This Is Why You FAIL Under Pressure | Jim Murphy

What this episode is about

Jim Murphy discusses the impact of fear on performance, emphasizing that self-protection and comparison to others often lead to anxiety and potential failure. He advocates for a clear, intentional approach to life, highlighting love, wisdom, and courage as essential resources for overcoming challenges and achieving extraordinary personal growth.

Key takeaways

• Fear is the default; intentionality and courage are your best antidotes to life's anxiety trap.
• Success often blooms in solitude—embrace the desert phase for clarity and self-discovery.
• Comparing yourself to others? Remember, even the most accomplished faced their unique struggles.
• Travel changes your life, but inner journeying transforms your soul—balance both for true growth.
• Living an extraordinary life isn’t about luxury; it’s about love, wisdom, and having the guts to act.

Who speaks in this episode?

• Donald C. Murphy (Guest)

What is discussed, and when

1. 0:00 – 5:00: Donald C. Murphy, Inner Excellence, Sean Foley, Tiger Woods
2. 5:00 – 10:00: Abraham Maslow
3. 20:00 – 25:00: Michael Jordan, Inner Excellence, Zoe
4. 25:00 – 30:00: Homes of Hope, Louis Gordon Pugh, Philadelphia Eagles
5. 30:00 – 35:00: Inner Excellence, Louis Gordon Pugh, University of British Columbia, Elon Musk
6. 35:00 – 37:05: Inner Excellence, Donald C. Murphy

Notable quotes from "This Is Why You FAIL Under Pressure | Jim Murphy"

• I'm absolutely thrilled today to have Jim Murphy on passion struck. Welcome Jim. How are you today?

  about Donald C. Murphy · at 1:26

• That's awesome. And for those of you who are have not been watching TV or following the news or sports or anything for the past couple years, Jim is the number one best selling…

  about Inner Excellence · at 3:30

• Oh, well, I've known Sean for let's see he's got he's actually a big part of my life. Well, Sean's Canadian, as am I. And Sean was coaching golfer a few years ago that was…

  about Tiger Woods · at 4:15

• Michael was in the minor leagues playing for one of the Chicago teams around the same time that I was in the minor leagues playing for one of the Chicago teams.

  about Michael Jordan · at 21:06

• Make sure it lines up with the Bible. Make sure it's filled with wisdom and has no errors. She reads in her excellence. She said, I read your book. Have you ever heard of the…

  about Zoe · at 23:25

• Man, so how did AJ brown come about reading the book? Was it referred to him from something, yeah, I'll tell you what happened. About 1012, years ago, I started building houses…

  about Homes of Hope · at 25:31

• We start to work together. And amazing story. But DJ gives the book to morrow, a Jomo football player at University of Texas. He gets drafted by the Philadelphia Eagles. He…

  about Philadelphia Eagles · at 26:35

• Well, amen to that. One of the other stories I really liked in the book, because I must have been sleeping under a rock or something when this happened, because I was not aware…

  about Louis Gordon Pugh · at 29:16

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

• Donald C. Murphy — Person · Main guest · 3 mentions · first at 1:26
  Primary interview subject; author of 'Inner Excellence' discussing fear vs love, selflessness, purpose, and performance under pressure.
• Michael Jordan — Person · Referenced exemplar (elite performance) · 3 mentions · first at 20:12
  Used as a case study for greatness, presence, courage, resilience, and practice habits—especially in the context of switching to minor-league baseball.
• Sean Foley — Person · Referenced connector / collaborator · 2 mentions · first at 4:02
  Mentioned as the mutual connection who introduced the host to Murphy's book; also noted for coaching Tiger Woods and contacting Murphy for client work.
  I plowed through this book in I'm telling you about four hours, four and a half hours, I it just was such a fantastic read, and I had heard about it even before seeing it with…
• Louis Gordon Pugh — Person · Referenced exemplar (endurance/mission-driven performance) · 2 mentions · first at 29:22
  Featured as an inspirational story illustrating fear management, chunking goals, and purpose beyond self (North Pole swim to raise climate awareness).
• Tiger Woods — Person · Referenced athlete (coaching context) · 1 mention · first at 4:26
  Referenced as the elite golfer Sean Foley coached during a difficult personal period; provides context for how Murphy’s ideas were applied to high-pressure performance.
• Abraham Maslow — Person · Referenced expert (human flourishing) · 1 mention · first at 6:59
  Cited as a foundational thinker for the episode’s theme of human flourishing and living fully alive; used to frame the discussion of needs and self-actualization.
  Now this whole podcast is all about human flourishing, and I am a huge fan of Abraham Maslow. And again, early in the book, before we get into the Maslow chapter, you write…
• Elon Musk — Person · Referenced business/innovation figure (metaphor source) · 1 mention · first at 34:53
  Cited as the source of a metaphor ('turtle effect') about balancing long-term vision with small-step execution.
  I actually call it the being the turtle effect. And I got this actually from Elon Musk and.

Books & papers

• Inner Excellence — Book · Primary recommendation · 7 mentions · first at 3:38
  The book is the main focus of the discussion, written by Jim Murphy, and is recommended for its insights on achieving extraordinary performance and life.

Companies & orgs

• Homes of Hope — Company · Case study · 1 mention · first at 25:44
  Mentioned as an organization Jim Murphy works with to build houses for the poor in Mexico, illustrating his commitment to service.
• Philadelphia Eagles — Company · Referenced work · 1 mention · first at 26:42
  Mentioned in the context of Jim Murphy's book being read by a player, showing the book's impact in professional sports.
• University of British Columbia — Company · Affiliation · 1 mention · first at 30:50
  Mentioned as an institution where Jim Murphy worked with the men's golf team, adding to his credibility and experience.
  Sure, I am writing the book, and I'm in living in Canada, working with University of British Columbia men's golf team, and I see on the national newspaper The Globe and Mail…

Concepts & topics

• Zoe — Concept · Key argument · 1 mention · first at 23:29
  A Greek word representing the absolute fullness of life, central to the book's philosophy and discussed in depth.

Full transcript with timestamps

0:00 Fear is where you're in self protection. You're concerned what other people are thinking and will I fail? And so that life diamond is just saying, look, the default is if you don't do anything, you're going to go towards fear. That's human nature. You're going to start thinking about yourself. You're going to think about everything you want but can't control. You're going to start comparing yourself to others. Your subconscious mind is going to remind you of all your failures and weaknesses. And you're going to move towards anxiety and fear. So you need a clear, intentional plan and path to live an extraordinary life, and that path is based on the three most powerful resources I believe in the universe, is love, wisdom and courage.

0:38 Welcome to passion struck. Hi. I'm your host, John R miles and on the show, we decipher the secrets, tips and guidance of the world's most inspiring people, and turn their wisdom into practical advice for you and those around you. Our mission is to help you unlock the power of intentionality so that you can become the best version of yourself. If you're new to the show, I offer advice and answer listener questions. On Fridays, we have long form interviews the rest of the week with guests ranging from astronauts to authors, CEOs, creators, innovators, scientists, military leaders, visionaries and athletes. Now let's go out there and become passion struck.

1:26 I'm absolutely thrilled today to have Jim Murphy on passion struck. Welcome Jim. How are you today? Thanks, John. Great. Thanks for having me. For those of you who aren't watching this on YouTube, Jim immediately hit a bond with me when I saw the jersey he was wearing, and at first I thought it was a Cub jersey. Turns out it's a Phillies jersey. And being from around that area and loving the Phillies immediate bond, but you're wearing it because you just had the opportunity to do something I could only dream of. You just got to do what for the Phillies threw out the first pitch last week. It was quite an honor.

2:04 Man. That is awesome. Who were they playing in the Mets? Yeah, big game. Big series, big series. I'm hoping the Phillies go the whole way. They are not well liked here, where I'm in Tampa, because the rays fans feel like they cost us our best opportunity of winning a World Series A while back when the Phillies beat us. But I, not only do I love the Phillies and spring training and everything else, but I live right by their spring training facility. So it's such a treat to get to have that part of the year with them. Well, being a huge Philadelphia sports fan, I, like every single Eagles sports fan, was completely blown away by the whole AJ brown sideline effect that happened. How was your life changed from that moment, John, it's changed a lot, a lot of travel. So it's funny because I traveled before January 12 of this year, when it all started. The last two years I went to 23 different countries, I think so that's

3:10 a fair amount of international travel. And so this year I've only been to a couple countries, but I've been to a different city every four or five days or so since January 12, except when I'm in Spain. Yeah, a lot more travel, speaking and workshops and retreats. But it's just an honor to be able to share the message that selfless is fearless, that's awesome. And for those of you who are have not been watching TV or following the news or sports or anything for the past couple years, Jim is the number one best selling author of inner excellence, train your mind for extraordinary performance and the best possible life. And I'm holding a copy of it here, but man, I plowed through this book in I'm telling you about four hours, four and a half hours, I it just was such a fantastic read, and I had heard about it even before seeing it with AJ Brown, because we share another common person between us, and that's Sean Foley, who had told

4:08 me about this book a while back, and then I should eventually read. How do you know Sean? Oh, well, I've known Sean for let's see he's got he's actually a big part of my life. Well, Sean's Canadian, as am I. And Sean was coaching golfer a few years ago that was quite talented, Tiger Woods. And Sean read inner excellence, contacts me when he's coaching Tiger, and said that he had a wanted me to he read inner excellence and wanted to see if I could work with one of his clients. And so that's when I met Sean. Yeah, this was 2011 I believe, yeah.

4:44 Not only was Sean working with Tiger, but he happened to be working with Tiger right after all those terrible things happened in Tiger's life. So not only was he trying to help him become a better golfer, he was trying to get him to. Take back his life again. So what a challenging time to be any superstars coach. One of the things that I really liked about the book, right from the beginning, is how you bring in your own story. And you said this quote, those destined for greatness must first walk alone in the desert. You literally sold most of your possessions and lived in solitude for years. What did that season of your life teach you about yourself and also about life?

5:34 Well, I don't think you can live an extraordinary life without solitude. I just don't think it's possible. At least I don't know how to do it now. You don't have to go to the desert like I did, and you don't have to go for two and a half years. I wasn't in complete solitude. I had a couple of friends there, and actually my parents and sister end up moving in with me, although I rarely saw them, because I would leave early in the morning and come back at night when they're asleep. But being in the desert was in front who I what I really wanted in life, and I went there to figure out what I can do to devote my life, to find something that I can devote my life to and do, willing to live and die for. And that's what I found in the desert.

6:11 And I know you're a faith based person like myself, but when I was reading this, and when I thought about my own life and periods of time where I've really done deep self awareness. I think back to even Jesus's journey of how he spent 40 days alone and would look for solitude when he was contemplating big events in his life as well. So I really do think there's something about this need for solitude and for rewiring ourselves and coming back to ourselves. Did that sort of play into it for you? Well, I think he's the wisest, most confident, joyful, passionate, compassionate person that's ever lived, and the best model, yeah.

6:59 Now this whole podcast is all about human flourishing, and I am a huge fan of Abraham Maslow. And again, early in the book, before we get into the Maslow chapter, you write, what any of us really want is to feel truly alive. And it's interesting, because if you look at the work of palliative care, people like Bronnie Ware or even scientists who've studied tons of lives, what they all come back to is that most people end up living the life that they feel they should and they end up settling instead of living the life that they could, which is One where they flourish in all aspects of it. Why do you think it is that so few people find that fullness fear is the biggest issue, and fear in your excellence comes from self centeredness in general, comes from we get in our own way. That's the biggest challenge that we face. And through three main areas, overthinking, negative thinking of judgmental thinking and self consciousness,

8:02 and it all comes from us, self referential, self centeredness that's inherent in human life. We need to think about ourselves in order to get through the day, in order to do something great, we have to think about ourselves, but that comes with a self consciousness and a subconscious mind that's always in protection mode, and so it creates this unease and that leads to fear when we think about ourselves. And that's why self is why selfless is fearless. I think it's a really important aspect that you cover throughout the book, and really uses the foundation. I remember, I was an executive at Lowe's home improvement. I was a VP at the time, and I was on the staff of the CIO, and I had four fantastic peers, all of them extremely talented themselves, but we had a lot of infighting amongst us. And I remember one day our boss, Steve stone, comes into this conference room where we would have our weekly

8:55 meetings. He was not a person who would really get aggravated. He was person he used intellect, but I remember him just slamming his fist on the table and said that we have the opportunity to do so much, but there are three letters that are getting in the way of us achieving greatness, and he said it was ego. And at the time, I was in my early 30s, and I didn't really understand the enormity of what he was talking about. But you really do a good job of connecting ego with self centeredness. Could you talk a little bit more about it?

9:30 Sure, I think of ego as the part of our mind that's always threatened, always comparing and never satisfied. It may not be how anyone else defines it, but I in order to be to make a difference in someone's life, you got to be clear in your communication, and so I try to define all the terms that I use. And so we all have a mind that has this concern, this threat, and it leverages our deep need, our deepest need, which is for love and acceptance. And so it says it's that voice in your head that says, hey, if you screw this up, if you fail, not only you're not going to be. Loved and accepted, but you're going to get the exact opposite, which is your greatest fear in general. The greatest fear of humans is for rejection. And when I think of interactions, I think of self mastery.

10:09 And when I think of self mastery, I think of mastering the ego. When I think of mastering the ego, I think of three things actually being unembarrassable, unoffendable and unirritable. And I don't out of those three things, which one do you think is the hardest for most people to undertake in their lives? Well, they're all really hard. I think it depends on the person. So I define humility as an accurate view of self, not over inflated or under inflated. And if you're truly humble, then you can never be humiliated or truly embarrassed, because embarrassment and humiliation is concerned for self, my status just went down. Now I feel bad about myself because I think other people feel less of me and but if you're completely selfless, there's no self to defend. There's nothing to be afraid of, because you're not defending anything.

10:59 You're not protecting anything, and that's you can look at when the best performances in the history of the world happen. There's no concern for self. There's no thoughts of self whatsoever. And so the ego is that part of the mind that's constantly threatening, threatened, and when it's threatened, it's got to work overtime. It's got to, oh, what about this? What about that? And that's where anxiety comes in. Anxiety is a mind with too many thoughts and too many concerns. One other thing that I really liked as you opened the book was you made the statement that the quality of your life is based on three elements, your inner world of thoughts and feelings, your frame of reference, a mindset, and your relationships. And I think those three things are fantastic. I wanted to ask you about a fourth one that I would probably include, that you didn't and I feel that you can have that frame of reference of mindset, but really you need to be intentional with your behaviors

11:57 and how you're using that mindset set to drive your actions. And if I were going to do my own version of this, I would add behaviors to it or intentionality. What's your thoughts on that? Yeah, thanks for sharing that. So yesterday, I was walking into a grocery store as I drove from New York City here to Central Pennsylvania to work on this next book, and I was thinking actually shared on an Instagram story that my life has been incredibly blessed and very busy the last eight months, and just so much logistics, so many things to track, and that can create anxiety. And I'm walking in to the store and thinking about all the things that are happening coming up.

12:40 We've got a book signing in Philly on Saturday, which is amazing. Not a book signing, some sort of a we're doing something with a book giveaway in Philly. And I thought, You know what? The number one thing in my life, that's the most important thing, is not my circumstances, and not even my actions. It's my heart, because my actions come from my heart, and because I it's easy to anxiety is so easy to have, and so many people have it now because they're trying to track so many things, and life is so complex, and there's so many scary things in the world right now, and but if your heart is connected to the source of all goodness in The world and the universe, and you have inner peace, then you're going to go out into the world in strength, no matter what your circumstances are. But you could have a million followers and millions of dollars, but if you have inner turmoil, you're going out into the world in weakness.

13:37 It's so true, because without that, you're not going to have authenticity in how you're bringing yourself and presenting yourself to the world, is the way I think about it. One of the things that you and I both talk about, and it's a core foundation of this whole podcast, is the power of choices, and I like to talk about our micro choices, or our micro decisions are the ones that really shape the life that we want to have. You also talk about choices, and one of the things that love in the book were that through the beginning chapters, you you create two pyramids and then bring them together into kind of the life diamond. And I was hoping you might be able to talk about that path, because it's all really rooted in our choices.

14:26 Yeah, thank you. So the way I look at life is that we're walking either love or fear every moment you're in either love or fear, some form of love, which is this selfless, creative connectedness and connectedness, where you see possibilities, and fear is where you're in self protection. You're concerned what other people are thinking and will I fail? And that life diamond is just saying, Look, you the default is, if you don't do anything, you're going to go towards fear. That's human nature. You're going to start thinking about. Yourself. You're going to think about everything you want, but can't control. You're going to start comparing yourself to others. Your subconscious mind is going to remind you of all your failures, and you're going to move towards anxiety and fear. So you need a clear, intentional plan and path to live an extraordinary life, and that path is based on the three most powerful resources I believe that in

15:21 the universe is love, wisdom and courage, whereas love. And when I say love, there's something that really needs to be clarified, because in America, in Western culture, English only has one word for love. And I love board games. I love sushi, Korean barbecue and Thai curry and many things I love, but those are like things that are pleasurable, and the love that I'm talking about is sacrificial love, the kind that brings joy, because pleasure brings happiness, and there's very big difference between the two. Happiness, to me, I define as a positive, temporary feeling based on what's happening. Good circumstances, good feelings, bad circumstances, you're not getting good feelings, Joy. On the other hand, I define as a deep sense of well being, freedom and gratitude and inner buoyancy and delight that comes from love. And we need a clear path and plan to simplify our lives, to reduce all the thoughts, and that involves having a purpose for your

16:25 life. And with interactions, we think about how you want to feel, how you want to live, who you want to become most important to you, and start to clarify those things so you can be true to yourself. And when I say true to yourself, half of it's your own personal preference, and half of it's understanding how you're created and what you're created for, because there's a lot of misunderstandings in interactions. We talk about your heart and following your heart, but that's we have to make sure we're clear that the heart has an inherent self centeredness. On the one hand, we're created in God's image, and the other hand, we have human nature. And if you don't do anything, the human nature is going to take over, and you're going to move towards fear. And so if you think following my heart means doing what I feel the most strongly about, then you might be taking crystal meth and you might be eating chocolate, as great as that is, until you get sick

17:19 and maxing out the credit cards and leading you to a horrible life or death. If you follow your feelings, which people translate? Following your heart is following my feelings, so you got to be very careful about following your feelings. I have a mantra that's, I live by purpose, not by feelings, and oftentimes that's what I say to myself, to get out of bed, because a lot of times don't want to get out of bed. That's how the pyramid works. Do nothing. You're going to go down towards self centeredness and fear. We need to have an intentional plan based on love, wisdom and courage, sacrifice, doing hard things and having doing some discipline, some of the interactions disciplines, there's nine of them, and then moving towards that selfless and therefore fearless life.

17:59 By the way you described it. I really loved you. Say, every day, we wake up with a choice, do we let our natural self centeredness and ego lead us towards doubts and fears, or do we choose to focus on what you were just talking about, love, wisdom and courage? If we don't make a conscious decision, we inevitably follow our natural inclination down the pyramid, which is right below where I'm reading that. And I wanted to just talk about a couple words that you bring up there. And one of the most important ones, I think, is the word conscious. Because in my own book, I talk about the fact that I think so many people today are not living on autopilot, where, if you put the plan on autopilot, you're typically going in the direction you want your life to take. I think more of us are living it like we're a pinball in the game of pinball, and we just subconsciously allow our lives to unfold without being deliberate about how

18:58 we're trying to live them. And I think in many ways, that's what you're trying to say here. You're very deliberate about our lives and seeking wisdom above all else, wisdom is the greatest thing anyone could ever seek, and it's far different than knowledge. To me. Knowledge is understanding how these transactional, temporary things in life work. How does a lawnmower work? Great things that can create great companies, and how do you build a computer or a light or a table or a business? Knowledge is super helpful, important. It's just like logic, super important and helpful. But logic also can be very limiting, and so can knowledge, and logic doesn't send a man to the moon. Wisdom, to me, is to have unobstructed views of beauty and connections and possibilities unhindered by our own self reliance. And on another level, it's also how I think about wisdom is to know who God is, and therefore who you are, what he's doing in the world, and how you can join in.

19:56 I think that's absolutely essential, and agree with you full. Wholeheartedly. One of the things you do throughout the book is you've got some great examples of people in the book, I'm going to use a person, but then I'm going to use a story you didn't talk about in the book. You talk about Michael Jordan and his coach in multiple places, and one of the things you talked about Michael is one of the things that led him to greatness was his focus on practice, which is something a lot of us don't want to do, but he thrived on it. But I want to take Michael in a different setting that you know a lot about. So Michael comes out of winning three championships and makes the decision he wants to become a professional baseball player. And I remember when he first came out, he was just tearing it up, and then the teams and the pitchers figured out his weakness, and all of a sudden he couldn't hit a ball to save his life. But in typical Michael Jordan fashion,

20:59 what did he do differently that a lot of people wouldn't have done when he faced that situation. Michael was in the minor leagues playing for one of the Chicago teams around the same time that I was in the minor leagues playing for one of the Chicago teams. And yeah, he's probably the such an inspiring athlete in that the documentary on him, it said his greatness was his ability to be fully present. And I think that's so true. And I think courage is the greatest thing that most successful people have in common, and that Michael also had. And what's great about that is that we can all have it.

21:36 I absolutely think that's one aspect. The other thing that I thought was remarkable is that he would sit there and reportedly hit 1500 pitches a day until he figured out how to master the curve ball, which was really impacting his ability. And watching that same thing, it was pretty interesting. How many professional players thought, if he would have had more time, he would have definitely made it to the big leagues because of his work ethic. Yeah? Cut from his high school team the ability to be resilient and not get down. That's such a trade of the best.

22:11 Yeah, so in the book, you used a Greek word to describe the life we're meant to live. How did you come upon that word. And why did you find it so powerful? That's a great story, actually. So I'm in the desert. I go there to figure out what to do with my life. Had no plans. Just went to go live a life of solitude, and except for help, my friend Ricky with his batting baseball Academy, part time and I started to put together this little manual. I decided to become a personal coach to pro baseball players teach them how to have peace and confidence under pressure. My first two or three clients do amazing. And so I thought, okay, let's give them a little manual. And so I start to put that together, and I call up a sports psychologist and ask him, How can an Olympic athlete train for four years for an event that may last less than 60 seconds and have peace and confidence into that situation? And it brought

23:00 more questions than answers. So I call another and another, and another, and I spent five years full time writing and researching that question, and that became the book inner excellence. Along the way, I found out that the heart is the key to your life, your spirit, your will. We're far more than thinking machines. We got to get deeper. And I'm working on the book. And I asked this friend of mine from church, Jennifer. And I said, Jennifer, can you take a look at this manuscript? I want to make sure it lines up with the Bible. Make sure it's filled with wisdom and has no errors. She reads in her excellence. She said, I read your book. Have you ever heard of the word Zoe? I said, No. She said, that's a word in the Bible, a Greek word used a lot. It's the word for life, but it's not just any life. It's not the BIOS life, which is biologically alive. It's absolute fullness of life. And in the Bible, Jesus talks about it, John, 1010, I came to bring you life,

23:49 and life abundantly. And so that's the kind of life that she said, I think you're talking about. And I said, Yes, my whole life of obsessed about being some sort of a superstar. When I realized now, I've always wanted to feel fully alive, so I started to revolve my book around the pursuit of fullness of life and let everything else be added to you. So I'm doing this writing, this book, and then the book comes out, and I have a near mental breakdown. Five years of full time writing and research, spent my life savings, $90,000 in debt, and I go to I'm having this near mental breakdown.

24:21 I call my friend Ricky, who was there, and I said, Tell me what to do. Said, find a homeless person and help him. So I go find this homeless harpist right around the corner in Denver, the thing that King David used to play. You don't see these too often. And so I gave him some money, and I left and went to go running the treadmill back where I was staying, and just to try and breathe and get through the day I come back that same area a couple hours later, I'm so filled with anxiety at the time, I can't function just staring off into the abyss that homeless guy walks in, walks past me, stops in his tracks and said, 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.

25:00 He leaves, he comes back with a box of chocolates and a bracelet that he made and a card. He gives all three to me. And the card says, Thank you so much for caring for me. No one's cared for me like that. Love Zoe, Oh, my Lord. And so I'm like, your name is Zoe, and he's Yeah. And I said, Do you know your name means? He said, No. And I said, it means absolute fullness of life. I've studied that for five years. I just wrote a book about it, and I gave him a book, and I never saw him again. And that's when my life really dramatically changed, after that moment in the next few weeks.

25:31 Man, so how did AJ brown come about reading the book? Was it referred to him from something, yeah, I'll tell you what happened. About 1012, years ago, I started building houses with youth, with a mission, Homes of Hope in Mexico for a family. We're going to do one in November. Actually sold out, but we have them every year. And they told me, You got to meet this guy named Guy east. He's a former professional cyclist who brings pro athletes to come build houses for the poor in Mexico. And so I met guy, and guy and I become good friends, and then he says, Hey, there's a retreat coming up. This was like, two, three years ago, and there's an Anglican priest preaching. And I was like, Is Anglican even Christian? It was very secretive, and there's no website. And I was like, I don't know it's in the Appalachian foothills, but I go and I meet this director for athletes in action in Austin, named DJ Jared. And I was like, Man, this guy's amazing. It's like, oh, there's you got to talk

26:29 to one of my friends, Carson Foster is an Olympic hopeful. And I meet Carson, we start to work together. And amazing story. But DJ gives the book to morrow, a Jomo football player at University of Texas. He gets drafted by the Philadelphia Eagles. He reads the book, he sees his teammate and says, Hey, think you might like this book. AJ, and he did, and the rest is history. But I think when we think about the history, I want to make sure people don't get it confused when you say the rest is history. What I think is lives are changing all over the world, and they're going to really change in Philadelphia, because we're going to do some amazing things there.

27:11 There's, well, there's already amazing things going on with Shane Claiborne, my hero, in Kensington, and I met some amazing people there, doing great work in inner city Philly. I'm so excited for what we're going to do. That's what I'm saying, is this was the inflection point that brought this whole movement to awareness. And sometimes I think that's what it takes, is you just have this divine intervention, and then all of a sudden, it gives you that lightning rod to impact so many people, which your book is now doing. So throughout the book, something I liked is you have all these different stories, and one of them is you write about Joe Herman's shift from a win at all cost mentality to building a life built on relationships and purpose. And it was interesting because you use Joe's story as the entry point. But then you talk about coaches like wooden and Steve Golden State Warriors coach and others who you bring up that it's not Lou Holtz was another

28:13 one. It's not about at all, about when at all cost mentality, the wins will come. But that shouldn't be the focus yet for so many of us, we have a win at all cost. Mentality. We want success in life more than anything. I had this happen to me myself. I felt the most invisible in my life I've ever felt because I was chasing all the wrong things and neglecting the things in life that count the most. Why do you think so many of us today get stuck in the performance trap? It's super, super common. Well, it's because our greatest need is for love and acceptance. And the ego says. The Trickster says, if you are successful, you're going to get the love and acceptance that you want. And if you're not, though, then you're not, you're going to get rejected. And yeah, the obsession with winning is an obsession with acceptance. And ironically, that obsession with winning and acceptance creates the opposite effect. It creates

29:11 tension and fear. Nobody. It's hard to love someone who's full of tension and fear. Well, amen to that. One of the other stories I really liked in the book, because I must have been sleeping under a rock or something when this happened, because I was not aware of it. But you tell the story of Louis Gordon Pugh, and this, to me, was an amazing story, in part, because I have a good friend John Dolittle, who's been a guest on this show. John retired as a 06 Navy Seal, but he was the first navy seal to swim the English Channel. And John was telling me this story that, and I'll let you tell the story of Lewis. But he went during some of the warmest months possible to swim the English Channel, and he still said it was freezing beyond belief. It was like 4850 degrees. So he said that at no time when he was doing this 12 hour crossing, could you stop, or you would immediately go into hypothermia. And he said that there was this period of time he's

30:12 about a third of the way through. He wants to throw in the towel. And then he sees his dad on the bow of the boat that's pushing him forward, and he starts raising names of seals who have died in combat that John is swimming for. And John says that moment, and then seeing kind of the American flag relit his determination. And as he would swim further and further, the father kept putting up a different name and then a different name, and it's so related to Lewis's story and what you write about. So I was hoping you could share that using do story as a backdrop.

30:50 Sure, I am writing the book, and I'm in living in Canada, working with University of British Columbia men's golf team, and I see on the national newspaper The Globe and Mail front page this guy diving off an iceberg in a Speedo. And I'm like, What is this crazy person doing? This is before I'd ever heard of Wim Hof, and he swam one kilometer at the at the geographic North Pole to raise awareness for global warming. Because normally it's covered in meters of ice, but because of global warming, it's thawing. And so I interviewed him and his coach, because writing this book about inner excellence, and how do you achieve great things and have that peace and confidence under pressure and that was life threatening. Most people said it was impossible, physically impossible. The water was below freezing. If you can believe that, you might think, well, he'd be swimming in ice. Well, there was ice all around him, but because of salt water,

31:43 the water temperature was below 32 and yeah. So what he had to do, or his coach said, There's no way you're going to make it if you think, if you're thinking about one kilometer, we've got to break it down into smaller chunks. And this is so crucial we when we want to make changes in our life or want to attempt anything so often the first step is too big, and so we just got to make the first step smaller and smaller until we can do it. And so he had similar to your story, was they put up a flag every 100 meters, of people on his team from different countries. And he said, just focus on this 100 meters. You can't think past it. And that got him to the end. But also he had a purpose beyond himself, that he was willing to die for.

32:26 What I thought was so remarkable about it is he did two trials prior to doing the swim and and actually warmer water, and failed miserably both times. And yeah, he was actually extremely fearful. And as you write, as was the doctor who had to make the decision, could he do this or not? And what I thought was just so amazing is when they would put out the different flags for him, it was like he was swimming for Sweden. He was swimming for Norway, and eventually he was swimming for Britain, where he's from, but it gave him that sense that he's trying to bring awareness to climate change. But in each one of those segments, he was swimming for all the people in that country. So he used that greater pull to mentally get him his way through it. And I thought it was a great example of inner excellence coming to life, for sure.

33:17 And so I think it's really, it is significant, like you said, that he failed twice, greatly just before he went, and he was filled with fear the day he was going. And so fear is not the problem. Fear is not the enemy. Fear is has power. The problem is, when you're afraid of fear, great things happen when you're filled with nervous energy and fear. What stops people is they're afraid of fear. When I think of fear in my own life, I think about how many times I end up arsoning, the very things because I saw start doing self sabotaging actions, the very things that I want to accomplish. And sometimes that fear takes root because we will allow our mind to leap, as Lewis was, to like the end where he wants to go, instead of thinking I just have to take the first step. And I often think the reason most people never change their life is they get so fearful of what they think it's going to take to get to where they eventually want that they

34:30 never take the first step to begin with, and that is the hardest choice of them all to make, is to choose to take that step, to start going down The path of making your life different as you're coaching athletes and executives, etc. Do you find the same to be true? That's why we got to make it smaller and smaller and take and take that step. I actually call it the being the turtle effect. And I got this actually from Elon Musk and. The way I think about it is you have to have that vision of where you want to take things, kind of a slow moving sea turtle, but you have to execute your life like the bee who is constantly in action, taking small steps to serve the hive. And it's that combination of balance and both, if you can perfect it, that really gets you into the flow of life.

35:25 Yeah, I think the greatest challenge that we face in life today, other than self centeredness, is is the anxiety that comes from too many thoughts, from too many concerns and being too busy with too many things, that comes from not having a clear purpose for your life and being too busy and therefore too distracted. So you end the book talking about pursuing the path of inner excellence with all your heart. And if you do, you'll find the secret to everything you've ever wanted. For those who are listening to our conversation today, what is maybe the biggest thing that you want them to remember from our discussion and the purpose for you writing the book to begin with?

36:11 Well, self centeredness leads to fear, and what you really want most is to understand what your heart deeply wants is so important to feel fully alive. And fullness of life comes from relationships. Well, Jim, if people want to learn more about you, what you're doing in Philadelphia and other parts of the country, where's the best place for them to go? You can go to inter excellence.com. My website, we've got a newsletter, the VIP newsletter, which will be on sub stack here very soon. And or you can go on social media, inner excellence Jim Murphy and follow me there as well. Awesome.

36:42 Well. It was such an honor to have you on the show, Jim, thank you for writing this book and bringing your wisdom to our audience. Thanks so much, John. I really appreciate it.

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "This Is Why You FAIL Under Pressure | Jim Murphy"?

Donald C. Murphy (Guest).

What is "This Is Why You FAIL Under Pressure | Jim Murphy" about?

Jim Murphy discusses the impact of fear on performance, emphasizing that self-protection and comparison to others often lead to anxiety and potential failure. He advocates for a clear, intentional approach to life, highlighting love, wisdom, and courage as essential resources for overcoming challenges and achieving extraordinary personal growth.

What is mentioned in this John R. Miles episode?

12 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Inner Excellence, Donald C. Murphy, Zoe, Michael Jordan, Sean Foley, Homes of Hope. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "This Is Why You FAIL Under Pressure | Jim Murphy"?

The episode runs 37 min; the transcript is about 6,745 words in 46 timestamped sections.

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