From Stuck to Scaled: The Secret Path to Entrepreneurial Freedom

If you decide that you want to go and create a scalable, salable business that can transform millions of lives or even hundreds of lives or thousands life, but give you a life too, this is the path. And the path is create, optimize, scale. We call it the health biz ascension model. If you cannot sell this to the warm audience, then you tweak it till you can. Or at that point, you go, eh, this stinks. Gotta make a new one. But you really go through that process, and there's a predictable path to be able to create that again. That's what we've really focused our time on. You create a thing that people want.

You got to get something out there. Let's just face it. You got to throw an ugly lump of clay on a board, and it's going to kind of not look like anything. I always say it looks like a piece of poop. And then you got to sculpt it and sculpt it and sculpt it based upon feedback, and nobody's opinion matters except a buyer.

And I know when I first say this to people, they're like, you can't do that. I go, yes, I believe that you can. You can build a business and life that you love doing the things you love to do and very little if any of the things you don't like to do, because there's someone out there who really loves the thing you don't like to do. And I think that we have a responsibility to do the things we're best at and to delegate the stuff we are not good at to the people that love to do that.

Everyone, this is Mike Koenigs. I'm here today with my very good friend jj. Virgin.

Say hi. Hello.

All right, well, let me set this up, because JJ and her husband Tim, have been with Vivian and I for a few days, and we wanted to create some value for you. So the setup here is for any kind of a business owner, but if you're a health business owner especially, you get stuck in one of two places. And frankly, I think most business owner founders get in one of these two places, which is you're stuck in your practice, and you end up getting in the grind. It's like, how do I scale? How do you're just in that. In that loop, or as JJ would say, a poorly paid thought leader, which is, you might be hot. You get out there, you have your 10 minutes of fame, and then I.

Think it's 30 seconds of fame, maybe a 60 seconds.

That's, you know what I'll take that. You're absolutely right. But then it's like, no backend. Like, how do you get there? And one of the things that I admire about you is my backend is which.

My back end.

Oh, yeah. You have a fantastic backend, jj, man, you walked right into that one.

You walked right into that one.

I did. I did.

Well, thanks.

Good job.

Yep. So Mike Caned Specious. You saw it here first. It's the first time ever.

It never works out like this. So. So let's just talk about what you observe and maybe for anyone, for the few people who don't know who JJ Virgin is, what you've been doing, what you're doing right now, the empires you've been building. Why don't you just give us a little background?

I will give a little background. Then I'm going to jump. I want to go deeper into what you talked about with the, what I call the poorly paid thought leader or the successfully stuck practitioner. And yes, while we're talking about health business owners, health practitioners, today, of course, things that happen in one industry happen in all industries. So we know that. I've always been in health. However, my favorite things growing up were always anything related to nutrition and exercise and then anything related to marketing. Those are like the two things I loved. Marketing and health. And so what do I do? Marketing and health. And what happened early on was I was in college and I started teaching aerobics. Then I started doing personal training. And. And by the time I graduated, I had a full blown business. I was making six figures in cash and all my friends were going to get jobs and had to wear suits and go to offices. I thought that sounds awful.

So I've always.

Plus there's one thing I know about you. You're unemployable.

Yes, I've tried once, three months, got fired. So, okay, this is not my thing. However, it did lead me down a path where when I first started, there were no personal trainers. And in fact, when I started with the aerobics, there was Jazzercise and then the, there were really no nutritionists, there were dietitians. I mean, so it's always been finding a way to make money with the thing that I love to do because I didn't want to do something I didn't like to do. So how do I create businesses around what I love to do? And along the way I would get stuck. And I remember getting stuck. You know, I was so excited because here I was, graduated from college, I was putting myself through grad school. I was working like a fiend. I mean, all I did was work and go to school because I couldn't afford to take time off, right? I mean, we've all seen that. So that is that successfully stuck practitioner. And you might get stuck at 100 grand, you might get stuck at 250, you might get stuck at a million, but you're stuck. And I literally remember one of my buddies who was an anesthesiologist, made half a million dollars a year and didn't want to take vacations because it would cost him so much money to take time off. You know, it was 25 grand if he took time off. He's like. And I go, but come on. Right? So, so that was the first part. And I thought, how do I get to the next level? And I, I thought, I'll be on tv. And I just moved to Palm Springs and I wanted to build my business. And so I got on very easy and local TV, but local TV led to national TV. Now all of a sudden I'm on Dr. Phil every week. And I became the next thing that I talk about. So the first thing is being this successfully stuck practitioner. You kind of know you're there when you' selling a thing. So I was selling personal training and nutrition. That's what I was selling. I was selling sessions. And I thought I was smart because I would package the sessions and you had to pay in advance. That was my first real thing of all. Dancing bear, time for money, hourly trading time for money. And you can't take time off ever. And so the next step up was like, okay, well what I'll do is I'll create more credibility, then I'll be able to charge more. This was still not the right thinking. And so Now I'm on TV every week on Dr. Phil, except I'm not getting paid for it. And I don't have an opt in on my website because back then that was like not a thing, you know. So now I'm a poorly paid thought leader. And I remember one of my friends in Hollywood was like, you know, there's nothing worse than being a broke celebrity. Because what they don't understand is, and we see it now like if you are making content on social media, you've got to pay for all the stuff to make the content. Everything from the clothes you're wearing, to the props you're using, to the camera you're using, to the edit, like it's expensive. So you're a poorly paid thought leader. Now it can feel really good to be that because people are paying attention to you. But the reality is, if no one's buying anything, the tree fell in the forest, Right. And so you look at that and go, all right, that successfully stuck. Practitioner trading time for money. Selling a thing. And you know you're selling a thing. If someone says, oh, the person down the street sells the same thing, but it's less money, I'll go there. You are totally transactional. The next step up is, okay, now you've got some influence, but no one's paying for that influence because you're getting it. You're giving them for free. Yeah. It's like, why buy the cow? All right, Next level up is what really feels good but gets you trapped again. And that is that place where now you realize people don't buy the thing unless it's toilet paper. But really what they're doing is buying, you know, hey, I don't want to have to use my hand, Right? They want to use toilet paper. Okay? So we're always buying a transformation. We're always. When I was never selling personal training and nutrition, people wanted that because they wanted to look and feel better. That's what they wanted. They wanted to lose weight, they wanted more energy, they wanted to get out of pain, whatever the thing was.

Yeah. And I insert something here. When you're a thought leader, what they really want is they want to be you. They're emulated. When they look up to you and they have that trust, you're usually the after picture. Yeah.

And here's the thing, and I'm so glad you brought that up, because this is where people get trapped if they don't get that piece. So quite often, you are now the after picture for their before. So often the people who are your best audience are the ones closest to you. Right. And now you become this hero because you have a process. But the challenge is they think that they have to get to you, that. That if they just can touch the kimono, everything will be fine. And. And at first, if you are not careful and you do not have your ego in check, you're like, oh, I'm really good, you know, look how good I am. They love me, you know? And you'll start to get that little ego thing in there until you realize that actually you're just slightly better off than the successfully stuck practitioner at the bottom, because you can't leave again because they think you did it. You're the one. When I owned a gym and wellness center in Palm Desert, at first everyone was coming for me, and I went well, this sucks, and I need to do something. And I immediately created an integrative approach and, like, started edifying all the other trainers and nutritionists. And people wanted to see them and remember. At first, people were, like, starting to call to work with other people, and I was like, oh. And then I went, wait, now we're known for a process. Now we're known for. This is why people come here. It's not about me when. But you have to create that space where you're not the hero, Right? Where now those people that wanted to be just like you, they're there because they can follow your process to create the transformation. It's not reliant on you until you do that, where you can then step up and be the wise owl, the sage, the Yoda. You'll trap yourself. And you see, I see so many people get trapped at those first three levels. And then you see that person that can really step into the Yoda world because they've been able to get their ego in check, they'd be able to keep up, create a very replicatable system that's not reliant on them. I remember someone said about the virgin diet, they go, this is so simple. Anyone could do this. They said, it is a negative. I go, that would have been the point. That was the point. It was. I took a very complicated thing that didn't need to be complicated. Elimination diet.

Dairy, wheat, Made it soy, corn, eggs. Yeah.

So anybody could say, oh, drop seven foods, lose seven pounds, just seven days, take out the gluten, dairy, eggs, corn, soy, peanut, and sugar and artificial sweeteners. Boom. You know, I was like, that's it. You better be able to have something that can state your transformation. If people don't know why they're coming to see you, like, you know, and I ask that all the time. And I get this long list. I go, yeah, likely it's one or two of those things.

Yeah. So that. That gets down to great packaging, great positioning, great messaging, a really clear transformation. Again, every business is like this.

So simple. But here's the thing, and there's a predictable path. And I, for years, was like, what is this predictable path? I know I. I've now done it and helped thousands of people do it. So there's a path. And the reality is.

If you decide that you want to go and create a scalable, saleable business that can transform millions of lives or even hundreds of lives or thousands of lives, but give you a life, too, that this is the path. And the path is create optimize scale. We call it the Health Biz Ascension model. And the very first part of it is a lot of what you just talked about. It's really identifying what's the problem you solve, who do you solve it for, how do you solve it, why do you want to solve it and why you. And then what's the original business model that you want to use that's going to make sense to start with and to create that and actually be able to sell it to a warm audience. Because if you can't do that piece right. Like, if you can't sell it to a warm audience, I'll see people spend all this time and money creating a thing. Yeah. All the. And I'm like watching them and then they go run all these ads. I go, you know what? If you couldn't sit into a group of your friends totally. And say, I got this thing, who do you know that would be like. And. And that's the scariest part, isn't it like sitting down and going. Because you're gonna hear no. Ew.

I had someone recently signed up to do one of our big, big deals and she came in because of my reputation. Okay. Which is a great blessing. It's a great blessing. And all warm. And I already know I want to work with you and da da, da, da da. And I'm like, well, what exactly are we doing? And it didn't take long for her to really realize that she had nothing. Okay. Now I can take someone who has talent and skills and help create a product, but if you got nothing, you got nothing. And I think what happened is she ended up just getting nervous and backing out. But the point I'm trying to make here is exactly that. You've got to put yourself into the mindset of I am going to make a 10 minute TED presentation, I'm going to present some valuable stuff and at the end there's going to be something to buy. And exactly what you're saying, if you can't do that to an audience of one or ten in real life, when you can look in those eyes and see the stars glimmering or, or fading, you got nothing. No ads gonna save you. No social media is gonna save you. And that really is the true acid test, is you have to talk to people and have a story to tell.

Yes. And that is. So that's the first part. Create. And here's what happens. People really love to create.

Yep.

They don't like to sit down and sell part. They like the create part. So they'll create they'll run some ads that didn't work. So they go, oh, I need to create a new thing, make another product and another thing. And I always go, create one thing. Go through the process. Really go through the process. Tweak, tweak, tweak. I mean, the program that we have, our build your income stream blueprint, started as a like 4am thing of me going, what is the process? And so I called it you the brand. And I did it for our mastermind. Yeah. So three hours in an afternoon on zoom. Pre pandemic. And in three hours we say lockdown.

So we'll beat that out.

Okay. Yeah, Pre lockdown. Really?

Yeah, we only say the word lockdown. We never see the p word. Because YouTube no likey wowie. Who knew?

Anyway, pre2020. Can we say 2020?

We can just say lockdown.

Okay, so I remember three hours. I went, well, you can't do this in three hours. We should have a workshop. Then I did a two day workshop and discovered that people, if they didn't know, actually know their, what problem they solved and who they solved it for. Then we were stuck and we had someone sitting there and cry, all right, this needs to be a process over time, but you have to get past this one. If you cannot sell this to the warm audience, then you tweak it till you can. Or at that point you go, eh, this stinks. Gotta make a new one. But you, you really go through that process and there's a predictable path to be able to create that again. That's what we've really focused our time on. How do you create a thing that people want? The thing will give you money for the thing. Because until they invest and that energy exchange happens. I love what Simon.

Bowen, he said, you know, the minute someone gives you money, the healing journey begins. There's this energetic exchange. It doesn't matter whether it's the healing journey in health or it's a business journey. You know, we all know that when we try to help a friend for free.

It never works. And then they're mad at you. So, you know, there's gotta be that energetic exchange. Once you get to that point, then you can move into this point of optimizing that. Now we can run ads because we know it actually will work. Now we can put it into a course platform. Now we can start doing the things that you'd spend money on. But I've literally seen people spend 50, $100,000 on something that, yeah, totally wasn't right.

No, yeah, you've Got to. I think it's prototype and iterate. Prototype and iterate. And that is that like the creating. You gotta get something out there. Let's just face it. You gotta throw an ugly lump of clay on a board and it's gonna kinda not look like anything. I always say it looks like a piece of poop. And then you gotta sculpt it and sculpt it and sculpt it based upon feedback. And nobody's opinion matters except a buyer.

Exactly. Cause they'll ask that go. I just asked my. All my friends. I asked my mom. I'm like, I go, you know, I look at this a lot with book titles. So we, you know, we do a lot of books in mind share. And what I think is a great book title.

May or may not be. Doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what I think because we were working with Dr. Kellyanne, and I'm like, oh, I really. There was a book title I really loved. Love, Love, Love. So we put it into Pick Fu. That. That thing that you can do where you can get to your perfect demographic and run tests to see what. What title they like, what tagline they like. Total stinker. No one liked it. You know, so it's like you've got to test these things and test it with your target market.

Yep.

Do not test it with your friends. Nope.

They don't count. Agreed. All right, so next step. So optimize scale.

So optimize is really where you are now going to leverage yourself with tech, with tools, with team. I mean, and, boy, do we have this so much better off now with AI than we used to. I think back once I knew I had something that was. That I could sell, then it was so expensive to do this part of it. Hiring the copywriters, building the, you know, building the course, all that stuff that's so much easier now. But this is where you are going to systematize as much as possible. You're automating as much as possible. You're getting team to do as much as possible. And you're really looking for where there might be holes in the system because you do not scale. This is the critical piece. And I'll give you a little story, the very sad story about what happens if you scale prior to doing this. So, as you know, I was in the hospital when the whole Virgin Diet Book launch happened.

Yep.

And one of the things that happened during the Virgin Diet book launch, I had a company making my Virgin diet shakes. And I told this company, I go, listen, I am Going to launch the shakes. The same week that I'm launching the shakes, I'm going to be on Rachael Ray making a virgin diet shake. And so. Right, okay, so this is all about to happen. And my book's on the New York Times. So this is all happening. And I'm going to send an email out to my list and I'm going to make an offer for these shakes. And it was like, I think it was like, buy two, get one free. Which we also learned that shipping on three shakes is probably as much as the shakes. It's like, I mean, a lot. A lot of lessons learned. Didn't beta test this, but the challenge had been this company was late in delivering the shake. So the. So I'd already. I was already, like, weeks late in launching these. And if you tell people to use a virgin diet shake and they can't find it, they'll use something else and never use yours. So I needed to launch. So I tell them, I go, listen, you are going to. I think, you know, we had what, maybe half a million dollars worth of shakes ready to go. I go, be ready, because we're going to sell them in a week.

Were they ready?

No. You know, they didn't believe one word I said. And, you know, we sold them in three days and backordered. And then. But here's the worst part. They were not prepared. They were not prepared to be inundated with that level of orders. And so they weren't prepared. But here's the worst part. We weren't prepared. We didn't have a customer service platform. Yeah. We had my assistant who answered emails that came to infojvirgin.com and she got 300 emails the first day, and we had no one. And I'm sitting next to my son who's in a coma. Right. So I'm like, going, oh, you know, we're building a customer service platform with Zendesk overnight to try to figure out how to solve this problem. And that is why I say these are all the things you work out and optimize so that when you put your foot on the gas and scale, you don't run straight into a fire hydrant or a wall.

I know you feel my pain, right?

I'm sitting here reliving 25 years of PTSD because we have virtually. I didn't have a kid in the hospital with a coma, but pretty much everything else.

Yeah, well, you know, you were in the hospital, so.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. When I had cancer, that's when I wrote my Book published, it decided to make a course and it was back.

Because that's what everyone does when they have cancer.

Got some time over here. It.

We walked out. I was, I think we taught our first course. I mean, when I left the hospital on my way home, I spoke at Tony Robbins at Business Mastery. So I was gray green from chemo, still on opiates. I got a spray tan, I weighed 130 pounds. And I mean in. And I told my story that was.

Going to say, I hope you shared your story so they can go, what the hell's wrong with this guy? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that, I mean, that's, that's a whole nother piece to all of this that I think is important for, you know, in every business.

How about adding real life? So you've got create, optimize, scale, real life.

But here's the thing. Real life is the foundation around all of this. And real life, you know, remember 30 years ago, a doctor was a white coat and they were on a pedestal and you went in, you hardly talked to me. I totally wasn't born yet, you know, and now you're watching your doctor dance on TikTok and, you know, do a grocery store expose and all this, It's a very different thing. Real life matters. People want to know, like, and trust you. And so you've got it. Real life in real life is going to happen, which is why you can go, oh, you know, I'll do that thing tomorrow. I will optimize that tomorrow. I'll deal with that tomorrow. But you don't know, maybe tomorrow. And the only reason I was able to pull off a book launch sitting bedside with my son in a coma was I was actually ahead of the game. Now, I didn't know what I didn't know in terms of some of the.

Other tech tool teams that day, fulfillment.

But I'd gotten a lot of stuff done besides that. It was my first foray into all of that. And I counted on. I trusted the companies that I was working with, which is yet another one. One of the things we do at Mindshare is we have a health biz hub. Because kind of one of the reigning cries of everyone is I got screwed. So we have a hub that helps people go use this company. They actually know what they're doing. They won't do that to you when you.

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That's really good. So here's, here's what I want to do. I want to give people the goodie, the giveaway that we, we set up, which is a capabilityamplifier.com MSI guide. Once you talk about the goodie. Because then I have two questions for you. One is related, one is unrelated, but it's something I meant to ask you for a long time. That'd be a bonus.

So again, when you look at create and when you really look at the health business ascension model, create, optimize, scale, it almost, it's, it's a, it's a, you know, when you look at scaling as kind of that hockey stick, when you get into momentum and so creates down at the bottom, then you start to grow as you optimize, but you get that hockey stick of scale. But the reality is right then at the top of that you can choose, you can choose to go play or you can choose to go back and create another cool thing. So one of those things that you have to do is really choose that business model, that income stream, what is it? And I love like this to me is the most fun part is what's the right business model for the way you want to live your life? Is it a membership? Is it a practitioner training? Is it, you know, a product based business? So there's so many different things that you can do. And again, what you look at is you put it together with your niche and your audience and your unique process and then how much money you want to make, do you want to sell this thing and what do you want to spend your time doing? I think that we really need to think about and I know when I first say this to people, they're like, you can't do that. I go, yes, I believe that you can, can you can build a business and life that you love doing the things you love to do and very little if any of the things you don't like to do, because there's someone out there who really loves the thing you don't like to do. And I think that we have a responsibility to do the things we're best at and to delegate the stuff we are not good at to the people that love to do that. So there. So that is what the Multiple Streams of Income guide takes you through. It takes you through how to identify that. What is that next best income stream? Now, you may already have a foundational income stream and you, you're looking for an income amplifier. What can I add to that so that, you know, once it's the hardest thing ever is to get the client or the patient. Once you have the patient, and I always say that this to doctors, your responsibility. Once you get a patient, they're coming to you for the transformation. And they're never done. No one's done with their health.

Yep.

And whatever the process is, I mean, maybe it's one thing if you're getting a hip replacement, but if you're coming to someone for some kind of a health transformation, hormone balancing, you know, even in cancer, you want to make sure you never have a cancer recurrence. So there's always the backend program that comes afterwards and always the other things that are going to make it easier for that person to be compliant or they'll get better results or faster results. So what are the other things they can package up into their core offer to make it more effective, to make it easier to implement, and also that will increase their profitability. So that is what that guide is about.

Good pitch. And as I'm listening to you, I was thinking about like, what's my mindset? So my mindset is always, you know, I'm in love with creating the highest ticket product possible. Now, oftentimes that does require that I'm in the middle. And some of that is a lifestyle choice, of course, you know, but.

When I was just playing this back, I still have software SaaS running that company, PTSD. When I'm really honest and see that's.

What you have to look at is what do I love to do? And when I discovered that I didn't actually have to be a CEO, that was like the most exciting light bulb moment. I was like, cause I am not good at that. Not good. Not at all. So it's like, find the place that you're really good and the Things you love to do and then what. What you'd be proud of. Right. And if you look at something go, that was awful, and I never want to do that. Yeah.

But it also has to come down to, you can't live your life. Like, we have a lot of friends, and they're all about scale, scale, scale, scale, scale. And it's like, there's nothing about scaling. I enjoy. And I don't like what happens, because typically what happens is I end up hiring people that I don't really like running my thing. And I don't really. You know, at that point, I've let it go, and I've done this before. It's like, don't do that unless you really let it. I already let it go. I'm good with that. It's like, whatever's gonna happen. But as soon as that level of management is in my organization, I have to be gone. Because there's rules and everyone, you know, like, there's expectations that my brain and my inability to will it just are incompatible with. I'm made to invent new things, prototype them, get them to a certain point, and get out of its way.

And I'm saying all that because I think in line with what you're talking about, there's only one JJ virgin. There's only one of you. Now, there's some people who want to be you. They emulate you. But you're a very, very rare. You truly are a unicorn, and we don't need another jj. It's like, be really comfortable that this is.

Resolution of soul energy. I really. That's what I love about business. It's like a full expression of who you are meant to be and also acknowledging the fact that you're going to evolve. Like, since I met you, you've gone through many, many additional iterations. So any comment on that before I ask you the last two questions?

Well, I think what's important there is is getting so clear. And I think of our buddy Mary Morrissey and dream builder. And it's like the question she asks. And she asked, I remember for my 60th birthday, she goes, I'm giving you $6,000. What would you love? And I'm like, it sounds like such a simple, fun, easy question. It is such a difficult question. I'm like, what would I love? What would I love? What would I love? But when you apply that question to anything in life, when you sit down and go, okay, business. What would I love? You know, what would I love? I'd love to create a Business where I can come in, help them build an entire business, drop a whole bunch of stuff and then I'm out.

Yep.

You created that. Like you can create those things or you go, I'd love to create a group where we are all growth minded, everyone is challenging each other, supporting each other. We're growing up together. They're doing, making huge impact outcomes there in the world. Like that's the one that I kind of looked at and went, you know, actually it lights me up more to see, to help other people go, blow it up. Right. You know, I'll do my own because I use my own as the testing grounds. Yes. And if I'm going to mess it up, I want to mess it up on my own, not on someone else's. But you know, that's what lights me up. So I purely are building businesses with the talents that I know I have. I do not do the things I'm not good at. Like, no one wants me sitting there in the tech meetings. That would be painful for everybody.

You're nothing but trouble.

Yeah. I'm like, let's just get this done. They're like, leave, leave. You know, but, but we all, everyone is. That's the most important thing you can think of is what is it that you would love to do? How do you want to spend your time? You can create that business that way. You can.

Yeah, I agree.

Might take time though. Give yourself three years is what I like to say.

That is, we're 100% on the same page. Okay. So capabilityamplifier.com msiguide that's where you go get the goodie. Now I've got two bonus questions. They're shorties.

Number one, I was watching you today and we've lived in the same environment many times before. We spent a lot of time together. And I describe you as the most efficient person I know and I'm going to tell you why. And the question I am leading to is I want you to describe the mindset that you operate under that enables you to get so much stuff done so fast. Because here's what I observe.

You'll get up and oftentimes you'll have something that you wrote something on. You know, you got your list of stuff and part of this is like, what are you listing and how do you prioritize? Okay. Like what's on those lists? And then I'll see you get up and. Because I think some of this is because you were a single mom for so long, constantly in a state of holy crap I'm going to lose it all. And these boys. Something terrible might happen to these boys. I mean, you've had so much chaos around you, completely uncontrolled that you dealt with mentally so you contained your emotions. And then you'll be, like, walking around, picking stuff up, putting stuff away really, really, really fast. Like, unstoppably fast. You don't stop to take a break. And then you'll dig into the sink and pull whole bunch of gunk and slap it into the garbage. And there's no ew. You're like. So clearly you've emptied a lot of diapers before. You've been around a lot of blood. You know, it's like nothing phases you. So if you were going to describe the mindset operational thingy that's going on, what's the little cog in JJ Virgin's head that makes her so effing efficient and the most efficient human being I've ever known?

So you know how you said I hate homework? I hate wasting time? It is my number one thing. You want to make me upset, waste my time. You show up late for something. I'm pissed. People, anyone around me, you know, it like, you want to piss me off, show up late. I will freak out. Because all we have is time. It's, like, such a thing of respect. So I respect time above everything else. And I have literally been making lists since I was a little kid. And in fact, I still remember we went on vacation. I think I was maybe 12 or 13. We go on vacation to Lake Tahoe. I brought with me the record player, the sewing machine, my tap shoes, something I was making, my math book, like, all these things in a list of everything that I wanted to accomplish over the vacation time. And I remember my mother came downstairs into this, The. The room that I had all of this prepared, you know, prepped for. And I'm thrilled. Like, I have this space to do all this stuff. And she sits down and starts to cry because she goes, can't you just relax? And I go, this is. This is my, like, relaxing anxiety. Soothing, like, I'm com. I am very, very happy. If I'm not productive, I am not happy. A productive JJ is a happy jj. So I know that about myself. And I just literally have figured out. And I went to. This is crazy when I think about this. When I was in my 20s, I went to a workshop in. In Salt Lake City. There are about 50 people in the room. Stephen Covey. Stephen Covey taught a world. Like, I still look and go, how did how did I end up in that workshop in my twenties with Stephen Covey? And he taught that square of. Do you know the square of, like, it's important, not important, urgent, not urgent.

Yeah.

And it made me so like. So I have created these lists and I have the, you know, now, not now, when these things need to happen by the month, by the year. So I'll look at the, the year plan, the three year plan, the quarterly plan, the month plan, the week plan, the day plan. Then I look at the plan and I go, how do I batch these things into similar types of tasks? Like if I'm putting makeup on, how do I get as many things done? If I'm going to go to the gym, what can I do on the way to the gym? At the gym, What I'm listening to at the gym, I mean, every single thing is thought that way. And it might sound like if I heard someone else saying this, I'm like, oh, my God, that person.

But I am a little ocd.

But it really Neurodivergent is what they call it these days.

It gives me so, like, it makes me super productive. And I can look at. And then if I want to take some time and just go, I'm just going to chill out and do nothing. I can feel fine about it because I've been super productive. But I do think of, you know, like a great example is if I'm gonna go get my hair done, I will bring working because I know I've got two hours. And I remember someone saying to me, well, can't you just relax? And I go, I met. So here I am at the hairdresser.

I didn't come to the hairdresser to relax.

Well, I'm like going, if I want to relax, I'm gonna go out to dinner with some friends and have a glass of wine and have great food. I go, this is not relaxing. You are working. This is your place of business. And right now this is my place of business. And they went, oh. I go, so that what I need is a setup so that I can work here or I need to go somewhere else. And they're like, anytime now. Then I came in from them out, they had like all set up to do, but I had to train them on it. But I was like going, wait, you're working here? Why is it not okay for me to work here?

Okay, so I'm gonna. Here's a short follow up, which is lists of tasks versus outcomes. Do you make giant lists of tasks or do you focus on outcomes?

Well, the outcomes really like, you have to have the task for the outcome. When you think about it, you have your three year vision. What is the big transformation you're working on achieving? Okay, what do you want to happen in the year? Well, then within the year, if you have that vision and you're translating to a year vision now, what are the actual metrics that say you made that? And then what does that look like for quarters and what does that look like for the month of the weekend? It has to go into tasks. Like, if I had my thing of. I'd like to have 100 more people come to Mindshare, and every day I'd like a hundred more people to come to Mindshare. And I never sit down and go, well, shall we run ads? Shall we? You know, you also have to move your feet. Early on, I had an amazing mentor, and she was like, and I just wanted to make 25 grand a month because I was making 10 grand a month. That was kind of like at the time as a personal trainer, I was like working like a fiend. And she goes, just light a candle every night and say, I am making 25 grand a month. I'm like, okay, I did this for a month. I'm like, all right, now how do we do? I mean, you need both sides of it. You need to hold that vision. You need to get into that. You know, I love to draw the vision to you, get into that vibrational state. But then. And the things tend to show up that are going to help you get there, but you also got to move your feet. You're not going to get in great shape going, I'm in great. I feel like I'm in great shape.

Finally bought that diet book. I'm almost there.

I'm gonna sleep on it. Yeah.

Okay. Second mini bonus question.

I've been now on. Well, first of all, let's show your guns. Okay, show the camera your guns here. All right, there we go. Boom. So you've been heavy duty protein now for a long time. It's the subject of your content. And I switched to a almost 100% carnivore diet almost seven months ago. My blood's consistently gotten better. Cholesterol has gotten. My bad cholesterol's gone down good. Cholesterol's gone up. And I think, well, I feel good overall. I mean, I got some stuff, but for the most part. And the other thing that I noticed is, like, when I work out, I can do a heavy duty workout and I don't have recovery as Long as I'm sticking to. And I'm basically eating 2 to 310 to 16 ounce steaks a day. That's sort of like this morning when.

Tim and I. Yeah, it really depends how fat, like I'm. What I'm just trying to work out is how much protein you're getting per gram of body weight. Because it depends on the fattiness of the meat. Right?

Yeah. I've been finding in general.

I like, if I eat a ribeye, I don't eat all the fat, but if I eat a New York strip, I eat most of the fat. You know, there's always a little bit of that kind of chewy, gristly stuff and I don't eat that. I don't like, I don't like how it feels on my teeth. Maybe you should eat it, maybe it's good for you. I don't like it. So I'm just curious what the science says right now about long term carnivore diet modifying it and what your perspective is and also your experience.

So I think we've got two things here. We've got a carnivore diet and then we've got protein intake. They're not the same thing. I think that in general the way we need to look at diets is very different than the way we do. I think they're. Because we need another word. When I think of a diet, I'm thinking of something that you're doing therapeutically for a period of time to create a result. And then I think of the way that you're going to, what you're going to translate into daily life for, you know, for the ongoing. Now when you're looking at what to what your diet should be at the time, you have to look at what's going on with me and I think carnivore diet, like I've got someone, I just shifted over to it because it's like we need, you've got really high insulin, we need a reset. This is such an easy thing to do and I know that it's going to get rid of any kind of cravings, it's going to boost your metabolism because protein's way more thermic and you're not going to be hungry. So it's super easy and it's the ultimate elimination diet as long as you're not doing the dairy and eggs part of it. Because for a lot of people, if they've got leaky gut, that's causing the problem. But if we know that's not the issue Then go ahead.

I can't do dairy. And today is one of the first times I've had eggs in a long time. And I just had them because it was sort of like, ah, Tim's gonna have a couple eggs, I'll have a couple eggs. I don't feel bad right now.

So you probably don't have an issue with it. So I just did an interview for my well Beyond 40 podcast with Sean Baker and there's really, really great research on it. And I think back to when I was on Freaky Eaters and we had a guy who would only eat meat on the show and they wanted to make this whole case about how poor his diet was. We actually had two guys that were only meat eaters. Their blood work was pristine. And I was like going, how? I'm like, how do I make a case that this is a problem when their blood work is pristine? The only thing I could find was in their stool test some, you know, and it was because one of them was a raw meat eater. I found some parasite stuff. So I was like, okay, we'll just go this route with you. Here's my thought process. I think, I think you could eat, you could eat a carnivore diet if you're eating high quality meat for the rest of your life and be fine.

Yeah.

Because you're getting polyphenols from the meat that are amazing.

Mine are grass fed, organic.

A couple things I would look at, I'd make sure that your iron's not going too high, but I don't think that's necessarily the very best thing to do for the long term. I think it can be a great short term thing if your gut's problematic. And there's always going to be the outliers that have like really problematic gut. And for you it might be a better thing, but for the majority of people, I think you're probably going to be better off if you add in. And when we go carnivore, true carnivores, meat. But you know, if you can do some dairy, some fermented dairy. If you can do some eggs because of the choline, you know, great pastured eggs like the European ones.

Yeah.

If you can do wild fish, I think we're better off. And then adding in non starchy vegetables, a little bit of fruit and you know, things like a little olive oil. Like that to me would be the. That's basically my diet with wine and coffee.

Yeah. And I would say the truth is like, like during the week, like when I'm Working, I'm primarily like, I get up, I have a steak and if I'm hungry I'll have another one in the afternoon. At night I have all that other stuff. Like I'll have, you know, olive oil. Like yes. A couple days ago I ate a couple salads, but I have a funky gut due to the cancer thing.

And so you might be better off just with something like this. I find for me I can do Greek yogurt now. It's been a lifesaver. So I will stir protein powder into Greek yogurt. That's such the easy breakfast. But lunch for me is basically protein and berries and dinner is protein and vegetables. Yeah, it's like. And I don't really ever even think about it now when you talk about muscle mass, the protein's one side of the coin. And the research right now and gosh, it just, it's, it's wavering a lot. But I think if we looked at 0.7 to 1 gram per pound of target body weight, we're probably in the right place and getting in at least 30 to 40 grams. I think really for us 40 plusers it's more like 40 grams.

Yeah. I'm looking at perplexity right now. Based on basically said for 180 pound guy, 58 year old man, they're saying 0.8 gram per kilogram.

Yeah, no, no, that's 63. That's absolutely incorrect. Okay, see that's the problem. This is a problem with something like perplexity because it's going to look at the rda. We all know that the RDA is stupid. It was based on nitrogen excretion studies from young men. That's irrelevant for a 40 plus year old person with anabolic resistance. Also women, women will need more and nitrogen excretion is notoriously underrating this. So it's B.S. okay, it's stupid.

So 180 pounds, 0.7 grams per to.

1 gram per pound of target body weight. This is the work of.

The couple guys out of Canada. Dr. Stu Phillips, I think is the big driver of it. But this has been replicated. This is kind of the accepted right now. I think another thing that can be super helpful especially for women who are like I can't eat enough protein. I'm like, yes, you can eat it first and add some essential amino acids to your morning routine. Especially if you're going to go work out and you haven't been able to eat yet. Which I think women shouldn't do fasted workouts. But let's say you got stuck. Essential amino acids, some creatine and some electrolytes will solve it. But honestly, if you eat a diet where you eat protein first, you're eating, you're really going with at least 40 grams per meal. Yes, you can do this. You're getting, and I push a little higher than 1 gram per pound of target body weight. You want to make it really easy to maintain your body composition. Eat protein first. It's way more thermic. You're going to be full. You won't overeat. And by the way, trying to take the overeating, like to overeat protein and try to store it as fat is a very hard thing. It's very metabolically costly. It's probably not going to happen. So, you know, you're going to gain the weight from overeating on things like carbs. Besides, very few people are going to go, you know, I'm going to eat 40 ounces of meat, but you could easily plow through that much cereal.

Yeah.

So doing the right amount of protein plus resistance training, you're not going to build muscle because you ate a steak and sat on the couch. That's ridiculous. I mean, it's going to help you hold onto muscle, but you need to actually do the work.

Right on.

And by the way, and I'll tell you something, one more funny thing. So we are at a gym in Boston. We just, we were doing our like jet lag. One of the things we do when we're coming off a jet lag is we always use exercise and creatine to help manipulate our time zones. So we go in the gym, we are like dead, but we are going to do this. And I'm looking around because I am doing, you know, snatches and kettlebell swings and push ups and pull ups. And one gal has got the bench and she's been sitting there. She was literally there. I was there 40 minutes. I did all of this stuff. And she did some bicep curls and scrolled. And then I looked at another girl who was sitting on the lap pull down the whole time scrolling. And then another guy scrolling. And so I'm just taking pictures. People, they think I'm doing selfies and I'm not. I'm just taking pictures of all these people doing the scroll workout at the stupid farm. You know, I'm like just going to the gym. That's like me lighting the candle going, I want to make 25 grand. You know, do the work. Do the work in whatever it is, whether you want to. You want to create something, do the work. You want to optimize it. Do the work. You want to scale it. Do the work. You want muscles. Do the work.

J.J. virgin. You know how to tie it all together. You put a bow on it. All right, so let's wrap this up. Last time. Capabilityamplifier.com msiguide that's where you're going to get JJ's cool goodies. This is capability amplifier. That that's JJ Virgin. And we had a nice time spending the morning with you. Well, the morning for us. But anyway, make sure you share this with anyone you think can benefit from it, especially in the health business, because I want to see JJ's and Tim's business blow up even more in all the best ways. Thank you for watching and listening.

Bye. Bye.

Sam.