Inner Excellence: Train Your Mind for Extraordinary Performance and the Best Possible Life

by Jim Murphy

three crucial characteristics to master any performance are: Belief Focus Freedom

Belief separates the best from the rest; focus is your ability to have heightened awareness in the present moment; and freedom is your ability to be bold and take risks, holding nothing back.

compete

Latin competere, which means “to seek together; strive in common; coincide.”

love (freedom), wisdom (belief) and courage (focus).

to learn and grow to be your true self, to fill your heart with love, wisdom and courage in order to live an extraordinary life.”

The Path to zoe

You’re more concerned with being right and appearing smart than learning the truth and being wrong.

You’re obsessed with winning more than fully experiencing the moment and getting better.

You listen more than you speak.

You’re developing strict daily routines that help you lead with your heart, expand your vision, and be fully present.

self-mastery, I envision mastering the ego by

Unembarrassable:

Unoffendable:

Unirritatable:

Humiliation is a mental construct.

The purpose of your life should always be what’s guiding your life—in every single moment—not letting the ego push purpose aside for some temporary circumstance or event.

If you want to live an extraordinary life, you cannot let other people’s words or actions take you out of your rhythm or flow.

To be unirritatable is to be at a place where no person or circumstance can take away your presence.

Life is full of moments that can steal our focus and freedom.

When that happens, you’ve gotten consumed by the circumstance; some words or event unrelated to your true self took away your options and got you out of your flow.

Goals are external outcomes that are not in your full control:

Dreams are feelings.

We set goals in order to get the feel...

What we really want are ways to use our gifts and passion to feel truly alive— that’s living our dreams.

my dream is something I need to live every day.

play like a kid, completely free.

resonance.

state in which frequencies align.

Leading with your heart is striving to be your true self, who you were born to be, so you can experience absolute fullness of life.

if you give up your life for others, you’ll find it.

if you devote your life to a purpose beyond yourself, and commit to raising the level of excellence in your life in order to raise it in others, you’ll gain fullness of life.

Then you can perform with freedom and achieve extraordinary things.

leading with the heart.

It takes intention and sacrifice, and the willingness to give up comfort and self-concern.

let go of self-protection and personal gain,

Giving up your life for a greater purpose creates an expansive awareness as you remove self-concern, connect deeply with others, and see unlimited possibilities.

Leading with the heart is about unconditionally loving your work, your opponents, your teammates, and yourself.

If you’re looking for a wave of thanks, then your love just became conditional.

What if you let someone go in front of you in heavy traffic, or smile at someone with no attachment to their response? Then you’ve stepped into your power.

It means loving your work not just for what you can get out of it

but for who you can become while pursuing self-mastery.

It requires the individuals involved to surrender their self-interest for the greater good so that the whole adds up to more than the sum of the parts.

To expand your vision is to find a purpose beyond yourself—even

Humility is an accurate view of self; freedom from self-inflation or self-rejection.

An accurate view of self always leads to gratitude.

“To achieve peak performance you should have a strongly directed purpose that is not self-seeking.”

When you find a purpose that provides you with its own reward simply by the act of pursuing it, then you’ll be empowered.

Courage is the ability to be fully present in adversity.

Being fully present allows you to learn the lessons that life brings to teach you;