Best-Selling Author MJ Jenkins is Passionate About Helping Women Live Strong

In this inspiring interview, best-selling author MJ Jenkins shares her passion for helping women with breast cancer move beyond surviving to strong, healthy living.MJ's book, Think "No Pink": Your BFF Guide to Breast Cancer, is a friendly, supportive guide for women caught in the confusion and turmoil of breast cancer.When MJ got her own diagnosis of invasive ductal carcinoma in 2012, she realized her young children needed her to pull through—and not just survive, but thrive!Feeling lost and bewildered with the "sea of information" out there, MJ's experience motivated her to support women to avoid the mistakes she made. She wants to help them navigate their options—for example, seeking early screening and making healthy food and lifestyle choices.Today, MJ is four years cancer-free, and she travels the world sharing this message of hope and empowerment.To learn more about MJ and her work, watch today's episode and remember to share it around and spread the passion.Live PassionatelyMoustafa HamwiPassionpreneur & Chief Energy OfficerAward Winning Author & SpeakerAKA The Passion Guy

Transcript:

Moustafa: Hello everyone and welcome back to Passion Sundays, the best way to end the week and start another.Our guest today is phenomenally passionate about breast cancer. She helps breast cancer patients thrive rather than survive. She is the author of the best-selling book, Think “No Pink”, MJ Jenkins. Thank you very much for being here with us today.MJ: Happy Breast Cancer Awareness Month! I’m so happy to be alive and to be with you here in your gorgeous studio.Moustafa: Thank you very much! And I’m really excited to see this big glaring smile on your face. Ah, where did that come from when you talk about topic like breast cancer?MJ: Well, I have a lot to be grateful for. You know in 2012 I was diagnosed with Invasive Ductal Carcinoma Breast Cancer. Moustafa: Uhuh.MJ: If you don’t know that’s the most common type of breast cancer that women can get. And with the help of Angelina Jolie’s breast surgeon today I am cancer-free four years!Moustafa: Wow.MJ: And that’s a lot to smile about.Moustafa: Nice.MJ: I’ve just been around the world literally 40 times on television, Fox News, ABC, NBC and also over on South Africa, speaking on global breast cancer to help facilitate women to start taking care of themselves. And woman that do have breast cancer, how do you survive to thrive.Moustafa: I love it! And where did all this passion come from to help? Because lots of, lots of women who have gone through with the breast cancer challenge, but not all of them decided to, to turn it into a passion. What triggered you to make it into a passion?MJ: Well, for me personally, you know, I had small boys. And my little children were something that I needed to survive, basically. So when, when I was looking at the type of breast cancer that I had, I thought “How can I talk to other women to help them not go through the same mistakes that I made?” You know like getting an early breast cancer screening, I put it off too long. Don’t let fat grow on your midsection because that is more likely to cause cancer than women that lead fit and healthy lives. And the third is, stop eating this cancer-causing foods! I mean, I was so shocked with the kind of foods that cause cancer. Your microwave popcorn, even potato chips! You know especially sugar feeds cancer, too much alcohol…Moustafa: Uhm.MJ: Is a big culprit. So when I thought, how can I help women and talk about ways to survive? Just do it having fun. Because if you can put the fun back into your life, you need to believe you will survive. You need to feed your body good foods and you can feed your soul and thought I could carry my little dog Coco everywhere. Coco is like a little four-legged Yorkie, 4 pounds. I think every woman that has breast cancer should have the ability to, you have a furry friend, unconditional love…Moustafa: Uhm.MJ: And ultimately to my breast cancer I wrote my book Think “No Pink” because if you think no cancer there would be no pink ribbons.Moustafa: Uhm.MJ: And I am not a fan of pink by the way! (Laughs)Moustafa: I like, I like your thinking. And it’s very easy to have this glaring smile once you’ve passed that. But I’m sure when you’re in the middle of it, it’s very difficult…MJ: Scary.Moustafa: To find that passion.MJ: Scary and you’re lost! I mean, one of the biggest things for me was there’s a sea of information out there and I needed to help other women not got through the panic, and the worry, and the, you know, I want to be there for my kids.Moustafa: Uhm.MJ: And so I created my little book Think “No Pink” because it kinda narrows all that data down into a small tiny guide to help as a great gift for someone to say “Here’s something you can easily quick replay, it’s about 75 pages, and it helps someone not, not stress about it because there’s a big fear of what to do, what path to take. Umm, you know, how to get from surviving and passed it and right when you’re in the thick of it, you are kinda stuck in that mode where you, you go through a lot of the same emotions, even a wounded voyeur from war would go through, I mean it’s a kind of trauma. You go through the fear and the shock and the anger “Why me?”Moustafa: Uhm.MJ: And you don’t really know how to express yourself so I look at, if you could just smile more on mirror…Moustafa: Uhm.MJ: And you could have something smiling back. It’s so hard to do when you, especially, without any hair or lose your eyebrows, your body changes, and so I smile I donate my time in the US, I, I help the American Cancer Society. They have all kinds of programs that I feel good donating my time and getting back. Like the Making Strides Walk, you can contribute and help walk so no one walks alone. They were all over, all over the country. Three hundred of them in the US and in-internationally, you can talk about global breast cancer and you can help other people around the country not feel alone. For me…Moustafa: Uhm.MJ: I was all alone with my small children. So I wanna be a best friend for women with breast cancer.Moustafa: I love it. It’s so inspiring to see you, the smile that you’ve got and the drive that you’ve got to help other people. So thank you very much for sharing your passion with the world. And I’d recommend everybody goes to your site and check out what you were doing.MJ: At thinknopink.com.Moustafa: At thinknopink.com.MJ: (Laughs)Moustafa: Thank you very much! You’re awesome!MJ: Love it! Thank you for having me.Moustafa and MJ: Passion!Moustafa: What do you think? I would really love to hear your opinion. Leave your comments on the blog below and share the episode on social media. And if you’d like more tools, tips, techniques and exclusive interviews that I only share on my website, go to Moustafa.com. Until next episode, live passionately!