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

Jim Murphy’s background as a performance coach and former professional baseball player for the Chicago Cubs underpins the principles in Inner Excellence. After experiencing firsthand how attaching his identity to athletic performance created anxiety and fear of failure, Murphy dedicated himself to understanding peak performance psychology. His master’s degree in coaching science, experience coaching with the Texas Rangers and the South African Olympic baseball team, and extensive research—including over five years of full-time study, with two years spent in relative isolation in the Sonoran Desert—inform his approach to mental training. This combination of personal athletic experience, academic study, and professional coaching credentials gives Murphy legitimate insight into the psychological challenges that performers face.

Murphy’s framework draws from diverse traditions and experiences, bridging Eastern philosophical concepts with Western performance psychology. His multicultural background (Japanese, Irish, and Canadian American) and extensive international travel (to over 50 countries) have likely influenced his holistic perspective on achievement and fulfillment. While his approach resonates with many elite athletes—evidenced by his success coaching professional golfers, including world champions and top-ranked players—readers accustomed to the more purely cognitive techniques dominant in Western performance psychology may find his heart-centered methodology unintuitive or otherwise difficult to put into practice.