Jake Burhans recommends Jim Murphy's Inner Excellence, which teaches love, wisdom, and courage as a modern samurai code. He argues that chasing external markers like money, status, and achievement leaves entrepreneurs empty, and that real fulfillment comes from heart-centered service instead.
There's a really, really good book, bro, called Inner Excellence by Jim Murphy, and I think every entrepreneur needs to read it. But it talks about basically 3 core tenets, and it's the code of the samurai, and it's love, wisdom, and courage. And if you can follow those 3 things— love is like servant leadership, leading with the heart, showing up for other people. Wisdom is like the, you know, you're constantly expanding your vision and being open and learning and gaining wisdom. And the courage to, to do the things you need to do, the tough, the tough thing. But we're so attached to the results of things. He calls it the the affluenza virus, okay, of Western society. The affluenza virus, which is basically, he puts it into the acronym PALMS, like the palms of your hands. Possessions, achievement, looks, money, and status. We're all conditioned to think that these 5 things are what gives us fulfillment and sense of purpose, so we chase that. Especially entrepreneurs more than anything, those 5 things, the PALMS. And we need to realize that's an empty chasing, right? It's an empty chasing. Really what gives you fulfillment is leading from the heart. And serving other people and doing right by people, having the courage and the wisdom to do things. But I think that that's what we need to seek and what we need to help entrepreneurs realign with.
