5 Pillars Of Inner Excellence You Can Practice Every Day
What does it really mean to live the “best possible life”? For Jim Murphy, a former professional baseball player turned world-renowned performance coach, the answer has little to do with titles, trophies, or money. Instead, it has everything to do with cultivating peace, joy, and resilience—no matter what circumstances life hands you.
On the mindbodygreen podcast, Murphy shared the philosophy behind his system, Inner Excellence, a framework he’s taught to world champion golfers, Olympians, and business leaders alike.
At its core, Inner Excellence isn’t about chasing external validation. It’s about building the kind of inner strength and clarity that makes you unshakable, even when the world around you is uncertain.
Why redefining success starts with asking deeper questions
One of the central ideas in Murphy’s work is that many of us are “playing the wrong game.” From a young age, we’re taught to pursue achievement, wealth, or status as markers of success. But these pursuits often leave us feeling restless or unsatisfied, even when we reach our goals.
To illustrate this, Murphy shares a thought experiment he once wrote about while on a ferry in Seattle. Looking at a multimillion-dollar home on the water, he asked himself: Would I rather have the $10 million house—and the stress, pressure, and anxieties that often come with it—or would I rather live paycheck to paycheck while being guaranteed a life of peace, contentment, and confidence?
Most people, he acknowledges, want both. But if forced to choose, the exercise reveals what truly matters. For Murphy, the question isn’t meant to dismiss ambition. Instead, it helps us clarify the motivation behind our goals. Do we want to achieve something because it aligns with our deepest values, or because we hope external validation will finally quiet our inner restlessness?
“When people come to me with big goals, the first thing I ask is, why do you want this?” he said. “If we can identify the real reason, we have a better chance of reaching it—and even if we don’t, life will be infinitely better along the way.”
Training the mind like a world-class athlete
Murphy believes the key to living with clarity and freedom is learning to master the ego, the part of the mind that constantly compares, judges, and fears rejection. Many of us don’t realize how much our ego is running the show.
To counteract it, Inner Excellence teaches daily practices that cultivate non-judgmental awareness and presence. These practices help athletes—and anyone—get into what Murphy calls “a flow of resonance,” where your heart, mind, and body are fully engaged in the moment.
The approach also emphasizes identifying how you want to feel at your best, then designing habits that reinforce that state. Instead of obsessing over outcomes (like winning), Murphy encourages focusing on process goals such as:
- Giving your best effort
- Staying present
- Practicing gratitude
- Returning to routines that ground you
These simple but powerful anchors shift attention away from external pressures and back toward what’s within your control. “Excellence isn’t about being the best in the world,” Murphy explained. “It’s about being your best—day after day, moment after moment.”
Practical ways to cultivate inner excellence
So what does this look like in everyday life, beyond elite sports? Murphy outlines a few pillars that anyone can practice:
- Detach from outcomes: Notice when you’re clinging too tightly to a result (a promotion, a win, a certain image) and redirect toward the process instead.
- Challenge the ego daily: Ask yourself, Am I willing to be judged? Am I willing to feel uncomfortable? Sitting with those feelings builds resilience and freedom.
- Fuel your heart: Everything you read, watch, and listen to shapes your mindset. Be intentional with your environment and choose inputs that align with the person you want to become.
- Seek awe and wonder: Slow down enough to notice beauty—in a piece of art, a quiet walk, or even a stoplight. Awe helps reset perspective and reconnect you to something larger than yourself.
- Integrate service: Joy, Murphy says, is born from love and sacrifice. Look for ways to serve others, especially in small, unseen ways that free you from the need for recognition.
By practicing these habits, Murphy believes we can move away from “affluenza”—what he calls the virus of possessions, achievements, looks, money, and status—and toward a life anchored in presence and compassion.
The takeaway
Murphy has coached some of the world’s top performers, but the lessons of Inner Excellence aren’t reserved for athletes or executives. They’re tools for anyone seeking a more meaningful way of living. True success, he reminds us, isn’t about how much we achieve but about the kind of person we become in the process.