Jim Murphy: Train Your Mind for Extraordinary Performance and the Best Possible Life

Episode Transcript
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Abel James (00:00):
Hey, folks. This is Abel James, and thanks so much for joining us on the show. What is your definition of success?
The same mental habits that drive stadium shaking victories can also lead to a profound sense of emptiness
long after the roar of the crowd has faded. So it's important to ask yourself, what brings the most meaning to your life? What makes you feel most alive?

(00:22):
And when life really hands it to you, what makes you get back up and keep going? Today, we're here with the best selling author Jim Murphy, whose journey from professional sports to performance philosophy
invites us to consider how loss and uncertainty are critical components of a life worth living.
Through the philosophy of inner excellence, Jim is here to help you cultivate a more examined, resilient, and deeply satisfying life.

(00:48):
Our greatest breakthroughs are often hidden in the parts of ourselves that we least understand.
And it turns out we can learn to thrive in uncertainty and train gratitude and awe like muscles. Now, before we get to the interview, as I research and write my new book about longevity,
one of the most important points to understand
is that connection to fellow humans is perhaps the most critical factor for living a long and healthy life. And it's been an incredibly rough year for many of us, myself included, as many of you know, and a lot of people are spiraling or stuck in a cycle of bad habits. Maybe that's you. So if you wanna improve your health and improve your life, it's crucial that you surround yourself with experienced folks who know how to get real results and also people who truly want the best for you. So my wife, Alison, and I are starting our own health and longevity club where health nuts like us can level up and get life changing results together.

(01:42):
It's called Club Wild, and we're stoked to connect with you in our own space completely outside of social media with no advertisements,
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no fake accounts, and no bots.
Just proven principles that can help you get in the best shape of your life with real people who want the best for you. We're hosting transformation

(02:03):
challenges,
new master classes,
live streams, our course and recipe library,
as well as a club chat room, and much, much more. Over the past fifteen years, thousands of people across the world have transformed their bodies and lives by going wild with proven principles of health and longevity,
and we hope that you can join us in Club Wild. So for your special invitation, make sure to sign up for my newsletter at abeljames.com.

(02:28):
That's abeljames.com.
You can also get a free five day challenge there. So once more, just visit abeljames.com
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(02:52):
and sign up for my newsletter, or you can check it out at wildrx.com.
Look forward to seeing you there. Alright. In this episode with Jim Murphy, you're about to discover
strategies pro athletes use to achieve peak focus and mental toughness in high pressure scenarios,
how to rewire negative memories to prevent future setbacks,
why it's crucial to let go of how society measures your life, and much, much more. Let's go hang out with Jim.

(03:23):
Welcome back, folks. Jim Murphy is the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, inner excellence, former pro baseball player and outfielder for the Chicago Cubs and performance coach to some of the world's top athletes and leaders. Thanks so much for being here today, Jim. Yeah. Thanks for having me.
So a lot of people are probably familiar with what happened with the Philadelphia

(03:44):
Eagles player, AJ Brown, reading your book on the sidelines during the middle of a big game. But that actually came at a it sounds like a very important time in your own life too. Maybe you could walk us through that. Yeah. It was a

Jim Murphy (03:58):
so many miracles happened
this year and leading up to that my whole life.
But that week was very, very unique for many, many ways.
Well, my mom was dying. And so she died January 16. She was 91 as an answer to prayer,
that she would not suffer anymore.

(04:19):
But so January 12 was the Packers
Eagles wildcard game. And then she died on the sixteenth. And that was
when ESPN
was over at the house I was about
to film.
But so it was a summer time because of that. And then also,
business was kind of slow and life was kind of lonely.

(04:39):
My life was really good. I mean, 2023
and '24, traveled to about 23 countries.
But this
past January,
I looked it up and we had sold 10 books, 10 Inner Excellence books in
January 1 to the eleventh.
And so
I'm walking around Downtown

(05:00):
Dallas
on twelfth and just I look up at the skyscraper and I think,
Jim, would you
rather own that skyscraper straight out for whatever hundreds of millions of dollars it's worth? Or would you rather have written the book, I just wrote a new book called The Best How
to Live with Deep Contempt, Enjoying Confidence No Matter What.
And so it's actually getting re released by Hachette Books March 31.

(05:24):
That's a book on the spiritual life. And I thought, no, I wouldn't trade
having written that book for hundreds of millions of dollars.
So I thought, wow, that's pretty cool. At least you got that. That's neat.
And then several hours later, I'm in my hotel room, I was in Dallas to lead an inter excellence retreat.
And
I'm watching a bowl game that was

(05:46):
about two weeks old that I hadn't seen yet.
And then I'm sitting on my hotel room bed and watching this bowl game on my laptop. And then I look at my phone, I see all these texts, I think, mom, maybe mom died.
And then, know, they all say, you need to turn on the Packers Eagles game.
And so,
yeah, seeing that was really

(06:07):
a surprise.
And especially what happened next.
Right away, within minutes, my phone was going crazy. And every way you could contact me was getting filled up. Then TV station asked for my
for copy of the book. They said we need it by
like 2AM tonight or something.
And it's kind of funny because I asked a friend of mine who was in LA and I said, Hey,

(06:32):
do you have a copy of the book? Can you bring it to this TV station? And it was a ninety minute round trip.
And
I said, You know what, I think it's called NFL Good Morning.
I don't have a TV, so I didn't really know how big they were. But
he said, I could do it. I said, you know what? If it's the Today Show, I would pay you a thousand dollars to go drive over there. But let's just hold off. I don't wanna make you run all the way out there.

(06:54):
And then a few days later, was on the Today Show. And then April 29, I was in their studios and and
just hundreds of interviews ever since. And then what was crazy was that week, get a A. Brown gives me a ticket to the following game.
You know, I met A. J. Brown, ESPN kind of set up our meeting.
And he gets me a ticket. So I'm in Philly a few days later. And so now they're playing the Rams. It was the snow game.

(07:18):
And
this guy on the street asked me for money, and I had no money in my wallet. So I said, Hey, hold on, just wait right here. I'm going to run to the ATM. And I run to the ATM, try and get money. And
I try to take $300 out and instead insufficient funds, 200 insufficient funds, 100, I get the money, I find the guy, give him the money and the next day my mortgage payment bounces and my checking account goes into the negative.

(07:40):
And that week we sell a $100,000.
So What?

Abel James (07:45):
That is really something.
So how did this, do you think, creep up on you?
Have you been applying the the principles of inter excellence, like, consistently in your own life? Like,
how does this sort of thing happen Aside from the higher power having a plan? Yeah, I mean, that's pretty much it.

Jim Murphy (08:04):
It was
the miracles that God set up. What I realized now is that my whole life was training for this this time in my life this season.
Of course, I didn't know it at the time, all the hardest times that were really, really hard.
I didn't know that it was training.
Although there was this time, I should say,
2010,
right after I had a near mental breakdown after the book. I spent five years full time writing and researching the book and I spent my life savings and $90,000 in debt.

(08:32):
And the book came out in bookstores around the world.
So this is now February
2010.
But I was in Downtown Denver thinking, okay, you've spent your life savings, you're $90,000 in debt, you have no money to hire someone to market the book, you don't know how to do marketing, and you don't like promoting yourself. It's not a good marketing plan. And if no one hears about the book, no one's going to buy the book, no one buys the book, Barnes and Noble is going pull out of their shelves and this could happen in a matter of weeks.

(08:58):
And if that happens, you'll be a total failure.
And if you're a total failure, then no pro athlete is going to hire you to coach them, which is kind of why I wanted to write the book. You're going have to get a job, a regular job, but in this economy, it was you know, it was a recession. No one's hiring failures, you're going to die alone in the street. And so this was my near mental breakdown in 2009.
But shortly after that,

(09:20):
I meet this homeless harpist that really is a significant change in my life moment.
I often think of my life as before meeting this homeless harpist and after meeting the homeless harpist. That was February
2010.
And then in
August
2011,
I met several strangers that told

(09:42):
me God told me to tell you this. And one was really significant was, I think it was the 2011.
It was a lady in
India, I'd never met her before. And she said, God wanted me to tell you a couple things. He saved your life multiple times.
Everything
you've been going through has been training for you,
which I can see now.

(10:04):
He's gonna bring people from all over the world to work with you, it's gonna happen soon, and you're gonna know it's from God. And so then my life just went kind of crazy. And,
and so I know that God's been training me, it's just easy to forget.

Abel James (10:19):
How do you remind yourself?

Jim Murphy (10:22):
Well,
yeah, every day I have I have various routines. Inter excellence is really a series of routines. It's a way of living
about thinking about your life and what do you do? What are the habits that you have every day? And so
one of the habits I have in the morning is ten minutes with God. I sit facing the sun,
and sitting in a stretching position, I turn on the timer for today was fifteen minutes countdown timer.

(10:46):
And then I put on what I call this worship music.
And
then I repeat a mantra
that says, Jim, you are the beloved in whom I delight. This is a friend of mine, Ken Shigamatsu, who kind of uses that one. And so I stole it from him. And so that's one of the things that I do.

Abel James (11:03):
I love that. Now what about the chasing of external symbols and success and all of that? It sounds like they ultimately chased
you.
But in between those times, like,
how have you coached other people to get away from pretty much all of the conditioning that we've been subject to coming up, at least in the Western world,

Jim Murphy (11:26):
pursuing wealth, status, that sort of thing? So I was talking to an NFL football player today.
We were talking about,
money, and,
this player is having a great season.
And so it could be a lot of potentially a lot of money coming.
I told him
kind of there's a mantra in inner excellence that I think is really important and going to be really important for you going forward. And the mantra is selfless is fearless.

(11:51):
And I said, you know, since January 12, I've gotten a lot more attention,
the book, myself,
everything, just a lot more people have
requested
my time.
And
if I start thinking that I'm the one that's responsible for it, that I'm somebody special, then it's a slippery slope to frustration,

(12:16):
fear, anxiety.
And in the book, The Best Possible Life, I wrote that Michael Phelps
achieved maybe the greatest
career in professional sports history with 23 Olympic gold medals.
And I wrote that, how much I
asked this question, how much does He deserve and how much does God deserve if you were to divide up the credit with 100%?

(12:39):
You know, is it fiftyfifty? Because obviously, he worked really hard. Supposedly, went five years or so without ever taking a break, practicing training every single day,
including Christmas, New Year's, etc. And so how much does he deserve? And so in the book I read that he definitely
deserves credit, and the credit is 2%.
And so once I start, because the way I think about it is

(13:01):
my responsibility is my heart and my effort. And God's responsibility is the outcomes and circumstances in my life and to, you know, to train me.
And so
I think that's
super crucial to understand
the 2%.
I define humility as an accurate view of self,
and not overinflated and not underinflated. And once you start going either way, now you're going to run into some real problems. And so, most of my life has been

(13:30):
having those real problems.
And so, I'm trying to live that with a more accurate view of life.

Abel James (13:37):
What about when you're working with professional athletes, for example, who are coming up in a world where they're, you know, expected to oftentimes have a public image and very much rewarded for it and paid
for it, also.
And, obviously, that world can can lead you down the wrong path of of ego.
How do you help them manage that, especially in the absence of maybe coming up and going to church or coming up from a religious background? How do you help them come from a position of,

(14:05):
you know, belief in in something bigger than themselves instead of ego?

Jim Murphy (14:11):
Yeah. And I think this applies to anybody. You don't you don't have to believe what I believe. You don't have to
I think you have to believe in a power beyond yourself, and that's it.
And I don't know
I know if I've ever met anybody that doesn't believe in a power beyond themselves, you know, holds the stars in place, grows the grass, spins the earth.
And so connecting with that power

(14:33):
is how you can be amazing.
And so it's really learning how to get out of your own way. The biggest obstacle in life that I read about in inner excellence is that we get in our own way. The self centeredness, the constant self referential life is what causes all the problems. And it causes three major problems, which is

(14:53):
overthinking,
negative thinking or judgmental thinking, and self consciousness, concern for what people think about me. Those are the three big obstacles. And they all come from the
self referential life.
Constantly thinking, what if I fail? What will people think about me? What will happen to me? What about my goals, my life?

(15:13):
And the more you think about that, the more anxiety and overthinking etc. Is going to happen.
Whereas when you're at your best in anything, it doesn't matter if you're an accountant, a school teacher, a mother, a professional football player in you know, in the NFL,
you're at your best when you're not thinking about self when there's no self concern, the selfless is fearless. And so
that's what interactionalism is, is how do we get every day to be in more in that selfless state,

(15:37):
that present state where anything is possible. And so that's understanding.
We really want to direct our greatest dreams,
and understand
our greatest fears, and direct our heart
and our loves to love what's most empowering.

Abel James (15:55):
If you find yourself in a state of worry or anxiety
and you're able to to notice that, what are the steps you can take to
help prevent getting to that place again in the future, but also get yourself out of it while you're just kind of struggling? Well, there's InterExcellence has four daily goals that I think are really important. Our overall goal every day is to learn and grow.

Jim Murphy (16:15):
It's so important to understand that you have your goals, but you don't know if those goals are good for you
as far as outcomes.
And so say your goal is to make a certain amount of money or get a promotion or make it to the NFL or PGA Tour.
Is that the best thing for you and your family?
The only thing we know is that's what you want, but it could be the worst thing for you. Even though for me, you know, I dreamed of being an NFL superstar,

(16:40):
NBA, Major League Baseball,
my whole life, you know, at least up until my my 20s. And then I got injured.
I knew that's what I dreamed of. But was it would have been good for me to make it? I don't know. I think
definitely the best thing was that I did not make it. You know, I got injured. And so but at the time, there's no way you could have convinced me that it's not good for you, Jim.

(17:01):
And so
realizing that you don't know what's best for you is really, really important to understand.
So the solution is to pursue fullness of life more so than tangible
outcomes. If your highest goal is a tangible outcome, then you're going to have stress and anxiety. So we want to pursue fullness of life. And that's starting now we got to understand the human heart and the deep needs of the heart.

(17:22):
In the moment,
so we have the four daily goals, which is give the best of what you have, be present, be grateful and focus on your routines and only what you can control.
So, and the first one, give the best of what you have.
The important part to understand there is to realize that some days are going to be 30 or 40% days,
meaning you're not going to have much.

(17:44):
And I'll give you an example. I was driving into Manhattan
a month or two ago and
had a couple of in person interviews.
And I was so tired from my schedule.
And
I drove four hours in what I thought was going to be two hours and just rush hour traffic.
And then I got there and the crew is ready to go like, Okay, you ready, Jim? Soon as I walk in the door, and I'm thinking, No, not ready. Little sleep,

(18:12):
you know, the stressful drive in.
And so I said, I just need to use the bathroom. So I go to the bathroom. And I was like,
first it was negative. Was like, man, this is not going to be good. And then I was like, wait, well, okay, what if you're coaching yourself? What would you say? I was like, well, remember the four goals. And then the first one I was like, Oh, yeah, today's a 30% day.

(18:33):
Yeah, I had very little sleep. There's just a stressful drive in.
And so
what I remembered was, okay, today's a 30% day,
I'm just going to do the best of what I have. And it may not be good. And that's okay.
And so I had two in person interviews and out of the several 100 that I've done since January,
I would say those are two of the top 10. So I was, that really helped me a lot.

(18:57):
So those four daily goals are important. And then in the moment when you're anxious,
there's various tools that you can use. A tool is something that
to do in the moment. Okay, I'm anxious right now. I'm stressed. I'm really, really nervous right now. What do I do right at this moment? Then we use a tool.
And so like, for example,
one tool is what I call the double inhale,

(19:19):
where you take a long, slow deep breath.
And then you add you get it like 90%. And it's always through the nose because we need to get the nitric oxide. So we go through the nose.
So last little sniff at the end, and then exhale. And exhale, you're letting go of all the concerns and desires and then relaxing the space between your eyes and the jaw, facial muscles.

(19:41):
So that's a tool you can use in the moment when you're anxious.

Abel James (19:45):
What about,
like,
during game time, preparing for game time?
Are there a set of rituals that you have seen work well or not work well for people? What have you seen?
Because it's definitely a unique vantage point. Oh, yeah. Say you're playing

Jim Murphy (20:03):
football or any sport and you got to prepare for it and yet it's game day,
then yeah, there's a lot of things. I mean, that's what inter excellence is really about.
Like I said,
these routines and rituals that we do. And so from the moment you wake up, we have routines.
Like ideally, the first hour of your day, there's no decisions, everything's already pre planned. What you're going to wear, what you're going to eat, the music you're going to listen to is all pre planned. With inter excellence, there's a morning playlist.

(20:32):
So if say you're an NFL football player, or an NBA player, like ideally have a playlist that you listen to when you wake up brushing your teeth. And that playlist is going to line up with how you want to feel, who you want to become. So the words and the
rhythm is going to connect you with that.
And then we have a pre performance playlist as well. So on the way to the field or in the locker room or both, we have a playlist. We're not thinking about what do I want to listen to.

(20:59):
We're deciding that ahead of time, what music lines up with how I want to feel when I'm performing.
That's the pre performance playlist.
And then
visualizing is you know, a regular part of every day, we want to see yourself overcoming obstacles as a big part of that. That's a big mistake a lot of people make is they just visualize
doing what they want to do. We need to make sure that we visualize overcoming things.

Abel James (21:24):
Another point that you bring up in in your book and in your work is that the pursuit of extraordinary
performance and the pursuit of an exceptional life are very much the same thing. Maybe not exactly the same thing, but

Jim Murphy (21:36):
they certainly rhyme. Maybe you could talk about that a bit. Oh, yeah, that was one the biggest things I learned in the desert. Yeah, for sure.
I realized when I went to the desert, I realized that
I wanted to write. At first I went to the desert just to figure out what to do with my life to find something that I could devote my life to that when I came to the end of my life, was willing,
felt like I really lived the life I was meant to live. And I did not go there to write a book. I just wanted to find

(22:02):
myself, I guess.
And then once I started to,
I decided I wanted 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.
So then I was like, okay, I'm going to be a personal coach to professional baseball players.
And then started to put together a little manual. And I called up a sports psychologist and asked him, how can a Major League Baseball and game player in game seven of the World Series, bottom of the ninth, two outs, bases loaded down by one full count, how can that guy have peace and confidence?

(22:34):
And also how can an Olympic athlete train for four years for an event that may last less than a minute? How can she have peace and confidence?
And so that brought more questions than answers. So I spent five years full time writing and researching that. And in the five years, I realized
quickly that well, first, I just wanted to write the best book ever on mental toughness.
And then I realized,

(22:56):
well, I don't want to devote my life to just teaching people how to perform their best if it's not meaningful.
Then my life isn't meaningful. Like what if I help someone become a multimillionaire
and but then they're just a bad person and they're net negative on the world. Did I do anything good? You know, I was like, well, that wasn't helpful.
So I realized I don't want to just help people

(23:18):
perform better. And then the question you brought up is really what changed my life.
When I realized
that the path to training for
mental toughness and being your absolute best in performance is the same path to living the best possible life,
which I define as a life of deep contentment, joy and confidence, no matter what. A life filled with love,

(23:41):
joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control, those nine characteristics,
a life where you feel fully alive with amazing experiences and deep enriching relationships where you're learning and growing and making a difference.
That's what I think of as the best possible life. And
it's the same path as training for mental
toughness.

(24:02):
It's a wholehearted path. It's really human optimization.
It's learning what does it mean to optimize my life to be the best I can possibly be as a human. That's what inter excellence is. And it starts with the heart.

Abel James (24:15):
I just watched or rewatched for the first time in many years, For the Love of the Game. And there's a moment as a pitcher you just mentioned this during the big game
where the crowd is just, like, screaming, and there are all these distractions. And I think what he says is, like, activate the mechanism, and then everything just goes.
All that sound just turns to silence and, like, all he can see is the where he's throwing the ball. Talk about that. How do these athletes achieve that level of focus kind of on

Jim Murphy (24:45):
command, at least at their best? You know what I've I've found interesting for myself, and I've talked to other pro athletes about it is is when the crowd is really big, it it becomes kind of white noise. It's the smaller crowds where you can hear the individual voices
that's that can be a little harder.
I remember one time when I was playing when I was younger,
we were playing in a small town. And every time I got up to bat, this guy was heckling me every single time.

(25:10):
And I just was like, this is training for the big leagues, Jim. This is training for the big leagues.
So you know, mental toughness, one of the keys to mental toughness is what are you pursuing? This is the foundation for mental toughness is what are you pursuing?
If it's just baseball to get a base hit or strike the guy out
in golf, you know, get a birdie and not a bogey, you know, just some tangible result. Now it's stressful, and it's hard to be mentally tough.

(25:35):
But if it's to learn and grow,
if it's to share what you love,
then you can be mentally tough.
So mental toughness is the foundation for mental toughness is what are you pursuing?
And even if you're playing center court, and you're 17 years old, you've never won Wimbledon,
and
now you've got a chance if you win this serve, you're going to win Wimbledon.

(25:59):
Well, you don't know if even if that's best for you.
And so if you say, Look, I don't know what's best for me. I just want to learn and grow today, center corner at Wimbledon.
And the rest is up to God, then you've got a chance to be really tough.

Abel James (26:15):
How about not just like the overthinking,
but actually your nervous system being overstimulated
or deeply
in the sympathetic state? How do you find ways to down regulate that in in moments of, you know, extreme stress or pressure?

Jim Murphy (26:29):
Well, there's one thing that I do every single day actually is is, or at least try to
is
ice water immersion with my face. So that's a way to train the parasympathetic
nervous system. So I do that with a combination of Wim Hof method breathing
with the face and the ice water.
I read about a study about two, three years ago, talking about the benefits of training your nervous system in this way.

(26:53):
I realized that without any of the physiological benefits,
one of the mental benefits of that exercise is that it stops the thinking.
You're not really thinking about a lot when your face is in ice water. And so that's one of the big things that I do with especially pro golfers.
But most people overthink way too many thoughts from way too many concerns. That's kind of the definition of anxiety.

(27:16):
And so finding ways to stop the thinking is really,
really important because we want to have thoughts that are focused on what's empowering.
And most people's thoughts,
way too many of them are negative or judgmental or self conscious thoughts.

Abel James (27:30):
What
about you see, especially after people participate in their professional sport, eventually they they need to move on and and retire.
Some of them do extraordinarily
well and go on to have incredible careers. Other ones just really,
you know, flame out or experience immediately significant
health problems, financial problems.

(27:51):
One of the things that make
people succeed in multiple areas of life, not just being obsessed with the sport while they're in it, but actually transferring
that energy, transmuting it into something for the future as well.

Jim Murphy (28:05):
Yeah. So the heart has five deep needs that I talk about in inter excellence retreats, and one of the key ones is identity.
So the problem that I had that is very, very common is that I had a single story for my life.
The story that I had to live was I need to be an NFL superstar or NBA superstar, Major League Baseball superstar, and that was the only option.

(28:27):
And so when I got injured, I felt like I lost everything. And it was devastating.
If you think about
the most successful entrepreneurs,
it's really similar to the most successful people that are successful in anything, sports, business life.
It's the willingness
to

(28:49):
it's kind of like Angela Duckworth talks about with her book Passion
and Perseverance.
And passion, the definition of passion is is to suffer.
And so finding something that you're willing to suffer for is is crucial.

Abel James (29:04):
I've never been through an experience like that where you really need to put everything that you have into
a sport
that turns into a career.
And then what? How do you, especially as a professional
in something that you inevitably kind of age out of,
how do the successful ones cultivate
something before they need to retire? Or how do they navigate that that next process?

(29:29):
And often it's not just one life pivot, right? It happens multiple times throughout life. So what are some other tools that you've seen people use
well to navigate all this?

Jim Murphy (29:40):
Well,
like for me, once I got drafted by the Chicago Cubs, it was like, okay, the only option is I gotta be a Major League Baseball superstar,
make millions of dollars. Every guy's gonna wanna be me. Every girl's gonna wanna be with me. Cover of magazines, and that's going to be my life. And so
what was going on there was, I had a vision in my mind, the story of what needed to happen for me to have the best possible life.

(30:05):
And it was just that one story.
And yet there's
thousands of ways that you can live an extraordinary life depending on how you define it. Like I define it as having amazing experiences,
deep enriching relationships, learning and growing, feeling fully alive, like who doesn't want that? You can have that.
We can all have it. It's really

(30:27):
this surrender to a power greater than yourself, get it and understanding that the
wind in the trees and the stars in the sky, they're all part of that same power. And
the problem is you're getting in your own way. And the biggest problem within that is ego,
which I define as the part of our mind that's always threatened, always comparing, never satisfied,

(30:49):
and
always
overinflated or underinflated.
And so then it causes an inaccurate view of the world.
And so you're always in self protection mode. And when you're in self protection mode, then you're going to lose out on most everything because
the greatest need of the human heart is for love. And
the ideal, the greatest ideal is to be fully known and fully loved. And the greatest fear is rejection.

(31:15):
And so what happens is we go into self protection mode, there's a default.
Because my greatest fear is rejection, I don't want to get rejected. And what I really want is to feel accepted and loved. And the basic idea is if I collect enough achievements,
and money and status and looks,
then maybe I'm going to get that love. You know, it's not thought of directly as this kind of a subconscious thing generally.

(31:38):
But you know, it's a chase your tail pursuit.
And so if you want to have the best possible life,
with amazing experiences, it's understanding
how do we optimize human life? You know, it's based on unconditional love. And when you walk in love, then there's no fear.

Abel James (31:56):
For a lot of people growing up now, every generation is a little bit different, but it seems like,
and maybe it's me reading into this, that there might not be quite as many, like, type a go getters as there used to be. The rewards aren't as direct maybe in terms of career or even in terms of school and that sort of thing. Social media has had a lot of different elements that weren't there before. But

(32:18):
what is your thought in terms of, like, say,
young men in their twenties who haven't yet had success in their career or in their life
who
aren't pursuing
greatness?
How do you help those people get a taste of that and why
it's worth it to actually
pursue something with passion and design a life around purpose instead of just kind of coasting?

Jim Murphy (32:42):
So people that are maybe lacking inspiration?

Abel James (32:45):
Yeah.
Or just lacking experience maybe.

Jim Murphy (32:51):
Well, we can kind of talk through it a little bit about what I do with people. What if, it doesn't matter if it's it's my nephew or if it's a pro athlete or LeBron James, it's really all the same. I want to know how they want to feel in their life.
That's the first thing we talk about is
how do you want to feel and kind of similarly, when you're at your very best, what does it feel like?

(33:13):
And so we're going to start to design habits of thought and action to get to those feelings.
We don't want to be led around by feelings. But when we're at our best, it feels a certain way. So we want to develop the awareness of when we're on track and when we're off track.

Abel James (33:26):
Let's talk about
how we can transform
into a life of success as opposed to just kind of like coasting.
Right now, in the face of AI and that sort of thing, life could get infinitely
easier forever.
But as you say, it might not be what's best for us. So how do we fight the tendency toward laziness

(33:47):
in the face of technology?

Jim Murphy (33:49):
So interresolence,
there's one mindset,
three
principles, five skills, and nine disciplines.
And one of the disciplines is to deprive the appetites.
And so
of I always think of this
podcast that I was listening to with Tyler Staton.
And I think it was might have been Andy Crouch

(34:11):
that he was talking to and
talked about the deprivation of the appetite for the cultivation of the spiritual life.
The best possible life is a spirit led life, your heart. I think of heart, will and
spirit as the interchangeable.
It's the deepest part of you, the most important part of you, control center for your life.
And

(34:32):
if you want to live extraordinary life, we need to get that heart
fully alive
and
needs to be trained.
Of the part of the training is depriving the appetites.
And so
doing hard things, we need to do hard things, the best possible life has one foot in joy and one foot in suffering.

(34:52):
And so
the phone is one
of the biggest, if not the biggest addiction in the world right now is the addiction to the phone.
And addiction is anything that prevents your growth. And that's what the phone is doing. It's done to me
and to millions
of people.

Abel James (35:11):
Yeah, and it's it's worth acknowledging that it's working against us. And it is addictive. And it's built to be as such. It's not necessarily a problem that we need to feel shame and guilty for all of the time. It's like something that we do need to navigate.
But you also talk about recovering from life setbacks and injuries and that sort of thing. And one story that that comes to mind is I think the name was Ryan, a ski jumper who experienced a head injury. And coming back from that injury,

(35:41):
didn't really change, it sounds like, whole lot of training, but went on to be a be a champion. Kind of took advantage of the neuroplasticity
that happens as a natural process after a head injury and actually went on to become better. So talk about that. How does that happen?

Jim Murphy (35:56):
Well, one of the things that we did initially
was we talked about energy, and energy is so crucial to understand. The most important thing about you is your energy,
Because your energy beliefs are energy. And so there's kind of three pillars to inner excellence, belief, freedom and focus. I think
those are kind of the three everything that we do with inner excellence is kind of revolves around these three areas belief, freedom and focus.

(36:20):
BFF like best friends forever is how you can remember that.
Beliefs are feelings.
Every belief has a feeling attached to it. And one of the things that Ryan and I worked on initially was helping him be much more aware of how he feels,
and the energy within him and the energy within other people and the energy in the room.

(36:42):
We need to make sure that because
like Bill Strickland says,
environment shapes behavior.
Environment is crucial. Who you spend time with, what you let your eyes see, what you're in your house, what's around you. Like my house,
the one that I sold five years ago was
the whole downstairs is filled every window is covered with writing.

(37:04):
And it's got inter excellence principles,
prayers, Bible verses.
So everywhere I went, I'm going to be seeing these things because I wanted to make sure that
my heart was getting trained and, filled with with empowering ideas.

Abel James (37:21):
So we actually have these opportunities all the time. We don't necessarily see it that way because we're running on autopilot
usually. But that billboard that you pass every day, it's like that's being registered in your subconscious and affecting the way that you think.
Intentionally designing that into the space around you is is super effective, especially if you can work it around with whoever you might be living

(37:42):
with at the time.
It
can really be something that is so powerful that once you learn how to take advantage of it, it can start running your own life and take over your room a little bit. But,
I I wanna make sure that we also
talk about a little bit more the
the fear based mentality and how self centeredness leads to that fear

(38:03):
and how selflessness
liberates you from it. I think a lot of us, maybe it's just me, but when you're in fear, you're not thinking that you're being selfish or in ego. Right? It feels bigger than that. It is not bigger than that, but it feels bigger than that. Right? How do you trick yourself out of that?

Jim Murphy (38:20):
Well, what I share is is,
helping people understand how fear when when I start with someone,
I want them to understand how fear works, how the subconscious mind works,
and what the heart deeply wants. And so understanding yourself, your mind and your heart is crucial.
And so the way I think about fear is essentially fear is self centered and future oriented.

(38:41):
It's like what will happen to me in the future? Like if I do this, what will happen? If I screw this up, what are they going to think about me? If I'm speaking,
you know, what will happen after I say, give my talk? What will they think?
And so
love is the opposite of fear and love is present and others focused.
And so I think everyone is always either walking in love or fear one or the other.

(39:05):
One of the two, and you're either walking in some version of love, like very loving or somewhat loving or
some version of fear, very fearful or somewhat fearful.
And the default is fear based because the default is self centered, which is leading you towards fear. Because when we think about ourselves,
our subconscious is running our lives
with our heart.

(39:26):
And
when we think about ourselves, our subconscious, it's got two main roles. It's protect you and then line up your results and circumstances with what you believe.
And so the subconscious is constantly going to scan the environment all day long and scanning the environment looking for things that can be dangerous.
Most often, it's going to find potential mental things that may

(39:48):
have been scary in the past.
And so it's going to constantly remind
you of your failures or remind you of all the mistakes you've made as you're going through the day. And then you're going to feel bad and when you feel bad, you're going to want to feel better. So then you're going to compare yourself to others. And then there's always someone who's got more better things than you. So then it's going to lead towards
fear, anxiety, etc. And that is the self

(40:09):
in the center life that leads towards that. Whereas,
I mean, just think about if there's an emergency and someone is dying, and you know, like in an emergency situation where they could die and you go to save their life.
How concerned about yourself are you as far as you know, what do people think about me? What are they judging what I'm wearing? Like, there's no thoughts of that at all. Right? So love is is completely fearless.

Abel James (40:36):
What about, I've heard in your work, you say you can train gratitude and awe like
a muscle. We've talked a lot about gratitude on this on this show, but what about awe? How do you build that into your life? That was one thing that I I really noticed during the pandemic years, during the lockdown,
that it wasn't until I was able to travel again that it's like I realized I'd been missing novelty and awe for, like, years,

(40:59):
and I really missed it. Yeah. I love that question.

Jim Murphy (41:03):
I think there is so much beauty around us, and that I've missed most of it, the vast, vast majority of it. If you really see
immense beauty, then awe follows. I mean, that's just a natural part of it. If the beauty is so grand, you're you're going to be in awe, right? It's just,
can you see it? And most of the time, I've missed it because I've been too caught up with the end of my nose. I can't see it. How

(41:28):
does this impact me? Everything has been about how does it impact me? And do I like it? Do I don't like it? Is it going to help me? Is it to hurt me? You know, all those things. And then so I've missed most of the things that would bring awe.
And so what I want for you and for everyone that's listening is I want you to be able to be at a stoplight or be walking down the hall, look out the window,

(41:49):
and
have that sense of awe and that sense that anything is possible, that freedom, that joy,
and
that connection to that greater power. That's what's possible
every day. And that's what I wanna help you and everyone else, and myself,
learn how to do.

Abel James (42:07):
You also help people remove what isn't you, I think is how you put it. How do you help people identify
what that is and how to shed it?

Jim Murphy (42:16):
Like I said earlier, anxiety is one of the greatest challenges that we face today. It's such
a big issue, especially in Western culture, and it's a mind from too many thoughts from too many concerns.
And in order to reduce the thoughts, we need to simplify our lives.
And we're
not going to simplify our lives. It's just like reducing hurry. One of the disciplines of Inner is to be still and ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life.

(42:40):
And there's no way you're going to do that unless you prioritize.
You need to cut some things out that are not you.
And
so that's why within Inner Excellence Retreat, we're going to clarify your life purpose.
Because we need to make sure
we know how to make decisions and everything.
There's just way too much out there with social media and

(43:01):
how the world is now. There's so many things that you could be doing.
Oh, what about this? Oh, I should be doing that. And maybe I should do that.
And that's why we need to really dig down on
do I want to feel in my life? Who do I want to become? Who am I meant to become? How do I want to live? Meaning how do I want to face adversity?
And what do I value most? And what are the characteristics of the people that I value most? And so we can narrow our life down into one single sentence, and use that to make our decisions, then we can simplify our life and say

(43:33):
no to most things so we can say yes to the important things.

Abel James (43:36):
How about coming back from injuries stronger?
Whether it's literally stronger in the same sport you're playing or stronger in another way on a new trajectory.
How did you manage that in your own life as well as with other athletes?

Jim Murphy (43:49):
Well, mean, I just had a PGA Tour player today sent me a text and said, you know, he's got this setback that he wasn't expecting.
Can we talk? And so
maybe he should just listen to this podcast because I'll tell you what I was going to tell him.
Well, the first principle of inner excellence is everything is here to teach me and help me. It's all working for my good.
And so there's a couple of things with injuries. One, we want to make sure that we

(44:13):
are able to see the part that's injured working correctly. So you might even talk to your physio
or look it up online so you can see the muscles or the bones or tendons, how it's supposed to work because we want to be able to visualize it working very, very well and stronger
than ever. And then we want to also if there was an injury where you know what happened at the time, if it was an acute injury, then we can rewire

(44:36):
that memory so it's not.
If you don't rewire the memory, then then there could be some tentativeness
going forward when you do the same action.
And we obviously we don't want to have that.
When you realize that you don't know what's best for you, result wise and circumstance wise, that's super, super crucial.

(44:57):
Because
we have our plan and how we think things should go.
But when you realize that
everything's here to teach you and help you, it's all working for your good.
That's a completely different shift. And what's the most important thing so for this PGA Tour player going forward? And the most important thing is his energy in these next three, four weeks.
It's not

(45:18):
his injury, it's his energy because your energy is going to help heal your wrist
or your whatever your injured injury is.
And
your energy is gonna prepare you for the season the best. And so we wanna make sure that energy is is connected
to what's possible.
And how do you rewire that? You said coming back from an injury, you can be a little bit tentative. How do you rewire that? Well, I'll tell you what one of the NHL hockey players I worked with would do, and this is kind of a in the moment rewiring.

(45:51):
So
I call it rewiring because what happens is you can get a feeling that can be turned into a lifelong belief in a second.
And that's how phobias happen. You know, you have some thing that freaks you out, it doesn't matter what happened. The only thing that matters is how you experienced it. If you experienced it as really embarrassing or traumatizing, then your subconscious is going to embed that into your memory.

(46:14):
And so and if it was an injury, now we got to be really careful because or gotta be
I shouldn't say really careful. Now we want to make sure that we rewire that that moment.
Because if you don't, then going forward, you could get reinjured
because likely that person would be tentative
and then go you go into a moment that's tentative and makes it more likely to get injured.

(46:36):
So what we do with the hockey player in the middle of a game, he would kind of do this little rewiring when he's on the bench between
shifts.
And so what I had him do is between shifts,
run through any any good moments and re replay that in his mind so he gets the good feelings for that. And anything that that he would have done different or didn't like, he's gonna rewind it and

(47:00):
watch it on a screen in front of him, rewind it and see himself doing it how he wanted to
while he's waiting.
And so same thing after
the game.
We never want to leave the field, the arena, the course with a negative feeling because we want to make sure when we go to sleep that our subconscious is working for us and not against us.

(47:20):
And if you're going to bed with negative thoughts,
it's just going to replay those thoughts all night. That's what we really want to avoid. We want to make sure that when you leave the office that you've got good feelings going forward.
And so doing the same thing when you leave, go through your day, look at the great things, the gifts you're given, the things that went well, and you're going to replay those and things that you would have done different. You see it on the screen in front of you, You're going to watch it go backwards, then

(47:46):
play it forwards as how you would do it next time.
Then for the NHL guy, his post game routine would he would do that, then he would visualize
himself in the future
doing things that he wants to do and seeing himself doing some great things. Then he would put on his straight clothes and go home.

Abel James (48:03):
Amazing.
Jim, this has been such a fun conversation.
What is the best place for people to find your work, inner excellence, as well as your new book?

Jim Murphy (48:13):
I have a newsletter called the inner excellence VIP newsletter.
It's going to be coming out weekly. It was we did it twice a month, back in 2023
and and previously,
and, it's going be coming out weekly here in the next few weeks, actually. So signing up for the newsletter would be the best way to keep in touch.
And then
I'm on social media, like Instagram's InterExcellence Jim Murphy. And then we have a book coming out in March,

(48:39):
The Best Possible Life. But,

Abel James (48:41):
yeah, thanks for having me. Of course. Thanks so much for joining us, Jim. Yeah. For sure.
Hey. Abel here one more time. And if you believe in our mission to create a world where health is the norm, not sickness, here are a few things you can do to help keep this show coming your way. Click like, subscribe, and leave a quick review wherever you listen to or watch your podcasts.

(49:06):
You can also subscribe to my new Substack channel for an ad free version of this show in video and audio. That's at abeljames.substack.com.
You can also find me on Twitter or X, YouTube, as well as Fountain FM, where you can leave a little crypto in the tip jar. And if you can think of someone you care about who might learn from or enjoy this show, please take a quick moment to share it with them. Thanks so much for listening, and we'll see you in the next episode.

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Jim Murphy: Train Your Mind for Extraordinary Performance and the Best Possible Life

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