Transcript of Why Success Can Still Leave You Feeling Behind | Jim Murphy

If you want to live an extraordinary life, you have to constantly pull yourself out of the temporary situation you're in because selfless is fearless. And when fear is gone, love remains, and love is fearless.

Where I'm at work, I feel guilty for not being home. And when I'm home, I feel guilty for not being work. And every day I'm in this endless cycle and I just feel stuck and I'm not sure how to move forward.

People really idolize the people that I work with, but what they don't realize is that I spend most of my time with miserable millionaires. The best possible life is one foot in joy and one foot in suffering.

Jim, it's great to have you on the show, man. Thanks for taking the time.

Yeah, thanks for having me. Yeah.

So, so one of the things that initially connected, you know, being a, a, a former athlete yourself and, you know, falling in love with psychology, and now this is what you do for people every day, high performers. I've always been Shocked. Shocked might not be the wrong word. Intrigued by the fact that when you talk to individuals like yourself who have been and work with high performers, when you hear them in interviews, mindset, the psychology that they use to get to these places is oftentimes like the very first place they want to go. Yet the rest of us, so many other people, right, who struggle to ascend to that next level. It's like the last thing they think about. Why do you, one, do you agree with the premise that the vast majority of people who find themselves underperforming, it's in large part because they don't work on their mindset? And 2, why do you think there's that gap? Like, why isn't the very first thing we learn mindset, psychology, like the stuff that you teach every day?

Yeah, good question, Henley. So the, when you say mindset, what I think of is, The reason you're doing something, like, what am I pursuing right now? Like, what's my mindset for my performance? Or if I'm giving a speech, like, what's my mindset going into the presentation? Is, you know, why am I doing this and what am I really going for? And to me, your mindset is the foundation of mental toughness. We live in a world that is, as humans, we're led around by our eyes. We see a beautiful sunset or sunrise and we're in awe. We watch a great movie or see a beautiful person. We stop in our tracks. And if we see something scary or traumatic, then we're scared or traumatized. And so humans are easily caught up in their circumstances. And yet, if you wanna live an extraordinary life, you have to constantly pull yourself out of the temporary situation you're in and into the bigger picture, or what I think of as the realities of heaven, where anything is possible. And so I think what the greatest do is they continually see a longer horizon and a much greater vision than the average person sees.

And that's because they're pursuing something much more than a temporary result.

And is that innate? Like if I'm not born with that, then I'm screwed? Or is this something we can develop through practice and work?

We're born with a self-centered nature. And so it's something that needs to be trained. Every human is born self-centered. When I say self-centered, I mean everything that, that we do as humans is naturally going to have ourselves in the center of it. What do I want to do today? What am I going to eat? What are my goals? What's going to happen to me and my family and my career? This is the normal inherent way of living in the world, and it leads to fear and comparison and anxiety. I think of anxiety as a mind with too many thoughts and too many concerns. And so, but if you want to live the best possible life, you want to be the best performer, the best speaker, then you need to get out of the way. We need to get out of that fear, that self-centeredness that leads to fear, because selflessness is fearless. And when fear is gone, love Love remains and love is fearless.

Is this kind of the concept of detaching from the outcome? Is that, is that like, is detaching from that self-centered nature or the outcome of every action and how you apply like your own self-worth? Is this, is this the exercise? Like, is this what we're trying to do when you say like, you know, moving away from that self-centered nature?

Yeah, that's part of it. Um, however, we're not going to detach from the outcome unless we have something greater to attach to. When nothing really great happens without passion, and passion is the willingness to suffer. That's the literal definition. And in fact, one of the 5 skills of inner excellence is to compete and live or lead with freedom and passion. And so we need the willing— we have to be willing to sacrifice, and we're not going to sacrifice except for something that's very, very important to us.

So I've been doing this show for 5 years, done over almost 500 interviews now. And the concept of detach from the outcome has come up dozens of times. No one has ever followed it with, it doesn't work unless you attach to something greater. And I'm very interested in that. Like, because, because, you know, when I was coming up and we both played baseball, you made it professionally. I did not. I got, uh, I got the whammy button from the Pirates a couple times on some show me tryouts, but that's as far as I made it. That being said, even hitting coaches, et cetera, that it was like, all you can do is control the controllables. What happens after that doesn't matter and all this kind of stuff. And so in these skill sets, in these activities that we care about, how do I— if I'm detaching from an outcome to attach to something greater, How do I make sure the same, like, level of self-worth and anxiety and fear doesn't just get attached to that next bigger thing? If that question makes sense.

Yeah, that's a good question. It's, it's, um, the thing has to be, um, so great that, that, uh, um, even if you don't get it, you're still gonna be willing to pursue it your whole life.

Because, you know, it's funny, and I don't mean to take this down a sports analogy path and provide too much context. But even in my own sports career, and we'll just use baseball since we both played, like my career really didn't take off until I was able to stand up at home plate and remove the idea of like, it's not that I don't care if I get a hit, but if I don't get a hit, I'm not going back to the dugout crying. Like I'm obviously trying to get on base. I'm trying to execute an outcome. But there was no value or, or like personal self-worth attached to that individual activity. However, my performance over the course of a season mattered to me quite a bit. And is that kind of like, I mean, again, this is a microcosm. We're just trying to break it down into something smaller. I know, you know, your single performance as a junior on a varsity team doesn't necessarily matter that, you know, over the course of your lifetime, but. Is that kind of the idea, is expand your viewport and then the individual things that happen in the middle you can detach from because what you're really trying to do is create this longer, larger outcome over the course of time?

Henley, as I listen, I have so many thoughts that come to my mind, and I've been studying this for a long time, and sometimes it's hard to— I get lost amongst all the thoughts. So I hope you can help me simplify everything. You're talking about as a high school baseball player and the desire to get a hit versus the ability to try to get a hit but not be attached to it. This is where we're at, right? And so this is kind of like the difference between a teenager and an adult is the ability to see the bigger vision. Someone who's mature can see a longer vision than temporary. Pleasure. And it's also similar to the difference between confidence and belief. So when I'm, as a performance coach, most people come to me because they're underperforming. It's one of the most common reasons why at least an athlete would come to me. And they often want more confidence. And confidence is great, but it's not nearly as powerful as being fully present or having beliefs. And so I think of belief as a subconscious comfort level of what you feel is possible in your life.

And so beliefs are running our lives. And confidence is like the feeling that you can achieve what you want to achieve. I can make this putt, this free throw, I can give this talk. That's confidence. It's a short-term positive feeling about Achieving what you want to achieve. Belief, the power in belief is it doesn't matter if I make this putt or screw this talk up or make this basket. I'm still good. It's all going to work out. Very big difference between the two.

How do you cultivate one versus the other?

Well, I don't really think about confidence as something we're trying to get. We want to develop belief and presence. Those are the 2 big ones. Confidence is so fickle and there's so many things that go into it and it doesn't always guarantee a good performance, whereas belief and presence, far more correlated to better performance. And so both of those are very correlated to how you feel when you're fully present. And when I think of fully present, that always needs to be explained on what I mean. It's like thinking of peace as the absence of war. To me, peace is far more than the absence of conflict. And being fully present, I think of it as far more than just not thinking about the past or future. What I really want someone beyond being present is fully engaged heart and mind and body, unattached to what they're trying to do. And another way you can think about it is to have the sense that anything is possible. And so freedom and presence and joy and glory, belief, these things all are very similar in my mind.

I'd love to kind of double-click into this idea of being fully present because, again, I love the depth that you're going on these topics because it's, it's, and obviously this is This is your life's work, but it, you know, again, I haven't heard anyone try to explain being fully present beyond what you just said. Like, be in the moment, you know, don't look at your phone. Don't think about, you know, what the things you have, just like be there. Right. So, okay. So let's say, and I think in today's world it is incredibly exceptionally difficult and/or people don't choose to be present very often right now. That seems like a— core problem in life in general. And even the idea of just not thinking about maybe like stage 1 presence is just not thinking about the past or the future. Okay, let's say I can actually get myself to that moment. How do I go deeper? What do I need to be doing in that moment? Or what habits or mindset? Take those words for what they are and use what you think is right. to, to go to that deeper level, to actually, you know, this, this idea of belief in being fully present that you said, like, I want to get, I want to get there.

So presence is, is also very, to be more present is also very correlated to passion and beauty. So, um, if, if there's something that you're willing to sacrifice for, and if you see more beauty, then both of those, you're gonna, you're gonna be more present. Um, beauty and hope are also very highly correlated. And so if there's not much beauty, there's not much hope, then you're not gonna be present. It's a, You're going to be caught up in the past and projecting that to the future. And so, to me, all of Inner Excellence is largely can be thought of as an in-depth system to have the sense in your life more often that anything is possible, which means more connected to beauty. more connected to hope, much less thoughts of self. In fact, the goal is to be selfless and therefore fearless.

Okay, walk me through that. So as I become more selfless, I become more fearless.

Yeah. So there you can think of— so there's 3 things that I think of that are really commonly thought of in performance that help out performance mentally. There's confidence, there's belief, and there's presence. And And like I said, presence and belief are far more powerful. And belief is that sense that you can do something, that you can be state champion or win a prize or get promoted or whatever it is that you wanna do. So that's the belief that you can personally do that or your team. And yet, if you're fully present, you can go beyond beliefs. And that's a— to me, it's a fascinating idea because beliefs have limits. Every belief has a limit. And you and I both have beliefs about every area of our lives, and those areas all have limits with them. And so Inner Excellence is about expanding what you believe is possible, which means coming to the edge of your beliefs, coming to the edge of your feelings, and embracing those feelings as places to grow and expand. So, um, learning to be fully present is, is, uh, um, very highly correlated with, with, uh, um, expanding what you believe is possible.

I'll give you a quick story. So there's a guy from New Zealand that recently won the British Open in golf. His name is Ryan. And, um, I hadn't, uh, heard of Ryan before. I hadn't been following it that closely in the last 6 months. And so the PGA Tour And so he's from a small, smaller country, New Zealand, not super famous for golf. And, and he wins. And so I thought, did Ryan go into that tournament feeling, yeah, I'm a better golfer than Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy and I'm going to win? Probably not. Did he have a belief that he could be a British Open champion? Possibly. But I don't think he had to have that belief. He just had to be fully present. Because when you're fully present, there's no fear, then there's no attachment to what just happened and what might happen. And it's like, I don't know if you ever heard, if you golf or have heard of people saying this, but all of a sudden I came to the last hole and added up my score. I was like, oh my gosh, that was my best score ever. Or it was such an incredible day because they weren't, because by definition, the score is a past and future thing.

The score and the outcome in general is a distraction.

It feels to me like expectations play a pretty large role in our ability to be present. And what's so admirable And to use your word, beautiful, I think about like what Scottie Scheffler's been able to do the last 4 years on the PGA Tour is that despite massive expectations that this guy's the number 1 in the world and he's just going to dominate, he continues to show up and perform and not allow those expectations to impact him. Where, you know, how many past single champions are there that have this great moment and achieve the pinnacle of, you know, whatever it is, and then are never able to get back there or even perform at that level again because say they're constantly pressing. Or, you know, they have all these expectations on them now that they just simply can't deal with. So how, one, one, is that true? Do you believe that? And 2, like, how do we remove those performance expectations from ourselves to free ourselves up?

So we're talking about Scottie Scheffler and we're talking about expectations. Now it's possible that Scottie Scheffler became world number one because he has, uh, um, as soon as he got the world number one caddy. he became world number 1. And so, uh, um, Teddy Scott. And so that's possible. But I think, um, when we think about expectations, in fact, one of the things that Teddy, uh, likes to say or do— he also does coaching— um, is he's always trying to, to reduce expectations to something that he knows the golfer can do. And because expectations by definition are a future thing that, that, that you want that you don't know if you can do. And so we want constantly get out of expectations and be very careful with our desires. Desires are really important and powerful, but we want to make sure that we direct them to what's very empowering. And along with that is, you know, when Ryan Fox won the British Open, was that a good thing for him? Scottie Scheffler won the 2026 FedEx Cup. Was that a good thing? All I know is that both of them wanted to win. could be a terrible thing for both of them.

I don't know.

And this might sound kind of funny coming from a performance coach who gets paid to get people to do these things. But realizing that you don't know what outcome is best for you is really important to gain freedom. And freedom is one of the 3 pillars of extraordinary performance, along with belief and presence.

How does somebody, like, cultivate freedom in their lives when Maybe they just feel stuck. I mean, I know so many people, business owners, people that are doing well, especially even from the outside, and they just feel stuck. They feel like, I don't have, when I'm, I just was talking to a CEO the other day and his exact words were, where I'm at work, I feel guilty for not being home. And when I'm home, I feel guilty for not being work. And every day I'm in this endless cycle and I just feel stuck and I'm not sure how to move forward. And this is a high performer. And if you were to snapshot his life from the outside, you'd be like, this guy's killing the game. Yet this is like the inner turmoil that he's dealing with. And he feels like he can't move his business forward because of this cycle that he's stuck in. Like, and I think that's more common than people are willing to admit. How do we break out of that cycle?

Yeah, that is very, very common. Um, I think of it as, as, uh, being a half day behind. Uh, one of the coaches that I interviewed for Inner Excellence, I think he was the coach for Ohio State baseball, but it was a while ago, talked about being a half day behind for students. You're in class and you're thinking about baseball and then you're not paying attention in class. And so then you're at baseball and because you didn't pay attention in class, you did poorly on the exam. So now you're thinking about the exam that you just did poorly on while you're at baseball. And then it just keeps going, that cycle. And so it's super common. with all adults. And one of the main things that's really important is to make sure you clarify what's most important to you. I think of it as your life purpose. And if you don't clarify what's most important to you, then you're going to constantly be thinking about trying to— you're going to try and control what you can't control. And that's why people— one of the main reasons why people aren't present, why I haven't been present That wasn't in my life because I tried to control what I couldn't control.

And that's, like I said, more passion, more beauty, and focus, being present. And you can't be present unless you have something compelling to sacrifice for. It's hard to be present. And like, for that successful business owner or entrepreneur, for him, it would really just think and help him understand is that, okay, what I want most is to live a meaningful, fulfilling life where I feel fully alive and make a difference in the world. And I want to share that with my kids and help them do the same. Say that's something that he wants. Then, um, one, being clear on that, and two, being clear on how that feels. Because when you're at your very best, it feels a certain way. Because then we can start to notice what adds to that and what takes away from that feeling, that presence, that freedom, that joy. And, uh, um, Once you get that clarity on that thing that's most important, then it really helps you focus on it each day and be present at work and then be present when you're with your kids.

It's such a big question. And I know, you know, I was talking to another friend the other day who called me and he's another guy who's got successful business and, you know, he's not necessarily dealing with as much turmoil as my previous example, but You know, he just, he was talking about being in a rut. He's like, you know, I, I, I wanted to be an entrepreneur. I'm an entrepreneur. Beyond being an entrepreneur, he's like, he's like, I don't know where to go from here. You know, it was kind of like what he, you know, I'm paraphrasing a longer conversation, but the idea was essentially like, okay, I built this business. The business is good. My kids are good. You know, my wife's happy. She gets to have her job and everything's great. And But like, what do I do now? And he's like mid-40s, like, you know, I'm mid-40s as well. He's like, he's like, I, I, do I start another business? Do I take this business to the next level? Do I remove my, he's like, how do I, like, how does someone figure out what that purpose is? And I'm, and maybe a lot of the people that come to know what that is and they don't know how to get there, but like, maybe even from your own life, if you have this experience, like you, The seasons of life seem to be tough transitions for a lot of people, and even in particular, high performers who have built this, we'll call it brand or identity around some level of performance.

And then they, that season comes to an end and how do you cycle through that to the next season? And how do you do that without losing your mind?

So there's a football player who won 7 Super Bowls named Tom Brady. And he, after he won his 3rd or 4th Super Bowl, he said, God, is that all there is? And then Bubba Watson wins the Masters and calls up Teddy Scott a few days later and says, Teddy, is that it? Teddy's like, Bubba? He's like, is that it? He's like, what is it? He's like, that's all? I mean, now it's nothing changes? And so for both of these guys, they achieved the pinnacle of their sport and this super success and they're still empty. And this is, you can find this for thousands of years. You'll see it everywhere you look. If you look hard, you'll see people that have millions or billions of dollars. I mean, look at Pete Cowen, the Man in Black, one of the world's most famous and successful swing coaches. He said in an article that people really idolize the people that I work with, but what they don't realize is that I spend most of my time with miserable millionaires. And so if you want to live an extraordinary life, and in fact I wrote a book about it called The Best Possible Life, then you really have to understand human nature.

You have to understand the human condition. And humans are created for relationship. And our greatest need is for love, unconditional love. The greatest desires is to be fully known and fully loved by someone that's very important. That would be the best because then you could completely relax no matter what you set to do, you'd be fine. But as humans, we're led around by our ego, that part of our mind that's always threatened, always comparing, never satisfied, always puts you on trial. And most people are led around by that, as I have been most of my life, for their entire lives. And then they die that way, keep searching for more and keep always on trial, always comparing, never enough. And, but once you, if you ever realize That what you really want is to feel fully alive. And there's a big difference between getting good circumstances and feeling good about that and having a depth of wellbeing that fills your soul. I call that happiness versus joy. Happiness is a positive temporary feeling based on what's happening. You get good circumstances or results, then you get good feelings. Bad circumstances or results, bad feelings. And this is what most people are chasing, the happiness, the good circumstances and good results so they can get good feelings.

And that's a really chase-your-tail empty existence. Whereas I define joy as a deep sense of wellbeing and freedom and gratitude independent of circumstances and inner buoyancy and delight that comes from sacrificial love. And joy is the pillar of self-control. Joy to me is kind of the essence of absolute fullness of life where you feel fully alive. And if everyone were to pursue that joy, they can have it because everyone can sacrifice and sacrifice for others.

So what I hear you saying is Similar to how confidence is a derivative feeling of belief, happiness is a derivative feeling of joy. And just based on our conversation thus far, it sounds like what most people are doing or getting wrong, or the reason they're feeling conflict or anxiety is because they flip that upside down. They're chasing happiness and chasing confidence. Instead of chasing belief and joy.

Yeah. And I know I don't think about pursuing confidence or happiness whatsoever. Of course, I'm human, so I want both. And I always want to be confident and I always want to be happy. But I know that belief is far more powerful and joy is far more meaningful, fulfilling, and feel more alive than happiness, which I know is fleeting. So what I try to do, people come to me in essence is they want happiness and I teach them how to have joy.

For a long time, I had the belief that if I allowed myself to become comfortable, filled with freedom and beauty and joy and those kind of things, like that I would lose the edge that allowed me to be successful. So it wasn't that I wouldn't occasionally dip my toe into those things or spend moments there, but I always worried that like, Oh, if I start to get comfortable, then I'm not going to want to wake up at 5:00 AM and grind out for the first 2 hours of the day like you're supposed to do to be a rockstar entrepreneur or whatever. And how do you manage that sense? Because what I'm hearing from you is if you go all in on joy and belief and these types of things, beauty, freedom, that's the unlock. Yet it's kind of like I've been only a toe dipped in that bucket for a lifetime.

Yeah. So that's a very good realization, Anthony. Thanks for bringing that up. So, um, joy comes from sacrifice, sacrificial love. The best possible life has one foot in joy and one foot in suffering.

Can you expand on that a little bit? Because, yeah, that is a very intriguing idea to me. Yeah.

So the way the universe is set up, um, right, right now anyway, is that if you want stronger muscles, you have to break them down. You have to suffer. Sacrifice. You got to go through that pain to get them bigger. There's just no other way. It's the same thing for what I think of the 3 great pillars of the best possible life: love, wisdom, and courage. Um, if you want wisdom, which I think of as understanding of everything that lasts forever, you have to go through difficult things, and you have to, um, overcome your ego, the part of your mind always threatened, always comparing. And, uh, um, same thing with courage. If you want courage, you have to have scary things to face. And, uh, um, if you don't have the joy part, then life is going to be too hard. It's just going to be really, really, really difficult. And then if you don't have the suffering part, then you're going to be— you won't have inner strength. Um, And without inner strength, you're going to be constantly chasing happiness, constantly chasing better circumstances, chasing your tail, feeling empty and exhausted and very anxious.

Certainly in the hardest moments of my life, I, it was almost as if I felt the farthest away from joy. I mean, there's no doubt about that. And it almost becomes like a self-fulfilling prophecy where it's like, you feel like you don't deserve joy because you haven't achieved some goal or expectation that you set for yourself.

Yeah, I think that's because most people don't think of joy and happiness like I've described it. Most people don't have a real definition of joy. They think of joy as enjoyment, good feelings. I think this, most people I've encountered think of joy as that. Something very similar to happiness. And so people just, most people spend their entire lives trying to get better results and circumstances so they can get better feelings for themselves and their family. And this is the empty pursuit where it's very frustrating and scary. And, uh, but joy is very different in the way I define it, um, coming from sacrificial love.

I completely agree. And I've never heard a position this way, but I, I completely agree. And I, and I think it's, I think this is probably like a fairly systemic problem that, that people essentially misdefine joy as enjoyment. And once you say it the way that you just did, once you position it the way you just did, it makes complete sense to me that you're looking at joy as these enjoyable moments, not this overarching— Yeah, this overarching feeling and direction of your life that you're trying to take. It's more Joy is a vector. Enjoyment might be a data point on the journey. Is that kind of how we should envision it?

Yeah. Joy is a byproduct of love. And so it's not something that you really pursue directly at all. It's something that becomes, comes as a byproduct. I think that we're always walking in either love or fear. We're either in the, we're either driven by a sense of Serving others, putting others first, making a difference in the world, or putting ourselves first. The first one is love. The second one is fear. When you focus on yourself, then it leads towards fear. Now, this can be confusing because there's things like self-care, for example, which is super important. But if you wanna— that's why I wrote the book, The Best Possible Life, to help clarify all this. If you wanna live the best possible life, which I define as a life with extraordinary experiences, deep and rich relationships where you feel fully alive and you have a clear purpose and mission and you feel like you're making a difference in the world. That life is one that's driven by the— or powered by joy, which leads to self-control. But it comes from living a life of sacrifice for others.

I'd like to close out our conversation today with maybe like a, and obviously a big part of this is people need to get the book. And I know you have a workbook coming out in January, 90 Days. We could talk a little bit about that as well. And even in the construct of what I'm about to ask, you know, talk through the workbook, but like, let's say you're just stuck in, you've had some success. But you're not where you want to be. You have maybe a family or a relationship, but it's not what you would love it to be in the world. You're in this place that we kind of discussed where you're constantly a half day behind, which I love that term. You're just constantly a half day behind. Like, how do you break— like, what's the first step? And we don't have to go through the whole thing. Obviously, I want people to get deeper into your world and the book and everything, but How do I start to crack that code? Like, what's the first thing I need to do to just start to end that cycle of being a half day behind?

We need to get out of the obsession with results. There's far too much out of your control. And so you've got to regularly pull yourself out of what I call the third world of results and circumstances into what I think of as the first world of unlimited possibility, limited only by imagination and belief. And so with Inner Excellence, we have 4 daily goals, or you can think of them as 4 intentions every day. And the first one is to give the best of what you have, realizing that some days it's not gonna be very good or very much, and that's okay. So this is a redefinition of success. We have to take that off the end result. Otherwise, you're just gonna be too emotionally up and down based on what's happening in your life. And so the first one is give the best of what you have. And some days are going to be what I call 30 or 40% days, which are days when you have only 30 or 40% of your best, and then you're just going to give 100% of that 30 or 40%. And if you do, that will be success.

And then number 2 is to be present. There's no fear in the present moment. Number 3 is, is, uh, um, to be grateful. Gratitude is directly linked to inner peace, which is linked to inner strength, which is linked to mental toughness. And they're all linked to beauty. So that's 3. And then number 4 is to focus on your routines and only what you can control. So when I think of your friend there and what people can do that are similar situations, I think of James Clear, wrote the book Atomic Habits. It's a great book. And he talks about doing the smallest next step. And BJ Fogg also wrote a similar book, similar idea of the smallest next step. If you want to be healthier and you want to start maybe going for a run, don't think of it as, okay, I'm going to run a marathon. What's the smallest step that you know that you can do and do it? Start with that. Can you find your running shoes and put them by the door. That could be your first day. And then the next day, could you put them on and wear them around the house?

And so learning to take small steps and, and, uh, um, because within excellence, we just want to get better every day, a little bit better. And, and what's— it's not important, the, the circumstances you're in, not near as important as the direction you're going. And, and by that, I mean your, your, uh, where your heart is going.

This is maybe slightly contextual, but It kind of drives me crazy that this is not stuff that we're taught. Like, why do we have to learn these things after getting bludgeoned to death, you know, by life? And then all of a sudden we go, wait a minute, I want to do better. Let me start learning. I got to get Jim's book. You know what I mean? Like, here I am, you know, in my 40s trying to figure life out here. You know, I, you think about these things and you're like, man, like, how blessed are the people who are taught these lessons Early in life and are able to cultivate them, and you don't have to scramble for them after you've made a mistake or found yourself in a position that you don't want to be in, or are living with daily anxiety that cripples you from taking a step forward and you have to crack free. But like, because what you just outlined is, it's beautiful in its simplicity and its directness, and it feels so accessible. Yet so many people live in this cycle that we've defined and it's sad. And I know I find myself in it too.

I'm not saying like I'm above it. It's just these little tiny steps forward. And I love this idea of kind of like find that bigger thing that's not yourself because it seems that You know, and Marc Andreessen just said something the other day. I don't know if you're familiar with him, the investor from Andreessen Horowitz. He's one of the founders and he's been on this kick lately of anti, we'll call it anti-introspection. And his point, right or wrong, I'm interested in your take, is essentially that those people who consistently perform and seemingly are able to Operate successfully on a consistent basis have removed themselves from daily introspection and overexamination of like their thoughts and who they are and like ruminating in these things. And maybe some of this is out of Abigail Shrier's book, you know, Bad Therapy or whatever, where we just relive these moments over and over. And what I hear you saying is the more we can get out of our own little tiny world, and put our life's activities, our thoughts, our actions into sacrificing for something larger, the more we get what we actually want inside. Does that seem like a fair thesis?

Yes.

So when I think about extraordinary performance in any avenue, I think of 3 main obstacles. One is overthinking. 2 is negative or judgmental thinking. When I say judgmental, I mean laying down a negative verdict about yourself, your circumstances, or others. And then 3 is self-consciousness, concern for what people think about me. And every single person has these 3 challenges. And the second one that you just mentioned, well, all 3 of them are crucial here, but overthinking and negative thinking or judgmental thinking, developing nonjudgmental awareness is kind of like what You're like I was saying, the investor. That's a crucial skill to learn, that can I be in this moment but not attached to it? Can I be in this moment and not judge it? And that's largely what inner excellence is about. How do we do that? It's very hard. And that's why you have to have a system of pursuing things that are very meaningful and empowering rather than got to getting caught up in pursuing things that are transient and superficial.

Let's take it home with this question. Is there anything beyond what we've discussed thus far that you feel like is not being talked about enough when it comes to this idea of inner excellence? Is there a concept that if you could leave the audience with can be an anchoring stone for them as they begin their journey on inner excellence?

Yeah, I think it's the concept of surrender and connecting with others. You know, there's an organization, Alcoholics Anonymous, and the derivatives that have 12-step programs that have changed millions and millions of lives all over the world. And one of the primary fundamentals of that program is surrender. And so if you think about it, we're constantly surrendering our our, uh, um, our lives over to other people. Like when you surrender to the dentist or to the surgeon or to the electrician, you're not, you know, looking over their shoulder and saying, hey, you forgot that wire. Or talking to the plumber, hey, are you sure that's the right— you know, because we, when we have someone that knows what they're doing, spent a life doing it, we surrender to that person. So, um, we need to get out of the way if you want to live extraordinary lives. The biggest thing in the way is yourself, your ego, your fear. And if you get out of that, then you're going to be able to collaborate develop the relationships that, that are necessary to live the life that you're created for.

Inner excellence is possible, my friends. And, uh, I think Jim has the unlock. Uh, you can pick up his book on Amazon, wherever books are sold. Um, also we have the workbook coming, uh, January, I think you said.

And then The Best Possible Life is also out. Yep.

We'll have links to all the books, guys, whether you're watching on YouTube, listening wherever you listen to, scroll down, you'll find links to the books. Where else can people get involved in your world, Jim, if they want to go deeper?

Yeah, thanks, Hamley. So I have a newsletter blog on Substack, Inner Excellence, Jim Murphy. You can also find me on social media, same, same name.

We'll have it all linked up, guys. I appreciate the time and the thoughts. Incredible conversation, my friend.

Thanks so much for having me, Hamley.