Why fulfillment, not fame, is the ultimate victory: Jim Murphy on the heart of high performance

Performance coach Jim Murphy’s new book, Inner Excellence, distills the training system he has used to help world champions reach peak performance while living with purpose and fulfillment. In it, Murphy presents ten core principles that shape mindset—such as “self-centeredness is the root cause of fear,” “you are not your mind,” and “your life is a reflection of your beliefs”—and unpacks the three defining traits of extraordinary leaders across eleven chapters. Reeta Ramamurthy Gupta sat down with him to talk about his passions, philosophy, and the making of the book. Q. Have you been to India? I was coaching a golf client at the Indian open in Delhi. That’s when I came to India. Also visited Jaipur, the Taj Mahal in Agra. I was also introduced to the Bhagwad Geeta. I realized that the very core of the ‘Inner Excellence’ philosophy is outlined beautifully in the Geeta. Q. I can see that. One of the big messages in the book is to ‘ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life.’ One of the disciplines in Eastern philosophy is to ‘be still.’ ‘Training the heart’ is an Indian philosophy, because the human spirit is the most important part of you. This is very different from Western philosophy,which seems obsessed with being rich and famous. And this obsession with achievement creates tension and fear. Therefore, even when you get a chance to do what you want, you are gripped with fear, overwhelmed and incapable of pulling it off. I speak about the acronym PALMS to describe this in the book. (Possessions, Achievements, Looks, Money, Status). This phenomenon divides your heart and distances you from your true self. Q. You’ve also talked about ‘placing your security in things you cannot control. My great great-grandfather- Koyama Bunpachiro- a Samurai, lost everything in 1867 with the end of the Edo era and the beginning of the Meiji era of modernization. My life is a product of the choices my grandfather Yoshitaka Koyama made, when he saw his father lose power. He chose to empower others rather than having power over others. This is what we teach at Inner Excellence too. Humility gives you a more accurate view of the world. The less humble you are, the more you seek control.I spoke on this at length on the Rich Roll podcast- you should check it out. Rich himself has been through AA and rehab and these experiences have made him very grounded. Q. Winning is a by-product of learning to live decently. And you havegiven three pages of acknowledgments to prove it! We all want to win but are walking around with coping mechanisms in our pocket. Scrolling on reels, cigarettes, alcohol etc. We cannot accept that suffering is part of life. And yet, winning without pain, or constantly seeking to run away from discomfort and emotional pain, being unwilling to face it, may make us feel falsely proud and arrogant and we may overlook our shortcomings. Every athlete has to master their ego and become un-offendable, un-embarassable, and un-irritable. Q. So what are you focussing on when you train people? In my coaching, self-centeredness is the biggest challenge I face.Most people want transactional improvement- they say, ‘Make me world no.1; or make me ‘an Olympic champion’. What we teach is that only a rich inner life can get you there. You have to be comfortable being uncomfortable. The real distortion happens when your brain gives too much meaning to a pattern and starts exaggerating its effects or seeing it everywhere. The book is laced with meaningful anecdotes that explain Jim’s philosophy. He also quotes many other authors at opportune times. ‘Failure is a feeling, long before its an actual result,” said Michelle Obama in Becoming. Murphy also offers an alternative expansion for the abbreviation BFF (Belief, Focus, Freedom) as opposed to best friends forever, as the crucial characteristics to master any performance. Reeta Ramamurthy Gupta is a columnist and bestselling biographer. She is credited with the internationally acclaimed Red Dot Experiment, a decadal six-nation study on how ‘culture impacts communication.’ She is Asia's first reading coach, you can find her on Instagram @OfficialReetaGupta.