most, I mean, if there's any left I want to convey out of that, is you need to show up for yourself.

No question. That was when I was going through the miracle mindset lessons, and our buddy Dave forced me to go to 40 years, is then with you. You know, the biggest takeaway from that whole thing when we were working on forgiveness was, hey, the biggest person you have to forgive is you. And the biggest person, like, when I was taking care of Grant in the hospital. The first person I showed up for was myself. I made sure I was, like, totally taking extreme self care because I knew that would be the only way I'd be able to show up for him at the level he needed.

Yeah, totally. Well, so let me ask you about. So obviously you didn't leave your focus on fitness and nutrition behind. So how is that a part of. Of the miracle mindset, what you're training people to do, your current life now? It would be crazy for me to do an interview with you and not ask you about that.

It's funny. Every time I write a book, I'm thinking, well, this book should have come before this book. I wrote the sugar book. I'm like, I should have done the sugar book. Then the virgin diet, and now I think I should have written the miracle mindset. Then I should have written the sugar impact diet. Then I should have written. When you really look at it, it looks like I've gone sideways. But the reality is I look at it as another pillar of health, the most important pillar of health. It also impacts, of course, every other area of your life. But the reality is, in every program that I've ever put together, I wove mindset into it because it was such a part of who I was. And I don't believe there's a successful entrepreneur out there who doesn't just have this stuff in them. I mean, the biggest personal development program out there is building your own business. Right? Right.

Isn't that the truth?

Yep. Want to take a personal development course? Start a business. Gosh, it will bring up all your stuff. That is, for darn sure.

I'm going to say that. I'm going to start saying that a lot. That is a really profound sort of thing, what you're saying. And people are like, oh, I need, you know, if you are running a business right now, believe me, you have just enrolled yourself in a great personal development program because there's a lot you're going to learn in many things you wish you never would have had to, but you're going to.

Exactly. Well, look at the lessons. Here's lesson number one from the book and the movie. Don't wish it was easier. Make yourself stronger. This is so key of a lesson in life, in business, because if it's easy, then you've got a crapload of competition. Right. You actually don't want it to be easy. And it was interesting with Grant. When Grant got out of the hospital and he was trying to get me at first I was super overprotective. It was ridiculous. He'd try to cross the street. I would, like, jump on me. He had to hold my hand. He's looking at me like, really? And then he wanted me to help him because he couldn't remember anything. Very common with brain injury. And he's like, well, you just call me whenever I have an appointment or text me. And I'm like, uh, I'm not doing. You have to do it. This is not going to be easy, Grant. You're going to have to step up. And the minute I said that, he's like, he got excited and inspired again. People love to be challenged, but look, in business, you can't course correct standing still. You have to take action. How many people, especially in my world with mindshare, I hear so many doctors going, oh, I need another degree. I need to take another certification. I don't know enough yet. It's not perfect yet. Like, it's never going to be perfect. I've not done one perfect thing in my life ever. Right. You know, you got to look at. Look at how Apple does. IPhones, they don't make them perfect. They let us figure it out. And then you got to be open to possibilities. That whole idea of your limitations will become your life. Your network will become your life. Your tolerations will become your life. I mean, that's the biggest, fastest way to uplevel your mindset is. Is change who you hang out with.

Well, one of the main lessons after you go through it in the documentary is you are stronger than you think. That sounds like a motivational quote. And of course it is. Most of the time. Sell me on the fact. And I shouldn't say sell me, because I already believe it on the people listening to that. They're like, that's bullshit. I'm not strong. I. I don't have the talents of a JJ virgin. I can't write all these books. I can't do all this stuff. I mean, I don't have a ton of resources and friends. I've seen you around enough people. You would always show people that, yeah, you actually are stronger than you think. Which is why I recommend people get a copy of your book, read your documentary. We'll give out whatever recommendations you have for people to better themselves in that way. What do you mean by that, though? I mean, there's a lot of doubt in people's minds. How do you get them to shift it?

Put them in a situation where they have to step up and guess what? You're stronger Than you think. I always said I could handle anything in life just as long as everything was fine with my kids. Turns out I can handle that too. You know anyone saying that about me, like a. I'm a crappy writer and I hate writing. So let's be real. I became an English major at UCLA because I. I got so insulted about my writing by one professor. I was like, I'll show you. And I changed majors. Like, that's so stupid to do anyway. Don't do that. But, you know, I look at my life and I've never been given anything. I've worked for every single thing I've ever been given from, you know, early on. And it's really just, I will take tenacity and ambition over talent any day of the week.

Week.

Because, you know, the tenacious will find a way no matter how, you know, what the odds. Again, I'm not a writer. Like, how do I write my books? I actually speak my books. I framework them because I'm super left brain. And I framework them and then I speak them and then I have a writer edit them and make them awesome. Because if left to me, you'd have a blueprint.

Right. I love that. I love what you just said, though. Tenacity. You'll take tenacity and ambition over talent any day of the week, and then you just apply that to things that you need to get done. So here you are as a New York Times best selling author multiple times because you figured out how to just get your words on paper and make it happen. And that's just a metaphor for.

I love to do that part.

Right, Right.

Same with the cookbooks. I was like, I've never measured anything in my life. People are like, how much of that should I put in? I go, a handful. I had to hire chefs because I go, listen, these are the recipes. But I don't have any idea how long I cook it for or what I really. How much of anything I really use.

That is funny. That is funny. Well, there you go. Well, there's a will, there's a way. So you mentioned building strength and resilience. What's the difference? What does it mean to be resilient?

Resilient really is the key word. You know what was so cool as I was working on this because it's really how I've created everything is I want to see what works in the real world. I mean, one of the challenges in school is that you read these studies and then you go out. I was always in school and working at the same time. So they teach things and I go and try them with clients and I go, well, that doesn't work. So I always wanted to know the science behind things, but then apply it. And there's so much science now behind resilience, forgiveness, gratitude. And I look at it as this. And I'm always going to look at everything in terms of exercise, because that's how I roll. So to me, resilience is like endurance training. Like, you know, when you do burst training, every time you do it, you're going to get stronger, you're going to push harder, and then you do that frequently, you become more resilient. So every time you use your courage, you step into a situation that you think you can't handle and you get through it, you get stronger, and each time you become more resilient. And so resilience just builds over time.

Yeah, okay, Love it. Well, is there a specific time that you can point to when you feel like mindset really made the difference, that it changed the outcome for you and Grant or for others? I mean, do you remember like the moment or moments where, where had you not been in that place, shit just would have. He would have been dead or it just would have gone downhill, or there never would have been a recovery from.

You or him the first night. And I mean, it just shows how much it is part of our family. Because that first night when the doctor is trying to convince us to let my son go, And Bryce at 15 is looking at the doctor going, no, we'll take those. You know, and we're all saying we're overruling you. And it literally was like three against one. We're like, we're overruling you. My ex husband was the med mal trial attorney. He started like dropping some bombs as to why we were, what we were going to do. But, you know, right there you see the mindset. And then the biggest shift that changed everything really was the next day in the hospital. And we were in the adult ICU at Harbor ucla, which is. Is a very scary place. Fortunately, they moved us up to the pediatric one soon. But that first day we were in the adult one where literally people are handcuffed to their beds, right? There's all these criminals in there, gunshot wounds to the head. It's horrible. And I'm standing in there looking at Grant and I remember at the time because the neurosurgeons were like, he's never going to wake up, right? I'm not listening to them and I'm holding his hand and I said something to him and. And you know, he's in a coma. The only thing I could hold was one hand. Everything else had bandages over it or road rash. It was just gruesome. And he's just. I'm holding his hand, there's nothing going on. I can't, you know, he's not squeezing or anything. And I said something about his brother and he squeezed my hand. And I'm looking at him because he's like non responsive. You know, they're like, he is probably never waking up. And then I tested out another name and he didn't respond. Someone he wouldn't have responded to. And then I said something about his girlfriend and he. He picked up my hand and lifted it off the bed. I'm like, that's it, he's in there. And I said, grant, you are going to be 110%. It's going to be the best thing that ever happened to you. And we are with you. We've got this. We're fighting for you. We will all get through this together. And I just kept saying that to him. And it's that decision that he was going to be 110%, which was honestly, Joe, the most ridiculous statement ever. I mean, he is in a coma. He's. Now, now I've got a bipolar kid in a coma. Who the heck knows who's waking up? We don't know if he'll ever walk again, talk again, nothing. And that was. I just went, you know, that's it. This is, this is, this is what I'm going to be fighting for. And I just told everybody. It's like whenever I set a goal, I then go tell everybody what the goal is. And it's usually some ridiculous goal. And you know what, I've actually always hit them. But I always figured, well, if we drop down a little bit, you know, if we don't hit 110%, if we make 80, we're still way better than he's dead on the street. And I think that decision has changed everything. You know, he is, by the way, he is better than he was before the accident now. And that is just crazy to think. Like, I look at it now and I. For years I've been saying he's going to be 110%. And knowing that, that's just a ridiculous thing to say. And it's amazing how these things just happen. If you just. Even when you can't believe it yourself, you just keep saying it. Like, you keep writing it, you put it everywhere, you know, that's what I'll do is I put things up all over the place. I put signs up, and there you go, and you do what you have to do to make it happen.

Hey, we all need reminders if we did not. This is a whole other version of. People always ask me, why do you read so many books? Why do you go to so many seminars? You already have a. It's like, it just keeps me up. I mean, it's the same thing, like, why do you keep working out? Why do you keep eating healthy food? It's sustenance. I mean, it's the thing that. It's just one of the things that I have found is one of the best ways to get through life and thrive. So now you've obviously learned all of these lessons we're talking about here as a result of a tragic accident and fighting for your son's life. What about people who are facing problems that aren't about their health? Like, does the miracle mindset apply to other challenges? I mean, I certainly know it does, but I want, for anyone listening to this thinking, well, how do I see this in other ways? How would you respond to that?

Yeah, it's interesting because as I put people through this academy, and again, what I've been working on are, what are little things? Again, just like starting the day with gratitude. What are little things that you can do that you can fit into your life, that literally you can do in minutes a day that will start to transform all the different areas of your life? Because when you think about it, I kind of broke it down to, here are three challenges that people face in any area, whether it's health, their relationships, their career, their business, or their finances. They either get stuck, what I call that, comfortably unsatisfied. Right. Or they feel like, I can't handle that. You know, oh, I can't. I don't know how you did that. I can't handle that. Or they know that there's a bigger life out there, but they're just, like, scared to go after it. And so what I had people do when they started going through these exercises was first rate their satisfaction in those four areas and write down what that big goal would be in each of those areas, that bigger life goal that they think is, like, unreasonable, the 110% for them. And what was so interesting is I had them go through the lessons and then come back, and the lessons aren't focused on anything related to any of those things. It's really like, what do you need to do to be able to Be more courageous. What do you need to do to live in the present? Right. There are lessons that relate to or exercises that relate to the lessons. Adolescents. And then I had them reflect back again. And what was super cool about it was that they'd actually increased satisfaction in every area of their life without directly focusing on them. And things had started to shift in places. Like, I had one woman who had gotten in a rut with her health. It started to gain back weight. It just was gone. It was no longer an issue. She lost the weight. She wasn't focusing on. On it. But our mindset shifted with it and the goals that they'd written down for themselves. I said, now I want you to look at these. Like, all of them pushed their goals out further. They all saw a bigger possibility for themselves. So this really, to me, is the core of where you need to start. You said it. So what you said was so important, is that you do things every single day for this. Again, if it's not growing, you're going. This is something that we need to be able to quantify. That's why I did the scorecard. And that we need to pay attention to is, like I put this before, what do I want to do with my health? What do I want to do with my business? Because I know that if you do not build this, you will not even set the goals that you should be setting in those other areas because you will limit yourself. You won't think it's possible. You won't think you're good enough. You'll think you're an imposter. All that stuff that's shown up for me for years, and truthfully, the only way that I've been able to get through the last four and a half years. You talk about taking on addiction. I'm going to take on brain injury. 17 million people a year suffer some kind of a brain injury, a traumatic brain injury in the US alone. 5 million are disabled from it. It's a massive problem. And 25% of those people are suicidal. And no one's talking about it. You're told in the hospital that all it takes is time. And that's a bunch of. Of crap that couldn't be more wrong information that is so wrong. So this is something that, as you work on it and you put these habits into your life, just like going to the gym or start in the morning with a protein shake or whatever those things are that you put in your life for your health, you start putting in life things like gratitude. I know you do. Meditation Those things that help you build that mindset, a lot of it's who you hang out with. And that's a key thing you've always shown in Genius Network is that, you know, community of people. Because your friends will lift you up or take you down. Right?

Yes. Yep, totally. Would you got time for a few more questions?

Sure. Okay.

Well, good, because I've got. I've got more. Jj, there's more with that. So what would you say to people who feel that they can never do what you did, who feel like they don't have what it takes to get through a major crisis in their lives? And now, of course, you kind of mentioned earlier, well, if you're putting one, then you'll see that you're stronger than you think. However, with void of having something horrendous show up or something so crazy showing up, how do we get someone to that place stronger, better, more resilient, more capable without them being there? Starting with, the best thing that we can impact right now is their thinking and their possibility thinking. And of course, your books and your documentary and everything that you have laid out for this. What would you say to anyone listening to this right now? That's just like, I just. I can never do this.

So. So early on, when Grant was six, I took him to a psychologist because he was diagnosed with bipolar back then. And bipolar in a child is a crazy thing because they rapid cycle. So those moods that you see in a bipolar person are happening over a day, not over month. And I went to this psychologist, and I'm like, I can't handle this. And he goes, well, well, you're going to have to handle it because this is what you're facing, so you're going to have to. Because I said, I'm not strong enough, he goes, then you're going to have to get strong enough. I'm like, good point. Like, this isn't going away. I mean, the one thing that we know for sure is that we are going to be challenged with big things in life. We are. There's no question. That's not a maybe it will happen. It will happen. And the time to get ready is not in the middle of it. You know, had I not had a lot of these habits in place, I don't know how I would have gotten through what I went through with Grant. If you'd asked me beforehand, this is going to happen, I would have gone. I could never get through that. But you have to get through it. It's not optional. What are you going to do? Not Save your son, go be bankrupt and not be able to take care of what he needs. So it's really about understanding right now that habits create structure, that creates freedom, right? So you've got to start building these habits into your life now so that when things happen, which they do and they will, you're ready for them. And it's super hard. I come from the health world. Selling prevention is like the most impossible thing ever, you know? But man, I think about it now, I, I had in place already, I had that gratitude practice in place every day. I looked for the winds, I looked for little miracles and that just kind of kept that mindset out there and possible. I already had this network of people so I could reach out and get help. And so these things right now, you can just start taking one by one and putting them in your life. The most profound thing that you can do in your life to help to uplevel your mindset quickly is just to start with the gratitude, you know, and that's a minute a day. Pull out a journal, write it down. Three things takes a minute. I did this in our course. And within a week of people every day starting out with three things they're grateful for and then looking at three little wins, three little miracles that have happened because there are miracles around us every single day and we just don't see them, you know. And once you do that, it frames your day. It starts you off right and ends you right. And if during the middle of the day you're just starting to fall apart, things look bleak down. Just like you talked about going and spending time with that friend. I bet you're getting more out of sitting with your friend than your friend's getting from you sitting with her.

Yeah, well, it's definitely mutual.

Yeah, right? It's amazing how much serving someone else, doing something kind for someone else else helps us. So if you're in that place and I actually have done this, this is one of my big strategies. When things get overwhelming, I find when I get over scheduled, I get anxious and if I get into that like crabby, irritated place, all I need to do is send a text to someone telling them, thanking them for something they've done, being grateful for something, telling them something I appreciate or love about them, and bam, the love you get back instantly can shift yourself state. So those little things, that's like five minutes a day, like five minutes a day. I dare someone to do that for a week. And you know you'll. Your whole life will change just doing that.

No, I laugh because it's so true. I mean, there's, it doesn't cost anything and it gives you so much and there's, there's so much to be said about life gives to the giver and takes from the taker. I mean, just being in a state of gratitude, being a contributor. Some people that have crabby attitudes hate hearing shit like that, but it just works. One thing I have to mention too, in all of my current ventures, and I've interviewed so many people that are addicts or in recovery, family members, doctors, people that have lost loved ones from addiction. We've just been going through the gamut of different sort of individuals and looking at different forms of treatment. As you know, I do a lot of yoga and I'm a big believer in community. 12 steps are incredibly valuable. And what's not really discussed in 12 Step Communities is nutrition and breathing and trauma work in the body, which is where I believe addiction comes from. And just the mere act of breathing. What I realized recently is that I have never learned how to breathe very well my entire adult life. And when you're in a really anxious, overwhelmed, stressed out, depressed state, you can almost bet the person is not really breathing. I mean, it's very shallow breathing. And I actually went to a Kundalini yoga class yesterday with a guy here who's considered the best instructor in Arizona. And I was talking with him afterwards because we have a couple of friends in common. And it's the first time I ever went to this particular class, although I do yoga all the time here. But I went to this particular class with four of my friends. For women, I mean, it's always fun to do. And so basically I was telling him about breathing because he made this comment. He said depression and anxiety and stress is literally in about a two foot area of your body. And he points to where your chest, all the way down to your abdomen and he goes, and if you can literally learn how to connect with this right here, it will do dramatic things for how you feel about how you interact with life, about, about everything. And so after the class I was like going this whole thing about push out your stomach and then breathe in. I mean, I can do it with my muscles, but I still don't. I'm having the hardest time. Even though I've gone through breathing exercises in retreats that, I mean, I'm just having the hardest time. And he said, lay down. And so I lay down and he gets a yoga block, really light yoga. He goes, put this on your stomach.

He's.

He goes, now put your stomach up. And he goes, now let the air go out. And I let the air go out. He goes, now just breathe it back in again. That freaking tiny couple ounce foam yoga block is very light. I mean, it weighs nothing. It's like about the weight of a freaking butter knife or something. And just the mere act of that little bit on my stomach made all the difference. I was like, oh, my God, I cannot believe how that little thing made the connection with something I was having the biggest struggle with. So I did that again this morning because I went and did a 6am yoga class at this place I go to. And I mean, I was like, unbelievable. I mean, you know, here I. This one little thing. So it goes back to something you say in the book. You have a whole chapter on this. And then in the movie, which is little hinges swing big doors. And. And that's such a great saying, but little tiny things make the biggest difference in the world. So there were probably a lot of light bulb moments during the time with Grant. But what lessons in the miracle mindset really surprised you the most? I mean, what are the little things that you feel made the biggest difference?

Well, the little thing after that surprised me the most was again when we went off to 40 years, as mentioned with Dave, because I really didn't think. I mean, first of all, if I had known, I know, you know, what I was getting into, I would, like, never have gone. You know, I was like, what is this?

I had a tough week that week, you know.

So there was that piece of it. I was like going, oh, my gosh. Right. But it made me realize that forgiveness is. Is an active process. You can't just. Because I decided, like, this woman hit Grant and drove off. Right. But I don't know really what happened there. And I decided I wasn't going to hold a grudge or go after her. So I figured I'd forgiven her, but in reality, I hadn't. In reality, I had to forgive her. I had to forgive Grant. I also had to forgive myself. And you can't just. That doesn't just happen. You actually have to actively go through that process. So the process we learn at 40 years of Zen is one that I've used ever since. I went, wow. I don't need to have electrodes on my head to practice active forgiveness. And I now check in with myself because if I'm pissed at someone and I find that I'm like, venting a bunch about something, I know that I need to go and forgive that person. And until I do. And it doesn't have anything to do with them. I'm not calling them, forgiving them. It's. I'm forgiving them so they no longer have an emotional charge over me. Right. And that's really probably been the biggest one. And then you talk about the little hinges, and that really is the key, and that's the key takeaway for people listening is this isn't. I look at so many of these things out there that we're supposed to do in this personal development, and it's like so much stuff and so time consuming and like, oh my gosh. And I don't need more to do. And I look at this and go, literally, the things that you can put into place in minutes a day can have such a massive impact on your life. And if you don't do them again, you'll end up in that comfortably unsatisfied, held back position. And no strategy can take you out of that. There's no great business strategy or health strategy that can overwhelm a limited mindset. So it's really about putting all of those little things into play. And, you know, again, forgiveness is one that now I know to check in with myself. And if I'm feeling. Not feeling joy or I'm feeling irritated with something, I check in to see who. Who needs to get the forgiveness. And a lot of times it's me having to forgive myself or something.

Yeah, that's a great insight. And my favorite forgiveness quote, quote is forgiving. Forgiveness is giving up the hope that someday you're going to have a better past.

Good one, but also past really is. You could look at the last four and a half years of my life and go, God, that sucked. You know, we were going to call the book the Best Worst Year. You could look at all of this stuff and say, that was the worst thing ever. And again, you know, I talked to Grant and I said, grant, let's go back four and a half years. I interviewed him the other day. It blew my mind. I said, so we're standing at the side of the, of the street and you can cross the street or not. What would you do? He goes, I'd cross the street because I'm better now because of it. Wow, it's been a crappy four and a half years. You know, it's not been easy. And I tell him that it's not going to be easy. And you are going to go change the way the world thinks about brain injuries. You're going to show them what's possible and that has helped him step up.

That's awesome. That's awesome. Well, there's been so many good lessons here, so thank you. So how do people start, what can they do to start changing their mindset today? I mean, listening to this I think is a good catalyst and will be for a lot of people. What else do you recommend from here moving forward? You've got new book, you've got the documentary and you've got a whole program.

I take you all the way through the process. I mean, the biggest thing listening today, my number one goal outcome would be for you to take action because nothing happens unless you do. And the easiest way to start changing is just doing by doing. So just start the gratitude practice if you're not already doing that. If you are, then start to look for those little miracles that happen all day long and end your day with recognizing three of them. I think the best place to start truly is to watch the online screening of the documentation and that's@miraclemindset.com because it just, it's sort of like the secret meets like er. Right. You've got all the medical stuff going on, but there's all those lessons woven through it. So it's a great place to start and then walk through and look at going deeper with the book and the course.

Okay, that's great. So miraclemindset.com they can watch the documentary there and yes, watch the documentary with anyone in your family. Anyone that needs some inspiration or encouragement or possibility thinking. I think it will definitely do that for them. And that's miraclemindset.com and then of course, the book is called Miracle Mindset. Any other last words of encouragement or advice or anything that I should have asked you that I did not.

I knew you were going to ask that question. You're so predictable.

I know, I'm very predictable.

I'm just going to go back because you said something about addicts. Some can't do anything about it. I believe we always can change our circumstance and our situation because so much of this is just guided by our perception.

Yeah, totally. And by the way, I do believe that there's one of my favorite favorite sayings that I saw in a movie was any passing moment is another chance to turn it all around. So I really do believe that. I mean, hope heals and when people feel hopeless, I mean one of the things I. When people start bashing 12 step communities, like 12 steps don't work or this and that I always use the analogy of like that's like saying gyms don't work. I mean, if you go to a gym and you sit on the bench and you don't lift the weight, they're not going to work. But if you go to. To a meeting and you talk to someone and you go to help someone, it may not work for you, but it may work for someone else because you're there helping. You showed up. And so hope heals. And I'm a big believer in that. And when someone feels hopeless, they just need to come across something, a person, anything, words that will give them hope. And that's why I'm such a big fan of when you have adversity and you put it into a book like you've done here, or you get in front of a camera and you do videos and you actually start teaching it to other people, not only is that going to share the hope that it could change someone's life, I mean, most people that are listening to this can probably name a book or two or three or many that have changed their life. And I think your book, if they read it or they watch your documentary or they go through your training, it will change their life. And so the question is, do you have. Are you. Are you comfortably dissatisfied and you want to get out of that, then here we have a recipe for this. Most of your recipes are on health and fitness. Now this one is how to actually dramatically improve and thrive in your life and how to deal with very difficult things and come out a better person. I was on a ramble there, so I should probably go back to you because I don't think you finished your. Your final words of encouragement or advice.

I finished them and you locked them in. So golden.

All right, jj, as usual, I love you. I think you're awesome. And for everyone listening, please share this episode. And by the way, I want you to go invest in JJ stuff. It's not an affiliate thing for me or any of that. I just want you to go ahead and just use it. And wherever you heard this this episode on my podcast, there will be a link in the show notes for you to directly connect with jj. And you can also watch my other interviews with her on video or listen to the ones on audio and go to MiracleMindset.com and watch your documentary as soon as possible while it's fresh in your mind. And thank you for spending your time with us. And we hope you utilize it to go out and make your life a heck of a lot better and be encouraging to someone else. And the other thing I will say is tell someone today what you learned from what JJ was talking about because one of the quickest ways to embed this sort of thinking into your own life is to share what you've just learned with someone else that needs to hear it. So think of someone or a couple of people and shoot them a text right now or record a little message for them or talk to them in person, because there's a lot of wisdom here. So thank you, jj, as always.

Thank you. Bye, hon.

Thanks for listening to this episode with JJ Virgin on Genius Network. The site JJ and Joe mentioned was MiracleMindset.com that's MiracleMindset.com if you'd like access to the special resources and show notes for this episode, please visit geniusnetwork.com 21 that's geniusnetwork.com 211 don't miss out on more insights, strategies and wisdom like this on Genius Network. Subscribe to Genius Network today by visiting geniusnetwork.com subscribe that's geniusnetwork.com subscribe.