NYT Bestselling Coach: Why "Winning" Is Destroying You - Jim Murphy | 132

Michael Phelps won 23 Olympic gold medals. According to Jim Murphy, he only deserves 2% of the credit. In this episode, the mental coach behind world #1s, Olympic gold medalists, and Super Bowl champions, the author whose book AJ Brown was reading on the Eagles sideline (sending it from #523,000 on Amazon to #1 overnight and to #1 on the New York Times list) breaks down why self-centeredness is the root of all fear, why "winning" is a word he refuses to use, and why the path to extraordinary performance and the path to deep fulfillment are the exact same road.

We go deep on the 5 questions that reveal whether fear is running your life, the language pattern that keeps anxiety locked in place, why Aaron Judge struggles in the playoffs while Bryce Harper turns it on, and the moment a stranger told Jim he'd never actually been present, after he'd spent $90,000 and 5 years in the desert writing a book about presence.

If you've ever felt like you're chasing something you can't catch, this one's for you.

⏱️ Chapters:
0:00 — Introduction
1:13 — Why Self-Centeredness Is the Root of All Fear
5:50 — The Hidden Trap Inside Every Big Desire
9:27 — Beliefs Are What's Running Your Life
14:28 — Why He Refuses to Say "Winning" or "Losing"
16:40 — Master the Ego: Unembarrassable, Unoffendable, Unirritable
19:33 — The Ego Isn't Defending You to Others (It's Defending You to Yourself)
22:27 — 5 Questions That Reveal If Fear Is Running Your Life
25:30 — The PALMS Trap That's Holding You Back
26:35 — Inside the Cubs Clubhouse: How the Hierarchy Works in 3 Seconds
29:36 — Sean McVay's "Urgent Joy" and the Duality of Gratitude and Ambition
30:21 — How Extraordinary Performance and Deep Fulfillment Became the Same Path
34:30 — $90,000 in Debt and the Stranger Who Saw Right Through Him
39:09 — Why Michael Phelps Only Deserves 2% of the Credit (This Changes Everything)
46:46 — The Language Pattern Keeping You Anxious
50:37 — Why Aaron Judge Freezes and Bryce Harper Doesn't
55:08 — Where to Find Jim's Work

📖 Get Jim's new book, The Best Possible Life: [INSERT AMAZON LINK]
📖 Inner Excellence: https://www.amazon.com/INNER-EXCELLENCE-Extraordinary-Performance-Possible/dp/1734654805
🌐 Jim's website: https://innerexcellence.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Jim Murphy was a professional baseball player in the Chicago Cubs organization, whose entire identity was built on making it until a vision condition took the game away from him forever. What he did next changed everything. He sold half his possessions, moved alone into the Arizona Desert for five years, and emerged with Inter Excellence. The book AJ Brown was reading on the Eagles' sideline during a playoff game, sending it from number 523,000 on Amazon to number one overnight and eventually becoming a number one New York Times bestseller. His training system has been used by world number ones Olympic gold medalists and Super Bowl champions, and he's here today to talk about his new book, The Best Possible Life and why the path to extra to extraordinary performance and the path to a life of deep fulfillment are the exact same road. Jim Murphy, welcome to the Grateful Podcast.

SPEAKER_01 0:49

Jack, thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_00 0:53

So, Jim, you said that self-centeredness is the root of fear. And I find this so interesting because myself, I grew up immersed in the psychology of sports. I was a huge baseball player, soccer player, I'm a I'm a rock climber, and I found that there's something that is fear-based that holds you back, holds the best performers back even from success at this crucial moment, whether you're up at the plate, whether you're going for the finish of a boulder. And you say that that fear is rooted in self-centeredness. What does this self-centeredness look like? How can you identify it? And what do you do to fix it?

SPEAKER_02 1:38

Yeah, good questions, Jack. Um so the basic problem that I share, and you said so well, that self-centeredness is the biggest challenge that we face in performance and in life, and it leads to fear. And so what happens is, and the big challenge is that we need to be self-reliant when we start out in life. We have to learn how to feed ourselves and look both ways when we cross the street and and uh um just take care of ourselves. And so there needs to be this self-reliance, but that self-reliance becomes problematic because we start to build walls that imprison ourselves and and we're created for a relationship. And if you want to reach your potential, you have to surrender your little power for a much greater power. And um so the way it looks is is um or let me start with how it how it works. So when we think about ourselves, our subconscious, which is main role, two main roles, is to protect us and to to uh line up our results and circumstances with our beliefs. And when we think about ourselves, we our subconscious reminds us of all our failures and mistakes and weaknesses. And so we feel bad thinking about ourselves, and so we compare ourselves to others. But there's always someone else who has more and better things than us, and so it leads towards this fear. And kind of one of the, there's two primary movers of the fear. Um one is that our deepest need is for love and acceptance. And so if we feel like we're not gonna get loved and accepted, we're gonna have fear because it's our deepest need. It's in our DNA, created for relationship. And so our um our greatest need is for love and acceptance. Our greatest fear is to be rejected of that acceptance. And so whenever we go into a social situation, there's always this question in the back of our minds: who am I and how do I fit in? And do I fit in? And will I be okay? Am I enough in this group right here? Am I enough to this person I'm talking about? Because I and I shared this in um in the best possible life, which turned out to be, it's a book on the spiritual life, but it turned out to be kind of a summary of inner excellence. And uh I shared about how this psychologist a hundred years ago, he said it so eloquently, I'm not who I think I am, I'm not who you think I am, I am who I think you think I am. In other words, that's a lot, but in other words, when I go out into the world, what's happening is that I'm thinking about what does Jack think about me? And then I want Jack to think well about me because subconsciously I know my divisions needed to be loved and accepted. And so I um because I want Jack to think well of me, I have to think about, well, what is he thinking about me and how can I respond to what he's thinking about me so I can um get him to think good about me. And this is all constantly going on because of our deep need to be loved and accepted.

SPEAKER_00 4:38

So you've talked about how desire is kind of at the root of this too, right? And when you were in your professional baseball career, you had this deep desire to get a hit that actually caused a fear of getting one. Just like we have this deep desire to be loved and accepted that causes some of our anxiety around it. How can we go about determining whether our desire is rooted in uh in something that isn't fear-based? I'm not sure what the opposite of that would be, but a desire that is more virtuous or something that is is fear-based. I think that could help people really understand maybe why they're walking, because there's some people that want something so bad, but underneath there's a fear. And there's some people that want something so bad and they just get it, right? I think there has to be some differentiation there.

SPEAKER_02 5:30

They must be very small. So let's talk about desire for a moment. So desire is by definition something that um in the future that you don't have that you would like to have. And uh, so you mentioned me hitting uh my desire to get a hit, it was so strong that there also right next to it was the fear of not getting hit. What if I don't get a hit? And so then everything became about reading the circumstances and thinking, am I getting closer? Am I getting farther away from getting what I want? And this emotional uh response was hurting my chances of getting a hit. And this is what happens in our life is most of us and most of my life has been spent um going through my day, looking at my circumstances and the results and how people react to me and uh judging it, evaluating it and reacting emotionally to what I think they're thinking about me or what I think the circumstance means about me and my future. And so um desire is powerful and and uh important, but it also can be dangerous because it can create these uh expectations and and fears that that uh um that are really uh impair our ability to do something great. And so we want to learn to channel our desires to something that's powerful, empowering. Um like in Inter Excellence, I and uh in both books, really Best Possible Life as well. Uh I talk about David Foster Wallace and the brilliant writer, and uh he said that everybody worships. It doesn't matter if you're an atheist, everybody has something that they worship, and that's your God. And uh I totally believe it, that um whatever you love most is your God. And well, how do you know what you love most? Well, it's what you think about most, what you fear most of losing, um, what has made you the most anxious, that's your God. And um what I want people to do is learn how to um love most, what's most empowering. And that's what the book, The Best Possible Life, is about is learning how to love most, what's most empowering, and learning how to devaluate your life and see um what has held me back. Like, for example, the ego is is a part of our mind that I uh define as a part of the mind that's always threatened, always comparing, never satisfied. You're always on trial. It doesn't matter how good you did today, tomorrow you're on trial again. And it's not a fair trial because even if you get a good verdict, now you're on trial again in the next moment. And so um that ego is is a is one of the biggest challenges we face. In fact, when I think about inner excellence, I think of self-mastery. When I think about self-mastery, I think of mastering the ego.

SPEAKER_00 8:12

So there's like basically when you have a desire, right? It's this deep want to have something that you don't have yet. But what I'm hearing you say is you can either focus on the fact that you don't have it yet, and you can focus on all the metrics that that surround, all right, maybe my batting average is lower than I want it to be. Maybe I haven't gotten a hit in four games. Or you can think about like the fact that there's still the possibility, you didn't say this explicitly, but there's still the possibility that you can get that hit. It reminds me a lot of old success principles mentioned in Thinking Grow Rich, for example, where they talk about beliefs and talk and focusing on the positive aspect of the belief, of the outcome that you desire, not the thing that you're that you're fearing. And it's about a subconscious focus on that. Am I right in saying that? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:59

So beliefs are what's running our lives. And I define the belief as a subconscious comfort level with what you feel is possible in your life. And we all have these desires, but the problem is that you don't know what's best for you. Like we've got uh um the Masters Golf Tournament um here soon. And who's who's gonna win? Like um Scotty Scheffler, world number one, will he win? Well, is that is that good for him? Would that be good for him? And and his uh amazing caddy Teddy Scott would be good for those two to win the the Masters again. All we know is that's what they would like. All I know is that you have your desires of what you want to have happen in your life, Jack, and you have your fears of what you don't want to have happen. Um, but I also know that those desires that you have could be the worst thing for you. And the fears that you have could be the best thing for you. And the same thing for me. I mean, I know things that I want. I could clearly tell you some things that I would really like to have and things that I would really not like to have. Um I don't want to get poked in the eye. Um, I don't want to stub my toe. I don't I don't want to, you know, have uh um I don't want there to be another pandemic. You know, there's a lot of things that I do not want to have happen, but they may be what I need to to become the person that I'm meant to become. And so holding your um your life and your desires loosely is so important and and transferring the desire from I I need to um I would like, first of all, because um there's a sign on the wall of the book Um Inner Excellence of this monastery, and and it says, uh um, dear guests, thank you so much for visiting. If there's anything you need, please let us know. We'll show you how to get along without it. And so we have all these things that we think we need, but mostly they're their desires.

SPEAKER_00 10:59

So it's about a detachment to your desires. And if you're more attached to your desires, then it's going to you're gonna have a greater fear of potentially not reaching that desire, right?

SPEAKER_02 11:11

It's about having an attachment to a more empowering desire. Okay. Um it's not so stoicism is kind of it's very powerful, and it's kind of like um just meditate and don't think about anything, um, which is meditation is very powerful. Prayer, even more powerful, very similar. But um there's this pro athlete that asked me, he said, I'm too attached to my results. Um, what do I need to do? And this was a very successful athlete, top 10 in the world. And I said, Well, um, imagine a kid loves lollipops and he's got a lollipop and you want to take it from him. How could you easily take the lollipop from him? Um, well, you would trade a trade him for a bigger lollipop. What kid wouldn't trade their little lollipop for a bigger lollipop, right? And I said, That's what you need. You you um your biggest lollipop right now is is uh having success on the court on the course, you know, hitting good shots and rolling good putts and and getting good bounces. And um you need something bigger than your results. Otherwise, you're always going to be a fear of losing out and and uh uh fear of of uh bad results and circumstances.

SPEAKER_00 12:23

It reminds me of something you said, which is people come to me for happiness and they leave with joy. You help them with joy. It goes back to the attachment to your to your goal and having a having a more worthy ideal of a goal, and in the sense that what we all want is that joy, and what we think will bring us that joy isn't always correct. I guess that's a more uh that's a that's the way I've heard it phrased before you said that, right? Where we we really don't know what is going to bring us that joy, and we have to let go kind of of our control in getting that. But I think it's a really interesting dynamic because obviously if we want something really bad and if we do want to achieve things and if we want to move forward in our life, we have to have some type of commitment and still some type of um, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna stop going for this. I I think of your story actually, in in thinking about this, where you were so committed to your success as a professional baseball player, and then something happened, you you had an injury with your eye that ended up making it so you could not continue toward that goal. But I imagine you were so committed toward that goal before that happened and you had to detach from it. I I think that that's an interesting dynamic to speak on. The the attachment in the sense of we need to attach to something, we need to commit to something in order to achieve. What do you think about that?

SPEAKER_02 13:52

Obsessed, you're right. I was obsessed with being a superstar. And um the problem is when you're obsessed with being a superstar, it's very results-oriented. So um, since I've started, um the majority of my clients have the best year of their career, our first year together. And this has gone on for decades in any sport. And uh it's a very countercultural um thesis that self-centeredness is the biggest challenge that we face. And uh we never talk about winning. Um, it's not even a word that I use, um, winning or losing, because you don't know what's best for you. Um, but we do talk about personal growth. In fact, I just had this conversation with a um Major League Baseball player the day before opening day um last week. And uh he was saying, okay, so what am I to what do I need to do to have a great season? And and I said, you need to focus on personal growth. Um if you don't, it's gonna become all about uh um batting average and and all your numbers. And when you're immersed in a world that's obsessed with statistics and and you're in it 24-7, it's gonna be lead to overthinking and negative thinking and self-consciousness and and all those things that are gonna hold you back. And so your life has to be more about um growing as a person and developing more self-awareness and walking in love, not fear, and and all those powerful things. And that will help you be a better baseball player.

SPEAKER_00 15:21

Yeah. Again, it's less about the metrics and more about that that internal goal, that internal feeling that you're trying to, you're trying to grow as a person. How do you help someone like that? Because I I mean, they've grown so much in their career, I imagine, by focusing on improving the numbers and improving the average and the war and all of those things that have determined their career. Those those numbers determine how much they get paid. Those numbers determine how much they play. So, how do you help someone like that reframe their mindset toward the personal growth aspect when their entire career they've had to focus in order to advance on those numbers? Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 16:03

Well, um the part we have to get to a place of freedom. And uh the one of the biggest limiters of freedom is uh the part of our mind that's always threatened and always comparing, always on trial, like I shared. And so when I think about um mastering their ego, I think about being unembarrassable, unoffendable, and unirritable. And so um you can think about as uh someone that's watching this. Um, are you taking this personal? This event that you just had, you're frustrated, are you taking it personal? Because when you take things personal, that's the ego that's hurting you, that's limiting your life. Um it's just like, you know, am I when you're offended or being embarrassed? You can't be um humiliated if you're fully humble. I define humility as an accurate view of self, not overinflated and not underinflated. And um, but if you're your ego is what would hurt you, you would ego would be what would be embarrassed, the ego what would be um offended. And so that really limits a person's life. It it creates this fear of um, well, what if you know you're always on defense? Like what if someone says something that disrespects me? Then I've got to defend myself. And um you're not gonna live the life that you're created to live if you're constantly in defense.

SPEAKER_00 17:26

What would you say the opposite of that defense is? Like where are you now? When someone when someone for for example criticizes your work, what is your go-to response instead of Jack?

SPEAKER_02 17:36

That's an amazing question.

SPEAKER_01 17:37

The opposite of the ego defense.

SPEAKER_02 17:45

It is to have um a real sense of creativity, possibility, freedom, joy. Um and it's just not possible when you're defending yourself. Um it's not pa like it's just like um compassion is not possible or available when you're busy or in a hurry. Uh to to have freedom, real freedom. There can't be a fear of, well, um you you can't be in uh self-defense mode, there can't be self-protection. That then you're not gonna have freedom. And then you'll be worried about, okay, that person just disrespected me. I need to do something about it. Or um, you know, that's really embarrassing. Now I've got to be careful, or whatever it is. Um and so the basic idea is that selfless is fearless. And if there's no self to defend, then that's where the greatest performances are. That's where the greatest art is created. And when you see the greatest art, that's how you feel. There's no sense of self. It's all merged into the moment.

SPEAKER_00 18:54

Well, it seems like ego defense isn't really defending yourself to other people. Maybe it seems like that, but it's really defending yourself to yourself. It's defending who you think you are to the ego that you have right now and trying, maybe it's a fear of change or it's a fear of truly embracing the freedom that you're talking about. Because when I think of that freedom, it's the ability to truly be who you are authentically. And when you are defending who you think you are, who you've been attached to to yourself, I don't think you get that freedom.

SPEAKER_02 19:27

Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, very well said. It's the ego defense is like uh when I'm defending myself, it's like, hey, look, I want to feel good about myself, and I don't feel good enough when you say that, because then now I start to think things that are bad about me. And so um, I want to say something so I can feel try to feel okay about myself.

SPEAKER_00 19:48

It's almost like we we can be here and we can live at this point, right? And then in order to gain and to go any higher in terms of well-being or or freedom or whatever you call it, you have to first contradict the ego and have a period of that that discomfort. And I've heard you talk about that discomfort is where we is where we grow. And I think it's because we end up uh kind of imposing new thoughts and and uh like shaking up our subconscious a little bit and our identity. And that's where most people where most people quit. How do we I I think it's so easy from from my perspective, from my listeners' perspectives, to understand this, understand that this discomfort, that's where we grew up, that's where the highest performers they they choose to push forward through that discomfort so I can reach that higher point, right? But how do we actually implement that? I've heard so many people say you have to understand that that you have to make the decision in the moment, uh, weigh the benefits, whatever. But how do you how do you manipulate your subconscious to actually making that decision when it comes down to it?

SPEAKER_02 20:58

Um well, first of all, is is make sure your number one goal is to learn and grow. If um, if your number one goal is to get a good result, um if you don't have a clear system of inter excellence, then your system is gonna be the default. And the default is self-protection. Um the default is self-centeredness that leads to fear. And someone says something mean to you, then you're gonna react in defense. And uh it's gonna create this negative energy within you. And so um the most important thing about you is is your energy because that's that's your belief, beliefs are energy. Beliefs are feelings and energy. And so um beliefs are what's running your life. So learning how to expand what you believe is possible is crucial. And I can share with you um how to do that if you like. I'd love to hear. Yeah, so every day there's there's tension. Um, there's tension in the world, tension in your life. And what I mean by tension is there's discomfort from things that um either don't go as planned or aren't as you would like them to be. Is there anything in your life that that is not exactly how you would like it to be? You'd like it to be different?

SPEAKER_00 22:06

Yeah, I can think of a few things. Yeah, for example, I mean, I'm just starting uh speaking right now, which is really exciting. I had a TEDx talk last week. And I'd like to be on stage, I'd like to be on more stages. Uh I'd like to be I'd like to be on more stages than I currently am, uh, with higher fees than I currently have. Uh yeah, I would like I would like that.

SPEAKER_02 22:33

Well, we can talk about public speaking because for a lot of people it's it's very scary. And it and it was very scary for me in the past. Um so let's imagine someone has a fear of public speaking, and uh they have a presentation to make. So there's five questions that that I want that person to ask. And number one is am I willing to face my fears? Two is am I willing to fail? Three is am I willing to look foolish? Four is am I willing to face any feeling? And five is am I willing to sit with any feeling even if it never goes away? Ooh. Five's a hard one. Yeah, so most people are not willing to face any feeling. It's like a panic attack. Panic attacks are are this um start with with uh a feeling that that grows. And so um people that have had panic attacks, that's like um, I'm okay with anything except for that one feeling. I just don't want that feeling because that feeling would create um this out-of-control situation. And so what we do is with inner excellence is we go look for the feeling that we hate, and because that is our teacher and our helper. Why is it our teacher and our helper? Because um, interexcellence is about living the best possible life. Best possible life means becoming someone you've never been before, continuing to learn and grow. That discomfort is showing you where you can grow. And it's also going to help you grow because you wouldn't you wouldn't ask for this discomfort on your own. It's given to you, it's a gift. And uh the most important thing about these moments of discomfort is not the result. The result doesn't matter at all. What matters is you're embracing the discomfort. If you can continually embrace the feeling that you hate in the moment, no matter how your performance was or no matter how your talk was, eventually your skills will mess the moment.

SPEAKER_00 24:36

So do you find any patterns between people in terms of like the different archetypes of a person and then the feelings that they're most often afraid of? Well, rejection is the greatest fear for most people.

SPEAKER_02 24:48

Yeah. Um that's that's our so in we have this divided heart. We're born with a divided heart. Um part of our heart is uh um this heart that's created in God's image where we have this deep need for love. Every human heart has a deep need for love. But then the other part of our heart is that we're self-centered. It's human nature. And so they're they're divided. We part of our heart is like, um, I just want love and peace and joy. And the other part is is is uh I just want to get um what I call the the palms, uh acronym uh possessions, achievements, looks, money, and status, P-A-L-M S. I just want to get more of those because uh then I can be somebody.

SPEAKER_00 25:33

And then I can be somebody. That's that's an important word. Did you feel that when you were uh when you were coming up in the Cubs organization? Did you feel that you had to become a superstar, as you said, to then be somebody or be worthy of feeling any inner excellence?

SPEAKER_02 25:50

Oh, Jack, I'll tell you exactly how it worked. When I walk into the clubhouse at spring training, there's a definite hierarchy. There's really two things. How high were you drafted? Um, or three things. How high were you drafted? What level did you play at last year? And what team are you on right now? Because in the Cubs, there's like in spring training, there's like six teams in the minor leagues when I was here. Um and there's numbered one through five or one through six. So what team are you on right now? How high were you drafted? What level did you play at last year? And what were your stats last year?

SPEAKER_01 26:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:22

And there's a very clear hierarchy. Whenever you walked in, uh, everyone in my level, they all wanted to be at the next level, and people at the next level want to be at the next level. And so when someone walks in the locker room, you look and see who it is, and there's right away it's like, oh, that person is that person, and that's has that status, and I do not have that status. And um, so yeah, it was very clear.

unknown 26:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:44

Yeah. Well, I think it's so fascinating because that exact idea around a rival fallacy and all that is why I started this podcast. When I was 16, I felt like I still needed to do so much more, even though I was a three-sport athlete. I was getting perfect grades, uh, and I'd had a great social life, but I'm like, I still need more to be enough. So I made a crazy when you were a kid. Yeah. I I mean, this was only three years ago, but it's still I was uh I I moved to France alone for my junior year of high school. That's amazing. I and I'm like, I don't know French, but I'm gonna learn everything here. And so I said I had three goals that year. I was like, I'm gonna make French friends, I'm gonna learn French, and I'm gonna start an online business. And by the end of the year, I got all three of these goals, and I was still empty. Still, I'd done everything, like I I'd literally done everything I was I was supposed to want. I had it. And I I had this moment where I was standing in front of a mirror and I looked at myself and was like, something needs to change. You can't keep doing things and expect to feel the feeling you want once you've done them, right? And I've noticed that so many people are in the same boat. In my TED talk, I talked about Michael Phelps, who in 2012 uh spent four days alone in his room, depressed after winning six medals and becoming the most decorated Olympian of all time, right? And I know it, I mean, it happens to almost every high achiever where we think once we get somewhere, we're gonna feel a certain way. So I created what I call the duality of gratitude and ambition, where we need to both be extremely grateful for what we have right now while still wanting to grow and pursue more. Not out of a need for it, but out of a want for growth. And I think it uh it aligns so deeply with what you do and the reason that you started your journey and the the journey of creating inner excellence in the first place.

SPEAKER_02 28:51

You know, uh Jack, you you sound like uh an NFL football coach named Sean McVeigh. He's got on his uh um above his computer a sign that says urgent joy. And um yeah, I really like that. He because essentially how he describes it is um there should be an sense of urgency to you in your life, um, but also there should be a joy to it. And uh and I I feel the same way.

SPEAKER_00 29:19

Yeah, I think I mean you've said that you can be like excellent and perform, and that those two things being extraordinary in your performance and deep fulfillment are the are the same. It's the same path. How did you discover that?

SPEAKER_02 29:36

Yeah, that's exactly right, Jack. Um I'm in the uh desert and I like I you said earlier, I gave away over half my possessions, went to go live a life of solitude in the uh the Sonoran desert. And I didn't know what I was gonna do. I had no idea. I just knew that I wanted to do something great with my life that was meaningful. And then when I was there, I decided to become a personal coach to professional baseball players and teach them how to have peace and confidence under pressure. And my first few athletes did extraordinary. And so I thought, okay, let's put together a manual for future clients. And I uh um I started to call up a sports sports like that.

SPEAKER_00 30:17

By did extraordinary, do you mean they did extraordinary in their inner world or their performance? Um what did I tell you earlier? You said that your first few athletes, your first few clients, they did extraordinary.

SPEAKER_02 30:32

Performance, yeah, performance. Okay. So um one was one of the biggest rookie stories of the year in Major League Baseball. And before we had met, he was a um career minor league or never played in the big leagues. And another was uh a girl who played catcher at the University of Arizona, and she had her freshman year hit like 150 or something. And um, we visualized her getting the game-winning hit off the best pitcher in the country to win the College World Series the next year, and that's essentially what she did. So my first few athletes had extraordinary success, tangible success. And so um I thought, okay, this is what I'm gonna do. And ironically, they have this extraordinary success based on doing the inner work. Um, we don't talk about winning or or things like that, or success or failure. Um, we talk about growth. And so I'm in the desert, and and at first it was just like, okay, um, I'm gonna be this coach and I'm gonna put together this manual on how to have the most peace and confidence under the most pressure. And uh um just this the best book ever written on mental toughness. That's what I wanted to write. And then as I'm doing the work and the research, I realized that I don't want to devote my life to something that's not meaningful. So what if I help Jack become world number one and um but it doesn't, there's no meaning. Or what if I help uh someone become an Olympic gold medalist and they're not a good person? They're, you know, what did I do anything good? And then when I, so kind of the the timeline was at some point I realized that the heart is the key to your life, your spirit, your will, the deepest part of you where your greatest fears are and your greatest dreams are. And I realized, wow, um, that's the key. It's we're far more than thinking machines. We've got to get deeper than your thoughts. And so we use the mind to train the heart. But how do we train the heart? And so I was perplexed. And then um I realized that the training needed to have the most peace and confidence and the most poise under the most pressure is the same training to live the best possible life, a life of deep contentment, joy, and confidence in any situation. And that's training the heart, and it's training it to be wholehearted and letting everything else be added to you. So, like I said, we have a divided heart. It's the human nature of being self-centered and uh and then the other part of us that's created in God's image that wants to just to love and serve and connect and the joy that comes from that. And so it's it's really learning to master the self-centered part of us, the ego part of us that's always threatened and always comparing. And the illusion that says if I get more of these achievements and success and looks and money and status, that I'm I'm gonna get what I really want. And say, what I'll so what I help people do is I help people clarify what they want most and I help them get it. Like you said earlier, they come to me looking for better results and circumstances, essentially better transactions, which I translate as to happiness, which is a positive temporary feeling based on what's happening. And I teach them how to have joy, which is a uh a deep sense of well-being and freedom and gratitude and inner buoyancy and delight that comes from sacrificial love.

SPEAKER_00 33:45

Did you have that feeling before you started teaching people how to get it?

SPEAKER_01 33:49

The joy.

SPEAKER_02 33:55

Well, um the first version of Inter Excellence came out in 2009, and I had a near mental breakdown when it came out. I'd spent five years full-time writing and researching. I spent my life savings, won$90,000 in debt, and I met this guy who started to tell me about my life, but I never met him before. It was, and I wrote about this in the best possible life. And he said, You're banging your head against the wall, you're not getting anywhere, you're always obsessing about some goal. And uh ironic because you you wrote a book about being present, and you're never present, you're just always obsessing about the future. And he was right. And so um, so I I I really think about Inter Excellence and the best possible life. Um like artists do, I'm just a small, small part of this. 2% max of the you know, these two books. Um so we have Inter Excellence and we have The Best Possible Life that just came out. I'm a tiny, tiny part of that. Uh um and uh I'm I'm just a messenger that's along for the ride.

SPEAKER_00 35:08

So do you do you think that the that joy that you teach, is it something that you you get and you stay there? Or once you get it, can you can you come back down to the pursuit of just the the material things, as you said?

SPEAKER_02 35:23

Good questions, Jack. So here's how I think about it. Um well, joy comes from sacrificial love. And uh um one of the biggest challenges that we face is busyness and hurry. And um what has happened to me a lot, and I think is very, very common, is that I would get caught up in details of my life and all the transactions, and so much of it is out of my control, and um that would create this anxiety and lack of joy. And so in order to have joy, I need to either connect with the source of joy, source of love, or I need to um share unconditional love, either one, one of those two. And when I'm mired in my circumstances and and trying to battle it out, and things are it's too much out of my control and it's not working, then there's a definite lack of joy. And so there needs to be a system where you regularly pull yourself out of your circumstances and into the place of of unlimited love, joy, and peace and wisdom and courage. And and that's really about designing your life where you're um filling your your spirit with um wisdom, like empowering podcasts and sermons and and music that's enriching and and nature.

SPEAKER_00 36:46

So it it's taking time away from yeah, it's taking time away from your pursuit of of achievement and taking time away from that to be present in in the now. So whether that be for a lot of for me, that's that's meditation or nature, as you said, or sport, or it's climbing, right? Or my relationships. When you were in the when you were in the desert, I imagine I I've spent some time alone, solo traveling, or just in the mornings working out, whatever. My you're a world travel jack. I find that in my time alone, it's been either really far to the extreme of I'm very present right now and I'm very focused in this moment, or it's I have nothing to distract me from my full-on pursuit of changing my circumstances and of changing and of uh achieving my goal. And do you think that your time in the desert, did you have to balance between those two things, or were you able to really root in that presence to be able to come up with that the idea of inner excellence?

SPEAKER_02 37:59

I think mostly I was not present. Mostly I had a lot of fear, um a lot of anxiety, a lot of fear. Um and it was a miracle.

SPEAKER_01 38:11

God did a miracle. How did it happen?

SPEAKER_02 38:19

So in in Best Possible Life, I talk about uh Michael Phelps as you did, and I said, let's look at um the um possibly the greatest achievement in in Olympic history, 23 Olympic gold medals, more than most countries have ever won in their history. So um who gets the credit for that for Michael Phelps? Like if we were to divide it between God um or the universe and Michael, how much does God get or the universe get, and how much does Michael get? So 50-50 would be so if we divide it up in out of 100%, how much is Michael? I mean, he he made the choices um and he did all this work. So is it 90% Michael and 10% God or 50-50? What is it? And uh in the book I said I um obviously this is just a thought experiment, there's no way to know, but um exactly. But I would put the numbers at 98% and 2%. That um Michael definitely deserves a lot of credit because of how hard he worked, and so he gets 2% credit. And that's because um, well, why only 2%? Every single thing that he achieved and did was um based on gifts that he was given. Like um, how does he win? Well, let's start with his body. He's not gonna win all those gold medals if he's if he's um handicapped and you know lives in a wheelchair, he's only got one arm or quadriplegic or he's five foot two or whatever it is. He's gotta have a body that that's conducive to winning gold medals. And so how much did he um do to have that DNA? Well, zero for the DNA, right? It's just his parents. He didn't choose his parents. Well, how did he get into swimming? He had to have parents that put him into a pool. And uh, what if he was born 400 years ago in Afghanistan? There's zero chance of getting any medals because there was no Olympics 400 years ago. Most likely he's a peasant. So he had to be born in the right country to the right parents, in the right century. Um, so many things. And then even to have a mind that's like, okay, I'm gonna work out today. Um, you know, I I was diagnosed with Hashimoto's hypothyroid. And there were days during COVID when um I was eating poorly, there's no gym to work out at, and um I I felt so much fatigue and brain fog, I didn't get out of bed. I want if you would have said, hey, would you like to go work out in the pool or do something? I would be, yes, I would love to if I could. And um, so those were all gifts that Michael had. And so if Michael's greatest, as if the maybe one of the greatest achievements in sporting history, he only gets 2% of the credit, how much credit do I get? 0.5. Yeah, so 2% I think is the max. If I did everything that I could to uh to be successful, 2% would be the max that I would take and and God would be 98%. Wow. Also takes a lot of pressure off.

SPEAKER_00 41:23

Yeah, it does. Well, I'm I'm thinking about it in the way that I I mean, I grew up in a in my household, my my mom, she was always very so let me back up. My parents divorced when I was about three years old. And so I spit I split my time evenly between two houses. Uh my mom, who's very spiritual, she's a yoga teacher, she spent some time in Nepal, we have Buddhist prayer flags up. Both of my parents uh grew up in going to church, and both of them stopped going to church. My mom kept that spiritual aspect, and she meditates. She's just she's a very she's a very spiritual soul. She talks about the universe all the time. My dad is very atheist, and he always said uh that why would I give something else credit? And I think my my dad and my dad and I have had a lot of conversations about this because as I as I grow, I become increasingly spiritual, and I do become increasingly grateful to just everything out here for the magic that it brings me. I had a moment the other day where I was walking in London, massive city, and a guy that followed me and found my podcast, which it's not like it has millions of followers, walked right across from me on the streets of London by Piccadilly Circus. And he he was so stunned, he didn't even say something, but he sent me a message later that day. And he was like, Hey Jack, I'm I'm starting a podcast. I would love some advice. I listened to your most recent episode, it's amazing. And so we went and we got dinner that night and we talked about his growing podcast. And it's moments like that where it's like there there can't be something that you give credit to because you can't have this full credit. And I imagine that for athletes, almost all of them that I've heard, and you've spoken to so many incredible athletes, are very spiritual and they're very attached to God. And I I I think that it definitely has something to do, I've always thought, with that detachment, with the fact that all right, if I fail, it's it's meant to be. It's not my fault. Is is that one of the biggest reasons, you think?

SPEAKER_02 43:51

Yeah, um well, I think it's redefining success and failure. And uh um really realizing that uh Um well, you don't know what's best for you. And also um the whole 98 and 2 idea that 2% um is all the credit I can take. The main reason I thought about that and wrote about it in the book is because of um how powerful gratitude is. Um I mean, there's some great podcasts that have that in the name, even. And so it's it's because gratitude is directly linked to inner peace. And inner peace is directly linked to inner strength and inner strength to mental toughness, and they're all linked to beauty. And so um, yeah, if you know, I think about atheism, I think about one that everybody worships. There's no atheists, it's it's just like what do you have put your faith in? Like, okay, you don't believe that there's a creator of the universe, but you believe in the universe. So what do you've I mean, you weren't there when it's when it was created or started. So what are you believing in? I think it takes just as much faith to believe that it started from some random explosion um and all the intricate, incredible beauty that you see in the human mind and and love. How do you explain all this? Um, it takes, I think, more faith than to think that there's a creator. And so everybody worships and everybody has a God. It's just what is is uh is your God? And gratitude, whether you're an atheist or not. And and and part of this, and it'd love to see what your dad thinks about this book because part of it was written for atheists to help them think about um I'm not saying you need to think how how I think. Um in fact, I don't really give advice. I I just help people clarify what they want most. I ask a lot of questions, then I help them get what they want most. Most people don't know what they want most. Most people are very circumstantial focused. They just want better results in circumstances.

SPEAKER_00 45:50

Which uh I talked about this in my TED talk. But our circumstances, Dr. Songyel Yu Bumerski found, only contribute to about 10% of our happiness. So if we want to, we have the hedonic adaptation line, right? And they only can raise it, our baseline about 10%. Whereas if we use intentional daily action, if we take intentional daily action, whether that's toward our goals or just to growth in general, that's 40%. It's 4x or circumstances. Most of us spend our entire lives optimizing for the smallest slice of the equation and being confused when nothing changes. We optimize for this small slice of 10% that is our circumstances, and then we maybe get what we want, and that's why we're confused when nothing changes. I think that it's so important that you do reframe uh you take away the idea of success, the idea of failure. You don't use the word winning or losing. Because uh even I who uh I I've tried to detach a lot from it, and I struggle sometimes where uh I I really am still attached to outcomes in many ways, and I've worked so hard on it. I I find myself using the words failure, losing, winning, so often, even in the in the pursuit of trying to not do so. So I think using that vocabulary is so important. At what point did you start to understand that the that your vocabulary really does shape your belief systems in that way and really does shape how they're focusing on winning, losing?

SPEAKER_02 47:24

Aaron Ross Powell Well, there's a discipline of inter excellence called speak the truth. Speak the truth to um um about the past to create possibilities in the future. And this is um I don't know when this came about, this discipline, but it's been around, I've I've been using it for decades, at least one decade. Um and the the way the discipline works is that uh um say, for example, uh one of the listeners or viewers has um had anxiety. And uh say that that um person came on the show and then they started sharing about it, and they they said, um, well, um I'm an anxious person. And uh um I would say, um, is that how you want to be? Because well, like I don't tell people what to do, I only help them. And uh um they say, no, I don't want to be anxious. And I say, okay, well, um one, I'd I would like to help you think, is that true? Like you're an anxious person, like that's who you are. Because I'm guessing there's been moments of non-anxiety. Has there been ever a moment where you um did not have anxiety? And then if that's true, then then I think the truth would be to say, not that I'm an anxious person, but the truth would be um in the past I've had anxiety. And um, and so then I would have them say that out loud. Say, I want you to say out loud for the last time in your life, I'm an anxious person. Say that out loud. Or um, my anxiety is stressful, or you're taking ownership of the anxiety and calling it yours. Say something like that out loud and see how it feels. And it's you know, probably gonna get a negative feeling. And then I want you to say, in the past, I had anxiety rather than I'm an anxious person. Because even if you had anxiety every single day of your life up until today, it's all still past, right? So it would still be true. In the past I've had anxiety. And uh um, but that's a completely different feeling. It's you're not taking ownership of it and you're talking about it as past tense. And beliefs are what's running our lives. And when you start to speak um the truth about the past, then you can you really open up possibilities.

SPEAKER_00 49:39

I'm thinking a lot through this conversation about the world baseball classic and Aaron Judge and Bryce Harper. I'm not sure how much you watch today, but I mean, Aaron Judge has always been a player that for any of you that are not baseball fans listening, one of the best players in the world right now in the MLB for the Yankees. And he's one of those guys that he mashes during the regular season, and then it gets the postseason and he sucks. And then as a huge Phillies fan, uh Bryce Harper, he had he had a terrible, he had a terrible world baseball classic. And it got to the most important moment, and I'm getting chills thinking about it. It got to the most important moment in the entire in the entire tournament, and he destroyed a ball to dead center for a super clutch home run, and he's always done that. And so thinking about belief systems, what under what is it that can make somebody that is so good all the time and just freeze and stop performing in these big moments? And then some people they have that switch where they might like, yeah, Bryce Harper is an incredible baseball player, but he just turns it on when the pressure's on, when he's needed most. He he plays his best.

SPEAKER_02 51:00

So um uh when Aaron Judge watches this, um, I'll uh uh help help him with this right now. So, first of all, make sure that he he you you speak about it as past tense. Um in the past, I didn't have great success in the playoffs. Um, but also recognize that that um it's natural for someone in his shoes to put more pressure on themselves in the playoffs because you know, especially in New York City, you have you know millions of people staring at you and wanting you to do so well, and then you don't have you know one good playoff, and then they all talk about it. It's not like a regular person who you know has uh um a bad day at work. Like there's not millions of people going to be judging him and talking about it. And so um what you've been through is is very common with superstars, and um, but it has no impact on your future, especially if you understand that um how you talk about it, how you think about it, and what your mindset is is the most important thing. You can you can go down as the um the greatest clutch hitter in the history of the game. That's what's possible for you, Aaron.

SPEAKER_00 52:13

I love that. And I I hope that he does watch that. And yeah, I I I think that just the idea that so many people are looking at him and talking about it, I it must become very easy to reinforce a belief uh when you're a professional athlete, because so many people are going to talk about it negatively, even if you just made one mistake, it's it can be really easy to get to a pattern because you have so much exterior feedback that uses that language that you yourself wouldn't want to use and reinforces that idea that you might you might be that type of person, you might not have just done that in the past. Exactly. So thinking about Bryce Harper though, what is it that makes him able to perform so well in these clutch situations?

SPEAKER_02 53:05

Belief is uh um such a powerful, powerful thing. And um one thing that that a lot of professional athletes have done, maybe um Aaron as well, is when they're a little kid, most likely they've grown up dreaming about hitting a game-winning home run in game seven of the World Series. And so the more that you dream that and continue to make that alive and cultivate that in your imagination, the more your your brain sees it as real and the more comfortable it gets. And so learning to be fully present is crucial. Um, and I think Bryce has has gotten better at that and is good at that and being present and not carrying the past with him. And um and probably has has had had a good imagination where he's felt it, seen it, felt it happen many times, and just stays with that belief.

SPEAKER_00 53:55

Yeah, that makes sense. It's in a it's uh a continuity of belief, it's repetition of that belief. That makes sense. Well, Jim, I've learned so much today. Yes, and making yourself feel it. Exactly. I'm I've learned so much today. I'm so grateful that you've taken the time to be on here. We're both traveling in in Airbnbs and making the time to have a fantastic conversation. Uh I think it's so important that people continue to immerse themselves in your material because we talked a lot today, but there's so much more that you have to offer. So tell people where they can find your work and why it's so important that they they get their newest book, which is your most important book.

SPEAKER_02 54:41

Yeah, thank you. Um so I have a uh newsletter on Substack, um comes out um several times a month, um, sometimes weekly. And uh it's really just coaching ideas that I share with my clients and share it with the world. Um and I'm doing doing live uh Q ⁇ A's as well for seven bucks a month on Substack. You can sign up on my website, interexcellence.com, or just go to Substack and find InterExcellence Jim Murphy. I'm also on social media, Instagram is InterExcellence Jim Murphy. Um but uh yeah, I would love to uh to do this again, Jack. And thank you for sharing your life with me.

SPEAKER_00 55:18

Thank you, Jim. This has been a great conversation.