JJ Virgin – A Miracle Mindset
DIRK TERPSTRA: What fascinates me is that you mention the word courage. Sometimes, people are paralyzed by fear. Some others, like in your case, you step into your courage; and, basically, what you are saying is that it is preparation, it is training. Yes, is that what courage is?
JJ VIRGIN: One of the attributes of the Miracle Mindset is to be an action taker. And what I teach people to do is to take what I call inspired, imperfect action. Because I have been a personal trainer, a health coach, and then a business coach to help other entrepreneurs. What has blown me away over the years is to see how people get stuck in their lives. And, quite often, they get stuck because they do not have it perfect yet, right?
To me, I look at that, and I go, ‘I have never once done anything perfect in my life, not one thing.’ I figure that I just should get it right 51 percent of the time, but I look at that. Or, the person who is procrastinating doing something, and I always attach when someone says, ‘I cannot do that yet,’ ‘I do not have enough degrees,’ or, you know, ‘I have not been practicing enough,’ or ‘I just put a little, I do not have to it.’ It is just a way to avoid the situation.
So, I think the biggest thing that you can do is just get into action. We took imperfect action that night – we overruled the doctors and put him on another airlift with no clue if he was going to survive that airlift. I just knew he was going to die at the first hospital no matter what, so why not take those odds? But then we moved him from one hospital to the next, and they were like: “No, you should not move him yet.” But we did it, and then we moved him home because I just intuitively felt that he needed to be at home to really heal. Was it the right choice? Some 25 percent of people with brain injuries are suicidal, and Grant was one of those. It was not easy, but we course-corrected as we went.
DIRK TERPSTRA: What I found was very powerful, in the book, while your son was in a coma, was that you kept on telling him that you love him and so, later, you figured out that there was a connection there.
JJ VIRGIN: I have always been fascinated with all the near-death experiences and comas. I did not really want to live through one like this, but I have always read the books, and I thought this was so cool. Now, Grant has never read any of these books, so he was completely unaware that there are such things as near-death experiences. He did not know. So, he is coming out of the coma, and he told us this about a year later. He told us a couple of things. Number one, he said: “When you and Dad were in the waiting room while I was in surgery and Dad was in that red shirt.” I am listening to this going, “You were in a coma in surgery. Like, what are you talking about? How did you know Dad was in a red shirt,” right?
Then he starts describing the hallways in the hospital, and these were not places he had been. He had been in a coma when he was wheeled through them. Then, and this is the one that just gave me goosebumps, because I could feel him and I knew he was in there. I knew he could hear us, so I was very careful about managing every conversation around him. People would come in and say: “Oh, he will never walk again.” And I would say, “Get out of this room, do not talk to him.”
We had a poor little girl basically have a seizure and die in the bed next to him. I had his ears covered; energy flow cut-off. I was, like, ‘I do not want him to hear this.’ So, he says: “Mum, you know the grey man came down, and he asked me if I wanted to live or die.” He told me, “I was talking to Grandpa on the other side.” And he goes, “It was really nice over there, and I really wanted to stay. But I kept hearing your voice and I thought about my family. So I decided I would come back, I would be with you.” I am like, ‘whew,’ you know?
DIRK TERPSTRA: Of course, but a beautiful message you can give your readers, to fully trust and to keep on holding on to what you believe you should do instead of just following somebody else’s advice. I think that is so powerful. What would you say is the power behind the question that you started asking yourself? What went well today?
JJ VIRGIN: There are two things that I did that were how I was able to manage this fear. Those little doubts would come in. So, one of the things I would do at night is I would really look at what were the little miracles that happened that day. What went well that day? What were my wins today? And what were those little miracles? It grounds you in the present, and you realize how many amazingly cool things happen every day.
Then, the other thing that saved me, was getting up every morning. What I would do is before I get out of bed, I would have a journal and a pen right by my bed, and it is right on my nightstand. I grab it and I pull it out, and I write down at least things or people that I am grateful for. I let myself really feel it, and that gratitude can really shove out the fear. So, those things are the way I frame my day. I know I have control over those things, right?
DIRK TERPSTRA: Unbelievable! Yes, that was a clear message. So, when you look back, and you see what your life is about now, what is the single, most important element that caused you to embrace life in a very different way?
JJ VIRGIN: So, I will give you two answers to that. One that blew my mind so much that, again, it is like you look at these things and you realize that we do not grow when things are going perfectly. We grow from these types of situations. It has been rough four and a half years on everybody. When someone has a brain injury, it is not just that person with the brain injury. It is the whole family that has a brain injury.
So, Grant has been suicidal several times. It is one of the big side effects of a brain injury, it is depression and anxiety and suicidal ideations. But he has been doing amazingly better, and we keep pushing forward. I asked him the other day, I said: “Grant, let us go back four and a half years. Would you cross that street again?” He goes, “Yes, because I am better now than before.” So, that is a really key thing.
I actually think that everything going on is a miracle. The fact that you and I are able to communicate like this is a crazy miracle, right? A huge miracle is that my son survived what supposedly insurmountable odds were. I was able to publish a New York Times best-seller at the same time, and not go bankrupt and create a lot of other financial problems with other friends. Miracles are every single day, that those amazing things do happen. I think that miracles are all around us, and they are, honestly, everything. What is a miracle? Everything is.
DIRK TERPSTRA: Is there any last thing or message that you want to share with our audience?
JJ VIRGIN: Yes, I would love to issue a challenge. Now, my sense is that a lot of this audience may already be doing this. But what I have seen in taking people through this training now is that starting the day in gratitude. Writing down those three things, and you are physically writing them down in a journal, creates such a shift so quickly. We are literally talking this is a minute, you know. This can shift you in a matter of days. So, that is my challenge. Five days, just do that and [keep track of the] changes.
DIRK TERPSTRA: Well, thank you so much, JJ Virgin, for speaking with me and taking the time. I wish you a lot of beautiful days together, there, with the boys, and I hope at some point that we can connect again. So, thank you so much.
Connect with JJ Virgin at JJVirgin.com
