Kind: captions
Language: en
hey everybody welcome to health theory
today's guest is none other than j.j
virgin she's a four-time new york times
best-selling author as well as a
celebrity nutritionist and fitness
expert who is one of the very first
personal trainers in la back in the 80s
and since then she's become one of the
most recognizable names in the space
she's been featured on countless
programs including dr oz and dr phil as
well as a slew of radio and news shows
she's also the host of the jj virgin
lifestyle podcast where she herself
dives into a massive array of topics
around health and fitness but what i
want to know about is something you just
told me before we started rolling which
is that when you were working with dr
phil you guys tried to take over a town
yes and that the the results were
sometimes so fun this is all the stuff
that i never get to talk about so we're
gonna pull back the curtain now and you
know some of these things that you try
to do on tv that are just an epic fail
the whole idea was back during the
weight loss challenge days and they
decided to take over a town so they send
me in and what they've done is they've
gone in ahead of time
and they have taken over the high school
now they got the mayor on board the
mayor thought this was a great idea but
he didn't kind of check in with the
whole town on what do you think about
this right
and so they go into the high school what
they did was they just removed
all of the fast food and they removed
the kids favorites like french fries
cookies they pulled it all out so they
took the french fries and they did a
swap now i love swaps but if i was gonna
swap a french fry my first choice
wouldn't be a carrot stick no one's
fooled there right so they did all of
this and then i get into town and they
go okay here's what we're gonna have you
do
we're gonna have you go to the high
school and you're gonna sit down with
the kids these are a bunch of teenagers
and we have you talk to them about
nutrition
and what they're gonna do right
they wanted me to sit down and explain
why we'd replaced the french fries with
the carrot sticks and why we replaced
the the desserts with the fruit and how
great this was going to be for them and
you can imagine what this was like i was
like this little lamb just thrown to
slaughter with all of these
very angry teenagers what are they
saying
we don't understand why we don't care
yeah we don't care right i mean they
didn't care
they didn't care that eating french
fries was bad for them because when
you're a teen
you can't
you're not selling health to a teenager
so you've got to meet them where they
are right so for a teenager what are
they going to do maybe they want to be
like one of the rock stars or one of the
big athletic stars but they really don't
care if they're not thinking about the
heart attack they're gonna not have when
they're 60
right they want the french fries and
this is something i thought a lot about
like
one with what we were trying to do with
quest was i didn't feel like i could
convince people to
make a lot of change of behavior our
whole thing was how do you leverage
behavior but if you have kids and your
kids are facing that kind of
i won't even call it peer pressure but
you walk into the school there's a lot
of fast food the fast food companies of
course are making sure that that's
available in the schools in some cases
like how do you appeal to them if they
want to be you know the rock star of the
school they're not thinking about the
avoiding the heart so send in the
athlete
or the pop star that they want to be
like like what they shouldn't have done
is sent me in
they should have sent in someone like
that
and been aspirational and let them
co-create
what they need to do to have a life like
that and get their buy-in and their why
i used to be a spokesperson for subway
and i remember i got one of one of the
doctors who i worked was like i can't
believe you're going to be a
spokesperson for subway you know it's
it's fast food i go americans eat fast
food
so if i can work with them to make that
fast food healthier and start to shift
some behaviors that they're already
going to do but we can help them do them
better great they're going to go and get
energy bars if we can get them to get a
better choice than so many of them that
are just adult candy bars great because
you just got to have one foot after the
next right i mean i i was doing
something on a home shopping channel and
i couldn't say the names but i had
almond joy and mounds and they had the
same amount of sugar as a cliff bar and
i think it might have been the luna bar
i was like are you kidding me that was
literally our marketing message was it's
the first protein bar that's not a candy
bar in disguise which is crazy and you
talk a lot about sneaky sugars and the
way that people hey don't understand
necessarily
what they're eating and b that a lot of
this stuff is just getting into our diet
in ways that we wouldn't expect so what
are some of the areas that people should
really be watching out for that they
might not expect has sugar in it yes so
i love this quote from dr mark hyman who
said
our number one recreational drug of
choice is sugar
and it's true and so why are we sneaking
sugar into all these foods because then
we'll want more of them
and so that's why the manufacturers are
doing it in places that you wouldn't
expect it used to be turn of the century
we ate five pounds of sugar per person
per year
it's now
gosh was 150 pounds of sugar per person
per year we're eating like basically our
weight in sugar
and the obesity rates have gone from 0.5
percent
to
over now we're more obese and overweight
so over 30 it's because of these things
sneaking in
and the biggest crime is them sneaking
in
and in with the marketing messages to
make it look like it's healthy so take
apple juice concentrate we're all
concerned about high fructose corn syrup
but apple juice concentrate has more
fructose than high fructose corn syrup
but yet you can put it onto a label and
say no sugar added right does this make
you insane and put it on like a kid's
food or one of those silly fruit snacks
or one of the yogurts say no sugar added
and then everybody thinks it's okay
the sauces those silly salad dressings i
mean when we went fat-free back then it
was everything we got to get the fat out
of everything and all of a sudden you
were eating
all this sugar but it was okay
because fat makes you fat yeah i
remember literally so i was at
roughly this time i was writing
and i used to keep this big tub of red
vine licorice and i remember saying to
my friend because she was like
you know i i think if you eat too much
sugar it turns to fat and i was like
that doesn't even make sense that
literally didn't make sense to me i was
like how's that possible how does sugar
become fat i don't even understand so
yeah i was totally bought into that i
was too i used to eat six meals a day i
used to go from client to client to
client and i would go i had my frozen
yogurt store
and then i would go to ill for now and
get a skinny latte and a um because i
had a fat-free milk right of course and
i get like a baguette and i would just
eat all day long
carbs yeah because i'm starving
so talk to me about the drug-like effect
of this stuff like
why
why is it so hard for people to let go
of this because i think that the reason
that it's in the supply the way that it
is is because we love it and we want it
and it's essentially people are serving
up what we're asking for well and then
we're also giving it to them and then we
want it you know it's it's it's like
which came first
right and so if you look at so they did
that cool study on rats where they
looked at the reward center of the brain
and when rats were first given in um i
think like some kind of morphine and
when they gave the rats morphine it lit
up this pleasure center the reward
center in their brain then they gave
them oreo cookies
it lights up the same pleasure center in
the brain and then they gave them the
choice
and they chose the oreo cookies
but if you think about it you've got
gluten dairy and sugar together that
trifecta of an opiate-like effect on the
brain so
you start out you have a little bit of
it and there's a couple different ways
we become addicted to sugar one is
genetics i mean we have some people i am
genetically not
i don't have a sweet taste a sweet tooth
i'm so
thrilled about that now my adopted
mother does
so she plied me with sugar all growing
up but at age 12 i just quit i don't
like it like i do not have a sweet tooth
but you can get one because exposure
equals preference you can train it but
then you also get that hit
you know to the pleasure center of the
brain and also it boosts serotonin and
if you're stressed out
if you're stressed out you are actually
going to deplete serotonin and then
you're going to want more sugar to boost
it on up and then you also change your
gut microbiome
so when you change your gut microbiome
become more glucose and tolerance so now
you're going to need more sugar for fuel
because your body can't access stored
fat for fuel so you start to get this
whole like compound effect of like
what's really going on well these all
these factors start to create the
problems
so how do we begin to back out of that i
know you've talked a lot about
or worked with people i should say with
getting sugar out of their diet how to
deal with that you talked about some of
the replacement stuff there are smarter
replacements and carrot sticks for
french fries but what is some of that
stuff for somebody watching now that's
really tried
they want to they've got the intent but
they just don't know what to do i think
everybody i mean no one sits down goes
you know i think i'm gonna eat really
crappy that's what i'm gonna do that'll
be perfect you know i think we all want
to eat healthier but then we try to do
too big of a change and we fail and then
we go c
it's my genes i'm getting older so give
me an example of two videos
well
french fries carrot sticks i'm not gonna
eat any sugar i'm gonna quit it all cold
turkey
the reason i tackled sugar and i never
intended to the first thing i started
with because i'm kind of obsessed with
you being your own personal health
detective and being able to connect the
dots between how you feel and what
you're eating i think we've divorced
ourselves from that with so many of
these different programs there is no
diet that's right for everybody it's
really about looking at your you know
where you are your outcomes you want
your lifestyle you have your genetics
your epigenetics and going all right
what outcome do i want right now and i
think diets help you learn what works
for you and what doesn't work for you so
i write the virgin diet about testing
these seven foods to see which works for
you and which doesn't and one of them
was sugar and the only reason i put
sugar in there because it wasn't in
there at first
yes this is what's really funny i was
doing that online with thousands of
people
and because i was teaching doctors how
to use food sensitivity testing in their
office and the same foods showed up it
was always gluten and dairy and soy and
corn and eggs and peanuts so i was like
why are elimination dyes with so
complicated let's just focus on these
ones but what i found is when i didn't
add sugar
people were just moving over to sugar
and i couldn't think about that because
i'm not a sugar person but i saw it over
and over again and fructose actually can
make your gut more permeable
and artificial sweeteners can disrupt
your gut microbiome so i write the
virgin diet i slip sugar in there as one
of the seven and this is like the uproar
i can quit those six i can't can't get
rid of the sugar so all those real
die-hard sugar addicts were the people i
wrote the sugar impact diet for and what
i did first was i did a little pilot
test because i thought if i can if i can
do this with them then i can do it with
anybody right these are the ones that
have failed these are the ones that are
self-proclaimed i'm a sugar addict i
can't handle it and so the first thing i
did was i went to amazon because i'm
like why have there been so many books
written about sugar and yet we still
have the problem what's really going on
and my sense was because we were not
taking people through the transition
from being a sugar burner to a fat
burner we were just trying to like go
here cold turkey and unless you go stick
them at betty ford this is not going to
work
it's interesting that you're liking it
that hard to addiction do you really
mean that there's that kind of intense
physiological withdrawal oh yes well
because think about it if you're used to
eating sugar and most people don't even
realize where it's sneaking in and again
they don't think about that green drink
that they drank that actually is more
sugar than a soda right because it's a
green drink
yay for me or the fruit smoothie or
whatever they don't think about all the
places the mochas
the bars like you look at a salad where
they had the candied walnuts and then
the dried fruit and then the raspberry
vinaigrette
or they went ahead chinese food right
they just load themselves with sugar so
all of a sudden you've got a body that's
used to having incoming sugar throughout
the day and using that for energy and
you yank it
and if you're insulin resistant it's not
like your body goes okay i'm just going
to use that fat for a fuel source i'll
go dig it out
of the belly that'll be perfect no it
goes where is it
and you start to feel crappy
and so what happens when you start to
feel crappy and lotion you know low
blood sugar
you're not going to go wait it out
you're going to go get a cookie
so i knew that we had to take people
through a transition from being a sugar
burner to help them becoming a fat
burner and what i did was i rated foods
high medium and low sugar impact
not based on sugar alone
but really looking at fructose
separately and then also looking at how
fast carbohydrates turn into sugar
because you know just because something
isn't straight sugar doesn't mean your
body is not turning into sugar quickly
like white bread right
so that's what i did and i tapered from
say you know someone eating
white pasta to rice pasta to spaghetti
squash that would be an example of a
taper but over time and then the other
thing is i love adding before i take
away that's interesting
when you think about it in most diets
what do they tell you to do okay take
this out take this out take this out and
the minute someone says you can't have
that i'm like obsessed thinking about it
but if you start with telling them
listen i want to make sure you're
getting clean protein in each meal some
good healthy fats foods with a lot of
fiber that trifecta for good blood sugar
balance because that's really the key to
everything you crowd out a lot of the
crap
so that's kind of step one
that's really interesting now thinking
back to one thing that you said that
really surprised you and it certainly
surprised me when you told me is with
all the people that you've worked with
when you asked like why is it that why
do you think you struggle with losing
weight the answer that people gave you i
found really really interesting what was
it that they told you how do you know
this stuff
oh my goodness dive deep into the world
wow i'm wondering what else you know
yeah this was a shocker because i
literally thought with everything that i
do when i asked my community what if
you're not where you want to be with
your weight why not i figured they go
it's sugar you know or i can't give up
my bread or my cheese
and that was not it
when we asked people it was because they
didn't feel worthy they didn't feel good
enough
so we've got to always go back and start
with people as to like why do you want
to do this why are you important enough
why is this matter before you start to
try to change things for them and with
them and how do you then deal with that
like how do you help people through that
because you're
there's a reason you've endured there's
a reason that you've been around in such
a potent force in this industry for so
long and i think it's because you sit at
this intersection of really
understanding the
the realities of the biological
responses and neurochemistry and
everything of what we eat but you also
understand mindset
so
one i'd love to know how you help those
people and then i'd love to hear the
just
absolutely astonishing story of how you
really developed this
um
mother warrior mentality that you have
so i think maybe it's just because also
i just haven't quit
you know right because that's a big part
of it is just continuing to show up
i'm obsessed
with
how to help people get results i mean it
was it was actually very early on when i
was a personal trainer back then
people were hiring me because they
wanted to lose weight
and i was like well you know you can't
exercise out exercise a bad diet like so
exercise is important for maintaining
your weight and for shifting kind of
your body's um
hormonal responses we didn't even know
about hormones and exercise back then
but i i knew intuitively that if you had
more muscle that it wasn't about doing
bunches of cardio if you had more muscle
it would shift things i didn't
understand it also helps with insulin
sensitivity but i i knew that
diet was key but what i started to see
above that that was crazy
was and i remember i had this one woman
who i helped her and she was getting so
lean and fit and healthy
and her husband didn't dig it
that's interesting he was threatened
oh i saw this happen now multiple times
and so she went right back to where she
was
and then i started to watch people as
they started to lose weight and get
healthier if they didn't really believe
that's was their self-image they started
to shift back
so you still you have to work on
who do you want to be you know who are
you what what's your vision for yourself
then you start to take the steps as to
how to get there and you have to be so
clear on that in fact we had this woman
who ate ice cream bars all the time but
she like literally every hour she'd
gastric bypass but she would eat ice
cream bars every hour because she'd fill
up her pouch otherwise so she would wake
up all night long and eat ice cream bars
every hour
okay crazy
why
because she was addicted to ice cream
bars but here's what i did she
remembered herself
as this lean
healthy fit woman she remembered when
she used to be there
and i was like let's get that picture we
actually took a picture of her back when
she was that way and put it i put on an
ice cream stick and i put it in the
freezer in front of the ice cream bars
you know it's like when you open that
think about you know because they can't
exist together you got to pick the one
right you've got to remember who you are
and then operate from that
so i think we've got to go back to
getting really clear on the why with
whatever we want to accomplish in life
and then make sure that we're taking
steps in that direction
if you start to go this way grab out
that picture again to remind yourself of
who you are and where you're going
you know it's that wayne dyer you'll
you know you'll believe it
when you see it you gotta and you'll see
it when you believe it you know it's
both ways so first thing i'm gonna do is
see it then i can believe it
and if i believe it then i'll see it
[Music]
yeah talk to me about that so your story
may be one of the most extraordinary
stories i've ever heard of leading with
belief
tell us about your son what happened to
him and how you were able to leverage
belief yes when i wrote the book miracle
mindset it was very interesting because
people kept asking me how i did it when
i'll share the story and it actually all
happened
and this is why it's so important to
work on your habits and your mindset and
your health because you never know when
you're going to be called this level and
have this
so
this actually happened on a monday on a
sunday i was walking through an airport
i just been to a big event and they'd
been training on the hero's journey and
i thought well i got no good heroes
journey
be careful what you asked for
my book was getting ready to launch the
virgin dives couple i think four weeks
out to our big pre-launch campaign i'd
invested
everything into it
and i'd borrowed money
i am the financial support for my kids
they're 15 and 16.
my son grant who was 16 walks out at
dusk to go to a friend's house
and the next thing i know my other son
and ex-husband come running into the
house and say grant's been hit by a car
and airlifted to the local hospital
now
you don't airlift someone when they
break their leg right
we did not know what was going on
my son
and my ex-husband drove by the accident
scene was only a couple blocks from her
house and saw
saw all of this like leftover remnants
of a scene and asked what had happened
and there was a policeman on the scene
who looked at my other son and said a
boy got hit he looked just like him
because they were irish twins right they
were a year apart so we raced to the
hospital and they usher us into a
conference room this doctor said your
son's been the victim of a hit and run
and he was a neighbor actually saw this
saw a woman get out of her car
gasps get back in her car drive off
so your son's been a victim of a hit and
run he has a torn aorta that is what
killed princess diana
it was hanging on by an onion skin he
says it's going to rupture sometime in
the next 24 hours if it's not repaired
but
we can't repair it here it's a very
specialized surgery
and he's got three multiple brain bleeds
if we were to repair his aorta his brain
would bleed out because we'd have to use
a blood thinner and it was like i was
looking at a movie it was like my brain
was going not your son not your son not
your son this could not be real because
he was covered in road rash
any of these bones sticking through his
skin
and uh the doctor said you know you
gotta let him go
and he says he's never gonna survive the
airlift to the hospital in l.a he needs
to go to and even if he was he wouldn't
survive surgery and even if he did he'd
be so brain damaged it wouldn't be worth
it to which my 15 year old yoda son says
so maybe a 0.25 jazzy make it
and the doctors say yeah that sounds
about right son he goes well we'll take
those odds
the doctor walks up to me there's five
surgical teams
and the doctor that put it all together
who's totally an angel said you know
he's like you the mom
i'm like a complete mess he goes listen
i got this i do this all the time
i just fixed one couple days ago someone
got thrown off an overpass i totally can
do this don't worry about it you go up
to the waiting room i'll come get you in
a couple hours when i'm done
i said all right and i was on a
discovery show at the time so i go to
the waiting room and i'm writing all the
blogs and stuff i have to get done
because he said he'd be fine so i'm like
totally gonna go with that and uh
i get
he comes up he goes all right he's fine
fixed
he goes now i don't know if he'll ever
wake up that's not my job i'm just the
plumber i'm like great i walked into
grant
and uh you know because he's in this
deep coma he had to have two orthopedic
teams putting rods into his femurs
so
i'm holding these couple fingers
and i said grant you know i love you so
much we're here
no response and the machines are going
beep beep you know nothing's happening
and then i said and your girlfriend
mackenzie loves you so much and i feel
this squeeze
like
uh he's there and then i said another
name i knew wouldn't make
any difference and no response and i
said and your brother bryce is right
here with you and it was like bam lift
my hand up off the bed and that's when i
said grant
i need you to fight you you're going to
be 110 i have got every resource you
need here i'm calling them all in your
name means warrior you need to fight i
will get you to be 110
we've got this
and he is better than he was before the
accent
now i need to manifest the next big one
for him but he is better than before the
accent he literally is that's incredible
how do you think the
your mentality and flipping that switch
when your son says all right you know
we'll take those odds
how does that actually influence your
decision making so for somebody that
hears the story and thinks i can never
do that
how does does deciding that you're going
to make this happen how does it actually
play out so i had this great mentor at
who is responsible for my son being
alive she's responsible really for
everything that's happened
and i wish she was here so i could tell
her she unfortunately passed but i'm
sure she knows
and it all happened because um
i was a personal trainer in fort
lauderdale and she said to me when at
one point she was why are you in school
because i was at university of miami in
grad school
and i said well because i want to impact
more people
she goes great huh all right what are
you gonna do when you graduate i said
i'm gonna go get my doctorate she goes
huh why i go because i want to impact
more people and she's like oh
well you know those don't actually
correlate and they go they don't
because in my family you just went to
school that's what you do you graduated
from high school you went to college and
then once you're i was at ucla and
everyone at ucla had to go to grad
school like it was just what you did i
never gave any thought to well maybe
that doesn't
get you where you want to go she goes
i'll teach you
now she was a self-made
multi-millionaire who grew up in a
trailer park
i said all right that's awesome i'm in i
literally sold my personal training
business and moved into her house
and it was like a mr miyagi moment
where i move in and i'm like all right
teach me i'm ready like i want to learn
everything about business it's going to
be awesome
and she goes cool put these rubber bands
on
so i put these rubber bands on my wrist
she goes now every time you have a
limiting belief
judgment critical snap it
like all right when are you gonna teach
me business though like she's not i will
i will you guys start there because you
don't realize that if you do not tightly
manage your environment that if someone
tells you you can't do something they'll
be right because the reality is
we create our luck anything is possible
i knew with my son as long as he was
breathing that i could harness anything
else i mean i have so many contacts and
with the internet we all do
right
and
i could get him there because i was
going to keep turning stones over until
i got him to be 110 percent until i got
him to be better than he was before the
accident that it was completely
possible to do
but at first if you think about it every
single thing that we do in life is
created twice
like you didn't sit down one day
and
build the first quest bar physically it
first started here
right sure so anything that we want to
do has to first start here
you stir first start with the belief
and then just go make it happen one foot
after the next after the next and that's
what i did with grant i mean there was
literally
any person who thought logically
would have said there's no way
but he was still breathing there was a
0.25 chance and i just knew that i just
keep staying forward and going what's
next what's next what's next even when
he was in a coma we started with
essential oils then we added
progesterone then we added fish oil we
started doing hyperbaric
we did stem cells i brought in all of
the top doctors who fortunately was
friends with a lot of them but i had
amazing help from people like dr daniel
layman and dr hila cass so i just
started recruiting
people to help
and did you recruit them
like did you already know dr personally
i knew i'd known him for years
and so i just reached out and asked
people i'd heard about progesterone
therapy from a from a
buddy of mine dr anna kabecka
and she told me about the researcher who
discovered it and i just emailed him
and asked him about it because it was a
72-hour therapy for
people to give them progesterone to help
with reducing inflammation in the brain
and i said hey i'm outside of the
72-hour window
will this still work he goes we just did
72 hours because that's what the funding
was
like ah i go if it was your family
member
would you do it
past that and he goes absolutely that's
all i needed to know thank you so much
right how do you keep turning over those
rocks like walk me through that process
this is something that i think a lot you
talk about like people need to prepare
now i think this would be really useful
for people they don't know when they're
going to need it but some people are
going to need it where they're in just a
terrifying situation they are absolutely
paralyzed they do not know what to do
and some of that's like the memory game
at first it just starts with you turn
over a card it's exactly that's exactly
it so when you think about life
there's one thing for sure
things are going to happen
and how you show up
can be a life or death
situation now when i wrote miracle
mindset i honestly didn't know if grant
was going to make it when i was writing
that book because one thing that happens
when you have a brain injury is that
you're very suicidal and he tried to
kill himself numerous times
numerous times i mean i remember one
point i was like i'd like jumped him you
know and he was dragging me down the
street telling me he was just going to
get hit by a car again and i'm like
getting dragged down the street right i
called 9-1-1 and here i am getting
dragged down the street you know but i'm
like i'm not letting go you're we're
going down together first i thought well
this is the story about my son surviving
oh it's got nothing to do with my son
surviving it is how you show up when
situations happen because they're going
to and if you look at the most
successful people that we both know um
team graziosi and joe polish they've
everyone's been through crap
i mean shoot dean lived not not in a
trailer he lived in a bathroom
right i mean it's how you show up that
changes everything and the cool thing is
is that's got nothing to do with your
race your religion how much money you
have how tall you are it's got to do
with your mindset you can train that and
again i was just lucky at age 30 that i
had a woman take me under her wing and i
literally for six months i didn't get to
learn business for six months for six
months she taught me on mindset i'm
controlling my environment on staying
positive on being a possibility thinker
on turning over all those stones because
you just start with that first step
everywhere i am right now was because of
those things she taught me when i was 30
and i put into motion
you said that she taught you a lot of
raises
what were some of the phrases that have
stayed with you
a big one is
the only limitations or the limitations
in your mind
she had us do something
early on where you pull out a sheet of
paper
and you write down everything that you
want
and i've done this with my mastermind
okay pull out a sheet of paper write
down ever like all the things think big
like like and get totally materialistic
i know we're not supposed to be
materialistic but write down the car you
want and the house you want the places
you want to travel to and the shoes and
the jewel write it all down
and we write it down thinking we're
thinking so big right she goes okay so i
remember at the time i wanted a jaguar
[Music]
teal green if i'm not mistaken
i i i don't even know what to say how
did you like that's just crazy so i
wanted this jaguar and and uh i wanted a
condo and
and she's like huh oh
jaguar
chill green
why just one i'm like well i don't need
two she goes i didn't ask you what you
needed
right and she'd go like so you want to
live in hawaii with a condo
why not a house well it's just me
so well you can still have a house oh
okay i'll have a house shows well um
what part of
of hawaiian oh maui she goes all right
well
which part of maui and i told i think it
was like well count of paulie and she
goes well why not all of maui oh okay
well why not all hawaiian islands right
you know we're so trained
but it was so good to feel so
expansive if my son gets hit i could
have gone i hope he survives
i see a lot of people out there just
surviving
i didn't want him to just survive
he could have just survived and ben you
know had a horrible quality of life
that's what i was absolutely frightened
of i did not know what it was going to
be like when he woke up out of that coma
when he first came out of that coma he
literally was
lying in bed staring like this and
moving one arm back it was the only
thing that he could move on his body
moving his arm back and forth and i'm
like oh what did i do right and that's
when the the only way i could make it
through that was going he's 110 110 110
you know the hospital people thought i
was insane
but like i couldn't let my brain go to
what if this is it
what if this is it right that it could
never
go there
and like i can i can imagine what that
would feel like to have a moment where
you think
did saving him actually help him or hurt
him
and in those moments was it just that
mantra like the blind
faith that you were going to get into
110 that allowed you to cope or did you
have other things that you were doing to
to stay focused
so knowing that i had a next step was
one of those things that just was good
for anxiety all right so i think in
anything when we have a big vision
you just have to know what the next step
is
so how do you how do you find that next
step i mean this goes back to
part of my obsession in life because it
was so scary for me in my early 20s i
did not know how to turn rocks over and
i certainly didn't think that the answer
was just keep turning rocks over until
you find something useful
like how do you help people find that
next step like if somebody came to you
in that moment of crisis but it was in
an arena that you knew nothing about
how would you help them
identify the next step you know what's
so cool nowadays is it's never been
easier to figure out a next step that's
fair right i mean come like i think
about i get reached out almost every
single day by someone in crisis because
their loved one is
has a traumatic brain injury like almost
every day looking for a next step
so it's pretty easy nowadays to find the
next step
but even if the next step is just
looking for the next step you took a
step
right let's say someone wants to lose
100 pounds
you first have to start with something
like
all right i'm going to start to drink
more water
and that sounds so ridiculous they're
like but no i want to lose 100 pounds i
mean shouldn't i just go on a fast for
like you know a month it's like let's
just start with dream or water then
we'll start with getting more sleep
then we'll start with like right if you
just
one step and it's that whole baby step
thing it doesn't have to be it just has
to be forward motion
yeah i love the way you break things
down it's um
one you're very good at starting with
something super simple like drinking
more water like not going from french
fries to carrot sticks well the reason
that i put this shirt on so i always
pick a shirt that means something to me
for the guest and i think that you look
really powerfully at no what
would it take
and
looking at tough love with love all
right i dig that
um one thing that
you have talked about which i just found
astonishing is forgiveness
how did you feel about the woman that
hit him so it's it's interesting i
didn't realize how active a process
forgiveness was so when the woman hit my
son
it was very interesting what happened in
my town i was in la at this hospital so
i moved to la and i was living next to
the hospital in torrance but i was
getting these emails from the community
in palm desert and it was a witch hunt
after this woman
and they were i remember uh
gal emailed me she goes we're gonna put
up a ten thousand dollar fund to find
this woman
and i said why
well because she did this i'm like but
a if you're gonna put up ten thousand
dollars support my son that's a way more
important thing i go b i'm not spending
one bit of energy there i got to be over
here and see we don't know if it was her
fault like she shouldn't have driven off
but i have no idea what her story was
what if she was an illegal immigrant and
she had children at home and she would
have been
put into jail and like there's so many
things that could have happened we don't
know we don't we don't know so what how
does that change anything and maybe just
maybe this is exactly what was supposed
to have happened for grant
maybe he needed
this like we stood
in the hospital that night and we went
maybe this is our second chance here
maybe this is the turnaround he was
going down a really bad path maybe this
was all supposed to happen maybe he
walked in front of the car no one knows
but everyone was so quick to blame this
woman judge her
all of this stuff and i go this is
there's there's no good energy going
over there i'm like releasing that
and i didn't spend my time there and i'd
never known that you have to actually
process these things if you still have a
charge around someone
it's by the way not hurting them
whatsoever it's only hurting you right
so we went through this whole process
and the reality was i went through this
process and forgave this woman my my
son's never none of us have ever my
ex-husband neither of us no it never
occurred to us from day one like i don't
even call it like calling him a victim
of a hit-and-run
to me there are no victims only
volunteers and that's another phrase
from my mentor i mean by that i heard
that and i wasn't quite sure i
understood you decide you decide you're
like something crappy happens to you you
can decide that that was the worst thing
ever happened to you or how you're going
to make it be good for you you look at
people who've gone through bad
circumstances and and i will tell you
the night that grant got hit i didn't go
ah this can be the best thing ever
happened this is so good yeah yeah this
is gonna be awesome right i mean but i
kept going
okay what's good about this how can i
move forward what do i need to do to get
help what can i do here right you know
you just
you could i could have sat there had a
pity party
or i could have gotten into action on
what do i need to do i'm gonna be 110
john and i literally looked at grant
went this is our second chance how are
we going to do this
right how are we going to make this the
best thing
what can we do
that is not being a victim
and i was like i should just let him go
why didn't just let him go if i'd let
him go he wouldn't have gotten hit by
the car
a weird intuitive piece of me feels like
this all was supposed to be exactly what
it was
but um i was blaming myself
and so i had to go through that whole
forgiveness protocol and i think a lot
of times give yourself to forgive
yourself like when you really get down
to it and you start to dig into all
these things and you're so mad at
someone the reality is quite often when
you really unpack all of that the person
you're most upset with is you
how did you forgive yourself
well there's a protocol to do it so you
actually can walk through it and it may
take a couple times and sometimes you
have to rest for a little bit and come
back and do it but there's a way that
you do this where
you
you assign a judge and jury and you can
pick who you want and then you decide
where this is going to be like where are
you having this where's your courtroom
and then you basically and you have the
person you're charging with the crime it
could be you and you go before the judge
and jury and you charge the person with
the crime and you let it all out i mean
you just charge that person one side to
the other
until there's nothing left
you've got it all out
and then you have to step into
their shoes
and you have to explain what was really
going on
and
then
you come back and you basically forgive
them you find what was good about this
and you're empathetic
to it and then you check in with the
judge and jury to see if you really did
it right and this is all happening in
your own mind right this is not all
happening in your mind there's no judge
or jury there's no friends there there's
no nothing there
you're just going through all of this
but it's it's really about learning to
become
empathetic you know they talk about like
you're driving down the street and
someone cuts you off and they scream at
you and or you scream at them and
they're such a horrible person and what
you didn't know is they were racing to
the hospital because you know their
mother just had a heart attack or
something like it just allows you to go
wait a minute what's really going on
here
yeah god i could keep asking you
questions all day
like you've you've really overcome what
have been just moments of
extraordinary fear
how what technique do you have to deal
with that to reframe
i actually i believe
fear
is a sign that we're stepping into a
bigger arena that we need to be in like
to me
the litmus test in life is if you are
not afraid you are not playing big
enough it means you need to go out
bigger right i mean i can always tell
them like when i'm in my comfort zone
like you know there is no growth in your
comfort zone
none so
if you have taken on like i just took on
a speaking gig that's totally outside my
comfort zone it's already it's months of
amazon like
you know and this is good this is going
to force me to stretch and step up to a
higher level so that's what i always
look at and then you look and go what's
the worst thing that could happen here i
always go through that what's the worst
thing that could happen i never sit in
that because i'm always then gonna
identify and manifest that thing i
believe that we can manifest just about
anything grants proof positive on that
but i always go through okay what's the
worst thing to happen i could like walk
out there fall on stage my dress could
flip over my head i could totally blow
it everyone could boo and throw things
at me all right so did anyone die
because that's my litmus test for his
life really bad anyone died nope all
right okay cool
i love that all right before i ask my
last question tell these guys where they
can find you online it's really
complicated jjvirgin.com
spelled just like it sounds there it is
nice and easy all right my final
question what is one thing that people
can change in their life to have the
biggest impact on their health
so
i really believe in habit hacking
right because if you take it one habit
at a time habits dictate hormones and
that's going to change everything so the
first thing you have to do is really
make the decision that you're worth it
right because if you make the decision
that you're worth it
because we all are here for a big reason
and you can't do that if you're you know
exhausted tired dragging your butt
so the first thing you have to do is
decide that you're actually worth it and
then pick that first habit
that you need to do because it's
different for everybody you might be
sleeping great in which case that's not
the habit you need to fix you might be
drinking the water but it's not the big
complicated thing you think it is it's
one that you know you can have that
first win with
so that one win creates the next win
creates the next win
totally
awesome jj thank you so much for coming
on the show that was really amazing
guys this what you saw here is i promise
the tip of a very large iceberg the
amount of wisdom that she has both on
just the biological part of diet to the
psychological part of why we eat why we
crave the things that we crave all the
way to mindset and overcoming fear and
all the things that she's been through
in her life and really being an
extraordinary example of how to bring
that all together from having the energy
to fight through what she's had to fight
through to having her mind in the right
place and being ready to step into that
role
as she said to rise up and step into
that bigger arena it's it's really
amazing and the more you dive into the
things that she's covered from her books
to the talks that she gives to the
interviews that she does the more you're
going to be filled with the tools that
you guys need to go and do the same
things i promise it will be time well
spent all right if you haven't already
be sure to subscribe and until next time
my friends be legendary take care
thank you again thank you guys so much
for watching and being a part of this
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