The Rich Roll Podcast - Inner Excellence: Jim Murphy On Overcoming Mental Blocks, Mastering The Ego, Success Through Selflessness & The Pillars of Extraordinary Performance

Episode Date: August 4, 2025

Jim Murphy is the author of "Inner Excellence," a book compelling enough that NFL players read it during playoff games. This conversation explores Jim's counterintuitive thesis that selflessness, not ego, is the foundation of fearless performance. We discuss his journey from mental breakdown to spiritual awakening, his five years of solitude in the desert, and why self-centeredness is our greatest obstacle to both peak performance and fulfillment. Along the way, Jim reveals my own attachment to outcomes and the transactional relationship I have with love. Jim's wisdom is hard-won. This conversation is powerful. Enjoy! Show notes + MORE Watch on YouTube Newsletter Sign-Up   Today’s Sponsors: Bon Charge Get 15% OFF all my favorite wellness products w/ code RICHROLL 👉https://www.boncharge.com                                         Squarespace: Use code RichRoll to save 10% off your first order of a website or domain 👉https://www.squarespace.com/RichRoll     BetterHelp: Get 10% OFF the first month👉 https://www.betterhelp.com/richroll           On: High-performance shoes & apparel crafted for comfort and style 👉https://www.on.com/richroll              Seed: Use code RICHROLL25 for 25% OFF your first order👉https://www.seed.com/RichRoll Rivian: Electric vehicles that keep the world adventurous forever👉https://www.rivian.com   Check out all of the amazing discounts from our Sponsors 👉 https://www.richroll.com/sponsors   Find out more about Voicing Change Media at https://www.voicingchange.media  and follow us@voicingchange

Are you willing to face your fears? And then, this is a big one. Am I willing to face any feeling? Because most people are not willing to face any feeling. They're willing to physically do a lot of hard things and we got to look for those feelings that we're afraid of because that's our teacher. Because when you come to the edge of your feelings where you're most uncomfortable, that's where you can grow and that's where you can become someone you've never been before.

And that's the limiter. We come to these feelings where like, no, I don't want that feeling. And so are you willing to face those feelings? One, you're going to look for that feeling, you're going to embrace it. And the way you're going to do it is say, am I willing to face my fears today? Am I willing to face any feeling? If you're willing to face any feeling, now you've got some control, some power. Hey everybody, welcome to the podcast.

My name is Rich Roll, Rich Roll here. Is it weird to say that? Is it weird when podcasters introduce themselves by name, especially when those shows are in their name? I kind of think it is, which is why I never do it. So I don't know why I did it today. Anyway, nevermind. 90 days today, not 90 days sober.

I've been sober for a long time, but 90 days post-op, post spinal fusion surgery. And I bring that up because I've gotten a lot of messages from all of you wanting an update on the recovery. I assume because at least in part, because I've been a bit quiet about it on social media, sort of fallen off posting those morning walks that I was doing a couple of weeks back,

because well, look, there's a few reasons for that. One of which is that part of the whole deal when it comes to those walks is that I'm trying to be, present, available, quiet, attuned. That's really the whole promise and premise of these things. But when I'm like, hey, let's capture this on video for a story or thinking about, hey, that would be cool for a photo.

It just takes me out of the central conceit of the entire enterprise. So I just kind of stopped, which I guess left some of you at least wondering what's up. Did I go sideways? Why am I hiding? I'm not hiding, I'm just doing my thing. And it is coming around, I'll tell you that.

I'm recording this in advance of that 90 day mark actually. It's more like day 80 or something today. And I'm doing good. I think it's fair to say I'm out of the most acute phase of this whole ordeal, but still very limited just to walking, still in a back brace, no PT yet, no physical exertion, but my energy levels are starting to normalize a bit.

And this was the thing that has been the most difficult for me. I was just getting really tired, super tired. I could only work until about noon or one. I'm fine in the mornings, but then in the afternoons, I would just crater and would have to go home and nap. But less of that now, which is good. I've got a doctor's appointment in a couple of days.

They're gonna X-ray my back again, take a look, let me know where I'm at, what's next. And hopefully everything is as it should be. I still have pain and discomfort in that area and I'm not supposed to bend or lean or twist or pick things up or carry anything heavy. But hopefully by the time you hear this, I'll be out of the brace that I'm wearing right now

and able to start doing a few more things, which is exciting, like some PT. Because 90 days is sort of a benchmark, that three month mark. I still got a long way to go. And yeah, it has been hard, really hard at times, harder than I thought it was gonna be. And also emotionally, just not being able to do the things

that make me feel like me, like moving my body, which has all these downstream impacts, like how deeply I sleep. And there's been a little bit of an impact on my waistline. I'm not gonna lie. I'm pretty soft right now. And therefore, kind of how I regard myself, how I think about my identity as an athlete,

as somebody who advocates in the fitness and wellbeing space. And that has been confronting, but also super interesting because this really is an opportunity for me to kind of face myself, to unshackle myself from the ways in which holding onto like a quote unquote capital I identity and holding myself to that identity can be something that holds you back because these things,

these things that we think we are, that we hold ourselves out to the world as, they're really just stories. They're narratives that we've constructed about how we wanna see ourselves, how we want other people to see us and our attachment to those perceptions, which honestly, I think more often than not

does more harm than good. First, because these stories, these narratives, they're not actually true, they're just constructs, these convenient fictions. And because they hold us to a set of opinions and constructs that go hand in hand with that identity that in turn get in the way of confronting those ideas, challenging them, being honest with ourselves

about our buy-in that prevent us from entertaining and exploring other ideas, from trying new things, from seeing ourselves and the world really from another perspective, all of which I think gets in the way of feeling into the fact that we are spiritual beings just here, having a unique human experience and that we're all so much more than we allow ourselves

to see and feel and experience, which look, holds us back from doing what we're here to do, man, which is to learn and grow and evolve and change. So that's what I'm trying to do with this situation I'm in and the conditions that I've been given, which is to find out what happens, what it means when I deepen my surrender to things over which I have zero control

and let go of the stories. I've let define who I think I am, stories I like to tell myself, tell other people to make me feel safe, make me feel good about myself. And like I have value. And instead to try to find out what's beneath all that. Like who is that guy underneath at the core?

Which I can only do when I get quiet, when I tune out all the noise, when I stop running, stop trying to escape, stop thinking, stop working, stop hustling and just like drop the rock and sit in the discomfort and start listening and just be because I know this is where all the juice is, where all the real answers are hiding. And, you know, I'd like to not just discover those answers,

but actually feel what it would be like to live inside of them, to experience inner excellence, which is one of the reasons why I reached out to the guy who wrote the book called Inner Excellence, this guy called Jim Murphy. That guy's here today. And I got a couple more things I would very much like to mention, but first. We're brought to you today by Bon Charge.

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it doesn't matter how good you are. So head on over to squarespace.com slash richroll for a free trial, and when you're ready to launch, use code richroll to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. All right, Jim Murphy. Yeah, you know who I'm talking about. The guy who wrote a book so good

that NFL players read it during playoff games. That guy, he was a lot different than what I expected. I guess in my mind, I thought he would be, I don't know, like coach Taylor from Friday Night Lights or something, but he's nothing like that. He's just this really soulful present calming, almost Buddha-like presence who figured out a way to put words to the ways in which high performance

and life fulfillment intersect. So I suspect some of you, maybe a lot of you, are familiar with the camera, catching superstar AJ Brown from the Philadelphia Eagles reading Jim's book during playoff season last year, who at the time, I'm talking about Jim, was a guy nobody had ever heard of with a self-published book nobody had ever read, except a few people, and AJ,

who was literally reading it on national television in between playing time in the middle of a very big playoff game, which created a moment built for the internet that went instantly viral and led to all of this insane intrigue about this mysterious Jim guy. There's more to the story.

It's an incredible yarn, but I'll let Jim tell the rest. The main thing I wanna say right now before we dig in is that I think we hold this idea that if we wanna be a high performer, then there's gonna be a cost, a cost to your relationships, a cost to other areas of life that you value, your enjoyment of day-to-day life, your relationships to happiness even,

and ultimately to living a truly fulfilling life. But Jim's whole deal, his whole thing is that these two things, performance excellence on the one hand and inner life fulfillment, like sustained inner life fulfillment on the other hand, are not contradictory. These are things that are not at odds with each the other hand are not contradictory. These are things that are not at odds with each other. They are actually aligned.

And the way to achieve these things has a lot to do with letting go of the mind, leading with the heart, learning how to be more present and more fearless, which demands selflessness and a commitment to service by making what you do about something much more than you. Jim's a special one, as is this conversation. It's great and I think you're gonna dig it. So that's it, let's do it.

This is me and Jim Murphy. Great to have you here, man. I am very excited to talk to you today. You've been on an interesting ride. The book deservedly is, you know, skyrocketing right now. There's an incredible story behind that book that I wanna get into. And the book itself is just, it's a wonderful work

that I think is in service of humankind in so many ways. I know the entry point is athletes, high performance, but it's about so much more than that. And as I was saying to you before we even started, what I appreciate about it the most, I think, is just the heart centered aspect of it, like the holistic approach to what it means to be a human and pursue a fulfilling life.

And what is the role or context in which high performance can thrive within that without losing scope or your eye on the real prize, which is like, we wanna be happy, we wanna be accepted, connected. We wanna be able to give love and feel love, which is a very touchy feely message. And that like, there's a very fine line

that you have to walk to like, thread that needle to mixed metaphors,, thread that needle, the mixed metaphors to communicate that message to the hard charging professional athlete audience. That's right. Well, that's why your story is so amazing because how you got here is, you know, when you were little you were, you felt like you didn't fit in, right?

You weren't first picked at recess and you felt awkward. And I think that's what's so important for people to understand is your incredible success you have now was not this person that's just like, oh, I'm just so talented and just ride this wave of just being so skilled. It was really, you felt the opposite, right? And you had all these feelings that you had to deal with

and you couldn't deal with them. You felt like in your words. And so that's why you had that, you know, you're in your 30s, that time of your life. And then you learned, well, how do I deal with them? And that's what made you amazing. And that's what I think limits people is because they don't deal with it.

And they don't know how and they're too afraid. Well, part of the problem, I mean, it's not their fault in many ways. Like there's a sort of societal narrative, which is that if somebody is a real striver and very achievement oriented and is successful at the highest level of whatever it is they do, they're going to be universally celebrated for that.

And that comes at the cost of not really fully grokking the fact that there's gotta be some pain behind that, that's driving it. There's something dysfunctional there, right? That left on healed or unchecked at some point is gonna drive that person sideways or create some kind of existential crisis. Yeah, I think the more talented a person is,

the more dangerous it is that they're gonna move towards a life of fear and frustration. That's the, I think something that people don't understand because when you're really talented, then our greatest need is for love and connection and our greatest fear is not to get that. So deep down, this is what we all desperately want, this love and connection.

And if you have talent, then you're gonna be, whether you're smart or good at something, you're gonna get this applause, this love, right? And then so you're like, that's gonna become your identity. I am somebody because I get this. And then you're gonna crave it. That's our deepest needs. You're gonna crave it, so you're gonna want more. then you're gonna crave it. That's our deepest needs. You're gonna crave it.

So you're gonna want more. So you're gonna push harder into achievements or looks or money or status. And, but then you're gonna realize at some point that you can't fully control it. And then when you realize that, now we've got this grasping onto your identity. I mean, this is what happened to me.

And, you know, something I think that you've- Yeah, yeah. Beneath that, of course, is this deep seated knowing that you're undeserving of those things unless you are achieving these things in the external world, right? And if that becomes threatened, that threatens not only your identity,

but your entire sense of worthiness to these things that we need to feel human, love and connection. And that's terrifying. And so it's very difficult to overcome that strivers dilemma, like short of a intervening crisis. So, you know, I wanna get into your story because I think we can't fully appreciate

or understand the ideas and the principles that you talk about in the book without understanding you. But before we even do that, like we can't go any further without talking about the A.J. Brown effect. Like everybody wants to hear that story. So how do we begin with that? I mean, essentially you'd written this book and a few people had read it

and you were doing a few things in the world, but it wasn't like a book that necessarily that many people were paying attention to until a very specific day in January of 2025. That's right. Yeah, so the book initially came out in 2009, McGraw-Hill published it and I wrote it to get clients and we can get into that about the five years

of full-time writing and research going into the desert. But it was going great. I was getting clients and coaching professional Olympic athletes, but the book wasn't really selling a lot. And then 2018, I got the rights to it and 2020, I self-published. I worked on it for another two years and added more stories, updated a little bit,

same concepts and then self-published in 2020. So only available on Amazon. And the first 11 days of January, so January 12th was the wild card playoff game, Packers and Eagles. First 11 days, it was probably selling one to two books a day. And then January 12th is when everything changed.

So AJ Brown famously was caught on national television, reading it on the sidelines in the middle of the game. And this created like a viral moment that traveled all across the world. Like, what is this guy doing? What is this book? You know, he's getting interviewed in the locker room about it.

Now he's like a bibliophile. He's like, he's got his reading list and there's a whole other thing there. But I wanna just understand like your experience of that. Like, did you know he was reading it? Like, how did you find out? And then what happened as a consequence of that? Sure, I'll tell you about that.

First, I just wanna share that. I think it's so amazing what AJ did because very few people read books and we're so busy in our lives today and busyness and this, what John Ortberg calls hurry sickness. It's a real challenge. It's a real problem that creates this anxiety.

And AJ showed the world that you do have time to read. And also that when you're true to yourself, like he's reading the book because it makes him feel more focused and perform better and also have a better life. And he wasn't worried about, the world's gonna think this or that. And he's like, no, I'm gonna do this because I think it's the best thing

that I can do for my life. And that was so powerful and it takes courage, which I think one of the greatest things that we all can have. And he was not reading it for the first time. This was like a practice. Like I read this book, I go back to the, I read it to remind myself of these ideas

when I'm in the midst of this high pressure situation so that I can remain calm and clear. And what he said in the locker room was, somebody asked him like, well, what are you getting out of this? And he was like, well, the main thing is that, clarity of mind is the most important thing, irrespective of positive or negative outcomes,

because you can't be at your best unless you have that. Yeah, that's right. So, okay, Sunday, January 12th. It's actually kind of a crazy week, very unique week for me. So I didn't pay off my credit cards for the first time in years. I'm gonna add money and investments and stuff, but my cashflow just was not enough

to pay off my credit cards. It's like, okay, so we won't pay them off. And business was kind of slow and my mom was actually dying. So January 12th, she was 91 and she died January 16th, so four days later. And it was actually an answer to prayer because she was suffering and she had a great life.

Amazing, amazing person. But so life was kind of somber and a little lonely on January 12th, walking around downtown Dallas. I was there to do an inter-excellence retreat. And I look up at this skyscraper and the thought comes to my mind, and we're gonna talk, I know about the 12 steps.

And I wanna know the third step is surrender to God. Correct me how to say it. Surrender to God as you understand Him. Your life and your surrender to God. Correct me how to say it. Surrender God as you understand him. Yes. Surrender your life and your will over to the power of a power greater than yourself. Yeah, so I will ask you later, that power, that God, how do you understand him?

But you can think about that. And so I look up at this skyscraper and the thought comes to my mind, would you rather own that skyscraper straight out for whatever hundreds of millions of dollars it's worth or, and I just written a book called The Best Possible Life, How to Live with Deep Content and Joy and Confidence No Matter What,

came out November, 2024. And it's about the spiritual life. And so I'm gonna send you a copy. And the question was, would you rather have written and understood that book or would you take this building for all the hundreds of millions of dollars it's worth, which would you rather have?

And I thought about it, I thought, no, I wouldn't take the money, I'd take the book. And so I thought, well, you know, at least you got that Jim, that's pretty cool. So that was the afternoon of January 12th, a couple hours later, I'm in my hotel room. I'm actually watching on my laptop, Notre Dame played Penn State,

a bowl game that had already happened. I look at my phone and I see a bunch of text messages. I think mom probably died. I grab it and it says, you need to watch the wild card game. I turn it on and go to the spot and I see Kevin Burkhardt and Tom Brady talking about it. And I was like, this is probably gonna be significant. Yeah, like a very surreal moment.

Right on the heels of a bit of a spiritual epiphany, like, you know, I'm good, you know, peace of mind. That's where, that's the shit. That's where it's at, right? I don't need all this other stuff. And by, you know, releasing that attachment or whatever, you know, whatever kind of allure, something like that, had like almost cleared the space for, you know,

some kind of abundance to enter. Yes, and so that's funny that that word. So that week, a couple of days later, I fly to Philadelphia. I'm gonna go to the Rams game, the snow game. And I'm in Philadelphia and this guy on the street asked me for money and I had no money in my wallet. So I said, hold on here, I'm gonna rent the ATM.

I'm gonna get some money. So I go to the ATM and I try and get $300 out and it says insufficient funds, 200 insufficient funds, 100, I get some money, I find the guy, I give him some money. A day or two later, I look at my checking account and my checking account is negative. My mortgage payment bounced.

That was the week we sold 100,000 copies. Wow. 100,000 copies in one week. And because it was self-published, like basically it's all profit for you. Yeah, yeah. Essentially. Well, the New York Times thing,

you know, it's kind of a dream for every author to get into the New York Times list. And I'd actually had it as an affirmation on my phone for years. So this came out in 2009, so 16 years ago. So for years I had it. I am a New York Times bestselling author, a little pop-up thing that would come on my phone

and which I encourage everyone to do, have these little reminders, silent reminders, just saying who you are and what's possible in your life. And I had that one for a while and then I just turned it off, you know, in 16 years. And so a week later, so New York Times lists this every week and a week later, I didn't think I was gonna get it because their algorithm is very, you know,

they like across a lot of places to buy it and not big on just self-published. And so it was a real surreal moment when I heard about that. It was undeniable. I mean, yes, they like to see it spread out. There's all these sorts of rules to prevent people from gaming it.

But, you know, this wasn't a situation in which you were trying to game the algorithm. Like it just was undeniable that this was the book everyone was talking about. And then it was number one, right? Like, I think you sold like 200,000 in 20 days or something. I mean, and now there was like a bidding war to republish it because it's self published.

Like suddenly the rights are available, right? So I assume you're going with some publishing house that's gonna put this out again. Yeah, that was just also a very surreal experience. As soon as I signed with United Hallow Agency, they set up all these interviews. And so we had 14 publishers come to New York City and it was all day long, nine to five, no lunch break,

45 minute come in, they would present 15 minute break. Well, sometimes it was a two minute break, but then the next group would come in. And so it was very surreal. That's wild. But I think it's important to provide some context to this. I mean, you already mentioned, you know, being overdrawn and being unable to pay your mortgage.

The road to being a responsible steward of this message was long and bumpy, you know. I think to understand the potency of the book, we need to understand like how you arrived here, right? And it begins with being this very talented, very ambitious striver of a young athlete growing up in Seattle. I think one thing also before we get there

is to understand that I'm just the messenger. Like people talk a lot about the author and how his life has changed. And yes, my life has changed. Travel is different now. Like in 2023 and 2024, I went to 23 countries. And so I was traveling around the world coaching professional Olympic athletes before this.

It's just, there's a lot more attention now. But I'm just the messenger. I'm like, my life is really insignificant. The significant thing is, is this message that selfless is fearless? Is this something that I should consider? Is the, you know, the code of the samurai, this love, wisdom, courage,

is that something that we should all think about? And it's really everything that you've used and shared with the world is so similar to everything in Inter Excellence. That's why I'm so excited to be here. The ideas aren't new, but the expression of them is your own. And as I was telling you before we started,

like the way that you've been able to synthesize, many ancient ideas from different strains of thought into kind of a cohesive message that is very understandable and practical, I think is your gift though. It's not that you came up with these ideas, but the way in which you have arranged them and presented them, I think is really powerful.

But you have to live a life before you're able to But you have to live a life before you're able to understand those truths and translate them for anybody else. Yeah, and that's a good point. So the book came out 16 years ago. Why 16 years until this happened? Like it's really, and this exact version has been out for five years. So why five years?

And I think it's because I wasn't ready. I wasn't ready to share that. I was too self-centered. That's still my biggest challenge, but I just couldn't, I wouldn't have been able to handle it in the past. It would have been, you know, just way too much thinking about myself. Yeah. So you grew up playing all kinds of sports, baseball, football.

You were in the Cubs organization. Right. But an ocular issue kind of derailed that career, right? Yeah, and I think it was a subconscious derailment. My situation growing up was fairly unique with my mom and her history, Japanese history and the lineage there. And then my dad, he was really against me becoming rich and famous, because I thought it would be bad

for my character, which I think is probably true. And so as soon as I turned pro, I had this vision problem. And I think it was, because they couldn't, they never found a reason why. And so I think it was this subconscious mental block that at the time was the most devastating thing in my life, my whole career, my whole identity gone, totally lost. Looking back, I see it was the very best thing for me.

Oh, that's interesting. So in other words, you were sparing yourself for something different and perhaps better. Like without knowing it. On an unconscious level. Yeah, yeah, yeah, God was doing that for me. Wow. And I was not happy knowing it. On an unconscious level. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. God was doing that for me. And I was not happy about it. I was so, I mean, as bitter as you could be,

like this is, I'm supposed to be this man who's so successful. And like I've said so many times and thought like, every guy is gonna wanna be Jim Murphy and every girl is gonna wanna be with Jim Murphy and I'm gonna hit home runs and be on the cover of magazines. And so this is the issue I think that so many people have is the story of their lives is so singular.

My life should be this way, this version, these should be the circumstances and outcomes. And this is what holds people back because they're so rigid on, and when unexpected, unwanted things happen, they can't handle it emotionally. And so if, in your excellence is about expanding what you believe is possible,

continually expanding what you believe is possible, letting go of your story, letting go of who you've been so you can become someone you've never been before. And when we hold on to our past and hold on to our story, then we can't do that. We're storytelling animals. We're all walking around with a story in our head that we believe to be true and are blind to the fact

that it was unconsciously crafted based upon the experiences that we've had. And whether it's positive or negative, it's still a fantasy and it's detached from reality. And in most cases with most people to your point, it prevents us from having a more expansive understanding of what we're capable of or what's possible. But like unraveling that and figuring out how to tell a new story is a very difficult challenge.

And you know, what happened to you is you had to come to the edge of yourself to be able to write a new story, to create a new narrative in your life, right? These new neural pathways, is that right? Yeah, but it was a function of being backed into a corner. Like pain is the ultimate like lever for these sorts of things. Like short of suffering some form of crisis,

whether it's physical or existential, you know, would I have made those changes? It's interesting because, and I say this all the time, like we have the choice to make these changes at any given moment. It's just that it's very difficult to do unless you're pressured into it in some way. And the way I generally think about it is

the moment of change is when the pain of your circumstances exceeds the fears of doing something different, right? You have to confront that fear or these fears are intention with each other and which one is winning out is kind of going to dictate how you behave on some level. It's this discomfort with uncertainty that we have. Like we don't like it.

And we dilute ourselves into believing that we're in control of things. And if something goes wrong, like we didn't do something right. And I think disabusing ourselves of that illusion of control and acknowledging that uncertainty is just, that's just the landscape. Everything is uncertain. It's never gonna change in that regard

so that you can detach a little bit and free yourself from self judgment or all of the unnecessary pain that comes with things not working out the way you would like them to. Yeah, exactly. You know what, one of the things that's such an important topic, I think now in America, there's so much in around the world,

anxiety and fear and tension and so much out of our control. And there's a lot of people that are watching to this now. And I think that have this anxiety and these unknown what's gonna happen. And I think there's some really powerful things that they can do when you're afraid of the future or whether you're a pro athlete or anyone.

And there's some questions, do you want me to share those with you? Yeah, please. Well, the first question is, are you willing to face your fears? And we can get into also, because I went through a very traumatic moment as well. And I've kind of prayed a lot that myself

and people that I love don't have to get to the point where we get to that major trauma to fully surrender, which is the power, right? In AA and the power that you talk about and the power that I talk about, that's surrendered to a power greater than yourself. And so first asking yourself, am I willing to face my fears?

And then am I willing to face any feeling? This is a big one, because most people are not willing to face any feeling. They're willing to physically do a lot of hard things and, but there's some feelings that we're like, no, I'm not gonna, if that comes, that's the worst, I'm not gonna be there, I'm gonna run from it, whatever. And, but if you're willing to face any feeling,

now you've got some control and some power. So what is the process of doing that? Like summoning the courage to face that? Is there like something that you have learned or divined that is a practice to cultivating that disposition? Well, I can tell you about this experience I had with some pro athletes that had a mental block. So that when you have a mental block,

then you're constantly thinking about it all day long, and it could have ended their careers. And so I worked with these pro athletes, and when you have this fear, it starts with a feeling, it's like a panic attack, starts with a feeling, and then it goes into out of control, right? And so the feeling is what we wanna, we're gonna go look for that feeling.

And I got that from Conor McGregor. He talked about when he was first a new pro athlete and how he got into the ring or the octagon and he had all these nerves. He's like, what is this feeling? This is so uncomfortable. And then he started to go and look for it. He's like, now I go into Madison Square Garden

and you know, I kick butt. And so I was like, yeah, we need to go look for the field. We can't run from them. We gotta look for those feelings that we're afraid of because that's our teacher. Because when you come to the edge of your feelings where you're most uncomfortable, that's where you can grow. And that's where you can become

someone you've never been before. And that's the limiter. We come to these feelings where like, no, I don't want that feeling. And so are you willing to face those feelings? So we ask, I ask them, I want you to, one, you're gonna look for that feeling, you're gonna embrace it.

And the way you're gonna do it is say, am I willing to face my fears today? Am I willing to face any feeling? And am I willing to have any feeling even if it doesn't go away? And then I gave them some mantras, which is a phrase that you repeat over and over in your head to use as a tool if they want.

And in the moment when they're really, really uncomfortable, you can use a mantra. And then in some breathing, there's another one that I'll tell you about is mastering the ego. So I think this is such a big part of the rich role when you share with the world and this surrender and mastering the ego

because it's such a big part of the 12 step process. And one of the things that I, well, I'll tell you the story first about, I had a PGA tour golfer, he's in the playoffs and it's a practice round and he's got, they're playing $100 a birdie. And so when the other guy makes a birdie, you pay him a hundred bucks.

And so first two holes, they both birdie the first two holes. Now he's down 400 bucks. And these are guys that are up and comers and like getting all the attention and he's kind of a little more of a veteran. And so he's a little bit like, I get these guys. And hole three, he has a short birdie putt

and none of the other guys had a birdie putt. And he missed it and he said he was nervous. And I said, you missed that cause of your ego. He's like, what do you mean? I said, would you have missed that on your home course playing by yourself? He's like, no, probably not. I said, well, you were thinking about them.

You really, you did not want to miss in front of them and you really wanted to beat them. It was really this self-conscious concern for self issue. And so I said, when I have that, cause we all have an ego, I define ego as the part of your mind that's always threatened, always comparing and never satisfied.

When I have that, and I love to golf, so say I have a five foot putt and I'm really nervous, and I got a great approach shot, one of the fun few ones, and I really wanna make it so that you can ask yourself, what do I want more in this moment to be successful in this moment or to master my ego? Because obviously you wanna be successful in the moment, but what do you want more?

Do you wanna keep having these moments where you're stressed out and anxious and wonder what people will think? Well, any wise person would say, well, I do wanna be successful here, but what I want even more is not to keep having this anxiety and fear. And so if you want that more, then we know,

well, two things, no, we know that the best, you don't know what the best thing for you is outcome-wise. Is it to get what you want or not? We never know outcome-wise't know what the best thing for you is outcome-wise. Is it to get what you want or not? We never know outcome-wise. Is it the best thing for me? Rory wins the 2025 Masters. Was that the best thing for him and his family? Who knows?

All we know is that he really wanted to. And so understanding that we don't know what's best for us outcome-wise, because that should help you stay present, which is the key. And then two is to understand that if I miss, if I don't get what I want, now I get a chance to come to the edge of my feelings, to expand what I believe is possible,

to master my ego by embracing this moment. So either way you win. Yeah. It's rigged for success. Yeah. This is an ad by BetterHelp. We live in an age of infinite information, like this endless scroll of opinions on every possible issue

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So head on over to on.com slash rich roll and explore the latest innovation in performance wear. I mean, first of all, the idea that we don't know what's good for us, we think we do, but we're operating with limited perceptual abilities when it comes to that. It's the problem of the single story. But it goes back to the ego.

I know it's best for me and I'm in control of this situation and this is the direction that I'm moving in and anything that interferes with that is considered a threat. And really the whole kind of core foundational thesis of your work in this book is that self-centeredness is the greatest challenge that we face. So like, this is the enemy, right?

In the context of a high performing individual, that is confrontational because on some level, there's a conviction that it's ego that's driving that person forward. It's me, I did this, I can only rely on myself. You know, it's about like what I'm capable of doing in this moment and I can't rely, you know, like especially in individual sports and things like that.

So to say like, listen, you gotta set all that aside because it's actually hindering you. It's not your friend in this regard is a contrarian idea that I suspect with the athletes you work with is a challenge to kind of get them, get their head around. Yeah, and so I believe the most powerful forces in the universe love, wisdom, and courage,

love being the most powerful. It's completely fearless. And I believe it's the energy that holds the stars in place, spins the earth, grows the grass. This energy, I think that you've been able to connect with. Our greatest need, our greatest desire, our greatest power, unconditional love, every human. And so since we already know that,

this is where I get the connection with the person, whether they're a pro athlete or a single mother of four, understanding that their greatest need and desire and power is unconditional love. And so that's where we kind of start, like say we got someone that's a pro athlete and they're not into any of this lovey dovey stuff. They're just like, dog, I'm going to the World Series.

Like enough with that, just get me there. And so I say, look, here's what we're gonna do. I wanna know when you're playing your best, what is that like? What does it feel like? And what's going on in your body, in your mind, your heart, et cetera, just give me some, so take me to that last time when you're at your best,

like maybe we can do that with you, Rich, like when you're at your best, like performance, like you're called the fittest man in the world, and you have all these- Not at the moment, my friend, keep going. Five Ironmans in seven days. So like when you're at your best in anything, like what was it like?

What did it feel like mentally, emotionally, physically? It's a state in which you feel completely in sync, like mind, body and spirit are in total alignment and your relationship with time shifts. And it is a, I wouldn't say blissful state, but it is a state of like integrated knowing, you know? I don't know if that's the right way to phrase it,

but I don't know that there are words to truly capture it, but when you're in it, you know it. Okay, and so integrated knowing, bliss, this time changing. Can you describe that for me with a couple adjectives? Like the feeling, just how it feels? Yeah, there's a calmness to it. There's a feeling of connectedness and transcendence with it. is a feeling of connectedness and transcendence with it.

Okay, so let's say calm, connected and transcendent is how you wanna feel when you're at your best. Okay, so what we're gonna do is we're gonna design your life with the habits of thought and action around getting you that feeling more often. Would that be helpful? Absolutely. Okay, and so that's what inter excellence is. And so that calm, connected, transcendent

is how I think of love. This love is, and passion and love kind of go together and passion is the willingness to suffer. And that's something that you've kind of said that you've, one thing that's helped you is that, because swimming is, you know, getting up at 4.45 every morning in high school and you've had this history that's helped you is that, because swimming is, you know, getting up at 4.45 every morning in high school and you're, you've had this history

of being able to do that, which is kind of what allowed you to get here. This willingness to suffer and surrender, that combination is incredibly powerful. But it also becomes an Achilles heel at some point, because what gets lodged into your brain is that the way forward demands suffering in all cases, whether it's writing a book or preparing for any,

it's like, if I'm not suffering, like I'm not getting the best out of me, where the challenge that I'm currently facing and trying to master is how can I navigate these difficult projects and aspects of life, not with this disposition of having to suffer through them in order to feel like I did my best,

but instead to do it from a place of love and calm and connectedness. You know, it's like, these are different fuel sources, right? One is unsustainable and exhausting and the other one is everlasting. Okay, so we're here in West Lake Village and we are what, 45 minutes away from the epicenter

of fame and obsession in the world, Hollywood. And I think one of the biggest challenges that people face is that this obsession about achievement and why do we get obsessed, especially in North America? I mean, it's the American way, you know, to live your dreams. And so this obsession with achievement can be very problematic,

similar to kind of what you just said. You're living in this culture and you're 45 minutes away from the epicenter in the world of this obsession with achievement. And if you don't have very clear intention and habits and routines of making sure that you're focused on your purpose and how you wanna feel that connected

and transcendent feeling, then you're gonna get caught up into this obsession about achievement. And in the book that I just wrote, The Best Possible Life, I talk about the best possible life which I define as a life filled with deep contentment, joy and confidence, independent of circumstances, a life filled with love and joy and peace,

patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. That life has one foot in joy and one foot in suffering. And so we wanna remember the joy part as well. You've gotten the suffering down pretty good in your life. And so the joy part now it's really getting into, like you've mentioned also is who am I becoming is very important to you.

And so who are you becoming? This is what we wanna constantly come back to in our life. And so, because understanding that you're 45 minutes from this epicenter of this obsession and you can easily drift and every day drift towards, okay, what matters is my achieving, getting this next project done, this book, et cetera. Whereas what is like Victor Frankel says,

what does the world expect from you? Not what do I want from the world? When I reflect on that, I think about my primary operating system as it has always been, which is that I'm fundamentally undeserving of love. And the only way that I can get it and engender my life with it is to distinguish myself

and go out and do things in the world, right? So any threat- That's amazing awareness by the way. Yeah, but it doesn't, self-awareness will avail you nothing. You know what I mean? It's a huge start. It's a huge start. And my capacity for suffering is a very good vehicle

for being able to do things in the world, right? And suffering sort of implies that there's an earning piece to it. Like you have to earn it. Whereas love is more about something you're fundamentally entitled to, right? Like if you're coming from a place of love and expansiveness, et cetera.

And behind that is the notion that like, you don't have to earn it, like you already are it, right? That's right. And you don't even have to find it. You just have to like remember it or like locate it within yourself. Can we talk about love for a second? Okay, you have four kids.

Yeah. What do you want most for them and for Julie? I want them to experience love in their life. I want them to, you know, the standard answer is like, I want them to be happy, right? But what do I really want for them? I want them to feel- So happiness, I define as a positive temporary feeling

based on what's happening. So I can go tell them a joke after this if that's what you want for them. But you want much more than that. No, of course. Which I think is joy, which is a deep sense of wellbeing, closer to anyway, what I define as a deep sense of wellbeing and freedom and gratitude, this inner buoyancy

independent of circumstances. Yes, yes. You gonna help me out there? Okay, yes, yeah. And so this is what you want. I mean, I don't wanna put words in your mouth but I think this is kind of what you're saying. Is that right?

Yeah, absolutely. Like this is the mountain that I'm trying to climb right now, Jim. You're here at the perfect moment for me. And I've told this story before, so the audience might be bored of it, but I'm gonna tell you so you know it. I'm really trying to overcome this relationship

that I have, this transactional relationship that I have with love. And this was precipitated, like it's sort of the next mountain to climb in like my growth journey, I suppose. But it was really underscored by this visit that my wife and I made with the Dalai Lama this past year. We went and spent two days with him, with a group of people.

Amazing. And essentially, I won't belabor the story, but every question that was posited to him resulted in a version of the same answer, which is the answer is always love, unconditional love. And if you don't know what I'm talking about, or you struggle to connect with the fullness of what I mean by that,

all you have to do is imagine a mother's unconditional love for its child. And that was very triggering for me, because I have a challenging relationship with my own mother. And so I have chosen to- You can switch it to love for your kids. So, well, yes, I'm doing that.

I think I'm pretty good at that piece of it, but I'm trying to look at this, of course, like as an opportunity. Like these are the feelings I don't wanna face, right? So of course, this is the teachable moment. This is where all the growth can happen. And what happens if I move towards that discomfort and try to deconstruct,

like what was so upsetting about that for me and what can I do to heal that so that I can feel the full capacity of love and of course give it in return and change my relationship with not just what I do but who I am because I think the cost of being so achievement oriented is that it puts blinders on such that you're missing out on the fullness piece of life.

And I think why you're here and what's most interesting about your book is the fact that it upends this notion that high performance and living a fulfilling life are our intention with each other. And your thesis is basically that these things are aligned like they're one in the same. It's not, you know, the idea that like high performance

that's gonna come at a cost. Like if you're, you know, if you wanna do a great thing in the same. It's not, you know, the idea that like high performance, that's gonna come at a cost. Like if you're, you know, if you wanna do a great thing in the world, like you're gonna have to sacrifice and other people are probably gonna have to pay for it a little bit. And you're gonna short circuit your ability to enjoy your life in other ways.

And you're saying quite the opposite, which is like, no, like high performance is a consequence of pursuing a fulfilling life by, you know, doing the things that are like inviting those experiences in your life. Becoming wholehearted. Yeah. That wasn't a question.

I don't know what I- Respond. I love this idea of love and something I hope that we can talk about after the show in your life. But if we wanna think about kinda getting back to the pro athlete that's like, look bro, I just wanna win. I really wanna get into how he wants to feel

and what he wants most and help him get there so we can pursue that. It's like letting go of this little lollipop and pursuing the whole candy store, which is absolute fullness of life to feel fully alive, which is what I want for you. And I think part of that is to pursue, to really think about what do I want most in my life

and to help you think about that, what do I want most for my kids? And, cause you didn't mention that I really want them to have a lot of money, or I really want to write three more books so they can put it on their bookshelf. You mentioned something that was more interior, right? Sure.

And so if that's what you want most for your kids, you can absolutely work on that and help them get it. And that's gonna be where you do this work on this love and understand this is what I want most. I wanna be able to be filled with this and share it with my family in the world. But the best way to teach them that is to live it myself. On some level, kids will model their lives,

not based upon what you say, but how you behave. And unless I'm willing to look at this and confront it and overcome it, I will remain captured by it. And I will like perpetuate another generational cycle of trauma on some level. Yeah, you're so talented. It's so easy.

The default is likely, oh, I'm just gonna go achieve more. I'll write another book. I'll do more, get more into my pocket. I'll do all these things because it's easy and really good at it. That's the default and understand. Well, being more successful, is that gonna help me get what I want most from my family?

Of course not. Like I've done enough to be well-advised that another like brass ring is gonna not really, I mean, it's nice, but it's like it's not gonna fundamentally change anything about my life. So this is the reminder that you need each day when you start to get drift into this achievement

is like, okay, what's my purpose and how do I stay focused on that? It's the same thing that I've done every day. We live in this world that's obsessed with outcomes. I have a heart that has my own fears and dreams and hopes. And I live in this world that's constantly pulling me off track and reacting to things, circumstances.

And so I want to be more this person that is so filled with love, wisdom and courage that when the unexpected, unwanted comes, I'm not attached to that story that things have to be that way. I wanna be having this no needs sort of life. Going back in your story after the baseball career, correct me if like, this is the narrative that I've heard.

I'm sure it's only loosely true on some level, but you were like driving a FedEx truck, you coached high school baseball, you were a personal trainer for a while, you're kind of bouncing around like in this liminal space of like not knowing what you were doing or what your life was gonna be about. But ultimately you had some awareness

that you needed clarity and you did this radical thing where you basically just packed up and like moved to the Sonora desert to live in solitude essentially for like two years or something like that. So I wanna understand the motivation behind that and the insights that you gleaned from that experience. Yeah, thanks for asking.

So my whole life I thought I was gonna be a superstar when I was little, seven, eight years old. What are you gonna be? I'm gonna be a professional athlete. I'm gonna play in the NFL. And so when I got drafted- You must have been a pain in the ass kid. Yeah, I remember my uncle saying,

Jimmy, very, very few people. He kept telling me, Jimmy, very, very few people. He kept telling me, Jimmy, very, very few people. That's probably not gonna happen. Yeah, and so when I got drafted by the Cubs, it was a dream come true, but also there's this fear of losing it because it was my identity. And obviously I didn't have full control over it.

And I played five years in the minor leagues and a year of college football. And then I get into coaching, which I had no interest in coaching, but I got asked to coach, I'm driving a truck for FedEx, got asked to coach O'Day High School, Intercity All Boys School, the JV.

And I just never thought of it. I didn't know if it would be fun or if I could help anybody. And we went undefeated. And so I was like, oh, okay. And so this kind of obsessive personality, I think kind of maybe similar to yours is like, okay, I coached one year of JV high school.

How do I coach the Yankees and win the World Series? Like that's what I'm gonna do next. So I came up with this long plan of, I'm gonna get a master's in phys ed so I can pay the bills, coach the high school team, then get a job in college, do the same thing and win a championship by the way. And then get a job in college, win the national championship, and then get a job in the pros and work my way up and win a championship by the way. And then get a job in college, win the national championship,

and then get a job in the pros and work my way up. And so I go to the University of British Columbia, I play football there, start a baseball team there, and I get my master's in coaching science. And that was actually my first book. So my first book was Dugout Wisdom, 10 Principles of Championship Teams. I met this life coach and he said,

let's go for a job in pro baseball right out of grad school by getting to know the people that can hire you. So I sent a snail mail letter, you know, with a stamp and an envelope to every major league team, every GM and field manager saying, I'm studying how to build a championship team. I'd like to interview you for it. So I did 39 interviews in person and I get a job

with the Texas Rangers two weeks after graduation. So we skipped the high school college route. So dream come true. Now I'm somebody again. I'm always Jim Murphy, pro baseball player. I'm somebody, lose it, I'm nobody. Jim Murphy now has coached Texas Rangers, I'm somebody again.

And then I quit six months later in tears. All of that work, the master's degree, everything just to get this job and gone. Because it just wasn't a good fit. And now looking back, I thought at the time I'm a total failure, but looking back, I can see God was like, I've got way bigger things for you, Jim,

and you're gonna be held back here. At the time, I thought it was like, you know, I'm just a loser, like, why can't I do this? And there was some things, like they weren't allowing me to coach, like they wanted me to just put in my time, and I really want to do things, and they're like, no, you don't I do this? And there was some things like they weren't allowing me to coach, like they wanted me to just put in my time and I really want to do things. And they're like, no, you don't say anything.

Really just don't say anything when I ask you. And there's other issues that happen. But really the main picture is understanding that I had one singular story. This has to be, I'm gonna be the best coach ever and I'll go to the World Series and this is my life. And it has to happen that way. And it didn't, and then I was devastated like a train wreck

and not knowing that this was part of my training to bring me here today with you. And so I lose like I'm driving home in tears from Savannah, Georgia, assistant coach for the Savannah Sand Nats, now the Savannah Bananas. And I get a call from Major League Baseball several months later saying, would you be interested in coaching South Africa

being their hitting coach for the 2000 Olympics trials? And I fly to Johannesburg, our bat boys living in the tool shed of our baseball field with his mother and little brother. I'd never seen poverty like this before. His name was Gift N' Goupe, becomes amazing kid, becomes the first African born player ever to play in the big leagues.

And we win the Olympic trials, we go to the Olympics in Sydney, incredible experience, get to march and opening ceremonies. I get to meet Nelson Mandela. We have one of the biggest subset victories in Olympic baseball history. It was amazing. I'm still friends with that group 25 years later.

And so, but now what do I do next? I have this obsessive personality. I wanna be, I'm supposed to live an amazing life. What's the best? But I'd already kind of burned the bridge in pro baseball. So now what? I didn't know. I go back to being a personal trainer, which it was great.

Had clients and loved it. And I had a good life in Vancouver, BC. But I felt like I realized as a personal trainer, these people come to me for losing weight or whatever, but I'm like, they need a lot more than losing weight and they need really inner help. And as a personal trainer, you kind of become their counselor or their best friend, you know, you're really a good,

a good trainer who really wants to help them. And so I was, I was doing that for a couple of years and just like, I want to make a bigger difference. And, and then I got a call from my teammate in pro baseball, Ricky Scruggs, he's in Arizona starting a baseball academy in Tucson. He said, can you come down for the launch? And I was like, this was the timing that God set up.

I was like, why don't we leave this life behind and go live a life of solitude in the desert and figure out what you're gonna do with your life. I give away over half my possessions, including my TV. This is before streaming. So I went to go live this life of solitude and I just didn't really, I didn't have a clear purpose. I had no identity.

I was like, who am I? I don't even know what's anything like this. And I wanted to find something that I could devote my life to. Something that I was willing to die for. I didn't have anything like that. So I go to the desert. I don't know.

All I knew was I can't have my TV because I'm gonna go there. If I have a TV, I'm just gonna be lonely and waste my time. So all I knew was I just can't have my TV because I'm gonna go there if I have a TV, I'm just gonna be lonely and waste my time. So all I knew is I just can't bring my TV. And so it was lonely. And one of my first New Year's, I'm in this empty house and I go outside, I hear a noise, I go outside, I'm writing in my journal and I see fireworks.

And that's when I found out it was New Year's Eve. I didn't know what day it was. Wow. Every day was the same, out it was New Year's Eve. I didn't know what day it was. Wow. Every day was the same, except for Sundays I go to church. And so it was a lonely time. And when I was there, I decided to become a personal coach to pro baseball players and teach them how to have peace and confidence

under pressure. And I thought about being a college coach, but I talked to Andy Lopez, head coach at Arizona. And he said, the best part of my job is the smallest part, which is the coaching. I was like, okay, not doing that. And then I came up with this new idea, well, what if you became a personal coach to them?

I'd never heard of anyone doing it. I just thought, I'm gonna try that. And my first two athletes do amazing. So then I thought, okay, I'm gonna put together a little manual on how to have peace and confidence under pressure for my next client. So I started to work on that. I call up a sports psychologist and you know, I'd done all these interviews with major league baseball managers and GMs on how to build a championship team. And so

I thought I'm going to call up some sports psychologists and do some more interviews. And I'm going to ask them a couple of questions. One is how can a major league baseball in game seven of the World Series, bottom of the ninth, full count, bases loaded, two out, how can that guy down by one, how can he have peace and confidence under that pressure? And similarly, how can an Olympic athlete train for four years for an event that may last less than a minute?

How can he have peace and confidence or she in that moment? And I didn't get the answers that I wanted. So I called in another and another and another and I spent five years full-time writing and researching that question, and that becomes this book. We interrupt your programming with an important PSA. Happy gut, happy body, happy life. It's important, but to get there, you need a ritual. Mine starts right here with Seed DSO-1,

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surgery and this has left me thinking a lot about legacy, the relationship between what we do now and what we're actually leaving behind for future generations. Well, my friend RJ, who founded and runs Rivian, thinks about this constantly. Sure, he builds electric vehicles for all kinds of adventures and amazing ones at that. His mission, however, is way bigger than that. A mission that is informed by asking a pretty deep question, which is, how do we keep the world adventurous forever? Adventure is only possible with a thriving planet. You can't have one without the other. Sustainability and adventure,

these are not opposing forces, they're simpatico, they're partners. Every generation deserves wild places to roam, to climb higher, to be transformed by the journey. But that only happens if we're designing for a future where exploration doesn't come at the expense of nature, but actually inspires us to protect it. And it's for all these reasons that I'm just so thrilled and honored to join forces with Rivian, to partner with them in support of building the momentum

they have already created to move toward a more optimistic regenerative future. That's an amazing thing. The peace, the quiet, the solitude, giving you the space to glean the clarity about not just what you wanted to do with your life, but also what mattered most in the context of the, the things that you were interested in, right?

Like, do I really wanna be a coach? Is that really where it's at? It's the, it's what's behind, it's like the coach behind the coach. Like what's beneath the surface here that makes the most difference in terms of performance and living a fulfilling life. And short of having gone, like Kung Fu wandering out,

wandering, relinquishing your possessions and kind of like wandering off into the distance. Like, I don't know that you could have arrived at that. Yeah, it was what I had to go through to come to. And I think similar to what you had to go through. And this is what I said earlier is that I pray that my friends don't have to go through what I went through to come to this point

where they surrender to a power greater than themselves and have a clear purpose for their lives. The problem is if you're really talented, it's hard to surrender. The more you have money, possessions, achievements looks the harder it is to surrender. Things need to get stripped away a little bit before your willingness descends.

That's right. This is what happened to both of us. Our lives got stripped away. Cause I didn't tell you about the trauma that happened to me after the book came out. Which was what happened. So five years full-time writing and researching this book. I didn't go to the desert to write a book.

I just went there, like I said, to figure out what to do with my life. And so I ended up getting a New York City literary agent. Thank you, Rita. And major publisher McGrawraw-Hill. It gets into Barnes and Noble, which is kind of a dream for new authors and in bookstores around the world.

So this is 2009, December. And you'd think I'd be like, sweet, it worked, it happened, yes. But instead the opposite happened to me. I almost had a mental breakdown. And this is no surprise as I look back because our greatest need, we're created for relationship, for love.

It's our greatest need. And I isolated myself for five years. And I mean, I wasn't like in a teepee somewhere. I was in the edge of town. I lived in the baseball academy for a couple of months with no shower, but I was not like going to social events and I was just really trying to have this life of solitude. And so, what's the greatest punishment in prison?

It's no contact with people, there's no relationships, you're on your own. And so prisons have understood that our greatest need is for relationship and our greatest need is for relationship and our greatest punishment is to take that away. And so I kind of went on my own for five years essentially and writing a book about how important experiences and relationships are.

Yes, yes, yes, exactly. And so I had to go through this to write the book. And so five years full-time writing research Exactly, and so I had to go through this to write the book. And so five years, full-time writing research, I get the books in bookstores, but I'm in downtown Denver, I'm speaking to some high schools and I'm having a mental breakdown, about to.

And I was thinking, okay, I spent my life savings and I went $90,000 in debt. And those five years of writing the book, I don't know what my income was, but it was below minimum wage. I was not making much money. And so I'm going into a lot of debt. And I'm thinking, okay, 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. This is not a good marketing plan. If no one hears about the book, no one will market the book, you don't know how to do marketing and you don't like promoting yourself. This is not a good marketing plan. If no one hears about the book, no one will buy the book. If no one buys the book, Barnes and Noble will pull it off the shelves. And this could happen in just a few weeks.

Five years, your life savings, everything, down the drain if this happens, and I couldn't see how it was not gonna happen. I had that singular, this is how it has to be. And so I was like, if no one buys the book and they pull it off the shelves, you'll be a total failure. And now I wrote the book so I could coach pro athletes. Well, no pro athletes gonna hire you to coach them

because you're a failure, that'd be stupid. So you're gonna have to get a regular job. But in 2009, the economy in a recession, no one's hiring failures, not 7-Eleven, Corner Mini-Mart, Starbucks, you're not gonna get a job anywhere. You're gonna die alone in the street. And so that was my mind spinning out of control, spiraling.

And I had no, when you don't have anyone there, the community around you is so crucial to develop yourself and become who you want to become. And I didn't have anyone, I didn't have people around me. I had a few friends, but that was it. And so, but what I did have is one guy that I called Ricky Scruggs. And I said, tell me what to do.

And he said, find a homeless person and help him. And so I look around the corner, downtown Denver, is this guy with a grocery cart full of stuff, holy shoes, playing a full-size harp. You know, very unique situation. I go and sit down next to him, I listen to him play this beautiful music. I look in my wallet and I had $100,

which means I must have taken a cash advance because my credit cards were mostly maxed out and I had no money. And so for some reason, I had the cash advance, that money in my wallet. So I took the a hundred dollars out, I put it in his bag and I leave to go back to where I stand to run on the treadmill so I can just breathe,

get through the day, come back to that same area. And I'm sitting in the Starbucks, I can't function, like can't do anything. I'm just trying to wait for the day to get in over so much anxiety. And the homeless guy walks in and he walks past me, stops in his tracks, turns around and says, are you the guy that gave me that money?

And I said, yes. And he said, thank you so much for caring for me. No one's cared for me like that before. And he leaves and he comes back with a box of chocolates and a bracelet that he made and a card. And he gives all three to me. And when I was writing that book, I took it to my friend, Jennifer from church,

and I said, can you make sure this lines up with the Bible? I wanna make sure this is filled with deep wisdom and there's no errors. She looks at the book and says, have you ever heard of the word Zoe? It's a Greek word and it's in the Bible a lot. It means absolute fullness of life. And that's what Jesus said he came to do

to bring you fullness of life. And she said, I think that's what your book is about. And I said, yes, that's absolutely what my book is about. My whole life I've obsessed about being rich and famous and being so successful when what I've always really wanted was to feel fully alive. I just didn't know it. So I started to orient my book around the pursuit

of this Zoe life, fullness of life, and let everything else be added to you. You become better at everything else. And you may not get it, but it doesn't matter because you're pursuing this best possible life. And so I'm in the Starbucks, I open up this guy's card, this homeless harpist, and it said, thank you so much for caring for me.

No one's cared for me like that before. Love, Zoe. The homeless harpist's name was Zoe. Wow. I'm like, your name is Zoe? And cause I was in this kind of a daze, I'm like, what? And he's like, yeah, I go, do you know what your name means? He said, no, I said, it means absolute fullness of life.

I've been studying that for five years. I just wrote a book about it. So I wrote, dear Zoe, thank you so much for sharing your beautiful music with me today. You don't know what that means to me. Love Jim. I give him the book, I never see him again. So that's February, 2010.

And that's when my life started to change. Six weeks later, April 1st, 2010, the day I'll never forget. So now it's what, 15 years ago? I have all this anxiety, right? And I walk into, I go to a friend's house and he's really having a really hard time in his life. And I go to support him, knock on the door.

I still remember what he's wearing. And he says, I say, hey, Nick, how's it going? He's like, Jim, let's go to my friend's house. And so I'm like, okay, whatever you wanna do. So we go to his friend's house, this Iranian guy, and I walk in and he's cooking dinner at 10 a.m. And he starts to tell me about my life, but I never met him before, like this prophetic weird thing.

And he's like, you're banging your head against the wall and you're not getting anywhere. And you're always obsessed about some goal. And I'm like, how're banging your head against the wall and you're not getting anywhere and you're always obsessed about some goal. And I'm like, how does this guy know about me? This is exactly how I feel. And then this gal in the house, Jamie, I'd never met her. She walks over and she drew a picture of a kite, hands it to me and says, what's wrong with this picture?

And I said, well, your kite doesn't have a string. And she said, yeah, that kite is you, a slight breeze will blow you away. And I was like, oh my gosh, that's exactly how I feel. This is crazy. And so they said, can we pray for you? And so my personal philosophy is always accept free prayer. So they pray for me.

They said, you just come to our Bible study tonight. I go to the Bible study that night and I'll never forget that night. I felt God saying, there's nothing you've ever done or could ever do would change how much I love you. God, as I understood him, says this to me. And I felt like I had a million things to do, the weight of the world on my shoulders,

it all had to be done yesterday. And I didn't know how to do it. And it all fell off that night. This extreme anxiety to extreme pieces and I'll never forget April 1st, 2010. And so that night I said, God, I'll surrender this 12 step start. I was like, I'll surrender.

Just tell me what to do with my life. I'll do whatever you want. And like I said, if you have a lot of skills and talents and money and possessions and achievements, it's hard to surrender. But I feel like I had nothing. So, and that's where I had to come to, to be able to surrender.

And so I say that prayer, and then that's when everything started to get a little crazy. Wow. That's an incredible story. There's a little more, can I tell you this? Yeah, continue. We've got about two more minutes of this story.

Keep going. A year later, I'm in my friend's house in North Vancouver and about to walk out. So in about a year and a half period, there's three or four times total strangers tell me God wanted me to tell you this. And it never happened to me before or after just this one year and a half period.

And so it's kind of strange, right? And so a year and a half period. And so it's kind of strange, right? And so a year and a half later, summer of 2011, in my friend's house about to leave, his mom calls on Skype from India and we're in North Vancouver, BC. And I said, oh, tell her I said hello as I'm walking out the door.

She says, oh, Jim's there, my friend wants to talk to Jim. I was like, okay. So I sit in front of the laptop, lady had never seen me before, other side of the world. She said, God wanted me to tell you a couple of things. And I was like, okay. So I sit in front of the laptop, lady had never seen me before, other side of the world. She said, God wanted me to tell you a couple of things. And I was like, okay. She said, God, everything that you've been going through has been training for you.

God's gonna bring people from all over the world to work with you. It's gonna happen soon. He's gonna bless you and you're gonna know it's from God. It was very specific. And I'd never had the stranger tell me anything very specific about what's gonna happen to my life like that. A couple of weeks later, I'm sleeping alone in my house

and I hear a voice and it said, "'Jim, things are gonna happen faster, you ready?' And I assumed it was God because I live alone. So I was like, yes, God, I'm ready. And my alarm goes off right away. I was like, yes, God, I'm ready. And my alarm goes off right away. I was like, oh, maybe he's serious. Because my eyes were half my clothes and I was half awake. And then a couple of weeks later,

that's when everything started. Jude O'Reilly, caddy in Dublin, Ireland, contacts me and says, hey, I read Inter Excellence. Can you talk to my boss? He really could use your help. His boss was a golfer in Sweden named Henrik Stensen. I fly out there to work with Henrik. Couple of weeks later,

get a call from Tigers coach, Sean Foley. I read Inter Excellence. Can you talk to one of my clients? I fly out to California. I think it was the Chevron event. Meet with Sean and Hunter Mahan. A few weeks after that, I get a call from the CEO of Yum Brands,

which is Taco Bell, KFC Pizza Hut. I read Inter Excellence. I'd like to work with you. He sends the book to executives in Europe. I start to work with some of them. One of them, I said, Hey, you should come to Vancouver and do an Inter Excellence retreat. He agrees to do it. Then I think, okay, now what is an Inter Excellence retreat? I didn't tell him I hadn't done one before.

So I put together this retreat. He does it, he's like, this is extraordinary. Can you bring the same retreat to my team in Europe, my leadership team? I fly out to Europe, I do this Inter-Excellence retreat and in the retreat, you clarify your life purpose and you learn Inter-Excellence principles. And it was really one of the best weeks of my life, just so alive.

And I'm still friends with the, it was the head of KFC Spain, KFC Germany, KFC Netherlands and me, and I'd never done a corporate retreat and I was so nervous, but God totally blessed it. And it was an extraordinary experience. And so Henrik goes on to win the FedEx Cup a year and a half later, Hunter Mahan wins a PGA Tour event

within several months, wins the world championship, Matt's played several months after that. I've been coaching professional athletes and Olympic athletes around the world ever since and executives and doing these retreats. And now I get to be in the Rich Roll podcast. So what do you make of all of that? Like if you have to distill that down

into some kind of message that you were given or a message to somebody who's watching or listening. What do you want people to extract from that story? There is a God who created the universe. I mean, there's three, I was talking to a friend who was an agnostic, there's really three options. There's no God, there's multiple gods or there's one God.

And I think it's really the most important thing you'll ever do is ask yourself, well, what is it? And think deeply about it. And the God that I believe in, I wanted to find out about because step three of the 12 steps asks you to surrender your life and will to God as you understand him. And so the God I believe in is filled with unconditional love and wants us all to live

with absolute fullness of life. And that's why he set a son for us to live that life. to live with absolute fullness of life. And that's why He set a sun for us to live that life. And I had this obsession with this life that I thought was the best possible life. And it was, God had something far better for me, but I was trying to push a square peg into a round hole. And I didn't know it, I just kept pushing and pushing. And like you talk about so much is this alignment

and spiritual growth. And that's what inter-excellence is. It's like, look, there is an energy that grows the grass and spins the earth and holds the stars in place. This energy, call them God, I call it the creator of the universe, but there is an energy that we can all connect with. And it's this energy of love.

And you, but you have to surrender your little power, your little vision. And when I say you, I mean, me and all humans for the power of the universe, that's what we all can do. And that's what's available to everybody. Beautifully put. What I make of that is basically the idea that if you think you're in control of your life

or you're driving the train from a place of ego and self-will, it's not really gonna work out. And if you want a chance at a bigger life, a life that perhaps you can't even imagine for yourself, you're going to have to surrender that self-will to a power greater than yourself. And until you do that, you're gonna be on some kind of hamster wheel

that may go someplace, but even if you get there, isn't gonna be what you thought it was, it's not gonna give you that feeling that you always thought that it would. And in your case, you were somebody who already had a rich relationship with God, living your life based on faith on some level. It kind of went my own way a bit.

On some level, right? We're all human. So here's the thing, but you're still that kid that like, confident, perhaps a little bit cocky kid who's like, I'm destined for greatness and this is the way it's gonna work out. And I'm gonna make it happen. Like this is what we're doing.

And you're so attached to this. You're so attached that you're gonna be someone and this is what it's gonna look like. Even after writing this book about how that's not really the way to be. And God, higher power, the universe, whatever you wanna call it, is just not gonna let you have that.

Like, there's no way that this guy who's written this book that's full of wisdom I'm not gonna let him go out into the world and talk about it because he's not actually living it, right? And until he does, he's benched, right? Yes, yes. And you had to go through what you went through until you finally were willing to like let it all go.

And surrender is a very loaded word for a lot of people. It's associated with giving up or, you know, throwing in the towel, but it's really this courageous act of trust where you say, I'm not in control here. There's something else going on here. And I am going to trust that I will be guided, which is incredibly threatening for anyone

who has been driving their own train their entire life. But not only is it this incredibly cathartic thing that releases all this baggage and all this pressure and allows you to kind of navigate through life more freely, it opens you up for the miracle that you can't see. And it's like you had to burn in the fire to be the Phoenix so that you could rise. And it's like, you had to learn that lesson

before you could go and do the things that you're doing now because you would not have been a worthy steward of the message because you weren't walking the talk. Yes, exactly. And I think like you said the point so well, surrender is not a word that Western culture is really likes to use. But really is the most powerful thing that someone can do.

And so you can think about it as like, say an alcoholic surrendering the keys to someone who's sober. It's the most definitely the wisest thing that you can do. It's the sunflower surrendering to the sun. It's the little lollipop for the whole candy store. That's what we're talking about. We're all just walking around with our space helmets on, thinking we know what's going on,

and just bumping into walls all over the place. That's why humility is so crucial and accurate view of self. Yeah, and humility is best when earned the hard way, I think, right? Like when you've been ground down so that you can really honestly inhabit it. And that's the energy that you give off. Like the humility that you have is a very real thing.

And anybody who spends five seconds with you can feel it coming off of you. There's a guy that I listen to a lot now, Tyler Staten and over at Bridgetown. And I'm telling everyone about him because I think his message is so powerful. And he had stage four cancer in his early thirties. And I think that's why he's so powerful because of that.

Because? That forced him to do what you've done. He's had to because of that. Because- That forced him to do what you've done. He's had to let go of every idea of what he thought his life would be. Yeah, and surrender to this power greater than himself and have a sense of real accuracy about my life is very fragile. I could lose it any moment.

And understanding that that's true every single day, waking up with that understanding. And so to live it fully. If somebody has been defining success in a traditional way their entire life and has been successful as a result of that, or as a by-product on some level of that, how do you disabuse people of that

and redefine success for them? And what is that redefinition? Yeah, so we have four daily goals that help you redefine success on a daily basis. But it's really what I do in the retreats and with clients is help them take these steps to really look at what do I want most in my life? And that's like, we don't want millions of dollars

or millions of followers for that itself. We want what we think it'll bring us. And in this book and in best possible life, I talk about this question of, what would you rather have a $10 million house on the water paid off or would you rather live in an apartment paycheck to paycheck, no savings the rest of your life, but be guaranteed amazing experiences,

deep enriching relationships, filled with love, joy, peace, every single day of your whole life, which would you rather have? And I know for my life, it's most of my life, it's I don't have to think about it, I'll take the house. Until I had a few experiences that drove me to this traumatic surrender, then I started to really think about,

well, what do I really want most? Because if you never had anxiety, why do you want peace? You need to experience the pain, like you said, to really make these changes in your life. And so that's what inter excellence is, say, hey, let's find out what you want most and let's go for that directly. The house, the car, the vacation home, the promotion,

whatever it is, we confuse these things for the things we really want. Like the reason we want them, you know, it's about status or a sense of security, but beneath all of that, it's like, well, why do you want status so that you're loved and appreciated? And, you know, why do you want security? Because you have some fear,

like you have a discomfort with uncertainty, right? That will never be resolved no matter how big your house is or how much money is in your bank account, right? So essentially the message is like sidestep all of those distractions because you can meet all of those needs in a cost-free way if you change your mindset and your behavior. Yeah, it's like we need a GPS

because we're constantly getting like a 747 is constantly off track going from Seattle to San Diego and it just constantly brings it back on track with the GPS. That's what we need because we live in this culture that's obsessed about these superficial transactions and we need this GPS to constantly bring us back. So we need to set up our environment. That's very intentional of what we see

and interact with every day. That's moving us towards what's lasting and permanent instead of the temporary and transactional. So a lot of this has to do with retraining the mind and mindset, you know, you talk about the monkey mind and the critical mind, the negative self-talk, the ego, like all of these things are interference that derail our best selves.

But if you have a lifetime of lambasting yourself in your own mind and have never known anything different than that, how do you begin to untangle that knot and get people to develop a better story about who they are and what they're capable of? Yeah, there's a couple of things that I think about and I think about actually, inter-excellence disciplines.

We're coming out with an inter-excellence workbook here next year and they'll have the disciplines in there. But they wanna simplify your life. So anxiety, and when you talk about someone who has a lot of negative thoughts and beating themselves up, that's really tied to too many thoughts and anxiety. And so we need to really simplify life down,

really in my mind to one sentence. Like for example, my life purpose is to share God's love, wisdom, and courage with athletes and leaders around the world, with everybody, but that's kind of the little niche. And so simplify your life. And then because we just have way too much coming at us, too much information, too much negativity,

we need to really orient your life, your environment, your people around what's most important to you, how you wanna live and feel, who you wanna become. And we're all walking into, in my opinion, either love or fear, some version of love or fear, we're walking in gratitude or entitlement, this expressive creative creativity or this self-conscious, self-protective energy.

And so one of the things that's important is doing hard things, making sure your life is, this is now we're getting into the suffering part which you've mastered, is depriving the senses. is depriving the senses, or you can say depriving the appetites. It's kind of this, I'm no expert on asceticism, but this aesthetic ideal is,

we just have too much coming at us in general. That's why this anxiety, there's too much information, too many thoughts. We need to really narrow it down and not be constantly giving into the, because the problem with addiction is, you know, this things that prevent our growth and the phone is something that really can prevent

your growth and get the dopamine hits from constantly reaching for the phone. And so that's where we, when we regularly deprive the appetites, like reaching for the phone or, you phone or fasting and things like that, then we can start to get a little more clarity. How do you counsel professional athletes on that? Like these are people who are getting

just an insane amount of attention. They're either getting paid a ridiculous amount of money. And so the allure of all of these material things that are out there and available to them make the asceticism aspect of this like a lot more difficult than it would even for a normal person. Yeah, in fact, on the way here, driving here,

I was talking to a Major league baseball player about this. I said, one of the things that's important for you, I said, your pro baseball player is immersed in this culture like 12 hours a day, every day, even on your days off, you're with your coworkers. And this is obsession with results and outcomes. And so what is important for you is to find how can I spend time every day

with zero thoughts on baseball? Ideally zero thoughts at all. Like, for example, if you're in a cold plunge, you're probably not self-conscious. What are people thinking about me? And am I gonna get a hit tonight? You're just like trying to get through it, right? And so getting into your,

mixing into your life, regular ways to clear your mind, renew the mind and stop thinking about the to-do list. Meditation, breathing exercises, you talk about visualization. Yeah, part of the 12 steps that you do. The big one though, where the intersection with the 12 steps is really most meaningful,

has to do with the story that you just told where you got some of the only money that you had and you went and you gave it to this guy, right? On the advice of someone who said, like you need to do something for somebody else. This is like core to recovery in that service is the ultimate antidote to self-obsession. And self-obsession being the real like infection

that you're trying to cure people of on this path towards inner excellence, like developing a service minded approach to life where you're entering situations, looking for what you can contribute and what you can give rather than what you're going to extract from it to, you know, garnish your ego. In my experience, like this is the ultimate,

like I hate the word life hack, but like honestly, we're all self-obsessed from time to time and we're caught up in our own narrative about what's happening or what's not happening. And this guy did that and I have too much to do. And to just get, if you wanna really get out of yourself, just it doesn't have to be going to a soup kitchen. Like you pick up the phone and you call someone

who you know is having a hard time or you just make yourself available to somebody who could benefit from your open heartedness. Even if it's just a small gesture. These are the things that I think are the things that move the needle the most in disabusing ourselves of our ego and our story and all of the things that we think are benefiting us,

but are actually our biggest Achilles heels. Yeah, for sure. And one thing that you can do, and it reminded me of when you're talking about that serving is there's gonna be somebody who's listening to this who has a friend that's gonna be moving soon. When you help someone move and you do it joyfully and stay to the very end and don't ask for a single thing

and don't act like it's a big chore, that is something that friend will always remember. It's so powerful. When you bend over backwards to help someone else out, it really helps you out. The other thing I was gonna say about what you just said that's so powerful is serving in secret. I think John Orberg talks about this.

When you serve in secret, it frees yourself from self-consciousness, frees yourself from what are people thinking about me? This unconditional love, when you give this love, it really empowers you every time you do it. It's something that we misinterpret as a sacrifice or some kind of like martyrdom or something like that. But the truth is like, if you wanna feel good,

this is the way to do it. It will make you feel more connected to other people. Joy comes from love. All of this, right. So it isn't, yeah, it's an act of love, right? And you're like, this is an imposition, this is a distraction, you know, it's annoying or whatever. And then it gives you all the things

that you're thinking you're gonna get by doing all the things that are, you know're gonna get by doing all the things that are, you know, causing your busy life on the other side. Yes, exactly. Okay, so if I get promoted and I get a million followers and get a million dollars or win a gold medal, then I'm gonna have this joy. If I go help my friend move, I'm gonna have joy.

I know. No, I gotta go. Jim, why is it rigged this way? You know, I always tell people as like, I'm not saying how I would have done it. The best possible life, one foot in joy and one foot in suffering, I wouldn't have created it this way.

I'm just saying this is how the universe works. For me, I wish it was one foot in joy, one foot in joy. I think that's gonna be heaven. Yeah. Is it true that like your great, great, great grandfather was one of the last samurai? Yes. This is true, right? And so the samurai philosophy is also infused in the book.

So talk a little bit about like that and how you think about that philosophy and on some level, genetically embody it. Yeah, I mean, I have, Japan is my favorite country in the world, I guess it's kind of in my spirit. And my mom, she's full Japanese. And so her family has this incredible lineage.

And I mean, even in her own family directly, like her brother is a nuclear scientist and another brother is a judge honored at the Emperor's palace. And another brother was an editor of a major paper. But that kind of the ethos of the samurai. What was really cool was I'm doing this research. kind of the ethos of the samurai. What was really cool was I'm doing this research. I started out with writing,

I just wanna write the book, the best book ever written on mental toughness. And then along the way, I found out that I realized love, wisdom, and courage are kind of the three pillars that I believe are the most powerful forces in the universe. And then I'm studying about the samurai. And then I come across the Bushido code, the samurai code,

and then it says love, wisdom, and courage. I was like, oh my gosh, it's like in me. This is crazy. This is your destiny after all. This is my DNA. Yeah. And so when I was writing the book, I had this, it started off with, okay,

I'm just gonna write the best book on how to have the most peace and confidence and the most pressure, and so people can just achieve extraordinarily. And then I realized, I don't wanna help someone become world number one or Olympic champion if it doesn't change their inner world, if it's not meaningful.

Like, am I just gonna help someone be really, really successful in their outer world? And what's the meaning in that? And so I was like, I need to do something more than just help people achieve. And then the thing that changed my life was in the research, realizing that the path to having the most peace and confidence

to performing your best under the most pressure, which is many people in America today, more than a pro athlete working two jobs, kids at home, that path, training your heart and mind for that is the same path of living the best possible life. The life with that deep contentment, joy, amazing experiences, deep enriching relationships where you're learning and growing and making a difference

is the same path. That's what changed my life. That's what anti-wrest That's what inner excellence is. This wholehearted path where like, when you talk about a lot, like being in sync and surrounding to this greater power, that's what inner excellence is. And that's the big contrarian is the wrong word,

but I would imagine kind of a challenging idea for a lot of people, as we mentioned earlier, like this idea that these two things are of a piece rather than at war with each other. So in your practice of working with athletes and other high performers, is it a challenge to get that person's head around that? Because if they're successful

because they've compartmentalized their life in a certain way, what you're suggesting is a bit of a threat. Like you gotta tear down that house and we're gonna build a new one from the ground up that takes into consideration all of these things that you feel like you have to sacrifice for the case of greatness.

Well, I wanna get to the four daily goals that I mentioned earlier. And before I get to that, I wanna talk about kind of how we start with inter-excellence. And like I shared previously, I want to know how you want to feel when you're at your very best. And so this connectedness that you talked about, this transcendence. And so then I want to know who you want to become, which is the exact words that you

said are really crucial, right? Who are you becoming? And maybe I'm sure everyone wants to hear that actually. That's the billboard, right? Yeah, I mean, that was my answer to a question that Tim Ferriss asked me. He's like, if you could put a phrase up on a billboard, like what would it be?

And my initial answer was like, who are you? Like who am I or whatever, which is like, it's a profound question, but it's sort of like, all right, it's easy to dismiss. And I thought a better way of approaching it is to ask the question like, who am I becoming or who are you becoming? Because in every moment,

we are becoming something different. Like there is no stasis, change is happening to us. It's happening for us. We can resist it or we can be in relationship with it. And to the extent that we can leverage the, you know, the fundamental rule of physics in nature, which is that everything is in flux at all moments, where is the opportunity and how are you evolving?

Like every choice is either regressive or progressive. Like you're either evolving or moving in the wrong direction, but you're never the same, even though we think like, oh, everything's cool. It's, this is the way that it is, right? Can't step into the same river twice. To disabuse yourself of that, yeah.

And realize like, oh, there's a choice in every moment and every decision, thought, behavior, action is either moving you towards the person you wanna become or away from it. And this goes back to like being in a treatment center. And after a hundred days upon my release, being reminded by the counselor, like, listen, every thought, behavior, action is either moving you towards a drink or away from it. And I thought, like, listen, every thought behavior action is either moving you

towards a drink or away from it. And I thought reflecting on that, like that's as true of everything, right? If you just replace drink with, you know, this more authentic, fully actualized version of yourself or, you know, the gutter drunk, you know, regressive version of you, it works in every regard of life. So I think it's a profound question in that regard,

but I went on, I don't even know what you were asking. Yeah, we were talking about this. Working with athletes and how do we get them to get to this place where they're focusing on who they're becoming, which is one of the questions, rather than the process of developing who they are rather than the result. Because when you develop who you are,

then the results are the best that they can be. And so we start with how do you wanna feel on and off the court or the field or the ice or whatever. And often they're very similar how they wanna feel when they're at their best. And then start to think about what do you want most and clarify that and why are you writing this book? Why are you doing this podcast?

What are you really doing it for? And so I often, like I did with you, ask, well, what do you want most for your kids? And what do you love most and what do you want most for them and for yourself? And so now we're starting to get into a little more clarity. And so redefining success, we want to constantly do that every day. And so InterExcellence has four daily goals. And so the first one is to give the best wanna constantly do that every day. So InterExcellence has four daily goals. And so the first one is to give the best of what you have every day.

Understanding that some days it's only gonna be like 30 or 40% of your best. We need to understand this because people run into frustration and they really get off track because they don't have a realistic understanding of what's going on. And when you're on a 30 or 40% day,

maybe you're sick and had an argument with your partner and just have a lot of stress and coach doesn't like you, you may not have a good day. And so understand I'm gonna give the best of what I have. And that's it, that's success, giving the best of what I have, not the outcome that I give the best of what I have. And then two is to be present.

There's no fear in the present moment. Three is to be grateful. Gratitude is directly linked to inner peace and inner strength and mental toughness. They're all connected to beauty. And then four is to focus on your routines and only what you can control. So this is the four daily goals that we have every day

under the overarching goal of learning and growing. And all of those goals are process goals that have nothing to do with outcomes or destinations. Yeah, I don't talk about outcomes at all with my clients. When we first get started, I ask them what they want. And then when we set goals, it's really, these are the ones that we focus on. And I ask them, have you set outcome goals in the past?

If so, have they helped you or hurt you? And have they created more pressure or they really motivated you? Because everyone's different. And so we wanna make sure that they have the... The big thing is, the most successful people at anything, like who wins the British Open and golf coming up,

they're gonna walk by faith, not by sight. In other words, they're gonna stay connected to the vision. They're not gonna get thrown off by unexpected, unwanted things. And this is what I wanna help people do. That reminds me of a story that John John Florence told here a couple of weeks ago. World champion surfer,

anointed the next Kelly Slater since he was a tiny kid and was very successful in his youth and won two back-to-back world championships and then really struggled for a number of years until seven years later, this past year, he won his third world title. But we were talking about visualization and he was sharing that

what he has learned to do that has been most effective is not to visualize like the nuts and bolts of the experience of being in competition, like every detail, what are you eating and how are you like all the logistics of it so that you can be prepared for all of the variables. And one of the reasons for that is there's too many variables in surfing. You have no, like, it's just like

everything's out of control, right? You get the wave you get, there's people all over the place. Like it's just, it's impossible to anticipate what might or might not happen. And what has been effective for him is visualizing how he wants to feel out there and realizing that the pressure of having won two back to back world

championships and carrying that burden of being the next Kelly Slater was interfering with his ability A, to be present when he was out on the wave and to be attached to these outcomes based upon expectations, other people's opinions, all these things you talk about. And in truth, remembering like, I know how to do this. Like I know how to surf.

And in order to surf to the best of my ability, I have to get out of the way, right? And so when I'm doing my best surfing, I'm not thinking about it, but I do have a feeling. Like there's this feeling. And so his visualization is like, how do I wanna feel? It's like engendering that feeling. And so powerful.

That feeling is a product of practicing these four daily goals, like gratitude, being present, giving the best of what you have, and hopefully inhabiting that, essentially that flow state, that transcendent state where everything is in alignment. You know, that's really powerful. And what I would also add that would be powerful as well.

So I think with visualization, one thing that people make a mistake on is, like you said, trying to visualize every possible outcome and also just seeing themselves being successful, like a golfer seeing birdies or whatever, football player catching touchdowns, that can be helpful. But what's more powerful is seeing how you wanna feel, exactly what he's doing

and seeing yourself overcoming adversity. When you visualize, we want to make sure that your subconscious connects with the feeling that you're gonna have when you're out there and also connects with the feeling, great feelings that you've had in the past. And so you might visualize a hundred times some future event going well,

and then you get out there and you don't get that feeling. And it's because, largely because when you visualize, the feeling that you had was not similar to the feeling you had when you got out there. In other words, you got out there and you're really nervous, you're visualizing there's no nerves. So your subconscious didn't connect them. We need to find a way to connect the two.

So when you get out there, you're gonna feel similar. Your subconscious is like, oh, I've been here before. And so part of that is visualizing the adversity and seeing yourself handling. And what we do with InterExcellence is we visualize handling things that will never happen, way more adversity than you're ever gonna find. And so, because we don't ever wanna be in a situation

where we're throwing off emotionally. Yeah, you're dysregulated because of some unanticipated thing. Yeah, I don't want them to say, look, Jim, Rich, that's never happened in 20 years of my sport. I'm like, okay, well, you got to be ready for anything. That's why we visualize more than you're ever gonna happen.

In working with all of these people over the years, what have you discovered about the difference between the athlete or high performer that gets it, they read your book, they hear what you're saying, they're able to put it into practice and make these changes and progress forward versus the person who either resist what you're talking about or gives it their best shot,

but just can't really make that leap from, you know, where they are into the behavior changes and thought patterns that are gonna, you know, flip the switch. Yeah, so since I started 15, 20 years ago, the majority of my clients have had the best year of their careers, our first year together, or the best year in their last five years,

but not everybody. And I think there's many reasons why people don't do well, but one of the reasons why I think that I see that people that haven't really taken to it is they weren't able to get out of their own way. And part of that is that ego. And there's a lot of people come to me naturally, they, I don't care what we do, Jim,

I just want to perform better. I mean, this is human nature, right? Whatever this love, love, you, every step, it doesn't matter, I'll do it, but I just want to get better. I mean, this is human nature, right? Whatever this love, love, you, W stuff, it doesn't matter. I'll do it, but I just want to get, and they're not able to make the leap because they're not able to get out of their own way, whether it's ego or pain or some trauma

that they can't see the leap or it's not a leap. They can't see the connection. The connection, yeah. Between, okay, what I really want, it's not what I really want is to win a PGA Tour championship for the US Open or whatever it is. What I really want is to live a meaningful, Tour Championship with the US Open or whatever it is. What I really want is to live a meaningful, fulfilling life with amazing experiences, deep enriching relationships.

That's what I really want. And they can't see, they're just like, all I know is if I win this event, if I get more successful, I have better feelings, I have a better life in their mind because they're singular story, singular picture. And I wasn't able to get them out of that. And so if I can't get them out of that,

then they're just gonna go through the motions and it's not gonna work because we're looking for a heart transformation. Like you have talked about before, new neural pathways. So your reactions when you're squeezed, like an orange, when it's squeezed, orange juice comes out. When we're squeezed, what's in our heart, which is the epicenter of everything you think,

say and do, your spirit, your will. When we're squeezed, we want inner peace to come out. And so that's what Inter Excellence is, getting this transformed heart, creating new neural pathways. Yeah. What's interesting about that is, I'm envisioning the guy who comes to you

because he wants to win the PGA championship. And then you give him an earful and he reads the book and all of that. And he's like, if I do what this guy says, I'm never gonna win that. This is like, this is gonna ruin my chances of winning the PGA championship. Like it's very, you know, it's like a threat, you know.

Well, loving your opponent, that's not an American way. I knew this guy, this was years ago, very successful guy who got into yoga and he would go to this yoga class that we would go to. And he's like, I can't stop coming here, but if I keep coming here, I'm gonna lose all my money. It's funny how that works. Cause on some level, your book is a bit of a Trojan horse.

It's sort of like the Dow of life for Westerners, but you have to wrap it in this high performance packaging so that people are like, oh, I want that, I wanna read that, but they crack the spine and they're in for a ride because there's so much more going on here. I think it's the same thing that you've shared with the world.

You're saying, hey, it's a spiritual journey. And we live in a culture that's like, oh, that's a little bit, I just want success. And so this is the same message that you're sharing. So how do you translate that for the spiritually or religiously allergic? It's just getting to that love, what do you love most and who you're become like,

if they have kids, what do you want most of your kids? And often they'll say like, kind of what you shared, I just want them to be happy. And then I'll share with them about, I think probably what you really want is them to have this meaningful, fulfilling life with amazing experiences and et cetera. And so if that's what you want, the number one way, kind of what you said want is them to have this meaningful, fulfilling life with amazing experiences and et cetera. And so if that's what you want, the number one way,

kind of what you said earlier is who you're becoming is gonna impact them. That's the number one thing for you to learn to have this peace and joy in your heart. And I can teach you how to have that and how to pursue it. I don't know if teaching is the right word. When I talk to work with people, I don't say that I'm the teacher.

I say, look, I have my own fears and weaknesses and self-centeredness. I'm gonna share with you what I've learned and I'm gonna share with you my journey. You're gonna share your journey. We're working on the exact same things. I wanna have more peace and joy under pressure and I wanna be walking love, not fear,

be grateful, not entitled. But I'm human just like you, we're gonna work on this together. And what is the biggest challenge that you're confronting with your inner life right now? Since January 12th, my life has been a lot different, just so many more cities and amazingly, there's abundance of more people

that are willing to chat with me. And so there's a couple of things. One is busyness is like Henry Nowan said, is the enemy of the spiritual life. And when I say spiritual life, I mean a life of deep contentment, joy and confidence, no matter what, I'm not talking about religion. And unless you say true religion,

which is taking care of widows and orphans and things like that. But this is the path of inter-excellence is how can I get out of my way, my own ego, which leads to fear and have what I want most, this amazing, fulfilling fullness of life and work on that every day. In the context of now being in a situation

in which your ego is getting stroked more than ever, right? Which is all the more reason why you were spared having this opportunity earlier. Right, I couldn't have handled it before. But now it's, yeah, but now it's being tested, right? And so you have to really be conscious of how well you're walking. Yeah, there's two things that, that's a great question.

Two things that's gonna be really important for me going forward. In fact, God told me at the Super Bowl in New Orleans, in my hotel room, one is proximity to the poor is gonna be really important for you. And then the other thing is day three. So I think of day one is January 12th when all of a sudden the onslaught of interviews

and intention and day three, it's 3 a.m. my heart is racing. And it's just, it wasn't anxiety from too many concerns. It was just so much coming at me. And it was like, how do I handle all this? And then looking at all the book sales and there was this kind of overwhelm. And I think like someone who wins a lottery or something like that,

you have so much coming at you at once. And then it was this amazing moment. God said, look, Jim, it doesn't matter if you sell a thousand books, a million books or a billion, what are your bank account is, how many zeros, none of that matters, you're not gonna change, your purpose stays exactly the same.

And look, you didn't do this, I did it, you're not doing it, I'm doing it. So you don't need to be, make sure you say the right thing, do the right thing, because this was not your doing. And I talk about in the best possible life, at most, if I were to contribute to anything good that's happened in my life, it would be 2% out of 100. God would be the 98%.

I talk about how Michael Phelps used him as a scenario with 23 limit gold medals. 2% is what I would say is our contribution. You also give away like a percentage of the royalties on your book, right? You have a foundation for that or charitable, you know, charitable outlet for that. Yeah, the Interactions Freedom Project.

Yeah, so we do these house builds in Mexico with Youth with a Mission. That's amazing, you have to come. It's just the house build alone is life-changing. And it's really this understanding when you do it that we need the poor more than the poor need us. It's easy to think, oh, I'm gonna go there and do my good thing.

But how did, like, if we just look at our lives, how did we have anything good come in our life? We had to come to the point where at the end of ourselves, where we felt like we had nothing and there's only, surrender was the only other option. And that's why, when you're, so the greatest force in the universe is unconditional love. And you can, and the most powerful love,

there's a love that's so powerful, it's not available except through weakness and sacrifice. And like, for example, think about the earthquake that I was thinking about in Haiti, this terrible thing. If you're there digging people out of the rubble, are you concerned about what you're wearing and self-conscious, what do people think about me? There's no concerns about that.

You're just digging to save someone's life, right? And that's what weakness does. There's a strength in love that's only available in weakness that comes out. And that's kind of what we try and do with how people understand with the Inter-Excellence Freedom Project and building the houses in Mexico.

You fly in and out of San Diego, it's four or five days. But what I do is I add an Inter Excellence retreat to it. And so we do both, we build a house in two days, and then we add an Inter Excellence, a full day of Inter Excellence. And it's a way that the public can have this life-changing experience with building a house with this family, because you get there,

there's just a foundation, we walk away, and they're giving them the keys to their new house and new life. And so it's a way you can have both for, most people can't, aren't able to do an Inter Excellence retreat, so that's where they can. And what happens on the retreat? So we have, with the Inter Excellence,

we have, we go through the same retreat that I give over three days to professional athletes and people all over the world. And I just take them through that in like a day and a half. And they come in, we stay at the base in Sonata or in Tijuana. And yeah, it's really powerful. Wow.

With all the media attention that you've garnered over the last year, is there anything that gets missed or misunderstood or under appreciated about what you're trying to communicate? Well, I think the main thing is people putting the attention on me. And like I said, I mean, I'm just someone that tried to surrender to this message

that God's sharing with the world. And that he chose me as this incredible honor, but I'm just average person. I'm really nobody significant. That's the kind of mistake I think that's happened as people kind of think about me. And what is the one thing as we kind of wind this down that you wanna make sure that comes across that everybody kind of understands

about this idea of inter excellence. Like if there's one thing that they walk away from this conversation and reflect upon over the coming days, like how would you put words to that? Well, there's two things that, so the inter excellence has three principles that we kind of live by. And the first one is that everything is here to teach me

and help me, it's all working for my good. And understand that I think what separates the most successful people in any walk of life from everyone else is courage. And we can all be courageous. And so understand when you look back on your life, if you wanna, anyone that's listening or watching, they can live an extraordinary life with amazing relationships and experiences.

But it's gonna take some courage to master your ego and start to work on that every day and letting go of who you've been so you can become someone you've never been before. And facing those feelings that you haven't been willing to face before. Understand that self-centeredness is the biggest challenge that we face in performance and in life.

And humility is not, I think it's really misunderstood. I define humility as an accurate view of self. It's not overinflated, it's not underinflated because some people, they don't realize that when you're saying, oh, who am I to do this or that, that's an egocentric thing to say, who am I to do this? Like, who are you not to do that?

You're created in God's image. We all have this potential within us to live this life filled with amazing experiences. It's just that we get in the way. And if you're willing to face your fears and work on your ego, then have the courage to take one little step today, then anything is possible.

And the courage, I think people associate courage with ego in some regard, like I have to summon the courage. Like I have to like my ego, I have to like have the, summon the confidence or whatever, believe in myself in order to do this thing. But the courage you're talking about

is somewhat the inverse in that you have to, it's the courage to like relinquish the ego, right? And embody the humble servant notion. It's also the courage to be afraid. And so Tom Cruise said it so well. He said, you know, he's famous for doing all these stunts and being this megastar. And he said something that I've always remembered,

something along the lines of, you know, everyone's afraid. The only difference with me is that I'm not afraid to be afraid. And this is what we wanna do with inner excellence, to live a new life that where you're really having these amazing experiences, is are you willing to be afraid and sit in that feeling? I think that's a good place to stop for today.

I could talk to you all day. Likewise, thank you. That was amazing. My inners feel excellent right now. Awesome. I'm feeling a sense of inner excellence, just being in your presence. You're a gift, the message that you've been entrusted

to share that has been channeled through you and is reaching so many people right now is a really powerful one and a great one. And I think it's a beautiful mission that you're on. And I appreciate you taking the time to come here today and talk to me. Yeah, thank you so much. It's such an honor to be here.

And especially of anyone, I was so excited to spend time with you because of the journey that you've been on and you've shown us all that we can all have courage and we can all change our lives. I think that we are all dancing atop reservoirs of untapped potential. And the journey towards releasing

or breathing expression into that potential is something we're all capable of. And maybe we're not gonna win the PGA championship, but I think we all have a song inside of ourselves that we wanna sing. And everything in your book is about how to nourish that expression and walk the planet a little more authentically with a little bit more grace.

And with this idea of love that I'm struggling with, Jim, and I'm gonna be calling you because I need your guidance. We're gonna work on it, yeah. I need it more than anyone. Yeah, amazing. Thank you so much and please come back again. Thank you, I would love to. Cool, peace.

Peace. That's it for today. Thank you for listening. I truly hope you enjoyed the conversation. To learn more about today's guests, including links and resources related to everything discussed today, visit the episode page at richroll.com where you can find the entire podcast archive, my books, Finding Ultra, Boising Change, and the Plant Power Way. If you'd like to support the podcast, the easiest and most impactful thing you can do

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Plants. Namaste. Thanks for watching!