[00:00:00] There is a power that spins the earth, grows the grass, and holds the stars in place. It’s this incredible power of the universe that people all over the world for centuries have pursued and have connected with. And you can connect with that too. And when you do that connection is a selfless connection.

[00:00:19] We have to get out of our own way to do that. When you do, then anything is possible. Welcome to another episode of Success for the Athletic Minded Man, real talk on harnessing your athletic drive for clarity, consistency, and focus in business and life. This is your host, Jim Harsher Jr. And today I bring you Jim Murphy.

[00:00:38] Now if you follow the NFL playoffs at all, you’ve definitely heard of this guy. This was just one of the coolest stories to come out of the NFL playoffs. Last year, on January 12th, 2025, AJ Brown, wide receiver for the Philadelphia Eagles was caught reading a book on the sidelines and. After and he, he didn’t have a whole lot of targets, like I think only three targets that game.

[00:01:02] And so the reporters after the game were like, Hey, were you upset? Were you mad at the coaches? Were you just trying to ignore your teammates? ’cause that seemed like you were trying to diss people or be rude by reading this book. He’s like, no, man. I was just like reading this book. Inner Excellence. It makes me better and it helps me recenter myself and find peace in the middle of these I intense football games.

[00:01:20] NFL playoffs. And this book started getting mentioned every week in the playoffs and, and it just exploded. It went from, get this on Amazon, it was ranked 523,497. Okay? Over half a million. That was its previous rank on Amazon. Skyrocketed to number. One, because of all of the publicity that happened because of this, this incident in, in, in this continued, uh, week after week and Jim has gone on to become one of the most sought after performance coaches in the world.

[00:01:55] There is so much wisdom in this book. Excellence, literally, I, I’ve told so many of my friends and clients that. Every chapter could be a book, and every paragraph could be a chapter. There’s so much. This is one of those books for me. There’s only really been three books that I’ve underlined and written in the margins as many, as much as this, it’s Inner Excellence.

[00:02:12] The next one is The Confident Mind, which is with Dr. Nate Zinzer, who I interviewed in episode number. 336. So if you scroll back to episode 3 36 in your podcast player, you’ll hear that interview. Another incredible mindset coach and, and the other one is How To Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie.

[00:02:30] I have not had a chance to have Dale Carnegie on the podcast because he’s not alive anymore, but those are three books that are just been desktop reference for me, and this book is one of those books that makes everything else, all the other learning, all the other knowledge, skills, wisdom, experience that you have.

[00:02:45] Possible in order order to actually execute. So listen, share this with a friend. This podcast grows through referrals, through social media shares, through texting a friend and saying, Hey, check out this podcast. Check out this episode. You’re gonna like this. Hit that little share button on your podcast player right now.

[00:03:03] If you’re assuming you’re listening on mobile, or just copy and paste the link and share it through a text message, through email. Share it with a friend. Pass it along. This is gonna help so many people help spread Jim’s message that will absolutely and is already. Changing lives. Here we go. My interview with the amazing and wise, Jim Murphy.

[00:03:25] So take us back to the week of January 12th. What was it like? You hear that AJ Brown was caught reading your book on the sidelines. Walk us through that week. Yeah, it was, it was a crazy week, as you can imagine, but even crazier than most people would know. I did not know that AJ Brown was reading the book during the games.

[00:03:42] I saw a photo of him in uniform with a book a month earlier, but I had no context, so I didn’t really know what was going on and I’d never met him before, so I just kind of forgot about it. I just thought, oh, that’s cool. Then Sunday, January 12th, I’m walking around downtown Dallas and it was a really a somber time in my life.

[00:04:01] My mom was dying. She died four days later and it was actually an answer to prayer ’cause she was suffering and, and so amazing, amazing woman. But so she’s dying and business was slow. Life was kind of lonely. And I actually didn’t pay off my credit cards in January. I had money in another account, but I just.

[00:04:19] Um, the cash flow wasn’t there in January, so it was kind of a, a first time it happened in years. So just kinda give you a context for that, that week, what my life was like. And I had just written a book called The Best Possible Life, how to Live with Deep Contentment, joy, confidence, no Matter what. I ended up signing a three book deal with a she book group, um, inner Excellence that got, um, re uh, published on April 29th.

[00:04:40] The best possible life is gonna get republished in February coming up, and then an Inter excellence workbook will be coming out in 2026. So the best possible life book that it’s, it’s out now, you can buy it, but we’re gonna republish it soon in February. It’s a book on the spiritual life, and I’m walking around downtown Dallas and I look at this skyscraper.

[00:04:59] The question comes to my mind, would you rather own that skyscraper for however millions of dollars it’s worth? Or would you rather have the knowledge and understanding of the book you just wrote about the spiritual life? And I thought I would not trade it for hundreds of millions of dollars. And so even though life was a little bit lonely and hard at the moment, I thought, well, at least you got that.

[00:05:16] That’s pretty cool. And then a couple hours later, everything changed. I’m actually sitting in my hotel room. I was in Dallas to lead an inner excellence retreat, and I was sitting in my hotel room actually watching a different game that had already been played. It was Penn State playing Notre Dame, a bowl game.

[00:05:32] And I look at my phone and I see all these texts and I actually thought my mom had died because of all the texts. And then it’s, you know, someone said, you need to turn on the wild card game. Eagles and Packers. So I turn it on, I see it, and I was like, whoa, I think this is gonna be significant. And it really was.

[00:05:49] Yeah, things exploded after that. Well, uh, uh, super happy for you. Love it. Love to see the right people win. And you know, all of your work get shared. I mean, really it’s about you have this amazing work and it’s being shared with the world and everybody, in my opinion, this should be taught in schools and everybody needs to hear this and learn this.

[00:06:06] And so for yourself, Jim, you know, you were a professional baseball player, your career ended because of vision issues. I wanna talk about like self application first. How did you keep from letting that loss define you? Or maybe the question is, did that loss define you? And that’s where this book came from.

[00:06:25] If you can imagine you’ve dreamed about something since you’re seven, eight years old. To be a professional athlete and then you, you become a professional athlete and get into the minor leagues and then you lose it all. Yeah. Devastating. My whole identity wrapped up in my role as a pro athlete. When I lost it, I felt like I lost everything.

[00:06:42] So that was really defining my life for sure. And that’s a big part of inter excellence is what led me to ride, ride at my own experience and uh, um. So that led me to go to the desert to figure out what to do with my life and the spending the five years full-time writing and researching the book on how to have the most peace and confidence under the most pressure was all based on my experience of losing everything that I had ever dreamed of.

[00:07:05] That really pushed me to. To pursue this. And so yeah, you, you went all in and you, you, you know, you sold over half of your possessions, you moved to the desert. Spent five years full-time researching and writing this. Jim, what made you decide that you wanted to, to write this book? There’s PhDs out there, you and I.

[00:07:25] Talked about the, the Bob Ellas of the world. There’s, there’s people out there who have literally written the book on this stuff. There’s Olympic gold medalists who, you know, became the best in the world at what they did, who’ve written books on this stuff. Why did you think, I’m gonna write my own book on this?

[00:07:41] Where did this come from? Well, so I give away over half my possessions. I go to the desert to live a life of solitude, and I don’t go to write a book. I don’t go to do anything except to figure out what I can devote my life to. And, you know, I had nothing, I didn’t have anything, like after being a pro athlete, I nothing left.

[00:08:00] Like, what do I pursue? What do I do with my life? I, I always had a feeling that in the back of my mind, since I was little, sometimes in the front of my mind that I’m. I, I thought I’m destined to be a superstar. I just kind of always thought that, and I always assumed it was to be a pro athlete. So then, you know, I, after five years of pro baseball, injured, have to retire.

[00:08:19] Devastated. I get asked to coach a high school baseball team in inner city, Seattle oday High School. Had no interest in coaching, never even considered it. And, and we go undefeated. And I was like, wow. And we had so much fun. I love those guys. So that’s when I was like, oh, you were one position off. You weren’t supposed to destined to be a pro athlete superstar.

[00:08:38] You’re, you’re destined to be a pro coach superstar. So then I went on this journey to become a major league based on manager and did my master’s degree in coaching science and interviewed 39 major league baseball managers and GMs and college coaches on how to build a championship team. I get a job with the Texas Rangers two weeks after graduation.

[00:08:56] Another dream come true. I’m on my way to, to managing the Rangers into the World Series and be on the cover of magazines like I expected to be. And then I quit six months later in tears. And it was just a, it was a box that I wasn’t meant to fit in at the time. I didn’t realize that. I just thought I was a failure.

[00:09:13] I didn’t know that God was training me and forming me and had far bigger things planned for me. I just thought, oh, I just failed terribly. I knew it wasn’t working, and so I knew I had to leave, but I just didn’t know why, and I had no idea that God was working behind the scenes. And so that was a huge, really, really difficult time in my life, you know, again, losing everything that I dreamed about.

[00:09:38] Then I, I go back to, to, uh, being a personal trainer, not sure what to do with my life. And then, well, after leaving the Texas Rangers, I actually get a call from Major League Baseball and they said, would you be interested in being the hitting coach for South Africa for their national team? And that was an extraordinary experience.

[00:09:52] Like we win the Olympic trials, we get to go to the Sydney 2000 Olympics, and we, we have, uh, one of the biggest subsets in Olympic
[00:10:00] baseball history. And it was got to meet Nelson Mandela and March opening ceremonies and just. Extraordinary experience. I’m still friends with that team all these years, 25 years later, but after the Olympics, what am I gonna do with my life?

[00:10:11] And so then I went back to being a personal trainer, which I was doing in grad school. And I didn’t know what to do. And then, and then one day I was just, I was getting restless and my girlfriend. She’s kinda like, Jim, what are you doing? And she knew I was restless and that I just kind of realized that if I wanna do something great with my life, I need to have a clear mind and unburdened heart and pursue it with everything I got.

[00:10:32] I just, but first I gotta figure out what that is. And I knew if I stayed in Vancouver, my hometown in Vancouver, Canada, that I would. People around me would say, why would you change anything? Your life’s great. We love you. Which is amazing. But I knew I had to get away from anyone that was gonna think of me as, as who I’ve been because I knew, and I, I, that something far greater was waiting for me.

[00:10:52] I just had no idea, or at least I wouldn’t say I knew. I just always had that burning desire and. I definitely didn’t know that I was gonna, what was gonna happen. So I leave for the desert and give away over half my possessions. And there I just went there to go figure out what I can devote my life to.

[00:11:08] And there I decided to become a personal coach to pro baseball players, teach ’em how to have poison under pressure, and my first two athletes to amazing. So that’s when I decided to put together a little manual on how to, to have peace and confidence under the most pressure for future clients. I did not sit out to write a book.

[00:11:24] This was, it was supposed to be a manual for my pro athletes. And so I call up a sports psychologist and ask him, how can a pro baseball player in game seven in the World Series with a game on the line bottom of the ninth, two outs, bases loaded down by one full count? How can that guy have peace and confidence and mental toughness?

[00:11:40] Or how can an Olympic athlete train for an event for four years for an event that may last less than a minute? And so I just didn’t get any good answers. So that’s why I spent, went on a five year journey of full-time writing and researching 50 to 60 hours a week for five years straight to, to get answers to that question.

[00:11:55] And so that became the book in excellence. Was there anything that you expected to find, any hypotheses that you went into this with that were blown up? I mean, was it like, okay, these, these guys all just the, the, the guy who, or, or woman who, you know in that. Hypothetical situation of the game seven, you know, game line, full count.

[00:12:13] Like is it, they just worked harder that you thought anything that you, you are going into this thinking that was blown up well. I don’t know if anything was blown up, but I do know I had all that experience from interviewing the major league baseball managers and doing my master’s paper on how to build a championship team.

[00:12:29] And so that was a lot of experience that I had, I had from interviewing and learning from the best managers in baseball. And uh, it really came down to developing individual champions, developing their characters. So that was a huge influence on inter excellence, spending two years studying major league baseball managers and general managers and how to build the championship team.

[00:12:46] So that was really a big thing in, in my undergrad, was psychology. I’ve always been interested in, in mental training since my high school coach, Larry Book told me that, you know, I could be a great baseball player and, and sports psychology could really help you be even better. And so since I was 17, I’ve been wanting to get better at, at it.

[00:13:05] But getting to the desert, it, you know, the number one thing that I learned is that the heart is the key to your life. And importantly, there’s many Americans and people around the world that have far more pressure than a pro athlete. Working two jobs, kids at home, you know, just make enough money to, to pay them the rent.

[00:13:23] You know, that’s the person that this book is for. And understanding that when I say heart, I mean your spirit, your your will. The deepest part of you, where your greatest fears are, where your greatest hopes and dreams are. That’s connected to your subconscious. That’s what we gotta get to. That’s what we gotta train.

[00:13:38] And so when I learned that that was really crucial, and then learning that, training that path, training that training your heart to love most, what’s most empowering. Training it to be selfless and therefore fearless is the same path to live the best possible life. And this was crucial for me because I realized as I’m in the desert, that I don’t wanna spend my life helping someone become a superstar or make millions of dollars when it’s not meaningful to them or anyone else.

[00:14:05] Then what am I doing? My life’s not meaningful if that’s not meaningful. And when I realized that training them to, to be the best performer under the most pressure, anybody for whatever they’re doing could be a stay at home mom or dad or, or Olympic or pro athlete. Training them to have that mental toughness is the same path as training them to have the best possible life, a life filled with, with amazing experiences and deep enriching relationships where they’re learning and growing and making a difference in the world.

[00:14:31] It’s the same path. That was life changing for me. That was like, wow, okay. I am onto something. And so that’s, that was, uh, really impactful. Yeah. This is relevant for, for everybody listening and, and for, so for the individual who’s listening and say, you know, let’s go to their game seven, bottom of the ninth, full count game on the line.

[00:14:54] Let’s, let’s go to that scenario for, for the individual listening, and maybe it’s. The sales pitch they’re gonna give tomorrow. The tough conversation they gotta have with their boss, you know, whatever that might be for them. The, the speech they’ve gotta give or the presentation, and they feel they’re, they’re feeling that pressure.

[00:15:12] I mean, what, what do you tell that person in that moment who feels like, you know, maybe it’s in their career, like everything’s on the line. I’ve worked my entire life, my entire career for this. You know what it is, Jim, is I went to the desert and I wanted to find something that I was willing to die for.

[00:15:28] I didn’t have that. And are you willing to die for your house? Are you willing to die for a nice car? Not many people are willing to die for. For something tangible like that. And if you find something that you’re willing to die for, then you can have mental toughness. And what I mean by that is what’s most important to you?

[00:15:47] What is the deepest part of your heart? What’s in there? What does it deeply want? And so I, my purpose is to share God’s love, wisdom, and courage with, with the world. And so that’s what I’m hopefully willing to die for and devote my life to at least, and spend my life pursuing. And if you don’t have anything beyond tangible results, which in the book I outline with the acronym, palms Possessions, achievements looks money and status.

[00:16:14] Then yeah, the, you’re gonna, you’re gonna get the affluence virus. You’re gonna get sucked in and, and because our greatest need is for love, and our greatest fear is rejection of that love. We’re created for relationships. If you don’t understand the human heart, then you’re not gonna understand high performance under the most pressure for anybody.

[00:16:31] If you want to help. Anyone, yourself, your kids, your athletes, anyone the most. If you’re, whether you’re a counselor, coach, parent, doesn’t matter, pro athlete, Olympic athlete, you need to get to the heart. You need to get to the subconscious, and we need to get to that deeper level where it’s not just logic, like logic is so limiting.

[00:16:49] Logic is really, really important. But logic does not send men to the moon. We need to get to that part where you can dream big dreams, have a clear mind, an unburdened heart, and to do that, we need to have something that you’re willing to live and die for. Well, at least that’s really helpful. Yeah. I mean, you, you talk about in the book love, you know, the thing that gets in our way can often be, you know, we, we all want love.

[00:17:11] Like that’s the the greatest thing that we all want. Love, belonging, connection. And if we get to that moment, that bottom of the seventh moment, whatever that is for you, the listener, if you fail, you feel like. You, you know, you won’t be loved, you won’t be connected, you won’t be rewarded. You won’t be praised.

[00:17:27] And so you gave a great analogy in the book, Jim, about how do you, how do you take a lollipop off of a child? And I’ll let you finish the story. How do you get a, how do, how do you get a, a child to willingly give up their lollipop? So we got the Ryder Cup coming up, uh, team USA versus Europe in golf. Uh, I was at a Ryder Cup event and one of the golfers top 10 in the world said, Jim, I’m too attached to the results of my, my performance.

[00:17:51] In other words, he’s saying I get too stressed, too nervous when I’m about to perform, and, and this is one of the best in the world. Mind you this, isn’t this, I mean, this is somebody who’s already elite and they’re still seeing that they’re stressed and they feel, feel these fears, anxiety, right? And, and this is actually one of the biggest things that I learned, I’ve been working with, with, you know, top athletes in the world for, for 10 15, I don’t know how many years now.

[00:18:14] A lot, a lot of years. And that was one of the first things I was like shocked about, was like, how doubtful you could be number five in the world, number two in the world, number one in the world, and have a lot of doubts and fears and or be the, the greatest manager have the highest winning percentage.

[00:18:27] Major league baseball and, and, you know, have a lot of questions and doubts and, and I was not expecting that when I first started working with these guys. And so this athlete, he says, you know, I’m too attached to the results of my, my performance. What do I do? And I said, well, think about this. Imagine there’s a little kid that loves lollipops and you want to take that lollipop from him, but you don’t want to argue about it or struggle with him.

[00:18:48] Is there any way that you can do it easily? Well, he’ll just hand it over to you. He said, I don’t know. And he said, I said, well, what if you had a bigger lollipop? And I said, you just trade him? And he said, yeah, well, yeah, he would trade. And I said, yeah, that’s what you need. Your biggest lollipop has been.

[00:19:03] Macon birdies winning tournaments and some tangible result and there’s just far too much outta your control for that. And, you know, just like you and your career with, with the wrestling when you were like, you know what, um, I’ve done all I can, I’m just gonna surrender the result and just do my best. And you know, that’s one of the four daily goals of inner excellence is, is one I’m gonna give the best of what I got today is one.

[00:19:26] Two, I’m gonna be present because there’s no fear in the present moment. And inner excellence is constantly, we’re working on, well, what does it mean for me to be present at the highest level and how do I get there? What adds to it? What takes away from it? So when I say present at the highest level, I mean fully engaged, heart and mind and body unattached to your results and circumstances.

[00:19:43] I mean, that sense where you feel anything is possible, where there’s no concern for self, there’s no sense of self at all, you’re caught up in the moment. So that’s what we wanna work on every day, being present like that. And then, uh, um, number three is, is to be grateful. Gratitude is directly linked to inner
[00:20:00] peace.

[00:20:00] Inner peace is directly tied to inner strength. Inner strength is connected to mental toughness. They’re all linked to beauty, and so gratitude is the one key thing there. And then four is, is to focus on your routines and only what you can control. And realizing that most of it’s not in your control. So for my clients and myself, it’s, it’s, we have two things that we control.

[00:20:19] It’s, it’s our heart and our effort. So we’re constantly training our heart to love most, what’s most empowering, and to develop more and more self-awareness of when is it my ego and when is it my heart? The heart, at least part of our heart’s, always somewhere in there, wants anything, everything that’s.

[00:20:34] Eternal. And, uh, the ego is, I, I define the ego as a part of your mind. That’s always comparing, always threatened, never satisfied, which is really amplified with social media, the 24 7 comparison machine. And so we always have both of them in this battle, and that’s why we have to have a clear purpose for our, our lives.

[00:20:52] Otherwise, we’re gonna get caught up in, the ego’s gonna win because we’re, as humans, we’re led around by our eyes. And then, so what are you gonna see? You’re gonna see the social media, and you’re gonna see the results and circumstances you’re in, but you can’t fully control it. Now you got stress and anxiety, and that’s why there’s so much anxiety now.

[00:21:07] So we gotta, we gotta clear out of all this noise and say like, who am I? How do I want to feel? How do I wanna live? Who am I meant to become? And uh, why am I on this earth? What’s the purpose? And really pursue that. And then you can feel fully alive and pursue absolute fullness of life. Let everything else go because you don’t even know, like you think, okay, winning this championship is what I need to live the best possible life.

[00:21:30] Like, you know, your senior year at Virginia as a wrestler, that’s what I need. I gotta, I have to win this to, to be somebody and I can’t lose. And that was putting all this pressure and fear, right? And then finally you just like, look. I, I don’t know how to do that. And you just said, I’m just gonna surrender that.

[00:21:47] I’m just gonna give my best. And that’s, that’s what we need is, is to say, look, there’s a power that spins the earth, grows the grass and holds the stars in place. It’s this incredible power of the universe that. People all over the world, first centuries have pursued and have connected with. And you can connect with that too.

[00:22:06] And when you do and that that connection is a selfless connection, we have to get out of our own way to do that. When you do then, then anything is possible. Yeah. I mean, this speaks to the truth. That we all carry around, you know, nobody is, is above this even the best in the world at what they do. So for you, the listener, either you feel convicted right now, which you know, you could and should in some way, but like, but go like, hey, there’s, there’s a better way to do this.

[00:22:35] There’s a better way to live. It’s not the pursuit of, you know, Jim, your example of like, if I could own this building that’s hundreds of millions of dollars, or could I own? Inner peace. Like I, I want that, I want the peace in, in this world. Like you said, that we, the world that we live in with social media, all the comparison, we see these things out there and we, we tell our kids they gotta get into the best schools and get the best jobs and make more money and, and all of that.

[00:22:59] But it’s like, no, we, we really want them to pursue, like you said, fullness of life. But there’s some people who will hear that and go, that’s bs. Go do the hard work. It’s not about fullness of life. It’s not about like follow your passion. What do you say to that person? Well, I think there’s a couple things there.

[00:23:19] One. Say I’m working with a pro athlete that’s like, I don’t care about any of that love wisdom stuff. All I wanna do is win. Can we work just results? Yeah. I mean, it doesn’t matter. I don’t care if you’re an atheist or a Buddhist or, or any is if you’re human, I can, I can work with you. I mean, it’s obviously you gotta be motivated for me to, to work together, but.

[00:23:41] Every human is created for relationship and every human. The the greatest thing that, that you can feel is fully alive, which is fueled by love. And so I understand that, that that sounds soft. I, I like, I’m, I’m with you. Right? Some people are gonna be like, what do you mean it’s fueled by love? Come on. It’s, well, I’m not, I didn’t say I’m, I didn’t say I told the athlete this.

[00:24:01] I’m telling you, this is what I know. I’m not saying that’s what I’m telling him or her. And so I know that say you’re that athlete skeptical, you’re just like hardcore and you’re just like, oh, I just wanna win. I know this about you. I know you want to feel alive. I know that love is what powers it. And um, and so for some pro athletes say it’s, say it’s you, you’re just, um, you’re just like, look, I just wanna win and I don’t care about anything else.

[00:24:25] Well, if that’s true, then. What do we do? We need to find out the best process for you to, to be your best. What’s it gonna take for you to be your best, especially under pressure? And so now we, how are we gonna do that? I’m gonna ask you, how do you wanna feel in your life? And you might say, well, I want to ask, I wanna know how you want to feel in your life for you and wrestling off the mat and on the mat.

[00:24:47] And so on the mat. How would you say how you wanna feel free to perform? And have fun and enjoy the battle. Maybe I’m saying that now because I have the cheat sheet, because that’s what I. Uh, prior to my epiphany that you and I talked about before I hit record, the listeners have heard me talk about that before.

[00:25:04] It was, I just wanna win. I just want to get my hand raised and I’m, and I won’t be loved if I don’t. Right, right. That’s why I’m asking you how you want to feel. Yeah. I wanted to feel pro recognized. Pride, accolades poured upon me. That’s what I wanted prior to that. Is that how you wanted to feel after, or is that how you wanted to feel?

[00:25:23] So when I say how do you wanna feel? I mean, when you’re at your best wrestling, what does it feel like? Fun, freedom. Yeah. So freedom, fun, and it’s fun for us non wrestlers. And knowing that, I mean, if anyone knows anything about wrestling is like the hardest sport in the world. And so it’s funny to think about that as fun, but I, but I get it.

[00:25:42] So fun and freedom. Okay. And so, and that’s where I got to, but go ahead. Yeah. Say you’re hardcore, you don’t care about anything. You just wanna win. Now I know that you want fun and freedom, and so I’m gonna ask you, have you ever experienced that before? I. And so you may like say, yeah, this match I had last year, or like, I wanna know any time in your life, like, oh, when I was 10 years old, I was playing basketball with my buddy and I just couldn’t miss or playing Monopoly or whatever it is.

[00:26:06] I want to get to those moments and how you felt. You’re gonna learn that there’s some love involved in these things. How you want to feel. There’s, there’s, well, love is really fueled. Um, there’s this passion that’s connected to love and passion literally means to suffer. To suffer is, is, is, is what the root of passion means.

[00:26:24] And so if you find something that you love so much, you’re willing to sacrifice and suffers for it, then it’s really powerful. Right? And so I want to find out how you want to feel, how you wanna live, who you want to become. I really want to know these deep things about you. Then we’re gonna develop habits of thought and action to get you there.

[00:26:42] And so we don’t talk about anything fluffy. It’s just like how you wanna feel. You want to have fun and, and, uh, feel like you’re having fun out there. And freedom. Okay. What’s, what’s gotten in the way you’re like, oh, well, I was overthinking. Well, what I’ve learned, there’s three, three obstacles to most performances that most everyone has faced at one time in their life.

[00:27:01] There’s overthinking, negative thinking, or judgmental thinking. When I say judgmental, I mean laying down a negative verdict about yourself, the circumstances, or someone else. And then there’s self-consciousness concern. What if I lose? What will people think about me if I lose? These are the three big obstacles.

[00:27:15] And so we would talk about that. What has led you to, to, have you ever overthought things and overanalyzed? Um, like most of us, have you ever, uh, been critically critical about yourself or, or the circumstance or someone else and, and gotten into that negative line of thinking that’s been spiraled down?

[00:27:30] And have you ever been concerned about looking foolish or what people think about you? And, uh, so you said freedom. Lack of freedom is so huge today in performance and life because if I fail, I’m gonna lose what I want most, which is love and, and acceptance and uh, and I’m gonna get judged. That really hurts.

[00:27:50] And so when you understand human behavior and the deep needs of the heart, it doesn’t matter who you’re working with. You just gotta make sure that the language you use is the language that they use. If I want to connect with you, and then I need to use your words and your language and help you get to where I both of us want to go.

[00:28:05] So just something came to me as you’re talking there, Jim. Is, you know, talking about love and, and our desire to have love and be loved. And I, I, I’ve done some mindset coaching for some athletes over the years just here and there. And I always tell ’em about this, this experience that I had where, and every athlete has experienced this, right?

[00:28:24] Have you ever performed really well but lost or performed really poorly? But one, yes, that’s happened to all of us. So it’s like, which one do you wanna replicate? Which experience do you wanna replicate? Do you wanna experience or do you wanna replicate? Performing well or performing poorly even if you perform poorly and lose, no, you don’t wanna replicate performing poorly.

[00:28:44] Even if you still win, you wanna replicate performing well. And I had a match that is one that sticks out in my head. I wrestled the number one guy in the country and my junior year, and he was way better than me and maybe my sophomore year, just not even close to this guy’s cup caliber. But I went out.

[00:28:58] There was no fear. There was no risk of losing love because I was not supposed to win. So I went out and competing with competed. I had fun. It was free, and I competed really well. I didn’t beat it, but it was like it was a good match, and that’s what we wanna replicate. And, and so for the listener, like what is that in your world like?

[00:29:16] The, the sales presentation where you’re like, man, we don’t have a shot. I don’t know why they let us in the door, but you know what? We’re gonna swing for the fences ’cause there ain’t no way we’re gonna win this thing. And, and you put the fear of failure down and you go in and you’re gonna, per, you’re gonna perform probably better than you might normally otherwise, right?

[00:29:34] If the pressure’s on, because you’re not putting that fear of failure. You’re not, there’s no risk of losing love. I mean, is that, does that make sense in that moment, Jim? Well, let me think about it for my life. So years ago, I, Sean Foley was Tiger Woods’s coach, uh, swing coach. And he reads inner excellence and he wanted to talk to me and, uh, he wanted me to talk to one of his clients.

[00:29:56] I don’t know who he wants me to coach. Maybe it’s tiger. And so I was nervous
[00:30:00] going into that phone call and I knew this was. Beginning of my coaching career, and I knew that this could have a huge impact on my, my life as a coach. And I was really nervous. And so I started thinking it through, had a little chat with God, and I was like, well, what, why is it, what do I really want?

[00:30:16] And what I came up with realized that, um, is it that I want to have a client so I can make a lot of money? I was like, no. I mean, obviously that’s kind of cool, but no, that’s not what I really wanted. I, I really wanted to make a difference in the world. And I wanted to feel alive and, and pursue that. And so I was like, okay, God, it’s up to you.

[00:30:37] I, I just wanna make a difference in the world through you and, um, if this is how we can do it, let’s do it. One thing that’s so important to understand is that we never know what’s the best result for us. This is crucial to know, to understand. In fact, think about this, Jim, you say we take your top 10 goals and then we say your top 10 things that you fear the most for pretty much anybody.

[00:31:04] We could flip flop those and, and the 10 things you fear the most could be the 10 best things for you and the 10 things that you want the most could be the 10 worst things for you. Yeah. And, and for the listener, by the way, like, and when I’m coaching a client, sorry, keep, hold that thought, Jim. When I’m coaching a client and, and something bad happens, I address it, we talk about it, they didn’t get the job, whatever it might be.

[00:31:26] Uh. I just say, let’s just put a pin in this because this could be something really good for you. And I, I, it, it’s, it’s like maybe eight or nine times out of 10, six months, a year later, we’re looking back and going, thank goodness that happened. Like, there, there, this really was a, a great turning point because this other opportunity came up.

[00:31:43] So. It’s real what Jim’s talking about. Go ahead. Yeah, and you said something bad happens. So I, I would put the bad in quotes because what? What is good or bad? I remember my first team I’d ever worked with was 2007, university of British Columbia, men’s volleyball and men’s golf. These are my first two teams.

[00:32:06] I remember talking to the, the golf team, and I don’t know any of the lingo. I love golf now, but I, I was a once a year player then, and I still don’t know much, but I’m talking to the team and, and I said, okay, let’s imagine that you’re teeing up the ball, the first tee and you want to hit it straight, but the ball goes sideways.

[00:32:23] Now that’s bad, right? And they’re like, well, yeah. I’m like, why is it bad? Is it morally bad? Is the ball evil? Like it’s bad because you didn’t get what you wanted, right? That’s why you’re calling it bad. Well, is everything that you wanted has always been the best thing for you? And is it possible that you could hit into the woods and that could be the best thing for you?

[00:32:47] Is it possible that you could be in the Masters, the biggest event of your life and have never won the Masters and hit it in the woods in a playoff? And could that be the best thing for you? Then say you’re a lefty and you’re in the woods and say you have social anxiety and now you’re in the woods and you love doing trick shots and uh, like you loved hitting big hooks and you hit a big hook onto the green and win the masters like Bubba Watson, is that what’s possible?

[00:33:16] So it’s so important to understand and, and was that a good thing for Bubba to win? That’s another question. So hitting into the woods. Well, it’s bad because I didn’t want it. Yeah. Well, do we know what’s good or bad for us? Results And circumstance wise, most of the time we don’t, we know what we want, but that’s a very different thing.

[00:33:35] I mean, look, if we just look back at my life, I’ve had so many dreams that I’ve got shattered and, uh, I’m just like, I, I wanna give up. That was because I had a single path for my life. I had one single story. My life has to go this way and that’s the way it has to go. And when it didn’t go that way, devastated, destroyed.

[00:33:57] And I didn’t know that that was meant to happen. That was for my good. And this is brings us to inner excellence Principle number one. Everything is here to teach me and help me. It’s all working for my good. Hmm. Remember that one For everybody who, who just listened to that, that’ll be in the action plan.

[00:34:13] Make sure you download that. ’cause we’re gonna have a lot of great quotes like that. There’s a great quote by Steve Jobs who said, you can’t connect the dots in your life looking forward. Only backwards, right? We try to, we see that path, you know, pro athlete, superstar, all of that, but we can’t connect the dots in our lives.

[00:34:29] Looking forward, only backwards. So, Jim, for the listener who has bought your book has, and by the way, this. This book is, there’s, I think there’s three books in my life who I’ve, that I’ve underlined and written in the margins as much as this. And, um, this is just like a G Brown, this is a book that for myself, it is kept on my desk.

[00:34:50] I just flipped through it. So for the listener, you do have to buy this. It’s, it’s for, it’s just a great book for the, for the person who’s trying to live this out. And they go, okay, I’ve read the book, Jim, I get it logically. But then I wake up, I go to work, there’s a traffic jam, I have a, you know, meeting, and then I’m busy.

[00:35:11] How do we put this into practice in the busyness of life? You know this, you know, you don’t just read this book, put it on a shelf and go, I’ve got it. I’ve mastered it for the rest of my, how do we reboot? You talk about this in the book. How do you reboot? Midday midstream so we can actually live this as opposed to drifting back to our default.

[00:35:29] Well, there’s a lot of things. The four daily goals is really something that they should, the listeners should think about right away, but there’s gonna be a lot of listeners that are, or at least people in the world that are on a fast track. To more and more success, but it’s on the wrong track. More success in quotes.

[00:35:51] Maybe they’re getting more awards or achievements or whatever, but their marriage is falling apart or they’re, or they’re just, um, having more stress, more anxiety, but they’re good at it, but they’re not growing personally and they’re gaining more anxiety, not more peace. And so for a lot of people it means like, like I told one of my PGA tour golfers, I said, look.

[00:36:15] Going to the tournament next week, it’s not even worth it until you get your heart, right? Like, why are you even going? You already got millions of dollars. What is one more win gonna get you? You need to get your heart right. That’s the key. That’s what’s running your life. Like, don’t get better at something that’s, that’s not important.

[00:36:32] Spend your life whether you’re digging ditches. Washing dishes, hitting a golf ball or a baseball, that’s really irrelevant. If God says to do one or whatever, it doesn’t matter. Do it the best that you can. What matters is, are you gonna learn and grow every day? Who you’re becoming is what matters. That’s the number one thing in your life, who you’re becoming and, and what do people feel when they’re with you?

[00:36:56] For the listener. This is the stuff that makes all of the books that you listen to, ’cause you, my readers are, or my listeners are, are readers and learners. Like all of that stuff, all the, the coursework you’ve taken, the certifications you’ve gotten, the other books you’ve read on the tactics, all of that actually works whenever you implement what Jim’s talking about here.

[00:37:18] So let’s go back to the, the, the last question, which was like, sort of midstream, how do I do this? Middle of the day, I’m like. Frazzled meeting stressed. I’m going back to sort of results driven. Pause. So you, you talked about the, the four daily habits. Anything else there? Well, yeah, so inter excellence has one mindset.

[00:37:38] The mindset is I compete to raise the level of or I lead to raise the level of excellence in my life to learn and grow in order to raise in others. So we’ve got this mindset and we’ve got three pillars, love, wisdom, and courage. Belief, freedom, and focus. We’ve got five skills, nine disciplines. And then, then there’s tools.

[00:37:55] Tools are things that you do in the moment. I’m really nervous right now. What do I do right now? I’ll give you a tool. For example, it’s the double inhale. So Andrew Huberman this, uh, scientist at Stanford. He calls it the, the fastest way to remove anxiety. So the double inhale is, is you, you’re gonna always inhale through the nose.

[00:38:17] And then you relax and let the air out. So it’s inhale 90%, and then add another little extra at the end through the nose. And then when you’re doing this relaxation breath, double inhale. It’s always we want to, on the exhale, we’re doing a couple things. We’re relaxing the facial muscles spot between the eye of the jaw, and we’re letting go of all concerns and desires.

[00:38:37] I was talking to one pro athlete one time, we’re having dinner together, and he was telling me about one situation he had, and I could see he was having a really hard time letting it go, even for dinner. And I said, Hey, what do you think about taking that challenge that you have that problem that you’ve, you’ve had and just setting it over here on the table for while we’re eating dinner, and then after dinner we can go back and pick it up again.

[00:38:56] And that, that kind of was like, oh, okay, I can do that. And so the double inhale is a way to, to, uh. Most people, way too many thoughts. Way too many breaths, way too much busyness. We need to simplify our lives. Slow it down to focus on what’s most important. Breathe less, think less, and dream more. Jim, what is the Inner Excellence?

[00:39:21] Freedom Project? Oh man. We got a retreat coming up here in November in Excellence. Freedom Project is, is a charity that I have where we go to Mexico and build houses with the youth, with a mission, uh, um, organization, nonprofit organization. In one weekend we build a, a house for a family, um, right next to their old house, and most of the time it’s dirt floors, pallet walls, tarp, roof sort of thing.

[00:39:45] And then we’re gonna build their new house right next to them with that family. And in two days we start with just a co concrete foundation and then we hand them the keys the next day. And on top of that we do a full inter excellence retreat, which is not available to the public. It’s
[00:40:00] only corporate or personal retreats.

[00:40:02] And so that’s a way the general public can do an inter excellence retreat. It’s through these inter excellence freedom projects. You can go to inter excellence.com or inter excellence freedom project.org and find out and and register for the next one coming up in November. Excellent. Jim, thank you so much for taking time to share your wisdom with us here today.

[00:40:19] Thanks, Jim. Thanks for having me.

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