FOR THE second time in two months, a star footballer reading Inner Excellence on the sidelines has created a viral moment. This time it involved Hawthorn small forward Jack Ginnivan reading the life guide ahead of the opening game of 2025.
When Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver A.J. Brown was spotted reading the book by Jim Murphy during the fourth quarter of the Wild Card game against the Green Bay Packers in January, it surged from No.552,709 on Amazon's bestsellers rankings to No.1 the following day.
Last Friday night's moment at the SCG might not move the needle to that magnitude, but it did capture widespread attention when Ginnivan was spotted walking across the SCG with the book and then reading on a plastic chair, with sticky labels poking out of his dog-eared copy of Inner Excellence.
So, what was the 22-year-old actually reading about?
The author was a professional baseball player, who was drafted by the Chicago Cubs in 1988 and spent three seasons in the minors as an outfielder, then coached minor league with the Texas Rangers, before becoming consumed by an athlete's ability to block out the circumstance and find peace and confidence in high pressure moments.
It meant, in 2003, Murphy moved to Tucson, Arizona, amid a struggle to deal with the transition from a professional sporting career that didn't last as long as he wanted – or reach the heights he hoped – and working out what to do with his life.
"I was a pro baseball player and got injured and had to retire. I lost my dream. I gave away over half my possessions – including my TV – and went to the desert to live a life of solitude, to find something that I could devote my life to, something worthy," Murphy told AFL.com.au.
"While I was there I decided to become a personal coach to pro baseball players and teach them how to have peace and confidence under pressure.
"My experience as a pro baseball player has greatly helped me relate to a pro athlete or anyone under pressure. I've experienced the same feelings, same highs and lows.
"My first two clients did amazing, so I started working on a manual to give to future clients. I worked on it for 50-60 hours a week for five years. I never intended to do this, it just ended up that way."
Murphy pulled on thread after thread in the desert, researching the inner turmoil that prevents athletes from fulfilling their talent. Five years later, after speaking to one sports psychologist after another, after travelling far and wide for interviews that left him $90,000 in debt, the 360-page tome was published in 2009. It was different to other self-help style books, focusing on the role the heart plays in mental toughness, not the mind.
"The human heart is the control centre of the person," Murphy said. "It's your spirit/will/heart all in one, working with your subconscious mind. We're far more than thinking machines. We need to get to the deepest part of you if we want to bring out the inner strength; we need to train the control centre."
For most of the next decade, the book was found in the hands of life coaches and golf instructors, who applied the mindset methods to a sport where mental skills are crucial, where being present, grateful and focused on the routines you can control are central to the text.
One of Murphy's first clients was Swedish golfer Henrik Stenson, who won the Open Championship in 2016 and has reached No.2 in the world. Former world No.4 Hunter Mahan is another of Murphy's high-profile clients, along with NFL and NHL players, swimmers and runners.
Inner Excellence didn't catch fire across its first 11 years, but when Murphy republished on his own at the start of 2020, it started gaining traction. He sold 20 copies in the first 11 days of January. The next week he sold 100,000 copies. He was away.
Murphy spent six weeks in Australia during the Sydney Olympics and discovered our game in 2000 when he was the hitting coach for the South African baseball team. He wasn't expecting another A.J. Brown moment on this side of the world. But now his name is a hit down under.
