Optima Thoughts

A healthy re-set on striving

One of my clients recently recommended a book by Jim Murphy, a performance coach for athletes and leaders, called Inner Excellence: Train Your Mind for Extraordinary Performance for the Best Possible Life. Murphy offers a perspective that has value for anyone in professional life. He argues that the quality of your life comes down to three things: your inner world of thoughts and feelings, the mindset through which you see the world, and your relationships. In short, to perform at your best you must first improve your inner world.

According to Murphy, high performance is rooted in your belief about who you are and what’s possible for you. It’s about your ability to be fully present, to focus, and to approach challenges with the playful curiosity of a child. His bottom line: your life reflects your beliefs.

At the same time, Julie Johnson, a respected colleague and advisory board member at the Yale Center for Faith and Culture, pointed me to Miroslav Volf’s new book The Cost of Ambition: How Striving to Be Better Than Others Makes Us Worse. (You may remember I previously recommended his bestseller Life Worth Living.)

Volf draws a crucial distinction between striving for excellence—the desire to grow and improve—and striving for superiority—the desire to be better than others. The first leads to fulfillment. The second, he warns, can lead to moral distortion.

When we strive to be superior, we start to believe we’ve earned our success purely through merit. We may even come to see those who struggle as deserving of less, ignoring the privileges and opportunities we were born with or into. Instead of following the Golden Rule as it's traditionally stated (“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”), Volf proposes a striking antidote: “treat others as if they were superior to you—not in achievement, but in importance.”

This principle redirects ambition away from ego and toward humility. Striving for excellence can still include healthy competition, but the goal is to become the best version of yourself. In that mindset, even setbacks are not losses—they are steps in your own growth.

Striving, then, is most successful and most rewarding when we adjust our mindset and go for our best – not to best someone else.

Happy summer!