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There's fishing. It's in my soul. Welcome to the Salt Strong podcast disrupting fishing entertainment as you know it. Prepare to laugh, prepare to get to know fishing legends in a whole new and unfiltered way. And on occasion, you might even learn a thing or two about fishing. Here's your host, Joe Simons. Like diamonds
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Zo hey everybody. Joe Simonds like diamonds. Back again with Salt from England Church Talk about Zo Z O E Let me read you the definition from this book that I want to share some of the highlights about with you today. Zo Absolute fullness of life. The state of being possessed of vitality, life real and genuine vigor and vibrancy of life. The culmination of love, wisdom and courage. Self actualization. That all sounds pretty awesome, doesn't it? Well, it is. And this book is called Inner excellence. Train your mind for extraordinary performance and the best possible life. Jim Murphy. So Jim was an athlete, say a star athlete growing up in his town. And his dream at six years old was to one day play major league baseball. And you know how many young boys out there dream of that? I personally dreamt of that and obviously didn't happen for me. I stopped at high school and didn't really make it past, past that. And so many people, and especially these days, it's just so competitive. All these young people have this dream and it really interesting hearing Jim's story. So Jim was one of the few, you know, the one in a million chance that did make it not just to the minor leagues but actually played on TV with the Chicago Cubs back in the day. And after a few years, you know, most athletes sadly only make it around two point something years. You know, you have to be for most of them, NFL, major league baseball, et cetera, you have to be going multiple years, three plus to even get a shot at, you know, the pensions and stuff that they offer. And most athletes don't even make that. So the fact that you can even go multiple years is very, very rare, especially when you retract it all the way back to 6 years old. And yet this guy did it. He made it in the leagues. He was able to start as a, as a professional baseball player. His dreams came true, he had done it all. And then he has an injury, something went wrong. Still don't really know what some of it was. It was almost like one of those unexplainable deals but, but took him out of the line, like took him out of the lineup to the point he didn't get signed again. And so now at, you know, 22, 23 years old, your dreams are gone. You're no longer a major league baseball. Everything that you've worked towards, every. I mean, can you imagine from 6 years old dreaming about this, getting there? So from 6 to, let's just say 22, 23, 24 years old, I don't know exact year, but I'm just guessing just based on timelines of this guy's life. Every day of his life, every dream he has had, every goal he has had, has been around. This dream of being a professional baseball player, he makes it and then is cut because of some illnesses a few years in, and now he's got nothing. Meaning he didn't have another dream, he didn't have a backup plan. Like, this was the plan. And he got there and he talks about how depressing that was. And it really got me thinking a lot about that identity. We've talked about that with Chris McAllister about, you know, we. We get so stuck on this identity of who we think we are. He thought he was a baseball player. And his whole point was it took him a figure this out after having many depressing years. And a lot of people get there. I mean, even, you know, commit suicide or they turn to drugs and alcohol, that we've seen it play out over and over again and they have nothing else because that was their identity. And all of a sudden that identity is gone and they feel like they're not loved, they're not worthy. And what, what Jim points out in this book, this whole inner excellence is, you are loved, you're a son of God, you are worthy. And that identity that we thought was us is almost irrelevant. And so what's ironic now is Jim does a lot of speaking. He coaches some of the best of the best. I mean, he coaches a lot of Olympic athletes and professional athletes. And when he's introducing himself up on stage, he doesn't even mention that he's a professional baseball player until the end because he's like, yeah, that was just one little part of me. And I see it happening even with people I know where, you know, they're so attached to this identity that I'm a mom or I'm a CEO or I'm the best accountant or whatever it is. And all of a sudden that is gone. Right? And it can start as simple as your kids. I mean, they say so many divorces happen when the kids leave the house because so many, especially a lot of moms, have put their identity into their kids where it's my Best friend. And, you know, if you ask, and I'm not just picking on moms, but it seems to be more prevalent with, with mothers than fathers, where they'll say, yeah, my whole life is my kids. And it's like, well, in my opinion, it should be God is the most important. When people are asked, hey, what's the most important? And they say, my kids. I put God and then I put my wife, and then my kids are number three, not number one, not number two. The reason is kids are going to be gone, right? They're not my identity. I don't own them. God has created them. I have been entrusted and empowered to raise them and do the best I can, but they are not mine and they're not my identity. And we all know if we do a great job, our kids aren't going to be 100% reliant on us. They will at some point leave the house. They will at some point go start their own families and their own careers. And I think so many people, especially right now with this, you know, I'll call it a theme of helicopter parents, because I see it a lot, even with our own friends and even we've been guilty of it in some cases that you get wrapped around this and you want to protect them and all that. And when you take a step back, you're like, this is not my identity. My kids are, are incredibly important to me. I love them so incredibly much. But it, it is not my identity. Meaning I am still loved, I'm still worthy, I'm still great husband with or without kids. And what happens is we try to control them, protect them so much, and then they're finally decide they do want to go have their own life. And many, like I said, moms in particular, just get just so distraught, like, well, what, what's else left? I, I, all I have now is this husband that I've kind of been putting second or third. And the house is empty and it's so quiet and what am I going now? And they feel very, very empty because that was such a big part of their identity. And it's not easy. And I'm not trying to even remotely say that you shouldn't love your kids anymore. This is not about how much you love them. This is just about getting wrapped up in that being your identity. And that is all that's important to you. Just like baseball, this guy at the time, he didn't have kids and have a spouse. He's like, baseball is the only thing important to me. That's my Number one, that's all I care about. It's all I want to do. And when that's taken away from you, it's. He literally felt lost. He's like, what? Now I have nothing else to live for. That's very, very, very dangerous, as you can imagine. And a couple of things that he talked about that I just want to highlight. Got to read this book. It's fantastic. One of my favorites of the, of the year on the, on the business side, Theo of Golden, still the best on you know, the fictional side. But he goes when I think of self mastery because you know, a lot of this is about self mastery and about training your mind. I envisioning mast ego because a lot of it is ego, right? We tend to think in fears. Oh, what are my friends going to think about me or what are my colleagues going to think about me or what are my kids going to think about me if this happens? And he says that's all ego. And he says when I envision mastering the ego by becoming three things. Number one, unembarrassable. I struggle with this guys. And I'll just put his definition. I think we all know what it is. But to be completely humble and selfless where nothing you or anyone else can could say or do that would embarrass you or reduce your sense of well being. I love that. Unoffendable. Who else is listening to this thing? Well, I've been offended by some things pretty easy with politics and all the things that are out there these days. So unembarrassable. Number one, unoffendable. To be completely humble, selfless where people's words or actions don't push your buttons or make you angry. To have self control, not be self protective, unirritable. I, I struggle with one and three big time. I, I don't get offended as much. I've. I'm doing way better there. But number one, unembarrassable. And number three, unirritable. I struggle with so steadfast, calm and compassionate to other people's flaws. That's what gets me sometimes I'm like, how do you not get this? Are you, are you, you know, are you that slow? Is what I want to say to people sometimes fully present to the beauty and possibilities that always await. Wow. Those, those by far are, are, are my favorite. You know, the other big one that was a huge part of this book is our ego's essentially goal is with mastering stuff and being the best and winning and winning fast. And it has gotten worse and worse and worse as you probably know we all want to win fast. We want our kids. If you. If your kids are into, you know, to baseball, like this guy was, and doing the travel, baseball or soccer, anything, you know, we all want them to win, and we want them win fast, and we want them to excel faster and. And be the best to make the All Stars and all this stuff. And, you know, as he teaches his. His patient clients, not patients, it probably feels like being a patient sometimes. He's like, so much of it is in the head, and he's an Olympic athlete. He's like, disregard the fact they've been training their whole life. But he's like, you know, when, you know, the Olympics is four years from now, you're literally training every day for four years for an event that might last a minute, sometimes less, right? Depending on what you're doing, sometimes it might be a little bit more. But in general, most of the Olympic sports, the events are just a couple of minutes. He's like, think about this, like, how. How do we do it? And what he's teaching his athletes, his clients is, our goal is not to win. Obviously, we want to, and we want that to be the outcome, but we can't just get stuck on the outcome. And he gives, for instance, he goes, what if you set your new personal best by 30% better and you broke a world record in the Olympics? Broke a new world record, set your personal best, and yet there happened to be someone who was just. Just gifted, like a Michael Phelps that was better than you and beat you by two seconds and also broke a world record at the same time, but you guys both broke a world record that day. Like, should you be depressed about that even if you got silver? And these teachings people know, like, there are going to be times where there's just someone flat out better than you, and you can't be depressed if you trained your best. Like, meaning you're training against yourself, not against just the other person. And, man, he's like, we should be thrilled about that if we literally showed up for our country and broke a world record. And he's like, but yet so many people, when I would ask them that initially upon coaching, they'd be like, that'd be horrible. I'm here for the gold. He's like, well, then I might not be the best for you. Like, yes, I want you to get gold. We are going to train like we're going to win the gold. But that outcome is not what makes you worthy or not. What makes you worthy is you give your best what's going to please God and please everyone is that man, I gave it 100% of everything I had. And if we did that and we could look and say, yeah, I didn't leave a single thing on the field or on the, you know, water, wherever it is that you're competing, like there's nothing really wrong with that. And I thought that was so good because so many of us with our egos, we put so much pressure on ourselves to, to win and be the best. And if we're not, all of a sudden our, our ego starts, starts taking over and it, it usually doesn't end well. We start thinking about everything and it kind of can spiral out of control. And he talks a lot about Phil Jackson, who, if you don't know Phil Jackson, you know, he was the coach of Michael Jordan and the, in the Bulls. And when he came to the Bulls, they were horrible. Even with Michael Jordan that first year, they were not a good team at all. And even though Michael Jordan was one of the better players at the time in the whole world, they were not a great team. And, and it was because there was all, oh, we got to win. And Michael was very driven like that. And Phil Jackson did it again at the Lakers. So it wasn't just a one time deal and has won what, 11 rings now, which is just crazy, meaning 11 championships. No one else has done that in the NBA that I'm aware of. And it was so much about this same sort of thinking that, hey guys, we're going to win as a team. And if we literally gave everything we had and someone beat us by a point, we're still going to celebrate. But if we screwed up and we know we didn't give it all and we weren't playing as a team in unity and love, then yeah, shame on us. We should be depressed and angry, but that also should fire us up. And so he was so good about the getting people to come together as a team and in unity to really support each other and not just have one awesome player. That's it. And then the other part is he talks about ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life. Ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life. I love that. I'll read this quote. It says the most serious sign of hurry sickness is a diminished capacity to love. Ooh. Love and hurry are fundamentally incompatible. Hurry is not a disordered schedule, it's a disordered heart. And I'm going to leave you with that one because I think that's probably the thing hurting so many people right now. We're always in a hurry. I've talked about it before, the Bible. There's a guy named Jesus. He did all this stuff in the New Testament in just a matter of a few years of his life. All that stuff happened over a few years and yet not once did it mention him running or sprinting or getting on a horse. He rode a donkey. He rode the slowest animal possible. He knew where he was going. He knew what his mission was. And he did it with love. And so if anything, that would be my, I guess, challenge because I always like to throw these challenges just to find ways to eliminate that hurry out of your life. I'm even doing it with my calendar, just having margin, as I call it. Just a buffer in there where I'm not going back to back meetings if ever. I try not to anymore. I'm just trying to eliminate it. It doesn't do me any good. I like to be able to think through stuff and take notes, et cetera. So that is the kind of book review in 15 minutes. There. Inner Excellence by Jim Murphy. Highly recommend. It really loved it. And if you have questions, thoughts, prayer requests, hit me up joealtstrong.com I love hearing from you. Otherwise I am going to be in Zin like Zo fashion. So the whole point of that was to get in the Zoe where you're just, you're, you're, you're relaxed, you're completely in love with yourself and everything around. I'm not talking like Frou Frou. I'm talking about just being very confident in who you are. So love you guys and I'll talk to you on the next episode.
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Way it's been said my papa, he wrote the book on catching big reds and £20 snook I wish I knew all the things he knew today for he's the reason why we are this way and he put fish in our souls to stay it.