High Performance Mindset | Learn from World-Class Leaders, Consultants, Athletes & Coaches about Mindset - 706: Inner Excellence: How to Master Your Ego and Expectations with Bestselling Author, Jim Murphy

Episode Date: September 24, 2025

Welcome to The High Performance Mindset Podcast, where we help you master your mindset to gain the high performance edge. My name is Dr. Cindra Kamphoff, and today I am thrilled to share my conversation with Jim Murphy—author of Inner Excellence. You might have heard about Jim’s book on January 12 when AJ Brown of the Philadelphia Eagles was reading his book on the slide lines of a NFL Game. To be honest, I thought to myself, I have read so many performance psychology books, how will this one be different? But after a recommendation from a colleague, I read the book this summer and loved it. Jim provides so much wisdom and tools in the book! It is amazing. Jim has spent decades studying what allows athletes and leaders to thrive under pressure. In this episode, he opens up about his five years of research with Olympic coaches and sport psychologists, and the surprising discoveries that shaped his Inner Excellence model. We talk about his viral moment when AJ Brown was spotted reading his book on the sidelines, and what it was like to see his work inspire so many people. You’ll hear Jim explain his three “Us” framework—being unembarrassable, unoffendable, and unirritable—and how these qualities help you live and perform with freedom. We also discuss the dangers of ego and self-centeredness, the trap of expectations, and how to stay focused on the process rather than outcomes. This is a conversation packed with wisdom you’ll want to revisit again and again. Before we jump in, at the Mentally Strong Institute, we help athletes and leaders achieve their goals quicker, uplevel their confidence, and increase their influence. To learn more about our coaching, I invite you to sign for a free coaching call with me or one of my team members at the Mentally Strong Institute at freementalbreakthoughcall.com. We will help you create a breakthrough –a moment of more clarity and understanding. That’s www.freementalbreakthroughcall.com to sign up for a free mental breakthrough call. Alright…let’s jump into my interview with Jim Murphy. You are going to love this one! 🔹HIGH PERFORMANCE MINDSET SHOWNOTES FOR THIS EPISODE 🔹 Learn more about Jim Murphy and His Work🔹 Request a Free Mental Breakthrough Call with Dr. Cindra and/or her team🔹 Learn more about the Mentally Strong Institute Love the show? Rate and review the podcast—and you might hear your name on the next episode!

Welcome to the High Performance Mindset Podcast, where we help you master your mindset to gain the high performance edge. My name is Dr. Sandra Campoff, and today I am thrilled to share my conversation with Jim Murphy, author of Inner Excellence. You might have heard about Jim's book on January 12th when A.J. Brown of the Philadelphia Eagles was reading his book on the slide lines of an NFL game. To be honest, I thought to myself, I have read so many performance psychology books. How will this one be different. But after a recommendation from a colleague, I read the book this summer and loved it. Jim provides so much wisdom and tools in the book. It is amazing. Jim has spent decades studying what allows athletes and leaders to thrive under pressure. In this episode, he opens up

about his five years of research with Olympic coaches and sports psychologists and the surprising discoveries that shaped his inner excellence model. We talk about his viral moment when A.J. Brown was spotted reading his book on the sidelines, and what it was like to see his work inspire so many people. You'll hear Jim explain his three us framework, being unembarrassable, unoffendable, and uniritable, and how these qualities help you live and perform with freedom. We also discuss the dangers of ego and self-centeredness, the trap of expectations, and how to stay focused on the process rather than outcomes. This is a conversation packed with wisdom you'll want to revisit again and again.

Before we jump in at the Mentally Strong Institute, we help athletes and leaders achieve their goals quicker, up-level their confidence, and increase their influence. To learn more about our coaching, I invite you to sign up for a free coaching call with me or one of my team members at the Mentally Strong Institute. at free mental breakthrough call.com. We will help you create a breakthrough,

a moment of more clarity and understanding. That's www. www.freymental breakthrough call. com to sign up for a free mental breakthrough call. All right, let's jump into my interview with Jim Murphy. You are going to love this one. I'm so excited today to welcome Jim Murphy to the High Performance Mindset Podcast.

Jim, I have been reading your book all summer called Inner Excellence. It's called Train Your Mind for Extraordinary Performance and the Best Life Possible. And you can tell it is well-loved. It's been by the water, got some good tabs in here. And, you know, Jim, I saw, you know, A.J. Brown reading your book on the sidelines January 12th of last year. And I thought to myself, I've read so many sports psychology books, I'm just not going to buy that one. Until my friend, um, D.J. Brown. Dr. Eric Bean, who was one of Kenravisa student, said, Cindra, you need to read this book. And it has been the thing I've been reading since then.

And I absolutely love it. I love your approach to performance psychology, and I can't wait to dive into it today. So thank you so much for being here. I've been really looking forward to this conversation for a long time. Yeah. Well, thank you. Thanks for having me. And Dr. Bean's amazing.

Dr. Bean is amazing. I'll tell him. I'll give him a shout out. You better listen to this one. Well, first of all, tell us how your life has changed since January 12th when A.J. Brown was spotted reading your book on the sidelines. Yeah, it's my life's changed a lot. Incredibly blessed. It's kind of interesting because in 2022, 2023 and 24, I went to 22 or 23 countries.

And since January 12th of this year, 2025, I've always. only been to a few countries, Spain, one of them. I'm now a resident of Spain. But I've been to a different city every four or five days the whole year except for one of them in Spain. And so, yeah, it's been nonstop, just an incredible amount of attention to this idea that selfless is fearless and this countercultural way of mindset. Yes, awesome. So I can't wait to dive into it. And what I appreciated about your book, Inter Excellence, I loved your model of Inter Excellence and just the uniqueness of it. So maybe you just start with telling us, like, how do we actually implement inner excellence? I know we're going to go dive deeper into many of your concepts,

but how would you answer that to get us started? Well, it's, the reason it's countercultural is a couple of things. The basic idea is to focus on the process, not the result, the very psychology, popular idea. But how we do that is a very in-depth system. And the thing that's somewhat unique is that the idea that self-centeredness is the biggest challenge. that we face in performance and in life, getting in our own way. And when we can get out of the way, then we can do great things. And that's why the idea that selfless is fearless is kind of one of the mantras of inter excellence. Awesome. Tell us more what that means to you, selfless is fearless because I remember reading in your book that you said like self-centeredness is the

biggest obstacle we face, right? And it's really the cause of fear. So maybe just dive into that a little bit more so we really understand it. Yeah, so I was a pro baseball player and my dream was to be a superstar athlete and I got injured and played five years in the minors and got injured and end up I was driving a truck for FedEx. I leave for the desert. I want to go figure out what to do with my life to find something that I can live and die for. And I'm in the desert and I decide to become a personal coach to pro baseball players and teach them how to have peace and confidence under pressure. and my first two clients do amazing. And so I thought, okay, I'm going to put together a little manual for future clients

on how to have peace and confidence. And I call up a sports psychologist and I ask him, how can an Olympic athlete train for four years for an event that may last less than a minute and have confidence in that situation? And also, how can a pro baseball player in game seven in the World Series with a game on the line, bottom of the knife, two outs, bases loaded, down by one full count. How can that guy have peace and confidence? And it just brought way more questions than it did answers.

So that took me into a five-year journey of 50 to 60 hours a week writing about that. And what I found is that the heart is the key to your life. This is the first major thing that I found is that when I say heart, I mean your spirit, your will, your subconscious, working with your heart. If you really want to make a change in your life or anyone's life, if you're a parent, a coach, a counselor, or just someone that has high aspirations, we've got to get to your greatest fears and your greatest dreams and much deeper than just your thoughts. So we use the mind to train the heart. So that's the first thing is that your heart is the key to your life. So it's

a lot more depth than simply psychology training the mind, which is powerful as well. Well, then I thought, well, how do we train the heart? And so then now we started to get into the depth of it and And what I found is that the thing that really changed my life, Cindra, was realizing that the path to training your mind and heart for the most mental toughness and peace and confidence under the most pressure is the same path to training for the best possible life, a life of deep contentment, joy and confidence no matter what, a life filled with love and joy and peace and all those amazing things. It's the same path. It's a whole hearted path, a path where you're fully engaged in the moment,

unattached to your results and to all the things in your life that are out of your control. Yeah. So beautifully said. You know, and I think working with football players myself, and I just mentioned to you before we got on the call that my son's football team broke a 19-year streak. He plays for Mancato East High School and Mancato West. They have this thing called the jug game. So they play this game every year. And then, you know, the winner gets this big jug and this big ceramic jug. And Makedo East has not won this game in 19 years.

And somebody who's working with the team, like I was teaching them a lot about the process over the outcome. But that's so hard, Jim, because, you know, I think especially when you turn on ESPN and there's, you know, you see the stats and you don't see behind the scenes. And it's almost like the outcome. is glorified. So how have you found to actually teach what you're saying to be detached from the outcome? Well, yeah, it's really, I start off with every client is how do you want to feel in your life? How do you, like if you're a football player, how do you want to feel when you're on the field? And how do you want to feel when you're off the field? So that's the very beginning. And the part that, to kind of continue with the self-centeredness part is so what

happens is we need to think as humans we're we go through life looking at the world from one point of view the whole time. I've never seen life exactly from your point of view. You've never seen it from mine and no two people have seen it from the same vantage point. Because we don't see the world as it is. We see the world as we are. We see the world through a lens that's been formed through all of our experiences and our wounds and fears and hopes and dreams and desires and that creates a story and beliefs about our lives, that that's how we see the world. And what I try to do with inner excellence is help people understand that when you're looking at the world through the lens that you have, it's a limited lens, and so we constantly

want to expand what you believe is possible, let go of your past. And when we think about ourselves, we have this subconscious mind and what I call the trickster that reminds us of all our weaknesses and failures, or subconscious trying to protect us, working hard to protect and also to light up our goals and dreams, or our results with our goals and dreams, or our results with our beliefs, rather. And we have this part of our mind, the ego that's always threatened, always comparing and never satisfied. And so when we think about ourselves, what happened is that our subconscious reminds us

of all of our mistakes and weaknesses and the things that are threats. and then so we get afraid and so we compare ourselves to others because we don't want to feel bad and then in that comparison there's always someone else that has better or greater skills or things and so then we start to get a little bit afraid and so self-centered fears is generally a self-centered thing um in general when someone's afraid they're not afraid of what's what's happening down the road or in another country they're afraid of what will people think about me? And what will people think about me after I perform or give the speech or whatever? And so it's future-oriented, self-focused. And so when we get out of the way, then we've got

a possibility to be fearless. And the great antidote to fear is love. There's no fear and love. And so you can think about when you love a great movie or love a great book or a great piece of art, then you're completely cut up in the moment. And there's no thoughts of self. There's no self-concern and no self-protection. Yeah, absolutely. And I could imagine the one thing you might suggest is that like even playing with love of the game or loving even the hard things as we go through our life or showing more love are ways that we can reduce that fear and ego. But what else, what would you say about that you agree or what else would you add? Well, it's so important to understand that when you

when you're playing a sport, it's a package deal. You have to get really good at the heart things and everybody likes the fun things, but can you get good at the hard things? Like as Ken Revisa used to say, can you get comfortable being uncomfortable? And so, yeah, I think that's one of the biggest challenges. So when you think about the ego, because I want to dive into that a little bit more, I really appreciated that about your book. And what are some ways that you see people let their ego sabotage their performance? And what do you think are some practical steps that people can take to manage that ego? Yeah, the big one is just this fear of failure. So our greatest need is for love as humans. Our greatest need is for love and our greatest

fear is not getting that love so being rejected. And now with social media, the comparison is 24-7. And so the ego says, I can't fail because it's always. always threatened, always comparing, never satisfied. That's how I define it. And so we have that part of our mind that's always threatened and always comparing. And it says, if you fail, you're going to get rejected. Your greatest fear is going to come true. So you cannot fail. Yeah. Excuse me. And you cannot look foolish. You cannot make mistakes, all those things. And that's the ego. And so interaction is largely about mastering the ego. And so when I think about mastering the ego or when I think about inter-excellance, I think about mastering the ego. And I think about self-mastery. And when I think

about those two things or three things, then I think about being unembarrassable, unoffendable, and un-irritatable. And those are really selfless attributes. I, honestly, that was the part in your book that hit home in my heart the most, being unabarrassable, unoffendable, and uniritable. I think that's what you said, right? Or the three U's. And I think for me, I think about maybe times where I have been embarrassed or people have irritated me or offended me, right? And so I have been really using that in terms of just my own life. Tell us about what those three things really mean to you. Well, I think of humility. I define humility as an accurate view of self, not overinflated or underinflated. And if you're completely humble, then there's no chance of getting humiliated.

And so, in the book, The Best Possible Life, I wrote about this idea of, about Michael Phelps. So he wins 23 gold medals. He's maybe the greatest accomplishment in all-time athletic history. So the question I asked was, how much, if you divide the credit between Michael in God or the universe and out of 100%. How much does Michael get? How much does God get? Is it 50-50? Or how would you? Because obviously Michael could have chosen to sleep in and never get off the couch, but he worked really hard. And so in the book, I say that I give God 98% and Michael 2%.

Because every single thing that he did was a gift given to him that he was able to do. He was able to get off the couch. He was able to work hard. He was able to to get in the pool, all these things, because most of that were gifts given to him. For example, if he's born 400 years ago in Afghanistan, there's no Olympics. He's got zero chance of being a gold medalist, even if he was the fastest in the world. But everything, his body, his having parents put him in a pool and the coaches. So the reason I say this, why this thought experiment is so helpful to me is because it's to understand that you're responsible for your heart.

in your effort and the rest is up to gut and when we try to control what we can't control then that creates a lot of fear and anxiety anxiety is in mind with too many thoughts from too many concerns and so we need to simplify our life if you want to be great under pressure and and a lot of Americans and people around the world have more pressure than pro athletes because they don't have off-season they're working two jobs kids at home things like that And so we need to learn how to be, we need to simplify our lives and get out of the way. And mastering the ego is one of the main things that we do with interactions. So I'll give you an example of how that works.

I was out of PJ Torven, the playoffs, and my client is playing $100 a birdie, $100 a hole. And every birdie, you pay the other two guys, $100 bucks. And so the first two guys, birdie the first two holes. And so now he's down 400 bucks. Third hole, he has a birdie putt, short birdie putt, the other guys don't, and he missed it. And he said, he was nervous. I said, you missed that because of your ego. And he said, what do you mean?

I said, would you have missed that on your home course playing by yourself or with friends? He said, probably not. I said, yeah, you were concerned about what they would think if you missed. And you were just really comparing yourself to them thinking about that. That's why you missed it. And so I said, what I do when I'm nervous, I want to understand, is this my ego? Is this, I'm afraid of failing what people will think about me? Because the number one goal in your ender excellence every day is to learn and grow,

especially to master your ego and especially to get comfortable being uncomfortable, get comfortable with the feelings that are going to come when you come to the edge of your beliefs. And so I ask myself in those moments, what would I rather have? Would I rather be successful in this moment? or would I rather get better at these moments, a.k.a. master my ego, get rid of this fearful part of me. And so obviously the wise answer is, well, yes, I want to be successful in this moment. But if I'm truly a professional or anyone with some wisdom that I want to get better at these moments.

And so if you want to get better at the moments, the key to getting better is not being successful in this because sometimes you're not, going to make it. You're not going to be successful. The key is to embrace the feelings. If you can embrace the feeling and get better at handling those feelings, then after a while, your skills will match whatever you're doing at any time. So what did that professional golfer end up doing in terms of like working on his ego or how did that end up? Well, he was great. I mean, we worked together for three, four years. He had three, the four best years of his career. So it was it was a fun time um yeah but it's hard mastering the ego is hard it's something you have to do every day and understand that um it's not like you've got it once you know it's like okay

i'm good now it's every day there's there's threats and we live in this world that's 24-7 that's obsessed about um temporary transactions and and looking good in what i call the the acronym palms possessions achievements looks money and status and the ego is always you know when you wake up in the morning, that's what is looking for. Much more of that. So you can get that, that, that love that we desperately want, but it's not real love. That's just a temporary transaction. You're getting this, you're getting the cheers because you gave people what they wanted. You don't get what they want. There's no more cheers. You're going to get the opposite booze. And so that's why we've got to get deep into,

what do you want most? This is what interactionless is, let's go for directly what you want most. Why do you want to be pro golfer on the PJ tour or world number one or playing the NFL like AJ Brown? What is it that you really want? Why do you want that? Because like you could win 23 gold medals and not have any peace or joy. You could be in the NFL and be an NFL and be an NFL all-star and be suicidal. There's, it's not the outcome that's going to make your life amazing. What's going to make your life amazing, is to understand what does my heart deeply want? And how are we created? We're created with five deep needs, identity, community, purpose, integrity, and growth. And so these are the things that we go over in our Inter Excellence Retreat.

Hi, this is Cindera Campoff, and thanks for listening to the high performance mindset. Did you know that the ideas we share in the show are things we actually specialize in implementing? If you want to become mentally stronger, lead your team more effectively and get to your goals quicker. Visit free mental breakthrough call.com to sign up for your free mental breakthrough call with one of our certified coaches. Again, that's free mental breakthrough call.com to sign up for your free call. Talk to you soon. You know, we just did a study, Jim, where we surveyed people all over the U.S. about confidence and these different questions about confidence. And one of the findings from the study is,

that one in two gen zers. So a gen zier is defined as someone between 18 and 29 years old. So a lot of the college athletes who might work with, some of the professionals we might work with. And we found one and two gen zers consistently or frequently feels like they're not enough. So basically half. And, you know, when I heard that, when I read it, when we got the, it's like my heart just, you know, just kind of hit my heart because I have two boys. They're both Gen Zers. And I think a lot about them. And I'm just, as I think about the ego and everything that you're talking about, you know, that Gen Z, they spend six and a half hours on their phone a day. And so it's constant comparison of, you know, something, somebody that's better than me. So when you think

about like mastering your ego and I appreciate that you said, you know, it's something we have to do every day. You know, for those people who are listening, you really want to master the ego like you're mentioning. What are the ways that we might notice our ego? And then what would you tell us to do instead? Yeah, well, being offended, easily offended or offended at all is a very big one, easy one to see. And being embarrassed, those are too clear, the biggest ones. Like I said, if you're truly humble, then you're not going to be embarrassed. And so, but being embarrassed is kind of a human thing because we're we all have uh and so also is offended so when you're offended it's it's um and essentially being offended is is uh someone made me look bad i didn't like my

um what they said or did took away from from my uh status in some some manner but if you're completely humble then and it doesn't matter what people say um and this takes a lot of work because You know, every parents will tell you this, don't worry what Johnny says or Susie says. We love you and you're great. No matter what anyone says, you know, this is very common. One of the problems that athletes have and young kids have is the, they know that I need to be confident. They're like, okay, I want to be great in my sport, so I need to be confident. So does that mean I should be cocky?

Should I get angry? Like they hear, okay, when someone gets really angry or throws their helmet or they're bad or whatever, then they announcer might say, well, they're a real competitor. And so is that what I should do as a young kid, a Gen Z? Or should I be like that? And so there's a lot of questions there. And so interaction says, hey, let's look at when you're at your very best, what does that look like?

What does that feel like? What's going on your heart and mind? And so I, in all of the athletes that I've studied and worked with, I kind of describe it as having a clear mind and unburdened heart. And so Inter-Excellance is really about how do we, first we're going to clarify how you want to feel with four or five words. And then you're going to share with three or four memories of when you felt that way. And you could have been playing board game or ping pong or anything. It's just when you're at your best, what is it like?

It doesn't matter if I might be talking to. the world number one golfer, and I would ask him, okay, when you're at your very best, what's it like? And it could be when you're 10 years old playing basketball. What does it feel like? How do you want to feel in your life and how do you not want to feel? Then we're going to get, help you learn principles and tools and disciplines to help you get that feeling more often, what I call it flow or flow of resonance. Exactly. Yeah. So I'll give you an example of one of the disciplines is to deprive the appetites. And so, it's kind of like the idea of doing hard things.

And when I think of depriving the appetites, the first two things that come to mind are fasting, like today's Monday. So Monday is a fasting day for me, so going without food for a while. And then cold plunge. So those are a couple of things that are, when I think of depriving the appetites to me means,

means we're, as humans, we're led around by our senses, especially our eyes, but we take information in, through our senses and then we process it and create meaning from it and act on it. And so we always want to feel pleasure, happiness. I never want to get punched in the gut compared to, say, sitting in a hot tub. I always would go for the hot tub. And so, but if you want to have, say, grit, or you want to have mental toughness,

or you just want to have a great life, then you have to get good at doing hard things, which means you have to get good at rejecting some desires and compulsions and needs. For example, inter excellence, we have three principles, and one of them is, I have no needs, I expect nothing, I am free. This is kind of a mantra. I have no needs. I expect nothing. I am free. Yeah. And there's so many ways I can follow up on what you said, but it reminds me of something that I put, I put a little sticky note in here in your book on page 131.

And you're talking about I expect nothing. And you said expectations are potentially a large stumbling block in performance, causing tension and fear, taking you out of the present. By definition, expectation implies looking to the future. And centering exercises are done to bring your energy to your body center and your mind to the present. I think this is a block for a lot of athletes and performers, even a lot of leaders, who expect these big things or maybe have, you know, expectations that control them. What advice would you give for people who, as I read that, said, yeah, that's me. I tend to like really get caught up in a lot of my own expectations or other people's expectations.

Well, one thing is that you don't know what's best for you result-wise. Like we have Ryder Cup coming up in golfs. Who's going to win? Well, I know people on both sides, but I'm American, so say I want America to win. Well, is it best for America to win? Who knows? You know, the Masters next April in golf. Who's going to win that?

Well, there's a lot of people that want to win. win it, but would it be a good thing for them to win? Don't know. So you have your goals and your fears, but are those goals the best thing for you? Well, you can think about it this way. Has everything you've ever wanted always been good for you? I've never met someone that that's been the case, right? And so since we don't know that the results that we want in our life are not the best thing for us, we don't know if it's good or not for us. We know, the only thing we know is that we want what we want. But since you don't know, know if it's good for you. And we know that like with inter excellence, um, and I talk about a lot

in the best possible life is, is that the best possible life, a life with deep contentment, joy and confidence no matter what has one foot in joy and one foot in suffering. And so human nature is, I don't like the suffering. Like Jim, I don't like suffering either. Like who likes suffering? Um, but if you want to have an extraordinary life, then we need to have, um, inner strength. And there's no inner strength. There's no wisdom. There's no physical strength without going through challenging things. You've got to break the body down to give bigger muscles. You've got to go through difficulty and hardship to gain wisdom. And so that's the best possible life is one that embraces difficult things like the discipline of depriving the appetites.

Jim what in your opinion what's the difference between like expectations and goals and dreams as people might be getting those confused yeah so I think of dreams as as what you the reason why you want the goal so say your goal is to be a world number one well why do you want that or win an Olympic gold medal why is it that you want that Like, you're going to wear the metal to the grocery store. They're going to give you 10% off. What is, what is it that you want? I mean, why is it that you really, really want that?

And so when I think of why most people want an Olympic gold medal, it's because they feel like it's going to bring them, well, the success of winning a gold medal will make them feel better about themselves. when they go to introduce themselves, they'll be introduced in a way that they'll feel better. They'll be able to have more comfort. Like, in other words, people will treat them in certain ways. Maybe they'll get more sponsorships, maybe more money, and life will be easier, and I'll be more popular, and this sort of thing.

Like, people don't really think deeply about what is they really want. Inter excellence says, you come to me and you want to be world number one in something. That's great. If you're good enough, I can help you get there. but the way we do it is we say, well, why do you want that? Let's go for what you really want directly. For example, in the book I talk about, what would you rather have a $10 million house in the water?

Or would you rather have living in an apartment paycheck to paycheck, but be guaranteed amazing experiences, incredible relationships, happiness and joy every single day of your life. It just wouldn't look like that to the outside world. Which ones you really want? Like isn't the reason you want a fancy house because of you think you're going to have these events in on these get-togethers, and then those get-togethers are going to be really, really fun, and you're going to have these great conversations and great

experiences. Well, let's go for the great experiences directly by creating your inner world because the other stuff is too much out of your control. Yeah. which gives you the best chance of achieving the other things. Yeah. I remember reading that part in your book. And again, it was kind of like, whoa, yeah, really good questions.

Makes you think really deeply about your desires and what you really want. And, you know, one of the other things I really enjoyed, Jim, about reading your book is like the beginning when you talk about your experience as a professional baseball player and how you got really tied into the outcome and the ego, which I think all of us can relate to in many ways, right? Tell us about your journey to, you know, maybe we could say having a more stable part of your identity besides your outcome. Yeah, like most kids that have some skills, I was obsessing about being a superstar in the NFL or Major League Baseball or NBA. And so getting drafted by the Cubs was a dream come true. But as soon as it got drafted, there's

fear of losing it because it was my whole dream and then now it became my identity. Then I got injured and lost it. And so then there went my identity. And I realize now, looking back, that all the hardships in my life has been training for me. At the time, I didn't know it, I, I, can you remind me the questions? Sure. Yeah. Well, I agree with that because I think of for me, all the hardships in my life have to train me for this moment too, you know, and that's also why I do what I do. I was a really great high school athlete who got to college and got a full scholarship. And it was actually in college where I just kept on getting in my own way, you know, right at the beginning when you were talking about the ego, it was like I was constantly comparing myself to other people. And, you know, I think of selfless, as fearless. I would.

I was really self-focused, you know, and that caused a lot of my own suffering. That's why I do what I do today. So my question, Jim, was about, like, how did you, you know, when you spent those years in the desert trying to understand yourself and how did you disconnect yourself from the outcome? Guess that would be the real question. How do you still do that now? Yeah, I really think about what is it that I really want.

How do I want to live? How do I want to feel? Who do I want to become? what's most important to me. And so my life purpose is to share God's love, wisdom, and courage with athletes and leaders around the world. But it's really with everybody. I think of the purpose as something that you could do in prison.

So it's not circumstance-dependent. And it's like when the week of, when this all happened, January 12th, I was day three, my heart was racing, and I was just getting overwhelmed. And because my life was, it was like the calm before the storm, and all of a sudden this huge, amazing storm hit, but it was a storm. And I felt like God's saying, Jim, look, you didn't do this. I did it. I'm doing it. Don't worry. You don't have to keep it going or anything. And your purpose

is not going to change. Like when I first, one of the first, I guess, breaks that happened was when the book first came out in 2009, Shaw, Tiger Woods coach called me and said, I read, inter excellence can you talk to one of my clients and so talking to tigers coach i was nervous before the call and so i was thinking about why am i nervous and what is it that i really want and i was talking to god about it's like well it's not that i i don't want this so i can become rich and famous i want this because i want to do something meaningful with my life and the power so When I think of mental toughness, I think of being able to, to use your skills that you would do, like in practice, pressure. And so if you're an 80% free throw shooter in practice,

then can you shoot 80% in the playoffs, that sort of thing. And so with mental toughness, I think of five things that are intertwined for me. There's inner strength, inner peace, mental toughness, gratitude and beauty. And so gratitude is the key there, because that's one we can really control. So when you're, the more grateful you are, the more inner peace you have that develops inner strength and inner strength creates mental toughness. And then the more beauty you'll see through all of that. And beauty meaning like yesterday morning, I saw my first, I'm here in central New Jersey and I saw the first leaf of the season falling. And at first I didn't realize what was happening. And then I was like, wait a second. That's the first.

first fall, leaf falling of fall. The seasons are changing. So I start thinking about my life and all this amazing things that God's done this year for me, through me, I should say. And, yeah, it was a great moment. Yeah, I think beauty is everywhere. It's just more about looking for it and noticing it, you know? Yeah, the more gratitude you have, the more beauty you'll see.

One of the, you know, when I think about your inner excellence, model. One of the other things I really enjoyed reading about was your concept of Zoe, which I think is like you're embodying right now, where, you know, it's like you talk about Massel's hierarchy of needs and the highest human need. And then, you know, I remember reading the statement of Zoe is like being your true self as you serve others and live with fullness of life. And I think like being your true self is a journey. You know, I think it's like pulling back. the layers of maybe what other people have said that you should be or sometimes your own expectations of yourself to just truly be your authentic self. When you think about helping people find that, what are some ways that as people are listening, they can work to be their true self and find that, Zoe? But your true self is based on sacrificial love. This is our, it is a human's greatest need. And so when you're, when you act lovingly and do something sacrifously for someone else,

then that's where joy comes from. Joy is a deep sense of well-being, freedom, and gratitude, this inter buoyancy and delight that comes from love. Sorry, remind me the question. Oh, I just said, I was just asking about Zoe and how can people live in that way, right? Because I'm just thinking about when you were talking about Maslow's hierarchy hierarchy of needs and the pursuit of greatness is to seek self-actualization, which is the final stage of personal development. And then you said, it's defined as your highest calling possible,

being your true self as you serve others and live with fullness of life. This is the Greek word that describes this phenomenon, Zoe. Yeah, okay. So I remember now what I was going to tell you. So your true self, there's a real movement in Western culture today that I need to follow my heart, which is a very inter-execlain. Follow your heart. There's a very important thing to understand, though. When I say follow your heart, I mean understand what your heart deeply needs and wants and then pursue that. But the heart needs training because we're naturally self-centered. And so if you don't understand how the heart works and how all of this works with beliefs, you might think that I need to follow my feelings.

I feel really, really strongly that I need to do something or need to have something right now. And that's true for me right now. So that means being true to myself is honoring that. And that could get you killed. That could get you addicted to drugs or pornography or sex or, you know, anything, food. So it's super important to realize that being your true self does not mean following your feelings or if I feel something I need to tell somebody about it. Well, telling someone that loves you is great talking about your feelings. But telling someone like how you feel all the time is not always the best answer because how you feel is often, well,

Feelings come from your thoughts and your perceptions and your beliefs. And someone may have said something wonderful about you, but you could take it the completely wrong way. Depends on the lens that you saw it through. That's true. Amen. Can I ask you a fun, a few fun questions to end? Yeah. Okay. What's something people would be surprised to learn about you?

Maybe a quirky habit or a fear you've had or a talent no one expects. Well, when I was in the desert, I taught myself to write opposite-handed. I grew up running lefty, so now I write both. Wow. Which one do you use more often? Well, when I'm writing vertically, it's 99% of the time right-handed now, even though I grew up running lefty. And when I write a flat, it's still mostly lefty. So.

There you go. If you could invite three people living or from history to a dinner party who you really think embody inner excellence, who would they be in why? Okay, well, we're going to take out Jesus because that would the obvious creator of the universe. Well, I think King David, you know, I would really like to have seen the whole thing with Goliath. that'd be really cool um and uh um moses parting the red sea like how amazing is that and then um um um smartest guy in the world was his name not samson um i forgot another biblical character those are the three okay i love it i love it uh what's the daily ritual that you use to recharge you

and to live with inner excellence. Oh, like in the morning, 10 minutes every morning. I have this routine where I face the sun or if I'm in Seattle, I put the happy light on my face and I sit in a stretching position cross-legged and then set the timer for 10 minutes and then I put on this, this what I call worship music, but there's words that share God's love with me. I repeat a mantra where I imagine God is telling me, Jim, you are my beloved and whom I delight. Excuse me, I got that from Ken Chigamatsu to a friend of mine.

So that's really important because if you go out into the world and you don't feel loved, like I said, it's our greatest need. Then you're going to try and get it from other people by how you look or what you say or do or achieve. And that's a very losing battle. And what I also appreciated about your book is the 10 new empowering presumptions. I think that's how you say that word. But I want to know what your favorite is. Some of them were like your life is a reflection of your beliefs. Self-centeredness is the root cause of fear, which we talked about.

We all have the same deep needs and deep desires. Everyone does the best they can with what they have. The problem is not the problem. The problem is the way you're thinking about it. Those last two are really big. I would say everyone does the best they can with what they have in their heart. To me, it's a life-changing one. You know, we're created for a relationship.

And if you want to raid at something, then over a long term, then we need to stay present. And one of the biggest things that derails most of the, people is judgment. When I say judgment, it's laying down a negative verdict about yourself or someone else or the circumstance. And so when we judge others, we're creating negative energy within ourselves. And some goes to the other person, some stays within us. And then we've become more unstable and self-conscious and concerned about being judged every time we judge someone. And so we want to use discernment with other people and relationships. And sometimes the most loving thing to do is

have a boundary. But when you, the idea that everyone is doing the best they can with what they have in their heart is would be very, it's very hard. Because I teach this in my workshops or retreats, very hard for a lot of people because everyone can think of one person that that guy's Bobby. He's really not, definitely not doing the best he can do. Sorry about me. So, but I, but I believe it's totally true that, um, according to that person's childhood

fears, wounds, beliefs, lends for seeing the world, that person is doing the very best that they can at all times. It doesn't make an excuse for it. It just helps you stop judging them. And also understand that you would do the same thing or say the same thing if you have their heart and their childhood. And so then you can move through the world with less judgment. And that's so powerful.

So powerful. Well, tell us, Jim, the book that we talked about today is Inter-Epsilon. you also have a new book, The Best Possible Life. Tell us where we can find both of those. And I'd love for you to tell people who are listening about your retreats and how people can follow along with your work. Yeah, Sandra, thank you. So you can go on Amazon and get both books.

The best possible life will be, actually, I'm here at this cabin now, working on the, we're doing a re-release with Hachette Books March 31st, I believe it is. But most bookstores are going to have, will have inner excellence. already. And you can follow me on Instagram, InterExcellance, Jim Murphy, or most social media, as well as if you really want to keep in touch, then subscribe to our newsletter. Go to my website, interrexelance.com. And we'll be moving to substack soon as well. I love it. Jim, thank you so much for your time, your wisdom, and your energy. I love your book. I can't wait to read the

one, the best possible life. I got to get that one next. So I'm going to Amazon next. And what I also thought is it was just really cool to see the field grow because of your work and a j brown reading the book on the sidelines and loved so many of the concepts you talked about today like selfless is fearless um your heart is the key to live we talked about judgment at the end you know a negative verdict of yourself or others um and just the different the three use i love those i'm going to continue to use those to guide my life uh and i just really appreciate your time and your energy and your wisdom today. So thank you so much for joining us. Thank you. So great to meet you, Cindra. Way to go for finishing another episode of the high performance mindset. I'm giving

you a virtual fist pump. Holy cow, did that go by way too fast for anyone else? If you want more, remember to subscribe. And you can head over to Dr. Cindra for show notes and enjoy my exclusive community for high performers where you get access to videos about mindset each week. So again, you can add over to Dr. Cyndra.com. See you next week.