How To Perform Under Pressure—With Both Peace and Confidence | Jim Murphy

26:36It doesn't really matter. The truth is there is this power that we can all connect with. And that's what heart transformation does, connects with that. Let me see if I can state this in my own words and you tell me if I'm in the neighborhood, okay? When we're under pressure, so it could be for an athlete, big moment in a competition, but for a regular person could be giving a public presentation or having a tough conversation with our boss or our spouse or our kid, or it could be just going through a crisis in our lives. When we're under pressure and we need to perform, we are going to be better able to perform if we've designed our life for maximal peace and confidence.

27:18And if you want to design your life for maximal peace and confidence, you will learn how to be less focused on yourself, not in a catastrophically altruistic mode where you're in a hair shirt, but plugged into the quality of your relationships in a service mode. As I sometimes say, the view is better when you pull your head out of your ass, like just not so stuck on your own petty concerns. Not to say that you never worry about yourself, but this kind of notion from the the Dalai Lama, that wise selfishness really is about being in service to other people. And that gives you the calm, the perspective to perform your best under pressure.

28:01It doesn't mean you're going to nail it every time, but it does up the odds that you will perform. How am I doing? Yeah, it's very, very good, very close, if not exact. So the human heart is created for love. our greatest need is for love and connection. Most people spend their entire lives trying to get more, as I talk about inner excellence, more possessions, more achievements, better looks, more money, more status, their whole life trying to get these things improved so they can get that love and connection that they desperately want. And most people don't know that's why they're doing it. They just know that I'll feel better if I get this.

28:40And at least they think they'll feel better if I get these things. And so they're desperately trying to get that. And so the opposite of what we want most is rejection. And you've actually spent 48 hours in a place where the American penal system has understood this basic concept. The greatest punishment is solitude. It's this, you can't talk to anyone, see anyone, you're by yourself. How would you describe that? Well, just to give some context, you're referring to the time that back when I was a TV news reporter, I spent 48 hours in solitary confinement in the Denver County Jail as part of a story on whether solitary confinement is a humane thing to do in a corrections setting or any setting.

29:28This is a guy that goes all out, obviously. Yes. Yeah. Less so now, at least not in that way. Yeah, I think it's a horrible punishment. It goes right back to what you said before. Or it's funny because I was listening to you say these words and I was thinking this is the type of language that the old me would have just either reflexively rejected or tuned out or had some sort of gag reflex. When you say the human heart is designed for love, that is actually not a hallmark empty sentiment. If you think about it through the lens of evolution, and I'm not sure where you are on evolution, but if you think about it through the lens of how we developed as a species, we survived because we have this capacity to work together, to communicate, collaborate, cooperate.

30:13And so in that sense, the human heart really is designed for love because without love, we're screwed. We're eaten by the tiger 100 % of the time. And so, yeah, when you take that away in a pandemic or in a correctional setting, bad things happen to the human mind and heart. Yeah, and I think, you know, in many ways, we're always evolving. And so I think, to me, that's really, it doesn't matter. The truth is, like we talked about, very empirical, the truth is, just think about the greatest moments in your life. What did you feel? Like, there's love, right? These are the greatest moments in anyone's life.

30:51there's this love. And what's the greatest starro is when that love is gone. I mean, it doesn't take a scientist to understand this. One of the things I talked about a lot on the show is that I have panic disorder and I get really bad claustrophobia. And I've been doing a lot of exposure therapy in airplanes. And one of the things that my exposure therapist had me do was to make my wallpaper on my phone or my lock screen or whatever, a picture from the night before I retired where my son and wife were hugging me. There's sort of a cheesy concept or a cliched concept of safe place. What's your safe place?

31:33What's your happy place? That's what it is for me. And I think that is kind of universal. If we all interpolate back through our lives and think about, as you said before, when are you the most happy, the most fulfilled? It's going to be when you feel connected. Can I share something you mentioned about, you called it my claustrophobia and panic or something? What do you think about not calling it yours? I think that would be a really helpful move. In America today and around the world, there's so much anxiety. And one of the first things that I do when I work with somebody is I help them speak the truth.

32:10This is one of the nine disciplines of inter-excellence, it's not in the book, is to speak the truth about the past to create possibilities in the future. And so we want to make sure that we don't put labels on ourselves that we don't want to be in the future, and we don't say anything present tense that we don't want to continue. And so it's very common for people to say, my anxiety, because they identify with it so closely that it's been so much a part of their lives, they start to own it as mine. And so as soon as we say, the anxiety that I've had, now the subconscious, which is running your life, is like, it's not mine.

32:43It's starting to break from that a little bit. It's very similar to be under the waterfall. Behind the waterfall. Yes, thank you. Where we got this separation, we're kind of watching the thoughts. We want to make sure that we attach, we'll get into this, to what is eternal and powerful and detach from what is not. Same ideas, we don't want to put these labels on ourselves that we don't want to continue. I can tell you a quick example. A friend of mine, an Olympic athlete, was telling me about his day and talking about his sleep. And he said he woke up in the middle of the night and then he says, no big deal.

33:20And I said, oh, you woke up? He's like, yeah, every night. It's always no big deal. My whole life has been like that. I'm used to it. I was like, oh, okay. Is this something you want to continue? And he said, no. And I said, can you do me one favor tonight before you go to bed? Rather than saying, you know, I wake up every night, I want you to say, I'm very grateful for being able to sleep through the night every night. Since then, since the last time I talked to him, that's been his reality. Sleeps through the night every night. Now, this is Mr. Skeptical Newsman empirical evidence. I'm not saying this will happen to you.

33:56I'm just telling you what happened to one person and how powerful it is. Beliefs is what's running your life. And beliefs come from what you think, say, and feel, especially what you feel. And so we want to make sure that what we say, like I said, when someone wants to work with me, the first thing we do is make sure their language is empowering, especially what they say to themselves. Well, there's so much in there for me to react to as I'm trying to line the planes up on the runway to get them to take off in the right order. First of all, I think it's setting aside the story about the sleep.

34:27I don't think there's any question, but that the unconscious has an enormous effect on our lives and that we can use our conscious mind to have an impact on what our unconscious mind believes. And that could be very powerful. The second thing to say is that one modality for that is using language really skillfully. and your point about my anxiety reminded me of a teaching that I've heard many times from Joseph Goldstein, who's my meditation teacher I've worked with for a long time. And he often gets people to do this little linguistic trick that I suspect you'll like. Instead of saying, I am angry or I am fill in the blank, there is anger or there is sadness.

35:17Then it becomes much more workable. You're not so identified with it. You're not so owned by it. It's a meteorological phenomenon as opposed to some sort of innate aspect of you. Does that make sense? Yeah, well said. Coming up, Jim talks about cultivating non-attachment to results, how to relanguage the story you tell yourself about yourself, practical tools for inner excellence, a crucial life question that everybody should be asking themselves, how to be less afraid of fear, and more.

35:53you said something before about attaching and detaching, and you made a reference to maybe we should come back to that. Yeah, so we'll say more, please. So people come to me, pro athletes mostly, but everybody, they come to me because they want better results in circumstances, better outcomes. And the problem is that we have this single story in our lives of how we think things should be. and when they don't go that way, because we get attached to it, because our identity is involved, then we run into problems like frustration and fear and anxiety and stress. But the truth is, say we look at your top 10 goals for Dan Harris.

36:38Are you 100 % sure that those top 10 goals are good for you and your family? No. I believe that the top 10 things that you have, like say your top 10 goals, and the top 10 things that you think would be the worst for you and your family, it's possible they could be flip-flopped. The worst things could be the best things for you. The things that you think are the best could be the worst. Right. So sometimes I think about my business failing and me having to sell the house. I literally was having a negative fantasy about this this morning, stepping out of the shower. I was thinking about the business fails.

37:13I have to sell the house. How am I going to explain that to my son. And what you're saying is maybe actually the thing that I'm fearing the most would be the best thing. Could be the very best thing for you, for sure. Yeah. And this is really important for you to know going forward, that for sure could be the very best thing for Alexander. To watch his father endure adversity. Yeah. To learn and grow. There's so many more aspects to it. So you sell your house, Now you're going to move into a new neighborhood because, you know, Alexander's a huge part, if not the most significant part of his growth is his peers, right?

37:54At least that's what Malcolm Gladwell said, that the book that influenced him the most, who I love as an amazing writer, The Nurture Assumption, that was the assumption that your peers influence your kids more than you do as a parent. And so it's possible that if this happened, he goes to another neighborhood and the peers there or some kid or some parent influences him in the most dramatic way that changes his life for the better. Is that possible? Possible. Absolutely. Yeah, all these things are possible, but we get so caught up in, it's like June 7th, 2004, on the set of Good Morning America.

38:30The way you described it was, I knew with rock solid certainty that I had a panic attack in front of 5.019 million people, right? Your command of my biography is really impressive, but carry on. And so I watched that multiple times and I thought, I would bet 95 % of the people did not know you had a package. I would agree with that. And so, but your version, your belief was rock solid. Yes. Right? And as you said. And so it doesn't matter what happened. What matters is what you believe. And in that moment, you believed that. And so that most horrible thing that you probably feared the most, I would guess, one of the things you feared the most actually happened.

39:18Fear is a very powerful energy. But then what happened? It became this life-changing thing for millions around the world. I've been dining out on it ever since. Yeah. So I think what I'm hearing you say, at least I think there are two things that I'm hearing, but please correct me. One is that we can't get overly attached to some specific vision of how we want the world to be, how we want our lives to be, because first of all, that vision may be wrong. And second, and relatedly, it kind of leads to an inner clench. were too locked up around this particular vision and therefore can't respond well to things as they are.

40:03Well, I never tell people what to do. I ask a lot of questions about their life to see what they really want, and then I help them get it and share if this is really the situation that you're in right now, rather than saying this is what you should do. But yeah, that's correct. And the other thing I was hearing you say is just about the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves. And you've made multiple references to this, that you work with people to kind of relanguage their stories about themselves. Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah, for sure. So one of the biggest reasons that people do not reach their potential is because the story they have about themselves and their past, they're not willing to let go.

40:41Either they don't know how to let go or they're not willing, one of the two. And so inter-excellence is about expanding what you believe is possible and becoming someone you've never been before. I mean, the number one goal every day for inter-excellence is to learn and grow, which by definition means you're going to become someone you've never been. And so in order to do those things, it's like in baseball, to steal second base, you got to let go first. And most people are not willing to let go of their past because they're so afraid of, if I let go of my past, if I let go of who I've been, and who will I be?

41:14And they'll lose their identity. And your identity is one of the most important, what I talk about in my retreats, the five deepest needs of the human heart is your identity is one of them. So how can we get better at using language to empower instead of ossify or stick us in place? Well, let's look at what you called your claustrophobia and your panic attacks. If I was working with you, I would say, do you want to continue the claustrophobia and panic attacks? No, thank you. I never assume. I just always want to make sure that I'm helping you get what you want most. and so if you don't want to the first thing would be was like we said we never call it yours either one and so you would always say my past tense the anxiety that you've had in the past the claustrophobia you had in the past never say it is mine and never say it is what i have make sense we could do a little test right now actually if if we got a moment of course yeah So, I want you to say the claustrophobia that I have and panic attacks that I'm having.

42:19Say that out loud and see how it feels inside. The claustrophobia I have and panic attacks I have. Yeah. So, see how that feels. And then now I want you to say the panic attacks I had in the past and the claustrophobia I had in the past. Right. The panic attacks I've had in the past and the claustrophobia I've had in the past. and see how that feels. Do they feel identical? No, definitely not. Beliefs are feelings. And so to expand what you believe is possible, we need to make sure we're saying empowering things. Like for example, the thing that you say every morning when you wake up, my purpose is to make incredible stuff.

43:01Although you didn't use the word stuff. No, I didn't. And so I don't use that word only because I'm maybe hyper-focused on saying only empowering things for me and others. And I just want to make sure that every word out of my mouth, I'm not saying I'm good at it. That's another thing. I'm not saying I'm an expert at anything, really. It's just that I try to make sure that the words that I use are empowering about myself and others. so i just want to nudge you to say a little bit more about why that's so important and how it works in terms of the messages it's sending to your unconscious and to your body that this isn't just being language police there's a real purpose here beliefs are what's running your life beliefs come from everything you think feel and say especially what you feel and your feelings are going to come largely from your thoughts and the words that you use.

43:52When you say the claustrophobia I have, your subconscious goes and looks for it. Oh yeah, okay, like a month ago, a year ago, yeah, okay. So it looks for the memories and then the patterns like, okay, got it. That's exactly what we don't want it to do, but that's what happens. As soon as you say that I had in the past your subconscious, because it's got two main rules, to protect you and to line up your results and circumstances with what you believe. And so as soon as you say that's in the past, your subconscious is like, okay, what's next? Give me more. But as soon as you say, this is who I am, this is what I have, then it's like, okay, I got that.

44:31I know how to do that one. We grab onto that one, bring it from the past into the present, which is obviously what we don't want to do, which you're not going to do anymore. This reminds me a little bit of this communications technique, this technique I got from my communications coaches. So that's going to sound like a strange phrase, communication coaches, but for the last seven years, I've been working with this fantastic couple, Dan Klerman and Mudita Nisker, and they teach people how to communicate better. Not all of it for the reasons that you're articulating, but some of it for sure. You know, some of it is just about having better relationships, which is really important, but some of it is like, how are you talking to yourself about yourself or to others about yourself?

45:10Because that can, it can create a reality that you don't want. And so they have this concept called provisional language, which takes into account that everything's changing all the time. So instead of saying things are this way or this is going to happen, you just get better at using words like maybe or perhaps or probably or possibly as a way to – and I notice as I do this, my nervous system feels better because there's a subtle pain to dogmatism, to certainty. But actually, if you're just getting yourself in the habit of talking about things provisionally, tentatively, it aligns you with reality and it feels better.

45:51So anyway, that's a lot to say. Does it land with what you're saying? Yeah, absolutely. So since January 12th, I don't know how many flights I've taken, say 20. I would say at least two thirds of them have changed since when we book it and then the one I take has changed. And so I remember I was in Madrid and someone said, when are you leaving? And I said, I've got a flight tomorrow to Seattle. am I getting on the plane? I don't know. I don't know what God's going to do. And so I no longer, I try to not any longer say, yes, I'll be here then. And this is what I'm going to do. I'm saying, this is the schedule or this is the plan.

46:25And then I always try to add, you never know what God's up to. You said before that I was maybe obsessed with empirical evidence, which I think is maybe true, but what I'm even more obsessed with is giving people in this context, I mean, listeners, or viewers, practical things to do. So if it's cool with you for the remainder of our time, I would like to focus on practical steps people can take toward inner excellence. As I say those words, are there exercises that pop into your mind that you want to talk about? Well, the first thing I think about when I work with someone is how do you want to feel in your life?

47:00So if we start with you, how do you want to feel in your life? When you're in studio, in Gotham Studios. How do you want to feel? Gotham Studios is where we're working today. It's funny, the answer that came into my head immediately is so not what I would have said before because, not what I would have said maybe 10 years ago even because it's going to sound a little cheesy. Side note, I heard a great expression right here on the show once. If you can't be cheesy, you can't be free. Unembarrassable. Unembarrassable. yeah there's something to that the answer that i was going to say is uh connected you know powerful yeah and it goes right back to what you said about the human heart being designed for love the first time i heard there's some i think it was em forrester or somebody some great writer has these words this kind of exhortation only connect as a life guide only connect and i thought I was a little overwrought the first time I heard it, but I'm growing into a conviction that that actually is pointing at something crucial.

48:06Powerful. I like it. Okay. So you want to feel connected. So this is the first thing that I do want to work with somebody is I want to know how they want to feel in their life because we're going to start to design habits of thought and action around getting that feeling more and more often. And because essentially I have a good idea, even though we met before we're friends, but what you want even before I met you. But you can tell me if I'm wrong or how far off am I. You'd like to live a life with amazing experiences and deep enriching relationships where you're learning and growing and making a difference in the world.

48:38Because I already know that, that's kind of like the human, inter-excellence is about human optimization. I already know that most people, like we're all going to want to walk in love, not fear, for example. And so I help them learn, okay, what do I really want? I think I want to have this podcast that's number one in the world and just getting more and more viewers and more and more money and just happily ever after. That's what I think I want. What I try to do is help you understand what you really want is not that circumstance or outcome. What you really want is to live a certain life, this meaningful life that has these amazing experiences and deep, enriching relationships.

49:14relationships and so we do that by starting off with how you want to feel connected and one of the big challenges that people run into is is when they're not really clear on how they want to feel in their life and then they let trivial things take them out of that feeling and so get cut off in traffic or any sort of circumstance that they didn't have time for then you know they lose that connection and so I want to know how you want to feel and how you want to live like how you want to face adversity like we talked about earlier and the type of person you want to become so then we're going to design your life around that.

49:46And that's really what inter-excellence is. And then there's tools. A tool is something that you do in the moment. I'm frustrated. I'm afraid, nervous. What do I do right now? I'm just not present. What do I do in the moment? So we would use a tool. But this is all under the overarching theme of I want to learn and grow and become someone that lives this meaningful, fulfilling life. I want to get to the tools in a second, but your sounds like the foundational move that somebody at home could do right now is to ask themselves the crucial question, like, how do I want to feel in whatever remains of my life?

50:19Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And then so you can just think about it like the best moments in my life. What does it felt like? If you're a parent, maybe it's with your kids or if you have a dog or usually it's some aspect of love. So then once you come to that answer, you look at your life circumstances and say, how can I design, how can I optimize for more of the good stuff? Yeah, and so I want to learn and grow to become a sort of person that feels connected more often. And so what adds to that and what takes away from it? And so, like, for example, being attached to results and circumstances, this can take away from it, obviously, because so much is out of our control.

50:59And so that's where I said we want to attach to something that's eternal and empowering, not things that are temporary. So it's something that would be an eternal is given that the human heart is designed for love. I want to feel more of that. That's a good thing to attach to. Yeah. And joy comes from love. And so this is something we haven't talked about yet, but I think would be helpful is 10 % happier is the name of the podcast. So I define happiness as a positive temporary feeling based on what's happening. And I define joy as a deep sense of well-being, freedom and gratitude, independent of circumstances, an inner buoyancy and delight that comes from love.

51:42this is what I how I define joy and I think the thing that would help people the most that are focused on meditation or stoicism or asceticism buddhism is to understand that joy is one of the most powerful forces in the universe we need joy to thrive we're created for joy this joy comes from sacrificial love. And so if you want to have more joy, that kind of that I described, it's living this life of love. You use that term sacrificial love early in this interview, and I made a mental note to come back to it. This strikes me as a type of thing that could be easily misunderstood. There's a term that Tibetans, who are big fans of compassion, but they use this term idiot compassion.

52:31You could hear a term like sacrificial love and go right to, I think I said this before, like catastrophic altruism or people-pleasing or something like that. Can you say a little bit about that? Yeah, sure. So personally, I love high fives and hugs. But if I spend my whole time high-fiving and hugging everybody, I'm not going to get anywhere. I want to make a difference in the world. I told you how I want to live and feel like everyone else. Unconditional love has strict boundaries. And so in the Bible, it talks about give to all who ask, which is what I try to do. however it doesn't say give what they ask to everybody and so what i try to do is give to all who ask is give them what i think is the most loving thing and thinking of the group first and so sacrificial love you can think about as a five-year-old my nephew boaz he's six now like if he asked me can i go play out on the highway it doesn't matter if he asked me 10 times or 100 times, it's going to be no every single time because sacrificial love has strict boundaries.

53:31So to me, love is the most powerful force in the universe. It's completely fearless. That's where I think this Buddhist ideal can really come into play here is selfless is fearless. The problem that we have as humans is that we're naturally self-centered, which leads to fear. We need to think about ourselves to get through life. But the problem is when we're constantly thinking about ourselves. Now our subconscious, which is designed to protect us, which is always on the lookout, it reminds us of our failures and our weaknesses. And we don't like to feel like a failure or weak. So then we look around to compare.

54:04Then the ego says, oh yeah, look at that person, look at that person. But there's always someone that has more better things than you. So then it goes down to this road of anxiety and frustration because our deepest need, the ego knows your deepest need is for love and connection. And so if I'm lining up a putt or if I have a podcast that I really want to be successful. If I do it well, if I make the pot, if it's successful, I'm going to get the love that I want, theoretically. If I don't, I'm not going to get the love that I want, which is the worst possible thing. What you're describing completely lands for me that we get into fear and insecurity because we're outsourcing our self-worth to something not eternal, to use your language.

54:47So the work around here is because I can imagine people listening to this and saying, well, that's very hard to undo that wiring. But it sounds like what you're saying is that actually, you know, it really starts with what we've already been discussing, which is asking yourself, how do you really want to feel? Anchoring that to something true and abiding as opposed to temporary and unreliable and designing your life from there. Am I saying this? Yeah. And then there's, there's a lot of tools, like, for example, the four daily goals is something that we can talk about. Please, I want to hear about it.

55:18So, like I said earlier, the number one goal every day is to learn and grow. We want to learn and grow in what I call love, wisdom, and courage. Love, because selfless is fearless, and wisdom, which is this deep connection to possibilities to God and the universe and to others and to self, connection to beauty. Or, as I also describe 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. If I'm talking to a Buddhist or a atheist, I probably wouldn't add that last part because I don't want them to shut me out. The third part, courage. I think that's the biggest superpower that we all have the access to.

56:03Like Tom Cruise said, you know, he's famous for his doing all these stunts and being this megastar. The difference I think between myself, Tom saying, and others is I'm afraid, but I'm not afraid to be afraid. And when I heard that, I was like, boom, that is so powerful. Are you willing to face your fears? Are you willing to have this feeling that you've been afraid that you didn't want to feel? Are you willing to have that feeling? And the great question to ask is, are you willing to face any feeling? Because if you're willing to face any feeling, then you got possibilities. And I think panic attacks often happen because of the fear of certain feelings.

56:41And like, oh, I just, my day will be fine as long as I don't get that one feeling that I hate the most. And so what I do and help people overcome mental blocks, for example, is that we go look for the feeling that they hate because that's our teacher. Where we're the most uncomfortable, that's the edge of our beliefs of what's possible in our lives. That's showing you, it's like you want to live an extraordinary life. Here's the edge. Are you willing to sit in this discomfort? Are you going to run? And if you're willing to sit in it, then the fear goes away. Well, the fear diminishes, I should say.

57:10As somebody who's in the middle of extended exposure therapy to my ear. It's exactly what you're describing. I've been taking these airplane flights with my exposure therapist, once I did it with my wife, where I don't take any medicine and I just, you know, meaning I don't take any anti-anxiety medicine, which I've been using for flights, and I just feel the panic. They're like, really sit in the panic, which is extraordinarily uncomfortable. Well, I can tell you something about that. we'll get to the four goals after this. But exposure therapy can be very helpful. I think it's helped a lot of people.

57:44The only thing is I think it's a very slow way to go through this and it doesn't help everybody. I'm open to both of those possibilities. But I was just going to say that the realization I had on the fourth flight was I'm probably going to panic today. But like, okay. That's powerful. You're like, okay, that's okay. I can, that's really powerful. I'm less afraid of the fear. Yeah. Yeah. One other thing about that, people that have some sort of a phobia, for example, it came from an experience that you had in your life. And so what I would do, or someone that's better than me would do, my background is in neurolinguistic programming.

58:23Anthony Robbins, you're probably familiar with how he started. I don't actually, I've heard that term NLP many times. I don't actually know what it is. Yeah. So Anthony Robbins kind of made it famous, but it's really a study of the subconscious mind. And a lot of what I learned came from that. So with phobia, there's this experience that you had at some point in your life, you may not even remember it, where all of a sudden the belief became airplanes are scary. And so what I would do or someone that's better than me would do in NLP would ask you, how do you want to feel in your life? And how do you not want to feel?

58:56And then the feeling that you've gotten in the past on airplanes, that's how you don't want to feel. We would look through that. When have you had that feeling through your whole life? And we'd go to the earliest, most strongest negative feeling when you've had that exact feeling that you got on the planes. And we would rewire that feeling, that memory from maybe you're 10 years old and something happened. And I don't know if you remember it or not, but when you started to become afraid of, in the past, afraid of planes. Coming up, Jim talks about his four daily goals, the expect nothing tool, and much more.

59:35Okay, so the four goals? Yes, the four daily goals. So the first one is to give the best of what you got each day. And so understanding that some days you're only going to have 30 or 40 % of your best. This is important to understand. A lot of days we're not going to be very good results-wise, skill-wise. We're just not going to be great. And so the reason people really struggle, a lot of it is because they don't assess themselves and understand, I've got all this adversity happening right now. there's stress, whatever. And I may not be very good today, but that's okay. All I can do is give my best.

1:00:07And so if you recognize that I'm just going to give the best of what I have, because we want to have four goals that we can control, because there's so much out of your control in the world today. And so the first one is to give the best of what you have. And then the second one is to be present. There's no fear in the present. Fear is a future self-centered thing. And so when I say present, what I mean at the highest level, this fully engaged heart, mind, and body unattached to what you're trying to do, there's a real sense of freedom and joy and a sense that anything's possible. It's far more than I think some psychologists say of just like being where your feet are.

1:00:43To me, what we're going for is something far beyond that, this amazing connected feeling. That's two, it's work on being present. And because when you're fully present, like I said, there's no fear, no concern for self. There's no self-protection, any of those things that lead to fear. And then three is gratitude. Gratitude is directly linked, so be grateful, directly linked to inner peace and inner strength. And then four, focus on your routines and only what you can control. And how do you recommend people effectuate this, that they get up in the morning and is it akin to the five daily remembrances, which I still haven't explained?

1:01:24How do you get this into your life in an abiding way. Inter-excellence is really a series of habits of thought and action. And so from the moment we wake up, we're starting to put in these routines. Like for example, music. Music is a big one for me because music has such a powerful impact on how we feel. And so when I wake up, I want music that's connected to my purpose and how I want to feel. I have a playlist in my morning playlist. I'm going to play the same playlist every day in the same order. and I got this from Tim Ferriss. Essentially, we don't want to make any decisions the first hour.

1:01:57We want to have that first hour of your day kind of pre-planned. Like I want to know what my purpose is. I want to have music that lines me up with that purpose, gets me feeling a certain way. And then I'm going to do whatever it is with hydration and exercise and meditation, these sort of things. So as it pertains to the four daily goals, would you write them down and put them up on the wall? Yeah. Okay, that's a great question. So you write them down and then you're going to grade yourself every day. Say a scale of one to five, for example, five is the best. How did I do on giving the best? At the end of the day.

1:02:29Yeah, end of the day. And how did I do on being present and being grateful and focusing on my routines and only what I can control? Just to say the five daily remembrances, which you've referenced and I've also referenced several times. I might mangle this, but my understanding, these are five things that the Buddha said you should remember or call to mind. And I think once in the morning, once in the evening, there was a teacher on the show, a meditation teacher showed up on the show several months ago, Vinny Ferraro, who was talking about this. And I've now tried to get it into my life twice a day.

1:03:03So the five are, this body is of the nature to get old, to grow old. This body is of the nature to get sick. This body is of the nature to die. The fourth is, I will someday lose everything and everyone I hold dear. And then the fifth is the only real possessions I have are my actions. And I found it really helpful. And these four daily goals seem like a cousin in that, you know, when you wake up in the morning and you've got your morning routine, you want to be thinking about these four north stars for your day. And at the end of the day, you want to come back to them and think, okay, how did I do?

1:03:37What can I learn? Yes. And the fifth remembrance of all I have is my actions. my concern is that what if your actions weren't very good which being human means that's going to happen a lot or for example if you're a pro baseball player what if you went over four and you know made an error and had a couple strikeouts so you're going to be like oh what a terrible day and so the way i think about it is you're responsible for two things your effort and your heart, not your results. To me, actions and results are so closely intertwined. So I wouldn't say you're not responsible for your actions because in a way you are, like it's so closely tied to your decisions, but your results, now that's different.

1:04:22Yeah. I think in the Dharma and Buddhism that there is a clear separation between action and results. And there is, as you discussed before, a kind of idea of not being attached to the result and instead being focused on the effort and crucially your motivation during that effort. So I believe that what the Buddha was talking about is fully consonant with what you're talking about. Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah, for sure. And motivation is a huge emphasis in the idea of karmic unfolding or the law of cause and effect. It doesn't mean that if you have a good motivation, the outcome will necessarily be positive, but it's just, if you think of karma, and again, And not in a metaphysical sense, just as I said a moment ago, the law of cause and effect, what leads to what?

1:05:08This happens, so this happens. Then when motivation becomes really important in your unfolding of your life, because it will have, it may be over my skis now, but I think it ups the odds that you'll have a positive result. And even if it's not the result that you had in mind, it's more likely to be wholesome or beneficial. Am I making sense in these ramblings? Yeah, that's great. Okay. All right, well, in our remaining time, let's do some more practical tools because your book is filled with them. I can look at my list of questions or you can say whatever's popping into your head of what you'd want to discuss.

1:05:44So, yeah, I'll give you – so I was doing more meditation. In my life, I do this meditation, which is like a tool or a habit or routine. You can think of it as a tool. I have this 10 to 20 minutes with – I think of it as time with God. And so in that time, the way I do it is I put on my timer, say like this morning it was 10 minutes, put my countdown timer on 10 minutes. As soon as I see it hit 9.59, then I'm putting it away. So I don't have to think about how much time's left. And then I'm putting on this music that's connecting me to my purpose and to God that I feel really connected. And again, it's the same music.

1:06:18This is different than my morning playlist, different playlist. It's the same music every single time in the same order. And this is important. And so a lot of people, they wake up and they're like, okay, how am I feeling? What do I want to listen to? And they start scrolling. So I think this is a mistake. So I think it's way more powerful to think about these things that we've talked about. Like, what's my purpose? How do I want to live? How do I want to feel? Who do I want to become? And start to arrange your life around that, like with your music. Because the music is not just, I'm bored, I want to not be bored.

1:06:48It's doing two things. It's aligning you with your purpose and it's programming your mind. We're getting the words of the person that you want to become into your mind. And so every day. And so I have this, turn on the timer for 10 minutes, I put on the music, and then I sit there and it's this prayerful meditation. And I have this thing that I got from a friend of mine, Ken Shigematsu in Vancouver, BC. And he says, and this is God talking to Jim. Jim, you are the beloved, like someone that I love, in whom I delight. And so I repeat that over and over for 10 minutes. It's just like meditation, right?

1:07:23Your mind starts to wander. And so like today, I don't know, I've probably said it maybe 10 times. Like our greatest need is for love. If you don't feel that love when you start your day, what are you going to do when you go out? You're going to try and get it. How? Generally from what I call the palms, possessions, achievements, looks, money, status. You're going to try and be someone who deserves love. but then the problem is you could do everything right and they may reject you do everything right and your boss may not like it and you know way too much out of your control and so then it leads to this obsession frustration etc this cycle whereas let's say if you don't believe in god it's really connecting with having a purpose beyond yourself where understanding that love is the most powerful force in the universe and because you do the loving kindness meditation this is very similar But to have this purpose, I want to walk in love and share that with the world.

1:08:21This is really powerful. Would I be correct in saying that what you're doing here is kind of teaching your nervous system and your unconscious that you're safe so that you're not scrambling for what you call the palms all the time? Now we're getting into what we talked about, like the heart transformation. So it's daily transforming the subconscious. Security would definitely part of it. You're not there trying to be someone that other people can love. And I would imagine when you're going through a difficult day, like before the game on January 12th, when your mother is desperately ill and work life isn't going the way you wanted and you're a little lonely in a town that's not your home, having taught your nervous system that you're okay, that you're loved, allows you to perform well in extremis.

1:09:14extremists. Yeah. Well, it really comes down to like, what is the purpose of your life and what are you doing all this for? Why are you doing the podcast? And what is my life about? Is it about, so Jim Murphy can have certain pleasure and things and be somebody like, what is that? What am I all about? And like, I think the whole understanding that selfless is fearless. I want to go out into my day every day where there's no concern for self. And you've used the term self-referential a lot, right? So this is kind of the human condition. It's so self-referential, which I say in inter-excellence leads to fear, this constant referring to self, because there's so much out of our control.

1:09:52And we try to build this security, but they become walls that imprison us. And so the best possible life is a life of deep connection to others, where you're serving and connecting to others. But, you know, one of the things that I'm so attracted to vis-a-vis my own tattoo that you referenced earlier, F-T-B-O-A-B, for the benefit of all beings, is that A, the penultimate letter there, all beings, includes me. So self-interest is not off the table. And yet you're saying, and this kind of goes back to sacrificial love, and I want to walk through the day, as you just said, with no concern for self.

1:10:30And yet you're putting out books, you're starting a podcast, like you have to have some concern for self. Yeah, so now we can talk about the wise selfishness from the Dalai Lama. Being human means that you're going to be thinking about yourself. What I know is that the more I think about self, the more chance I have to move towards anxiety and fear. but it's just like when i'm coaching an athlete or a team our goal is to win a championship we don't need to talk about it i don't need to say jim look out for self like that's inherent i'm gonna i'm just being human i'm gonna look both ways when i cross the street and feed myself and whatever the problem is not me losing concern for self the problem is my concern for self turns into fear.

1:11:15This is the issue. So how does that work practically? You can put out as many books and start as many podcasts as you want, but you try to the best of your ability to have your overarching goal. Can I interrupt for one second? Please. I'm thinking about Dan's book and his career, 21 years in ABC and how he was like, Peter Jennings is like, okay, Dan, you're going to take over the religion section or whatever. And then you're like, Peter, do you know where I grew up and who I grew up to? Like my parents said, there's no Santa and there's no God when I was nine. And so I think you got the wrong guy.

1:11:54And then it led to this life-changing experience. And so as you're saying that, I was thinking about your life and how... Sorry to interrupt. Go ahead. Go again. It's okay. I think what you're saying is you can take action in the world. You can build your own career. but if you can frame it as a service, like, okay, I, Jim Murphy, I'm going to start my own podcast in the future. I, Jim Murphy, I'm going to put out a couple more books in the not too distant future. But the goal is not for the aggrandizement of Jim. It is for the benefit of all beings. Yeah, very well said. It's like one of the big challenges that a lot of, say, Christian pro athletes have.

1:12:35Like, how do I devote my life to God, but also try and be world number one? To me, I think it's a state of your heart. Like, why am I doing these things, podcasts coming out and writing more books, etc.? Is it for me? And this is the default that it's going to be for me. What I'm saying is that this is not the best possible life. this sort of selfish bent is going to hurt me in the long run, at least compared to a selfless life. And so the selfless life is a fearless life. It's the best possible life. Most people spend most of their day judging self, circumstances, or others. And this creates a negative energy.

1:13:19They lose their vision. They lose their creativity because they're concerned for self. and this is most people, most of the time, most of my life has been like this. And I don't want to live like this. I want to have deep contentment, joy and confidence every day of my life is how I want to live. And through how I understand the universe is created, how it works, this is the best way to do it. Right. But I think where it gets tricky for me in my own life is, and this is really, I think, part of the art of life is, because we do need to take care of our needs and pay our mortgage and things like that.

1:13:55We can't be utterly selfless in the way most people understand that word. We do have to look out for our own interests to a certain extent, but that can be a very slippery slope. And so where would you say is the part where you can't be selfless? Where does that intersect? It's not that I can't be selfless. It's that it's just very easy for my old conditioning to kick in. when I'm thinking about, okay, what projects should I take on and why? Should I write this next book? Why? What's my motivation really? I do have to kind of police myself pretty consistently so that I'm not being carried away by the lesser angels of my own nature, which are deeply wired in.

1:14:39Does that make sense? Yeah. So where was the point where being selfless would lead you away from being able to achieve or live a great life? Because I think that's what you were saying earlier. Yes. I think it may be in how you're understanding selfless, right? Because I think most people hear that word and they think, I can't have any thoughts for myself. I can't design a life where I'm happy. But what I think what you're saying is, well, if you understand happiness or joy or wellbeing, human flourishing as being of service and of benefit, well, then it all works together. And in that context, start as many podcasts as you want.

1:15:18Be as ambitious as you try to be world number one at whatever you want, but frame it as altruism, selflessness. Well, yeah. And when you say frame it, I think what you mean and what I mean is why are you doing it? Because if like, for example, the inner excellence mindset is I compete to raise the level of excellence in my life to learn and grow in order to raise it in others. It's for others. I'm still going to work every day as hard as I can to raise a level of excellence in my life, which to me really is focusing on learning and growing in love, wisdom, and courage. And it's all so I can raise it in other people's lives.

1:15:57Right. So I can want to be number one at whatever, because the process of doing that is going to, if I pursue that in the right way, is going to challenge me in many, many helpful, self-actualizing ways that can make me a better, more impactful, more beneficial human in the world. Yeah. I mean, I think wisdom is calling out every day to all of us all day long. The question is, are we going to notice it? And also, like I shared earlier, is having a great podcast the best thing for you? It may not be. And so that's why we want to hold it loosely and say, okay, I've got these goals. And I think both of us, we could say we're both fairly ambitious.

1:16:39and so we have these goals that we want to achieve. For me, I don't know if these goals are good for me, let alone the best thing for me. And so, of course, I have these goals and I want to have the best podcast in the world and I want to live an extraordinary life or making a difference all over the world and being on Dan Harris's podcast. But I don't know what's best for me circumstance-wise, what I call the third world, the world of results and circumstances. And so I want to hold it loosely and understand what I really want is have this deep connection to the creator of the universe and to live the life that I was created to live.

1:17:15And I don't really know what that looks like. That's why it's just holding it loosely. I have my goals, my vision, my dreams, and then every day it may unfold differently. Maybe this is a good place, a practical place to end it. There was a quote in your book, can't remember who it was from, you were quoting somebody, and actually he used it in conversation earlier today i'm probably going to mangle it but it's something to the effect of i don't expect anything and i'm prepared for anything yeah so the samurai and you have your own samurai code the 10 kind of principles so they have this tool that i call expect nothing where you take a long slow deep breath before you're about to perform or compete or whatever you have some sort of presentation you take this long slow deep breath in and you say, I expect, and then hold it, and then you exhale, and then you say nothing.

1:18:07And so to me, what it means is not that I don't expect good results. It's I have no needs. I don't expect that person to be a certain way or the crowd to react a certain way or the weather to be a certain way or the umpire. I have no needs. I can handle anything. So this tool, I expect nothing. I can handle anything. I found very powerful in my life. Yeah. Yes. Because you're not overly attached. to some sort of result, you can be grounded in the confidence that whatever comes up, I can handle it because I've done it before. I've handled so much. We all have right up until this very moment. We can handle whatever comes next.

1:18:47Jim, it's great to talk to you. Yeah. Thank you so much. Before I let you go, can you just remind everybody of the names of your books, if people want to check them out, and anything else you want us to know about? Sure. So InterExcellence, you can get that in most bookstores. The Best Possible Life, How to Live with Deep Contentment, Joy, and Confidence No Matter What. That comes out February 3rd. You should be able to find that in most bookstores. I'm also kind of following in your footsteps, or trying to, I should say, getting a sub stack. And I have a newsletter. You can go to interexcellence.com right now to sign up for that.

1:19:18Awesome. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thanks for having me.

1:19:26Thanks again to Jim. Great to meet him. shout out to our mutual agent Jay Suris at UTA Jay's awesome don't forget there's a guided meditation that comes with this podcast if you're a subscriber over at danharris.com it's called How to Rewire Your Inner Critic it'll help you take what you've just learned and kind of pound it into your neurons it comes from our teacher of the month Seben A. Selassie if you sign up at danharris.com you'll also get invited to our weekly live meditation and Q &A sessions. We do these every Tuesday at 4 Eastern. The next one is October 28th, 7A Selassie. We'll be doing live then.

1:20:05Also, there are links in the show notes if you want to come to either the meditation party retreat I'm doing the weekend of October 24th or the live taping of this podcast I'll be doing in New York City with Pete Holmes in November. Before I go, thank you very much to everybody who worked so hard on this show. Our producers are Tara Anderson and Eleanor Vasili. Our recording and engineering is handled by the great folks over at Pod People. Lauren Smith is our managing producer. Marissa Schneiderman is our senior producer. DJ Kashmir is our executive producer. And Nick Thorburn of the band Islands wrote our theme.