Jim Murphy: Overcoming Adversity and Finding Purpose Derives From Inner Excellence

Culture is obsessed with efficiency and productivity. I need to achieve. I need to have more, be more, do more.

To have this communication device 24/7 frees you up from certain things, but then you have to then have the discipline to protect your time and to protect you from that becoming an addiction.

That's who Inner Excellence is for. That person needs to be able to single-task and not having the mind going past, future, past, future, and what about this, what about that.

Why did you just choose the desert? What about like going to a Zen monastery?

I need to find something that I can devote my life to, something that I'm willing to live and die for. And I just felt like I didn't have that.

A lot of people come to you now and come to me because they want that guidance. What was your process for self-discovery?

Inner excellence is developing the habits of thought and action around getting that feeling, what I call this flow. How do you want to face all the things that you can't control in adversity? And who's the person that you want to become?

How do you train that?

Going to the desert, I think those things started to form. A life filled with love and joy and peace. And patience and kindness and goodness and faithfulness and self-control. This is the best possible life and help people live that life.

I'll tell you what I found helpful, but it's the exact opposite of— Welcome to The Marc Devine Show. I am your host, Marc Devine. If you're a leader ready to grow, push limits, lead with purpose, which you are, then you're in the right place. This show is dedicated to helping you lead with courage, resilience, and awareness. I'm super excited to have in studio my guest today, Jim Murphy, former professional baseball player with Chicago Cubs, high-performance coach, author of Inner Excellence. In 2003— this is fascinating— Jim gave up half his possessions, moved to the Sonoran Desert to live in solitude to pursue insights, inspiration, and rejuvenation. Out of that, he created a system that is used by many elite performers around the world today. called Inner Excellence. Jim teaches the mental-emotional mastery that drives peak performance and lasting inner freedom. Today we're going to talk to Jim about performance, about emotional mastery, and about the Soul of Excellence and his work with Inner Excellence. Jim, thanks so much for joining me today, especially here in studio, all the way from Madrid via Seattle.

Thanks, Mark.

Yeah, it's great to have you here.

Likewise.

So we talked earlier, but Madrid—you've got a new retreat center there, huh?

Yeah, it's actually in Calpe, Spain, which is the southeast coast. So Madrid's about four and a half hours away.

Oh, on the coast—that's beautiful.

Is it near Malaga?

Malaga's about five—I think five, six hours west.

Okay, okay. So this is to cater to your European clientele, so they don't have to fly over to the States. Do you also have a center here in the States?

I'm actually going to be moving to. Philadelphia and setting up a headquarters in inner city Philly.

That's terrific. Inner city, you're going to help rejuvenate the inner city with your presence there.

Hope so.

I want to talk about— well, first, let's talk a little bit about your professional baseball career. That's very interesting. How did you get into that? And what were some of the biggest challenges that you faced and maybe insights or growth that you accrued from that experience?

Yeah. Since I was 7 or 8 years old, I always dreamed about being a pro athlete, and getting drafted by the Chicago Cubs was a dream come true. But anytime you—

Where'd you play in college? Did you play college sports?

I played baseball for Portland State, and then I ended up playing football after pro baseball for University of British Columbia.

Is that right? Okay.

Yeah, I hadn't played for 8 years and then walked onto the team.

Fascinating. And then you were recruited by the Cubs. Out of Portland?

Portland State, yeah.

Okay.

Yeah, so I was a junior at Portland State, signed with them, and then played 3 years, got injured, and actually ended up playing 2 more years. I didn't touch a bat or ball for 4 years, and then I played 2 more years professionally and then retired. But yeah, it was devastating to lose my dream.

Was the Achilles, what you were talking about earlier, was that the injury that took you out?

That was a lot later. It was— I had a vision issue. And so I think it was mostly emotional, mental-emotional, that caused it, because they never found out what was the problem. The physical problem was a lack of dynamic visual acuity. So I wasn't able to track the ball anymore.

Really?

Not well. Not well enough to see a 90-mile-an-hour fastball and hit it. And so, but I think because I had— I grew up in a family with— my mom's family is She's full Japanese, they have samurai background. And my dad's, um, he was not— he thought that being a rich and famous pro athlete would not be good for my character, which is probably true. And so, um—

That's interesting.

He was not—

That goes against the grain of most Americans' thinking, probably.

Right, right. Yeah, I grew up in a unique household.

That's interesting. So your mom was Japanese, your dad was— what was his background?

Yeah, Irish, American, German. Okay.

Yeah, right on. So how did you get your eyesight back to where you could play again? Was that something that you, you worked on yourself?

I saw a lot of specialists, and, uh, um, so I, I took 3 or 4 years off and then played again and, and did some— it ended up causing me to retire, but helped for a little while.

Yeah. So from the whole professional Like, what were the positives and the negatives? Like, what were the— you know, if you were speaking to someone who's thinking about going into pro sports, how would you encourage them? How would you advise them? And what would you tell them to look out for?

Yeah, I think pro sports and sports in general is amazing because it helps you face your fears and, you know, work hard and develop discipline. And we're created for relationship. And so if it's a team sport, then, you know, you know, you're able to work on relationships. But I think the biggest challenge that we all face is our ego, this part of our mind.

Mm-hmm.

See, we're created for love and connection. That's our deepest need. And our greatest fear is rejection of that love and connection. And so when we play sports, it's a chance to say, hey, look, I'm lovable. And the problem is when we fail, then You think you're unlovable. We feel unlovable. And so it's this dangerous trap, especially if you're really talented, because the more talented you are, the more cheers and love you're gonna get. And then, of course, if you get injured or when your career's over, then you lose all that love and then you're lost. And so that's really what happened to me.

Right, so it's the identity problem, right? So you identify with the outcomes instead of the essential nature of who you are, which is love.

Yeah, I really felt like I was my outcomes, like that's my value was directly tied to my outcome.

Probably most professional athletes, even college athletes, have that problem. I mean, that's, that's trained into our culture, right? To look outside yourself and say, yeah, your worth is, right, your career, your degrees, your success as an athlete, your social media following. And that's a fault. Those are false flags, right? Those are, those are not the right targets, obviously.

Yeah, it's, it's when pro athletes come to me, usually they're underperforming and they wanna perform better. And so they're pursuing a super, in general, it's this surface-level pursuit.

Right.

They wanna become world number 1 or win a PGA Tour event or some sort of external success. And what I help them do is clarify what they really want most, and I help them get that. And it's really this, energy, this life that they want. And they think that, oh, if I am really successful, then I'm going to get that life that I want, which is, you know, happiness and great experiences and great relationships. And people are going to love me if I have this. And so they see this one path as that's how they have to do it, which is how I saw it. If I can, I'm going to live the best possible life, which is to be a rich and famous superstar. I'm going to hit home runs and every girl's going to want to be with me and every guy's going to want to be me. And that's going to be my life. And then of And of course, that didn't happen because God had a far better plan for me that I couldn't see at the time.

Yeah. So it's— I love that kind of overarching message that you've got to focus on being better if you want to do better. I mean, that's essentially it right there. And the idea of being better means to look inside and to understand who you really are and to find that that happiness is your natural state. And most people don't experience that. So how do you help them experience that?

Well, the way I think about it is human nature is self-centered. We have this, and we need to be to get through life. We gotta clothe ourselves and eat and—

At a survival level, like Maslowian hierarchy of needs, right?

That's right.

The ego has to be involved in survival and protection and those.

And so the problem with that is we are, because our deepest need is for love and connection, Every time we think about ourselves, our subconscious, which is meant to protect us and to line up our results and circumstances with what we believe, and that subconscious is going to remind us of, oh, be careful about this. Oh, it reminds you of all your weaknesses and all your failures. And when we think about ourselves, and so we feel inadequate. So then we compare ourselves to others, but there's always someone else that has more achievements or better looking or whatever it is. And so then now we get anxious and So we try and get more of this success so we feel better about ourselves, but it's this endless chase-your-tail treadmill.

There was a point in time— this is after your professional sports— you basically gave up a lot of material pursuits and possessions, and you just moved to the desert. Where did that come from? And tell us about that experience. I mean, from my perspective now, it sounds pretty cool. You know, I'm not sure I would have done it. At the age that you did it?

Yeah, so I always thought I was destined to do something, to be a superstar, which I thought was to be a pro athlete. And then after my baseball career finished, then I didn't know what to do with my life. I felt totally lost. I was driving a truck for FedEx, inner city Seattle. I get asked to coach a high school baseball team and no, never thought about it. No interest, didn't think I could help anybody. And we went undefeated and it was just so much fun. I just loved those guys and And so then I thought, okay, how do I go from coaching 15-year-olds to managing the New York Yankees and winning the World Series?

Mm-hmm.

And so I put together this plan, like, I'm gonna, okay, I'm gonna get a master's degree and then I can get a job teaching PE and so I can pay the bills. And then I'm gonna coach the high school team and win a championship, get a job in the pro— college, win a championship, get a job in the pros, work my way up. And so I went to grad school, University of British Columbia, played football there. Started the baseball team there. And then I had this, I became a personal trainer to pay for the bills. And I met this life coach and he said, let's go for a job in pro baseball by getting to know the people that can hire you as a manager. And so I did my master's paper on how to build a championship team. And I interviewed 39 Major League Baseball managers and GMs and other coaches on how to build a championship team. And I got a job with the Texas Rangers 2 weeks after graduation. And so that was a dream come true 'cause it was Jim Murphy, Pro baseball player, I'm somebody. Then I lost it, I'm nobody. Now I'm somebody again in my mind. And then it just was not a box that I could fit into. It didn't— I quit mid-season.

What was the job, by the way?

I was assistant coach for the Savannah Sand Gnats, a single-A team in Savannah, Georgia.

I see.

Where the Bananas are now.

And so why didn't you fit? Were you not allowed to, like, bring your own style of coaching?

Yeah, well, I wasn't really allowed to coach at all, really. It was really Really? Interesting. That was pretty much the coaching that I got. It was like, when I ask you a question, don't say anything. And so that was hard for me because I really, you know, wanted to do things. And then there's a lot of egos. And, you know, 2 coaches almost got in a fistfight when I was there because one coach talked to another coach in the same organization. And it just wasn't— I just wasn't fitting in. At the time, I just thought I was a total failure. And now I look back and I just see that God had so much more he was preparing me for, and I could not see it whatsoever. I just thought—

It's so hard to see those when you're in the belly of the beast.

That's right. Now I see my whole life has been training for this moment, but at the time, it never occurred to me.

So that was like, when you look at it as a hero's journey, that was your dark night of the soul moment, right?

Yeah. Yeah, that was one of them. Yeah, I had a few for sure.

Yeah, likewise.

So now what am I gonna do with my life? I go back to being a personal trainer and then I get a call from Major League Baseball saying, would you like to be the hitting coach for South Africa, their national team for their Olympic trials?

Interesting.

So I fly out to Johannesburg. Our bat boy was living in the tool shed of the baseball field with his mother and little brother, Gift and Goupe.

No way.

Amazing story. I'd never seen poverty like that before in South Africa. And he actually went on to get drafted by the Pittsburgh Pirates and became the first African-born player ever to play in the big leagues.

No kidding.

Yeah, Sports Illustrated did a story about him. It's really good.

Wow, that's pretty cool.

And so the Olympics was amazing experience, the opposite of the experience that I had with Texas. They said, you know, you're the hitting coach, you can do with them whatever you want. And yeah, it was just incredible. We had one of the biggest upset victories in Olympic baseball history. Got to march in opening ceremonies, meet Nelson Mandela. And I'm still on a WhatsApp thread with that team 25 years later.

Amazing.

So yeah, we're close. And so that was an amazing experience coaching in the Olympics and coaching with South Africa. But then it was over. So now what am I going to do with my life now? I go back to personal training. I'm living in Vancouver, BC. And then I get a call from, like, maybe 3 or 4 years later, I get a call from a teammate, former teammate in pro baseball, Ricky Scruggs in Arizona, and said, he's starting a baseball academy. Can you come down for the weekend to help me out? And I, this is when I was really thinking about my life. What am I gonna do with my, like, I really felt like I was spinning my wheels. I wanted, I enjoyed personal training, but I just felt like there was so much more waiting for me.

Yeah.

There's this TV show back in the day called Ellen. Ellen DeGeneres had that show. And she's— it's this comedy and she's moving out of her roommate's—

That was when she was really good. She went off the rails a little bit in the last few years.

She's moving out of her roommate's house and their apartment. They're living together and her roommate says, why are you leaving? We have such a good time together. You know, we can sit here and do nothing for hours and just hang out. It's so much fun. And she said, that's why I have to leave, because 5 years from now, I'd still be here in the apartment, and we would have had so much fun doing nothing, and that's great, but I want to do something with my life. And that's how I felt. I was like, I need to get away from anyone that knows me from my past, and I need to start with a clear slate. I need to find something that I can devote my life to, something that I'm willing to live and die for. That's cool. And I just felt like I didn't have that. And so gave away over half the possessions, including my TV. So this is before streaming, because I thought the worst thing would be if I go to the desert and I live a life of solitude. And I'm—

Can I ask, why did you just choose the desert? What about like going to a Zen monastery? I mean, you have a samurai background, right? Why not do it?

I mean, it was just a teammate. He was there and I could work with him part-time.

Okay. So you had an anchor there. But also I had this I was thinking you were just gonna go into like a hut in the middle of the desert or something, but you actually had an anchor with your friend.

Yeah, and so back in the day we had screensavers. You remember those?

Uh-huh, yeah.

And mine said, those destined for greatness must first walk alone in the desert.

That's cool.

So I'm seeing that all day long every day for, you know, for a while. And then I was like, okay, I get this opportunity. I'm gonna go actually move to the literal desert. And it's not like I was living in a teepee somewhere. I lived on the edge of town and I lived in his baseball academy for a few months. with no showers, shower at the gym. But kind of the one thing that kind of epitomized that time in the desert was my first New Year's, first or second New Year's, is I hear a noise. I'm writing in my journal in my empty house, and I hear this noise, and I go outside and I see fireworks, and that's when I found out it was New Year's Eve.

You lost track of time.

Yeah, like every day is the same, except for Sunday I go to church. And so, yeah, it was a lonely time, and that's where I decided to become a personal coach to pro baseball players and teach them how to have peace and confidence under pressure.

Mm-hmm.

That started the journey of inner excellence.

So I'm curious, you know, so you're discussing a process of personal transformation that was self-guided, pretty much, right? A lot of people come to you now and come to me because they want that guidance. What— and let me continue with this, kind of shaping the question. My guidance came through meditation and then like this process of just self— Discovery, self-awareness, which then completely transformed my perspective of life, which led me away from being a CPA, MBA, into the Navy SEALs. And then the rest is history. But it was all through self-discovery. I didn't have Mark Divine to tell me step 1, step 2, step 3, step 4. Um, so I want to know— there's 2 parts to this question. What was your process for self-discovery? And then the second part of the question That's the most important part. The second part is, because I puzzle over this, I wonder if every individual has to actually find their own process and that the role of us as a coach or a guide is really just to support them along the way. Like, your path isn't necessarily their path and my path isn't their path. There are some helpful tools and stuff, but they got to find their own way. So, 2 questions there.

Yeah, so my background is very unique with my mom's Japanese heritage and the samurai, and I wrote about that.

So you actually have a samurai in your lineage?

Yeah.

That's cool. And you know anything about him, by the way? I don't mean to sidetrack you too much, but that's interesting to me.

Yeah, just that when I was— so the samurai era ended in the, I think it was in the 1860s. And so the samurai that was in my mother's lineage was— so he lost all his power. And so he went from having all this power to no power.

So when they ended the samurai, they just disbanded everything?

Yeah. So they stripped him of the power. And the prestige. Yes. And then the prestige. So now he's like lost, you know, just like a pro athlete could be when they lose, you know, get injured and career's over. And so he became an alcoholic. And his son, his son sees this. And so he was like, he really had to think deep about his life and was really exploring his life and like, who am I and what is life about? And he, through that process, he realized that he wanted to live a meaningful, fulfilling life and to empower others rather than have power over others.

Yeah, that's a cool distinction.

And so he becomes this Christian non-samurai and lives a very different life than his father did. And I'm the great-grandson of the child.

How interesting. That's great. So now back to your story in the desert. Like, what was your process of self-discovery? Like, how did it work? I know you talked about journaling. There was probably— some very distinct things that you did that led you to this kind of epiphany or this kind of insight, I guess?

Well, one of the things that I do now with pro athletes is, when we start, I ask them, how do you wanna feel in your life when you're performing and when you're at home? And so I wanna be very clear because inner excellence is, a lot of it is developing the habits of thought and action around getting that feeling, what I call this flow of resonance. And on and off the field, or the course, or ice, or whatever it is your sport is or your work is. And so, getting clear on how you wanna feel and how you wanna live, meaning how do you wanna face all the things that you can't control and adversity, and who's the person that you wanna become? And so, going to the desert, I think those things started to form, but I didn't go to write a book. I didn't, I just went to go kind of find myself.

Right.

Figure out what can I do that's meaningful and that I can devote my life to? And I decided to become a personal coach to pro baseball players and teach them how to have peace and confidence under pressure. And my first 2 athletes did amazing. So then I thought, okay, I'm going to— this is going to be my career. And so I called up a sports— I started to put together this manual for future clients. And I call up a sports psychologist and I say, how can an Olympic athlete train for 4 years for an event that may last less than a minute? And how can a pro baseball player in Game 7 of the World Series, bottom of the 9th, 2 outs, bases loaded, full count, down by 1, how can that guy also have peace and confidence under pressure? And I didn't find any answers. I called another psychologist and another and another, and then I spent 5 years full-time writing and researching that question. How can you have the most peace and confidence and perform your best? Under the most extreme stress.

Yes, exactly.

Like a Navy SEAL. And what I found is that the heart is the key.

Yes.

Your spirit, your will. And it's just like we were talking earlier about— you were talking about BUD/S and how to become a Navy SEAL. And you're saying this really interesting thing. Can you say it again about what they're looking for?

I was saying the instructors are looking for their next teammate.

Yes.

And just think about— just let that settle in.

Right?

Because what does that all mean? It's heart. The smartest guys aren't the ones who make it. It's those who have the heart. That's why you see some of the most unlikely characters become SEALs. You're like, how did that guy get through? Of course, you expect the big, you know, bronze behemoths.

Yeah.

But so I spent the day with the Navy SEALs in this area just down the road here, too. And I remember one of the guys said that What got me through BUD/S was I did not want to let my teammates down.

That's right.

And he said, if it was just for me, I would have quit a long time ago. And so it's the same idea. And this is kind of the idea of inner excellence, that we're created for relationship. And so this is what I found in the desert is that—

That's a profound insight, by the way. It really is. I mean, it's simple. But as you know, simple is not easy to see. For most people. Yeah.

Love and acceptance, our greatest need.

And you had to find that yourself first.

Yeah. Yeah. And so as I'm doing this research, kind of, kind of the journey that happened was I realized I don't want to just help someone become Olympic gold medalist or world number one if it's not meaningful.

Right. And also when the event's done, what then?

Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

You want them to be, you know, healed for life.

And so I wanted to do something meaningful with my life and not just be a good performer or be a good coach. And then the thing that changed my life was to recognize that to have the most peace and confidence and be the best performer under the most pressure, to train for that life is the same training as having the best possible life.

Right.

Which is why we want to succeed so we can have the best possible life. And I define that as a life of deep contentment, joy, and confidence independent of circumstances. Say that again. A life of deep contentment, joy, and confidence independent of circumstances. This inner peace and inner strength, a life filled with love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and goodness and faithfulness and self-control. This is, this is the best possible life. And what I wanted to do is help people live that life. Understanding that the heart is the key to your life, your spirit, your will. Now I've got a big question. Okay, I understand this is the key.

How do you train that?

But how do you train it? Right, that's a good question. Okay.

I'll tell you what I found helpful, but it's like far from the answer. Um, the silence. You got to start there, right? It's the exact opposite of, I've got to do this or got to do that. It's in the non-doing and just learning how to be present. And then slowly it opens up. And there's other vectors that you can do, other things you can do, but until you get that stillness, it's not going to be effective.

It's like going to the desert. So it's this deprivation of the appetites. I love that, yeah. We need to get away from all of the sensory input.

The cravings and the desires and chasing Materialism.

We're not gonna find out what's possible and who we are and what we really, really want unless we can get away from that. We need to regularly have this solitude, this silence, and so you can really be alone with yourself.

So do you recommend your clients go on a long retreat like that or just find it in their daily lives or both?

Both for sure, yeah. Yeah, like, um, inner excellence is really these series of habits and routines that you go throughout, through the day, but also weekly and then yearly. So for example, like fasting once a week is a, is a great habit to have where you go without food for 24 hours, um, go without the phone for 24 hours, those sort of things.

That's a good one.

Great, great habits. Yeah.

Do you do that?

Um, the—

because now you got me thinking, like, I like that idea.

I just, as far as the phone goes, I just got this phone that, um, doesn't allow scrolling.

Really?

And so one of the things that I've been doing is my plan is to, my goal is one day a week, no phone, one weekend a month, no phone, and one week a year, no phone. I love that. And similar with food. And so with inner excellence, we just wanna get a little better every day and don't bite off more than you can chew. Say, look, I wanna get a little bit, James Clear talks about that a little bit. Like, can you just, if you wanna get in shape and go for a run— Just micro habits.

And then you build on those and suddenly you're doing things that otherwise, you know, we say in the SEALs, like, you got it. I mean, the micro goals for even running, like, you're not running the 14-mile race, you're running 1 mile 14 times.

Yes. Yeah.

If you can't get your mindset into that, you know, linking together those small victories, then you get overwhelmed.

Yeah. And that whole idea is so powerful that if the project that you work on feels too big, You just need to make a smaller first step.

Right.

You gotta keep making that first step smaller and smaller until it's, you can just do that one little thing. Like, I think James Clear says, can you just put your running shoes by the door?

Right.

Don't even, don't go for a run. Like, can you start with that? So that's what we try to do. So with what I'm doing now with the phone, because it's addictive, and I think it's one of the, probably the biggest addiction that we have in Western culture is the phone. And so how can we navigate that? And I think also understanding that addiction is, is— this is from a Tyler Staton podcast— addiction is anything that prevents your personal growth.

Mm-hmm.

And I wrote in my journal recently, I said, what is God telling me right now? And such a good question to ask, no matter what you believe about who God is or the universe. It's such a good question to ask. And the answer came up— same answer came to me twice, like a week later. It was, The phone is capturing your imagination and it's tumbling your heart, is the words that I wrote. Tumbling your heart? Yeah, that's what came to mind. It's like it's taken my heart and it's got control of me. And it's like the words and images and feelings that I've gotten, a lot of it is—

You've outsourced it now to the phone.

It's become, yeah, it's this culture of obsession with this, what I call third world results and circumstances, has gotten into my heart. And so what I do now, In my little micro goals is, is I don't look at social media until I've read the Bible or done my quiet time. That's great.

Yeah, I love that. I'm curious, you got a phone or is it an app that doesn't allow you to scroll? I mean, how does that work?

It's a phone. Yeah. It's a phone. What is it? I'm curious. It's called the Sleek. It's pretty new. S-L-E-A-K-E.

It literally doesn't allow you to scroll?

It only allows certain apps. Like, it doesn't allow Instagram, for example.

Oh, I see. It doesn't allow the apps.

Yeah. And you can— it's so new, I think you can still apply, say, hey, can we get this? Can we get this app? Can we get this app? And they'll approve it or not approve it.

So it's a minimalist phone, but it's—

Yeah, but it allows you to have Spotify and Audible and things like that.

Interesting. Yeah, that's, that's, um, not we— not that we need to talk about this too much, but That's the conundrum, right? Because there's so much great utility and exploration. Like, my phone is like— it's my musical instrument, right? It's my research instrument. It's my communication device. It's my camera. So I can't— like, even 24 hours without it, I'm like—

Yeah, that's such a good point, Mark. I think that's so important because that's what we're all feeling, right? And so And here's why. Because our culture is obsessed with efficiency and productivity. I need to achieve. I need to have more, be more, do more. This is what makes it easier to access and have it. And if I don't have my, my main computer that allows me to have more, do more, and be more, then what am I going to do? And so this is the addiction.

That's the addiction. It's interesting because when it comes to being a business leader. Like, on the one hand, having a phone has freed me from the office. It's— I'm not sure if you'd use it as your primary computer. I do, right? So I can be on the slopes and I can run my business.

Yeah, yeah.

Not very well sometimes, but there I am with my phone, right? I don't need my laptop much. I don't use it much. So that's great. But, right, I'm on the slopes running my business and I'm not just enjoying nature. So, so that's the, you know, that's kind of what you're talking about. Yeah, it's great to have this communication device 24/7, frees you up from certain things, but then you have to then have the discipline to protect your time and to protect you from that becoming an addiction. So now you're, you know, you become even more of a workaholic because you can take the office with you wherever you are.

Yeah, this is the big challenge. And so Inner Excellence is, we have about, I think, 25 agreements with different languages around the world now to get it published. And one of them, I think it was in the Netherlands, they were gonna, they showed me the translation of the subtitle and it was just gonna be, train your mind for extraordinary achievement, period.

Right.

And I said, You know, that's funny you mentioned that in the email. I said, funny you mentioned that because I've been doing these interviews and what I've said multiple times is the key to the subtitle is the last phrase, and the best possible life. This is inner excellence. If you just say train your mind for extraordinary performance, this is not inner excellence because you could be world number one and be suicidal. Or an asshole. Yeah.

Right.

You could win 23 gold medals and be suicidal. That's, that's what's possible for you. Because achievement is just, is our, our vision of getting the best possible life. It's like I talk about, um, would you rather own a $10 million home in the water, on the, on the water, or would you rather live and have all the regular concerns of that person, but the, the house is paid off, beautiful home on the water, or would you rather live in an apartment paycheck to paycheck the rest of your life, no savings the rest of your life, but be filled with deep contentment, joy, confidence, uh, great relationships, meaningful, fulfilling life the rest of your life, every single day? Which one would you rather have?

Yeah.

And so this is really an intellectualist question because my whole life I've obsessed about being a superstar. when what I always really wanted was to feel fully alive. And so Inner Excellence says, hey, let's go for fullness of life directly and let everything else be added to you. Right.

Because that'll come. I mean, you can still work on the performance things, but it's not the center of the action. The center of the action is being true to yourself, being authentic.

Yeah. And like, well, why do you want to—

Right. And then, you know, the thing is, I bet you a lot of athletes who are people who follow your work decide that what their pursuit that they came to you for wasn't the right pursuit after all. Right? Yeah, they certainly— they're pursuing it for the wrong reasons, but oftentimes they're probably like, you know what, this doesn't mean anything to me anymore.

Yeah. And so Inner Excellence says, look, let's use your sport to develop yourself as a person. And let's use the rest of your life to develop yourself during your work time, during your sport.

Mm-hmm.

And so, like, golf is a great example. Say you have a pro baseball player who likes to golf. And so, um, when he's on the golf course, I want him to use that to train him for his baseball, but for the rest of his life, and using baseball to train yourself for the rest of your life. How do you handle adversity? Can you be fully present in this moment? Can you be, um, have nonjudgmental awareness? Can you master the ego, the part of you that's always comparing, always threatened, never satisfied? And so golf's a great way to practice that. But also every moment gives us that opportunity.

Right. And so anybody can look at themselves as a performance athlete, even if you're a CEO or a mom, right? You want to get better at doing that, but you get better at being better. As a person.

Yeah. So Inner Excellence is—

It's not just geared toward athletes.

I wrote it for pro athletes to be the best that they could be. And then, well, that was what I started to do. Then I realized that the heart is the key to your life. Then I realized that the way to help a pro athlete or Olympic athlete is human optimization. Help them grow as a person. Help them have more peace and confidence, inner peace, inner strength. Of course, that's what we all need. And so I realized this is not about—

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It's like if you think about in America today, like you've got people working 2 jobs and kids at home and there's so much out of their control. And, and that's who Inner Excellence is for, because that person needs to have this, needs to be able to single task and not be having the mind going past, future, past, future. And what about this? What about that? And so when you clarify how you want to live and what your life purpose is and the person you want to become and start to use these tools, then you can start to do that.

That's interesting. I was going to ask you about that. So this is a second edition, so to speak, right? You have probably— like, whenever I've done that a few times in my books, complete rewrite, right? Reorganization, almost like maybe like 20% of the original words were the same. That's right. So besides expanding your scope of who this is for, which is everybody, what were the other insights that you came upon that compelled you to do a rewrite?

Well, what happened was, so 2009, it was after 5 years of full-time writing and research, 2 and a half years in the desert. I get a major publisher, McGraw-Hill, and it gets into Barnes& Noble. And it's this dream come true. Every author wants to get into Barnes& Noble and the big bookstores. It's in bookstores around the world. But I was falling apart because I spent 5 years in relative isolation. And it was, uh, um, it was really scary. I had a near mental breakdown.

Wow.

And so that was 2010, February 2010. And then a series of extraordinary miracles happened and, uh, that really transformed my life. And then, um, 2018—

Such as? You can't just drop that and then move on without telling me.

Yeah, well, I can tell you about that story. Yeah, so February 2010, I'm in downtown Denver, Colorado, and I'm speaking to some high schools. But I'm thinking between talks, I'm thinking, okay, you're $90,000 in debt. You spent your life savings, $90,000 in debt, and you've got no one to hire the— to— you don't got no money to hire someone to market the book. You don't know how to do marketing, and you don't like promoting yourself or talking about yourself. This is not a good marketing strategy. And if no one hears about the book, no one's gonna buy the book. If no one buys the book, then Barnes& Noble will pull it off the shelves and you'll be a total failure. And I could not see how that wasn't gonna happen. Hmm. That's the only thing I could see. And so that's why it's so important, because if you wanna live the best possible life, it's a life in community, because we're built for relationships. And so learning to surrender your, for the good of others is kind of like the universal principle, how the universe is created.

Yeah.

To really understand that is so important. And so I had isolated myself obsessing about this goal and falling apart mentally, emotionally. I called my friend and said, tell me what to do. And he said, find a homeless person and help him.

Wow, that's some profound advice.

It was powerful. Yeah, Ricky Scruggs. So, so I look around the corner and there's this homeless harpist, this guy, grocery cart, um, sitting on the curb with a full-size harp, you know, not a common sight. And so I sit down next to him in cold, sunny Denver, Colorado, and he's playing this beautiful music. And then I look in my wallet and I must have taken a cash advance because I had $100. 'Cause most of my credit cards are maxed out. So I give him all the money, I go back to where I was staying to run on the treadmill. I come back a couple hours later and I'm sitting in the Starbucks just staring off into the abyss, and the homeless guy walks past me and stops in his tracks and 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 card and a bracelet, and he gives all 3 to me. Bracelet that he made. When I was writing the book, I asked this girl from my church, can you— I said, can you read this manuscript to make sure it lines up with the Bible? I want to make sure it's filled with deep wisdom and truth. And so she reads it and she said, Jim, I read Inner Excellence. Have you ever heard of the word Zoe? And I said, no. She said, it's a word in the Bible used a lot. It's a Greek word called Zoe, meaning absolute fullness of life, flourishing. Yes.

Flourishing. I saw that. I saw your little chart with Zoe at the top, and I was like, oh, I hadn't seen that word, but I think he means flourishing.

Yes, exactly.

That's cool.

Flourishing at the highest level where you're fully alive.

Right.

So I oriented the book around the pursuit of this fullness of life. And that's what inner excellence is, to pursue fullness of life and let everything else be added to you.

Yeah.

And so I'm in the Starbucks and this guy gives me this card.

That's extraordinary.

And then I open it up and it says, thank you so much for caring for me. Love, Zoe. The homeless harpist's name was Zoe.

Get out of here.

I'm like, oh my gosh.

That is incredible.

Yeah. And I said, your name is Zoe? And he said, yeah. And I said, do you know what your name means? He said, no. And I said, it means absolute fullness of life. I've been studying that and writing a book about it for the last 5 years. So I grabbed the book and I wrote, dear Zoe, thank you so much for sharing your beautiful music with me today. You don't know what that meant to me. Love, Jim. I give it to him, never see him again. That's February 2010 during the Vancouver Winter Olympics, my hometown. Everyone's having a great time. I'm falling apart in Denver. About six weeks later, April first, 2010, a day I'll never forget. I go again to help someone, a friend of mine, Nick, and he was really struggling. And I remember still remember what he's wearing. I knock on the door and said, and he opens up the door goes, "Hey Jim, let's go to my friend's house." And I was like. Sure, whatever you want to do. And we go to this guy's house, this Iranian guy, and he's making dinner at like 10 AM for a group of people, and he starts to tell me about my life, but I'd never met him before. And so it's really strange. And he's like, you're banging your head against the wall, you're not getting anywhere, and you're always obsessing about some future goal. And which is exactly how I felt. And then this gal in the house, she draws a picture of a kite, walks over and 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 that's exactly how I felt. I felt so weak emotionally, and I couldn't believe how could she even see that, because, you know, when you're weak emotionally, you want to, especially as a guy, you want to be like—

Did your friend prep them, or do you think this is all coming from—

No, he didn't tell them.

He didn't tell them anything about you?

Yeah.

That's cool.

And so they said, can we pray for you? And so they prayed for me, and they invited me to this Bible study that night. So I go to the Bible study that night, and Because this wasn't the first time. This happened multiple times. Total strangers coming up to me that said, God wanted me to tell you this. And so it only happened in a 1-year-and-a-half period of my life, never before or since. I don't know how many times it's happened to you, but it's pretty crazy.

That's cool, yeah.

And so I go to this Bible study that night, and I felt God saying, there's nothing you've ever done or could ever do would change how much I love you. You know, it's our deepest need. And I felt like I had a million things to do. It all had to be done yesterday. I didn't have the resources or understanding how to do it. And this weight of the world on my shoulders fell off that night. And it's extreme anxiety to extreme peace. I've never felt that before. Wow, that's cool. It was such a huge shift. So I'm still weak emotionally going forward, but it's a different perspective. And that's when I kind of surrendered my life to God. And like I said, surrender There's a rhythm, a resonance in the universe that is this power that holds the stars in place and spins the Earth and grows the grass. This energy is an energy that we can connect with. And when you surrender to that energy, that to me, the God that created all of this, you're surrendering your little vision, your little power for the power of the universe.

Right.

So that's what I said, God, I'll do whatever you want. Just tell me what to do. So that surrender changed my life. And so that was in 2010. That's awesome. So what happened was, the interesting thing was, a year and a half later, this was summer of 2011, I'm in my friend's house, North Vancouver. I'm leaving Tarun's house and I— his mom calls in on Skype from India. And I said, oh, tell her I said hello, as I'm walking out the door. And his mom says, wait a second, Jim's there. My friend wants to talk to Jim. And of course they didn't know I was there, I just popped in. And this lady in India, I'm looking at the laptop and she said, God wanted me to tell you a couple things. And I'm like, okay, this has happened to me a couple times already, so, you know, it's a little strange. You're not surprised anymore. But I'm like, okay. And she said, everything that you've been going through has been training for you. God's going to bring people from all over the world to work with you. It's going to happen soon and you're going to know it's from God. And, um, and he's gonna bless you. And I was like, whoa, I never heard someone say something that specific about what's gonna happen, you know, kind of this prophetic word. And so I was like, wow, okay, thank you. And then everything started to happen. Yeah, that's cool. A couple weeks later, I get a call from— no, a couple weeks later, I'm in my empty house and I, I hear, um, this voice and said, Jimmy, you ready? Things are going to happen fast, and I lived alone. My eyes are closed. I'm just kind of groggy waking up, and I assume it was God. So I'm like, "Yes, God, I'm ready." And before I finish that short sentence, my alarm goes off at the same time, and I'm like, "Oh, maybe he's serious." And then that's when things started to happen. I get this call from Jude O'Reilly, golf caddy in Dublin, Ireland. I read Inner Excellence. My boss could really use your help. Can you talk to him? His boss was a pro golfer in Sweden named Henrik Stenson. Fly out to Sweden. I start to work with Henrik. Tiger Woods coach reads the book, says, Jim, I read Inner Excellence. Can you come to talk to my client Hunter Mahan? I fly out to California, meet with him and Hunter. A few weeks later, I get a call from the CEO of Yum Brands, David Novak. He said, Jim, I read Inner Excellence. Can you— I'd like to work with you. He sends the book to some of his clients in Europe. Start to work with one of them, some of them, and then I tell one of them, You should come to Vancouver and do an Inner Excellence retreat. And what I didn't tell him was I'd never done one before. And so as soon as he agreed, I was like, oh, well, what's an Inner Excellence retreat? So I had to figure that out. And that retreat was the basis of the retreats that I still do around the world today. And in fact, one of the things that came out of that retreat was the 5 deep needs of the heart, which is identity, to feel you have a sense of worth.

Mm-hmm.

Love and connection, purpose, integrity, purpose to have a purpose beyond yourself, integrity to be fully integrated, to be complete, and growth. We're created to grow, to learn and grow. And so he comes out, does the retreat, and he's like, that's amazing. Can you bring the same retreat to my leadership team in Europe? And they paid me more for that retreat for the leadership team in Europe, and I'd never done a corporate retreat before.

Wow.

than I'd made, I think, the whole previous year. And I'm so nervous. And it's like the head of KFC Spain, KFC Germany, like the head guy and me. And I'm like so nervous. And it turned out to be one of the best weeks of my life.

I bet.

And so Henrik goes on to win the FedEx Cup a year and a half later. Hunter Mahan wins a PGA Tour event within a month or two, and he wins the World Championship Match Play a month or two after that. I've been doing Inner Excellence retreats around the world ever since and coaching professional and Olympic athletes ever since. And now I get to Talk to you.

Working with these elite athletes, and I imagine it's similar with the CEOs, can you distill into maybe 3 of the top shifts that occurred to them which you believe led them to that win or that success?

Yeah, it's really taking your focus off the result and onto the process of learning and growing.

This is kind of the number one thing about InterAxcelerate.

And every pro athlete, I think, is pretty well known. Be present. You're going to perform better. Focus on the process. It's a very common mantra. How to do it is hard. And that's what Inner Excellence is about. And it's really understanding the deep needs of the heart, what you want most, and how to arrange your daily life, the habits and routines around getting that. And also, there's a couple of things that are unique about Inner Excellence compared to sports psychology. One is the focus on the heart, your spirit, your soul, the deepest part of you. We've got to get to the subconscious and where your greatest fears are and your greatest dreams are. We can't just be— it doesn't matter if you're a manager, a coach, a parent, a counselor. If you want to impact your life or anyone's life, we've got to get to that deeper level.

Yeah, I agree with that.

And then the other thing is I help people overcome trauma and mental blocks. It's something that most psychologists would refer to a clinical psychologist, but So I help people rewire their brains so then, so a trauma no longer becomes traumatic.

Yeah, that's awesome. And that's key to the work that I do as well. It's like that I mentioned the 5 mountains— physical, mental— those are relatively easy. And then the emotional mountain is where everyone gets stuck, especially guys. And it's basically trauma, you know, trauma triggers, trauma patterns from, you know, childhood, which everybody has.

You know, I think that's something that would really be helpful to talk about is the emotions.

Yeah.

So Inner Excellence has, has, uh, 3 areas that, that, uh, um, we're always working on is belief, freedom, and focus. To believe in your goals and dreams, believe that you can do things you've never done before, and have the freedom to play like a kid, and the focus to be fully engaged, heart, mind, and body in the moment, unattached to what you're trying to do. And so beliefs are the most important thing about you, and beliefs are feelings. And so, so if you want to do things you've never done before, it's really understanding how do I How do I expand what I believe is possible?

Right.

Well, the way we do that is we need to, to find those areas where you're the most uncomfortable, when you— where your, where your fears are. And so what happens, the reason most people never get to reach their potential, pro athletes or any of us, is because when they get to these really uncomfortable parts, they shrink back. They're too afraid to fail because our deepest need is for love and connection. If I fail, then now I could lose my love and connection. People are going to reject me. And so the people that are the most successful, they're willing to fail. They're willing to look foolish. And when they come to those moments where they're at the edge of their fears, where like, this is where I'm the most uncomfortable, this feeling is the one I hate the most. They're willing to sit in that feeling, to face their fears and to not run from that.

Right.

That's when transformation takes place and where beliefs can be expanded and you can do things you've never done before. But you've got to be willing to let go of your past.

I agree with that. You mentioned like these 3, I would call them cardinal virtues. They're similar to the Stoic virtues except for justice, but love, wisdom, and courage, right? And I think that's, those are really powerful stances or just, you know, you're going to put the stake in the ground and 3 3 things to develop as a human being. Those are powerful and they all stem from the heart. So talk about those and how that— how they, how they can be practiced or developed from your perspective.

Yeah. So love, wisdom, and courage. Those are the 3 kind of pillars of inner excellence. And love is this— the greatest love that someone can do is to sacrifice their life for someone else.

Yeah. And so that from the SEALs, that's why we were so effective.

Yeah, that's why I was so excited to come here and meet you, because, you know, I'm just, you know, so much respect for, for anyone that can just get through BUD/S, let alone, you know, do all those other things. And so sacrificing yourself for another, understanding that surrender is the greatest power that you have. There's a love that, that can only come in weakness. If you— and it's interesting being with you, it's, you know, this powerful Navy SEAL. If I always think about the earthquake in Haiti that happened a few years ago, maybe 10 years ago now. If you're there helping someone out of the rubble, there's this fearlessness that you have. Like, you're not concerned, what are people thinking about me right now? What am I wearing? And, you know, am I going to get a sunburn? Or, you know, there's none of that self-concern.

Yeah.

It's— and so weakness is is there's a power in weakness that you can't get that creates this love. And so there's— to live in that love, I think we're always walking in love or fear. To live in that love is— part of it is willing to be weak and vulnerable and fail.

Willing to be meek, which really means humble, right?

Yeah.

That term, the meek shall inherit the earth, is misinterpreted. It's not the weak, it's the humble.

Yeah, and I think of humility as an accurate view of self. It's not overinflated or underinflated. And so, um, walking in love is having this purpose beyond yourself. I think there's these levels of success that most people never get to. It's in Western culture that success is really, I just want to take care of myself and then I want to take care of my family.

Right.

And, but real success is like having this— can you take care of people that you don't know?

Right.

And then can you connect with the power of the universe that's, you know, that spins the earth and grows the grass? And then really live your purpose and become your true self. And that's, that's where love becomes really, really powerful. Wisdom, I think, is to have this, this, this connection to beauty and possibilities and relationships. It's, it's— I think of it as this ability to, or this pursuit of knowing who God is and therefore who you are, or If you don't even— if that's a little too much for you, you don't believe in God, you could say to understand how the universe works and how— why I'm here and what I'm meant for. You know, in Man's Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl talks about being worthy of his sufferings. Instead of asking, you know, what do I want from life, ask more, what does life want from me?

Mm-hmm.

And I think courage is the greatest— it's this It's the great separator from— you asked earlier about these traits. I think courage is the great separator because what's amazing is that we can all be courageous. And if you're courageous, then the sky's the limit.

Right. Courage is a pathway to wisdom and love. Yeah, I agree with that. It takes courage, and courage means heart. Core means heart. Yeah, yeah.

Well said.

I love that. You know, as you've been talking about, dancing around this idea of what is universal energy, power, life force, spirit, God, dare we say, this idea of God as the ground of divinity came to me. It's the allness that is everything that's present in, through, as us as humans, as well as this plant. Everything. That's a very Eastern kind of perspective, but it just feels, you know, the just feels right. Like God is not an entity, right? That you're having a personal relationship. It is everything. So I love that because it seems to me, even though you you have a very Christian perspective, that that's a you know. that kind of resonates with your belief system?

I think the big difference for me that changed my life was this surrender to the Creator of the universe. And I think the difference in America now and in Western culture now, there's this real push for, I've got my truth, you've got your truth.

Sure.

That's all good. And anything goes. You can't say that person's truth—

It's a relativistic value-based culture, which is—

Right.

It's very different than it was, say, 50 years ago.

Right, I agree.

And can't all be true.

Can't all be true.

And so I think that's— it's just like I was talking to a friend of mine who's been an agnostic. I said, there's really 3 possibilities that I can think of. There's no God, there's one God, or there's multiple gods. And regardless of what it is, I think it's really, really important to think about, well, what is the truth? And that's where love comes in, unconditional love comes in, because that's, that's what I believe the God of the universe is about, sacrificial love. And when— and if you pursue this life of sacrificial love and pray to the God however you understand him, like in AA, then, then he'll answer you.

Yeah. And I would just say that sacrifice doesn't mean you have to suffer for love.

Suffering is an interesting concept because—

You don't have to suffer for love. That's false.

That you being a Navy SEAL, there's this— there's many different types of suffering, right? Because in order to be— just to become a SEAL, you've got to be willing to suffer at a deep level. I mean, we can talk for hours.

Yeah, yeah, no, that's a good perspective. But yeah, but, but it's, um—

Maybe there's wisdom in the suffering.

But it's also personal. It's something that you, with courage, you take on. And so I didn't experience BUD/S as suffering. I experienced it as joy. There was no suffering.

Well, this is why you're a Navy SEAL. Yeah.

I never experienced any of the evolutions I did at SEALFIT as joy. You didn't? No. Not once. Nope.

Capture the lessons.

Well, this is the guy who has the punctured lungs and the broken ribs and the 18 fractures and who's doing squats like That week, or, you know.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, maybe a flow state, but joy? Yeah, that's like really pushing it.

Well, I think your ability—

again, it's all about context, right? Because words are just words, they're just pointers. It's not— so my definition of joy is going to be different than someone else's, and it doesn't mean I'm jumping up and down, you know, having a party every day. But no, I'm focused determine I'm in flow and that's joyful. Yeah. Now, doesn't not mean that I'm sucking wind or when you're carrying the log over my head and we're like, yeah, but I don't define that as suffering. I define that as perseverance.

And I think this is why you've been so successful is I think what happens to most people, and I've— it's happened to me a lot, is mentally We'll start to calculate all the things that's happening and we're like, okay, this is really bad. This really hurts. And then they'll start to say like, look, this is—

This is not good. I've got to get out of this.

This is not good. Yeah. I've got to get out. I've got to escape somehow. This is horrible. And I can't last like this. Whereas people that are really successful, they have a different mindset about it. Like you just shared. And it's this willingness, what I think of as willingness to suffer in a way that you don't even see it as suffering. Like, I don't think— I'm guessing that when you're doing those squats every day after you had all the 18 broken bones and ribs and everything, you were probably not thinking, oh, I'm just suffering and this is the worst. You're doing it because you want to.

No, I'm thinking to myself, my body needs to move, and the movement is going to move blood and energy to the affected injured areas as long as I stabilize it and don't reinjure it. Like, there's something called integrating pain versus disintegrating pain. As long as— so Doing squats is integrating pain, which is going to help with healing. And so that's the mindset. So 300 squats, easy day. It's good for you. Words define our reality, right? This is a big— what you're helping people is to come up with better words that'll help them feel better, and better feelings that'll help them create new words, which is basically the same as thoughts. But, you know, we only, you know, we can only think in dualistic language, which limits— automatically limits our experience, right? Because the ground of all being, the ground of divinity, the life force, the flow, everything you're talking about actually in reality has no conceptual story to it.

Can you define dualistic?

Dualism is basically how the brain works. So it's up, there has to be a down if there's an up. There has to be a right if there's a left, right? So all language is dualistic. This is where you get positionality, like we talked about the positionality of relativistic values, right? My view is this, your view is that. They're usually on some sort of polarity, which is dualistic. All language is dualistic, and it's— so it can never capture the essence of what the truth is behind the word. So even let's look at the word Courage. Core means heart. Courage means expressing your heart, throwing your heart into something. And then, you know, the Western ideas, like, means more like bravery, or like stepping up, taking a stand, or getting over your fear.

Yeah, exactly.

But yeah, what's, what's the energy underneath the word, right? It's life force.

It's frequency.

It's love.

But even that word love contracts people, especially in the Western mind. Like, ever in the Western mind, love means something different to everybody. You take Sanskrit language, there's 63 different words for love. You know what I mean? When I come out of the SEALs and I say, I love you, my brother, right? And I'm giving my teammate like that. There's not a word for that type of love. And what's the word for the love of a teammate that you're willing to die for? Yeah, right. Yeah. So my only point is that what's so powerful— words are so powerful because they, for most people, they contract and limit them. And so to really shift your mindset and say, what— be very careful about what words you use and make sure you use words that have the most expansive, um, inclusiveness.

And so one thing also, Mark, what you just said was Having that love that you're willing to die for. This is what I want people to get from Inner Excellence. I want them to get that sort of love and passion in life.

That's awesome. Terrific.

I would say that's like, 'cause what's intrigued me the most is like back to the heart is its frequency.

Yeah.

So, you know, how do you train your heart or know your heart? It's through understanding the language of the heart.

Right.

Which is all vibrational frequency. And then the more that you start to— and I think that does take stillness and quiet time, because then the more you start to understand the frequency of your heart, and then what that is to surrender to the frequency in which that's linked to and connected to that connects everybody, right? So that's like, I hear that a lot in your guys' conversation today, which is really a beautiful message. So important for us right now in our world. Yeah, yeah.

We could go on and on, but I think the, uh, I think we'll just kind of pin it right there, Jim. Love, wisdom, and courage. Let's move forward with that. We need more of that in this world, don't we?

For sure.

So I'm all for developing inner excellence. I really appreciate you coming down here, jet-lagged and all, from Madrid.

Yeah.

It's great to see you in person. Likewise. You know, I've stopped doing virtual podcasts because it's just so much better. Yeah, so much better.

Yeah, for sure.

Inner Excellence, your second edition. I love— I notice you don't say second edition, which is great. I have— I'm on my fourth edition with Unveil Mind. I wish I had just updated it and never named the edition. Um, where can people learn more about you? And, you know, what do you have to say about people who want to reach out to you?

Yeah, um, So interexcellence.com, my website. You can subscribe to our newsletter, which is going to be on Substack here soon as well. Um, I'm on social media like Instagram, Inner Excellence Jim Murphy, and, uh, we have a Facebook group, Inner Excellence Facebook group.

Okay. And you do private coaching still? Are you running mostly the group retreats and whatnot?

Yeah, I do. Uh, um, well, first of all, I try and help out every single person that I possibly can. I do some private coaching, a limited amount. I'm also doing retreats. And so retreats are amazing. I'm excited about those.

Yeah, I want to talk to you more about those. Great to have you here. I appreciate it, buddy.

Thank you. Thanks so much.

Well, thanks for tuning in to the Mark Divine Show. Thank you, Jim, for being here. Incredible conversation. I appreciate you folks for following and listening. And for walking this path of leadership, growth, and impact, developing love, courage, and wisdom. If today's episode with Jim Murphy inspired you, please share it with your friends and colleagues. Spread the word, leave a review, help other people find this show, and help keep us relevant. So thank you for that. If you'd like to go deeper on any of Jim's work, go visit interexcellence.com. If you want to learn more about what we do at Unbeatable Mind, go to unbeatablemind.com. Unbeatable Mind. Explore how we can work directly together on our personal leadership development or team transformation programs. You can also follow us on Instagram at Mark Divine Leadership and leave us a message about future guests or anything you'd like to hear on this show. So thanks again. Until next time, stay focused and be with courage, love, and wisdom. Hoo-yah! Divine out.