Football
Author Jim Murphy was in a Dallas-area hotel room Sunday night, preparing for a retreat, when his phone began to explode.
Murphy was watching a rerun of Notre Dame–Penn State, having missed the College Football Playoff semifinal earlier in the week. As it turns out, his focus should have been on the Philadelphia Eagles 22–10 wild-card win over the Green Bay Packers. That’s because Eagles wide receiver A.J. Brown was sitting on the bench during the game thumbing through a copy of Murphy’s book, Inner Excellence. Brown’s teammates call the book “The Recipe,” because Brown has read it with regularity throughout the season. Brown says it helps him maintain a sense of calm regardless of what has happened on the previous drive.
“It’s been a pretty amazing night,” Murphy says when contacted Sunday after the game. “I’m sitting here in a hotel by myself. I was like, What’s with all these messages? And then I saw what happened and I’m like, Oh my God that’s crazy. Really neat.”
He added: “It’s really an honor to be a part of his life and to have a meaningful place in anyone’s life.”
MORE: Searching A.J. Brown’s Book ‘Inner Excellence’ for the Lessons He May Have Learned
Murphy was a former MLB prospect who had to retire due to vision issues. He moved to Tuscon and lived a spartan lifestyle alone in a house while pouring his life savings into the completion of Inner Excellence. For years, he flew around the world talking to renowned experts about how the greatest athletes in the world can perform under incredibly stressful situations and, from there, find a deep sense of meaning and joy not dependent on their performances.
He told me he ended up nearly $90,000 in debt following the completion of the book and, following a near cosmic string of circumstances, including donating his last $100 from a cash advance to feed someone in need, his life began to change as his book was picked up by one high-performing athlete or CEO after another.
“I got a message from a golf caddy in Ireland one day and he says, ‘Can you talk to my friend [PGA Tour golfer] Henrik Stenson? He needs your help.’ So I fly to Sweden and meet with him. Then a few weeks later, I get a call from Hunter Mahan [also a PGA Tour golfer]. After that, I got a call from David Novak, the CEO of Yum Brands! (KFC, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut) and he said he sent my book to all his executives around the world.”
After Stenson read the book, he won the FedEx Cup. Mahan won a PGA Tour event and a match play championship shortly after working with Murphy, and “I’ve been working with world-class athletes ever since.”
While Murphy has no relationship with Brown, he does know how the book found its way into the Eagles wide receiver’s locker. Brown’s teammate, Moro Ojomo, received a copy from Murphy’s friend DJ Giaritelli, who is the director of Austin Athletes In Action (Ojomo went to the University of Texas).
He plans on reaching out to the Eagles’ star soon, as the book—published in 2020—undoubtedly gets a second wind.
“I’m very grateful, and I’m looking forward to talking with A.J. about it,” he says. “We don’t have a relationship yet, but I’ll send him a message.”
Read More Conor Orr