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

by Jim Murphy

The quality of your life is based on three elements: Your inner world of thoughts and feelings, beliefs and desires. Your frame of reference (mindset) from which you see the world. Your relationships.

The quality of your performance is also based on three elements: Your belief about who you are and what’s possible for you. Your ability to focus and be fully engaged in the moment: heart, mind and body (note: heart and spirit will be used interchangeably). Your freedom to play like a kid, curiously exploring possibilities, excited for challenges that may arise.

As I dove into research, I realized that helping athletes win a world championship or Olympic gold medal would be meaningless unless it improved their quality of life—their inner life. So I started to study two main concepts: How to have extraordinary poise and mental toughness under extreme pressure. How to live the best possible life, one with deep contentment, joy and confidence. In the desert I had an astonishing insight. I realized that the pursuit of extraordinary performance and the pursuit of the best possible life are the same path.

Most of us have been playing the wrong game our entire lives. We’ve been focusing on short-term wins, temporary happiness, and surface-level achievements, when we were created for so much more. We’ve been playing a zero-sum, finite game, with a winner and a loser, a beginning and an end, when it’s really an infinite one. Life is meant to be a journey connecting with others, growing together, discovering new and amazing things, rather than a game of constant comparison and competition, always trying to fit in or be successful. We’ve been setting our sights too low, going for the low-hanging fruit on a single bush, when entire orchards await. Which game have you been playing? The best possible life—absolute fullness of life—is one with extraordinary experiences, deep, meaningful relationships, and, most of all: love, joy and peace. These three “resources” lead to an abundance of fruit that multiplies into so much more: peace becomes patience, patience becomes kindness, then goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and, ultimately, self-control.

This book will help you understand how those amazing individuals trained their minds (and oriented their hearts) so that they were always learning and growing, and how you can train your mind and heart to do the same.

A life with unlimited possibilities is only possible when the assumptions that guide our lives are also free from limits.

Here are ten new empowering presuppositions that will form the basis of the mindset you’ll develop as you read this book: Every circumstance and every person you encounter is here to teach you and help you—it’s all working for your good.

Your life is a reflection of your beliefs.

Self-centeredness is the root cause of fear.

We all have the same deep needs and same deep desires.

Everyone does the best they can with what they have (in their hearts).

The map is not the territory.

You are not your mind.

The problem is not the problem, the problem is the way you’re thinking about it.

There’s no failure, only feedback.

The person with the most control of their inner world has the most power.

The mindset of Inner Excellence is this: I compete to raise the level of excellence in my life, to learn and grow, in order to raise it in others. We don’t pursue peak performance for the trophy or adoration, but to discover something within us and experience something we’ve never experienced before. We compete for the competition itself, to fully experience the moment and feel fully alive. We do this to help others—including our opponents—do the same thing, so we can all learn and grow and raise the level of excellence in our lives. We crave adversity and challenges as a means of seeing the truth about who we are in that moment and therefore who we can become. We don’t climb mountains to get to the top—we climb to see who we can become in trying to get there. The peak gives us a goal and focus for our behaviors, but the reason for climbing or competing is far more empowering than an expansive view and social media posts.

Developing inner strength, fullyexperiencing the moment, and continually growing are far more lasting and empowering.

Results are an inconsistent measure of success and failure: you can perform poorly and win, just as you can perform well and lose.

The opponent is our partner in the dance.

Failure is the key component of growth. There is no real “failure”, only feedback.

The best competitors develop emotional control and use mistakes to get better.

In my experience talking to and working with world-class performers and leaders, I’ve learned that what we really want, beyond our tangible goals and pursuits, is to feel totally alive. We crave great experiences and meaningful relationships and we long to reach our full potential. We want to be challenged and creative. We want to grow. We want freedom to live with passion and pursue our dreams regardless of what people think, how much money we make, or what level of status we acquire. Ultimately, we want the best possible life—absolute fullness of life.

The first concept to learn is this: This book, this lifestyle, is based on a presupposition: The biggest obstacle we face, in performance and in life, is self-centeredness. It’s not the morality of it that I speak of. The main issue is that in our preoccupation with ourselves, our vision narrows, our growth is limited, and our failures are amplified. Curiosity and excitement for challenges gets replaced by anxiety and fear of failure. The potential for self-rejection grows.

The solution is one that has empowered world-class performers, Olympic and professional athletes, and some of the best teams in the world. It’s a model based on three simple words: love, wisdom, and courage. Love is to lead with your heart, wisdom is to expand your vision, and courage is to be fully present. In this model, love becomes passion, wisdom becomes purpose, and courage becomes poise.

Self-actualizers, Maslow noted, with their greater vision, shared a unique ability to engage in moments in which they felt truly alive, creative, and integrated. Maslow’s high achievers selflessly pursued a purpose beyond themselves. In light of this, we’ll refer to these high achievers as selfless actualizers, or people who saw the world through a lens beyond self, and thus had the freedom to live fully. Here are nine characteristics Maslow used to describe them: Total absorption They learn to experience key events fully, vividly, and selflessly, with complete concentration. Personal growth They don’t get hung up on lower level needs or desires (i.e., approval from others), but seek to learn and grow. Their goal is to experience the moment, more so than anything tangible they can get from it. For them, the means is the end; the journey is the enjoyment, not the result. Self-awareness Selfless actualizers do the work to uncover their true motives, emotions and abilities. They are guided by their own code of ethics, which often makes them feel like aliens in a foreign land. Gemeinschaft This German word means fellowship and community. Maslow felt that belonging is a fundamental human need and that connecting with others was an essential part of self-actualization. Gratitude Selfless actualizing people have the wonderful capacity to appreciate again and again, freshly and naïvely, the basic goods of life, with awe, pleasure, wonder, and even ecstasy, however stale these expe...

Attachment to something you’re not in complete control of makes you needy and brings with it the fear of not getting what you want.

If you have inner strength, you move out into the world with peace and confidence, no matter what your circumstances are. If your inner life is unstable, you move out into the world with weakness, no matter how much money or success you have.

Extraordinary achievement calls for extraordinary desire and intense training, especially training your mind to focus on the process, not the result. The most productive path is to direct your desires and focus on the process of learning and growing, living out your calling, moment to moment. The ego, however, is always concerned about the future and how we compare to others in that future.

In my work with world-class athletes and other professionals, I’ve discovered three adversaries that have a dramatic impact on our ability to be focused and confident. The name of each adversary describes its effects: the Critic, the Monkey Mind, and the Trickster. The Critic is that judgmental voice in your head. It delivers a negative verdict on some thing (or circumstance) or some person (often yourself), and then reacts emotionally to that judgment. (In our discussion, we define the word judge as “to deliver a negative verdict,” whereas to discern is “to use wisdom to consider the best course of action.”) The Monkey Mind is that noisy presence in your head. It clutters your mind with too many (often negative or unproductive) thoughts on too many things, frequently leading to overanalysis and anxiety. Finally, the Trickster is that deceptive voice in your head that lies to you. The Trickster always tries to trick you into believing in your limitations, and constantly accuses you of not being worthy of living your dreams.

One skill that selfless-actualizers with Inner Excellence have developed is that they do not get mentally trapped by circumstances they can’t control. They keep in mind two important presuppositions: All things are here to teach me and help me—it’s all working for my good. As well as: The problem is not the problem, the problem is the way you’re thinking about it.

“Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.” —Theodore Roosevelt, 26th president of the United States

Zoe is the state of being possessed of vitality, with absolute fullness of life, real and genuine, active and vigorous. It’s the full potential of your inner life, the generator of intense beauty and passion. Zoe is the full expression of love, wisdom, and courage. These three resources are intimately interconnected—you can’t fully experience one without some of the other two. When you experience all three together, zoe unfolds in wholehearted, sacred moments.

Just like the acronym best friends forever, BFF stands for something memorable as well: the three vital aspects of high performance. 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. To play with freedom means to play your sport or instrument or role like you did when you were a kid on the playground, with no concern for people’s opinions or how you compared—playing with unconditional love, not loving it if you did well or may get some award.

When I think of self-mastery, I envision mastering the ego by becoming three things: Unembarrassable: to be completely humble/selfless, where nothing you or anyone else could say or do would embarrass you or reduce your sense of well-being. Unoffendable: to be completely humble/selfless, where people’s words or actions don’t push your buttons or make you angry; to have self-control, not be self-protective. Unirritatable: steadfast, calm and compassionate (to other people’s flaws); fully present to the beauty and possibilities that always await.

When you find a purpose that provides you with its own reward simply by the act of pursuing it, then you’ll be empowered. If that purpose serves the greater good, it will provide meaning in your life. A purpose beyond yourself moves your identity from what you have and what you’ve achieved to serving others; your value increases and your concern for self decreases.

The Fearless Four Daily Process Goals Give my best (100% of what I have today). Be present. Be grateful. Focus on my routines and only what I can control.

One of the main problems with athletes, performers, and goal-oriented individuals is that they set their goals too low. They set winning as their highest goal, whether it’s an Olympic gold medal, a world championship, or a position as CEO of a major corporation. You might think, those are pretty high goals, and they are, but they’re too low for Inner Excellence standards. Those goals are all only symbols of what you really want, which is a meaningful, fulfilling life—becoming the person you were created to be. What good is it to win Olympic gold or become CEO and earn $30 million a year if you’re filled with anxiety and live in constant fear of losing it? What I help people do is to go directly for what they really want: absolute fullness of life. Go for it by building who you are as a person so you can have both extraordinary performance and fullness of life—the whole candy store. Pursue the gold medal as your highest goal and you’ve got a very scary road ahead of you with so much out your control and slim chances of getting it. Seek fullness of life as your highest goal and you’ve got an exciting journey ahead of you and a very high chance of getting it. As an added bonus, going for fullness of life as your highest goal also gives you the best shot of getting the gold medal.

The proper emotional response to a problem is 75 percent of the solution. —Jim Loehr, Ph.D., Mental Toughness Training for Sports

Assumptions are a big part of how we process information. Assumptions are things we accept to be true without proof. The brain doesn’t need proof, it needs a pattern. The brain learns to recognize patterns and remember them, whether they are helpful or not. Assumptions are made in order for us to process information without spending hours in deliberation.

Like assumptions, generalizations are based on patterns stored in your brain. Memories of similar events form a pattern that you learn from and use to make predictions about future events.

We perform best when we dismiss unnecessary thoughts and let our intuition take over during an event. Paying attention to some aspects of our experience while ignoring others is called deletion.

Distortion occurs when your brain gives too much meaning to a pattern.

Here are three important skills that you’ll learn to help you control your state (feelings and physiology): How to focus (the mind) softly and sharply. How to relax (heart, mind and body) moderately and completely. How to go back and forth between focused and relaxed.

Soft focus is the ability to have a relaxed focus, one where you don’t need to be completely focused on the task, but you will need to be soon. Soft focus is needed during a performance between sets or periods of action (e.g., between serves in tennis, between innings in baseball, and between plays in football). If you aren’t able to soft focus, that means either you’re not focused at all, or you’re too focused and won’t be able to maintain it over the entire performance. Either way, you’ll run into problems without this skill.

Sharp focus is the ability to focus intently on the task at hand, bringing the energy and presence needed to perform your best. Sharp focus is needed during a performance, especially when in key moments ...

Moderate relaxation is generally done at the same time as soft focus. Relaxing moderately means dialing down the energy levels and reducing the amount of thoughts in order to save energy for when sharp focus is needed. Relaxing moderately isn’t just needed for between plays or sets however. It’s essenti...

Relaxing completely is the ability to rest fully, with naps and sleep. When we sleep, our brain waves slow down (delta waves). When we’re dialed-in during performance, our brain waves are at moderate speeds (generally alpha). When ...

There’s a mantra the samurai recited before going into battle: “Expect nothing, prepare for anything.” Expectations are a potentially large stumbling block in performance, causing tension and fear, taking you out of the present. By definition, expectation implies looking to the future. Centering exercises are done to bring your energy to your body’s center and your mind to the present. “I expect . . . nothing” is a powerful centering exercise that says you have no needs; you can handle any circumstance. You have no expectations about how things should be.

An anchor is a sight, sound, taste, smell or touch that is linked to a feeling.