Performance coach Jim Murphy explains to Shane Parrish the core realization behind his coaching philosophy and book Inner Excellence.
Insight
Murphy: Psychological stability is dictated by whatever you choose to worship
“You're only as stable as whatever you're worshiping. Like David Foster Wallace told us, everyone has a God. There's no atheists. Everyone worships something. There's something at the top in your, of your heart, and that's your God.”
Insight
Murphy: Presence beats confidence in equal-talent athletes by preventing carelessness
“If you have two athletes that are, or performers that are the same talent, I'll take the fully present person over the fully confident one every single time. Because when you're confident, you can get careless. And just look at how many times that someone that…”
Insight
Murphy: Human optimization requires addressing subconscious fears and desires
“If you want human optimization, we need to be holistic. We need to get deeper than just the mind. We need to go into the heart, into the subconscious, and so that's one of the, in the five years of full-time writing and research that became Inner Excellence, t…”
Insight
Jim Murphy: Hold external outcome goals loosely compared to internal character growth
“The third world of results and circumstances, I have goals there, like one goal was to be a New York Times bestselling author. But the crucial thing is, those are just temporary things that I don't even know if it's good for me. I mean, there's, we all have go…”
Insight
Murphy: 12-step programs succeed by targeting the ego as our biggest challenge
“I think it's so successful because it realizes that the ego, that part of our mind that's always threatened, always comparing, never satisfied, is our biggest challenge.”
Insight
Murphy: Surrendering control is much harder for successful and talented people
“And surrender is, is, is so hard, especially when you're talented. But at that moment, I felt like I had nothing. And so, to surrender nothing is, is much easier than to surrender a lot. You've got a successful life. It's very hard to surrender.”