Inner Excellence: Train Your Mind for the Best Possible Life with Oprah and Jim Murphy

Oprah Winfrey (0:01)

This episode of the Oprah Podcast is presented by our partner, Geico. In a short span of just like 20 days, I heard, this book, Inner Excellence, sold 200,000 copies and shot to number one on the New York Times bestseller list.

Jim Murphy (0:18)

I feel like the reason Inner Excellence is helpful for anybody, is that I realized that we all have this deep need for unconditional love and a fear of not getting that love.

Oprah Winfrey (0:28)

That's right.

Jim Murphy (0:29)

We all want to have a life where we're learning and growing and feeling fully alive.

Jyoti (0:32)

The year that I made 1.5 million, I had to get an emergency hysterectomy. My commission check hit my bank account the day I was lying in my hospital bed. That was such a super crazy surreal moment when I just realized this isn't it.

Oprah Winfrey (0:54)

One of the reasons why Inner Excellence has been such a powerful tool for so many people is, well, it's the first time they've tapped into, there is more.

Hi there. Welcome to The Oprah Podcast. I certainly appreciate you joining me here, and I wanted to ask you all a question. If you would just think for a moment and try to imagine this for yourself, a life where you feel completely free to make decisions that continue to enhance your every experience. You feel free from self-doubt. You are not held back by fear. A life where you feel effortlessly connected to your true self, living as the person you believe yourself to be created to be.

Imagine that. Well, my guest, Jim Murphy, is the author of the book that went viral last fall. It's called Inner Excellence, and he believes that that life is possible for you, for me, for everybody. So let me explain first who Jim Murphy is, in case you haven't heard of Jim. Hi, Jim. Hi, Oprah. When an eye condition ended Jim Murphy's lifelong dream of playing professional baseball, he moved to the desert to write and research Inner Excellence. He spent five years studying the science of peak performance, interviewing sports psychologists and elite coaches. And when the book came out in 2009, it barely sold. Jim reworked his book and self-published a new edition in 2020 That version didn't sell either. One fateful moment changed everything. During an NFL playoff game with nearly 40 million viewers watching live, Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver AJ. Brown was seen reading Jim's book on the sidelines. In an instant, Inner Excellence took off, going from, listen to this, ranking 523,497 on Amazon all the way to number one. And then Heisman Trophy winner, NFL number one draft pick Fernando Mendoza read the book, right? And in a short span of just like 20 days, I heard, this book, Inner Excellence sold 200,000 copies and shot to number one on the New York Times bestseller list.

So how did you process that velocity?

Jim Murphy (3:24)

Yeah, Oprah, it was very intense. And that week was actually a very intense week because my mother was dying. Yeah. January 12th was the wild card game and then she died January 16th, so four days later.

It was an answer to prayer because she was suffering. But so that week, very somber and kind of lonely, business was slow. I hadn't paid off my credit cards. For the first time in years, I just didn't have the cash flow to pay off the credit cards.

And then Sunday night, get all these texts and I thought my mom had died. And so it said, you got to turn on the game. And that week, everything was going crazy with all the interviews and everything. And that's 3 a.m. and my heart was racing in the middle of the night. And I was like, what is happening? And then I just felt like it was just so much coming at me. And then in the morning, it was just this huge relief because I felt God saying, Jim, you're not the one that did this. You're not the one doing it. You can relax. Your purpose stays the same. Just continue to do what you're doing. And that was such a huge relief because I was like, I don't know how to do this. What am I supposed to do?

Oprah Winfrey (4:27)

So was that a voice or a feeling or what?

Jim Murphy (4:32)

I think the number one thing that you're a very spiritual person, and I think it's to realize that there's a power greater than you no matter what you believe that...

Oprah Winfrey (4:43)

There's something causing the sun to rise every morning.

Jim Murphy (4:45)