Story & Lesson Highlights with Jim Morrison of Mesa

We recently had the chance to connect with Jim Morrison and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Jim , thank you so much for taking time out of your busy day to share your story, experiences and insights with our readers. Let’s jump right in with an interesting one: What is a normal day like for you right now?
During a normal day, I am waking up and making my bed at 4AM. The first thing that I do after that is to hydrate my body by drinking at least 24 ounces of room temperature water.
Next I’ll begin a mobility routine that lasts about ten minutes. I’ll then go for a short 15-20 minute walk that I like to call my gratitude walk. This is the time of morning that I like to give thanks for all of the things in my life. These can be objects, challenging situations, friends and family, or just the very fact that I’m breathing!
After that, I’ll return put on the kettle to make coffee and sit and meditate while that is heating up. This last about 10 minutes, and during that time, I’m actively meditating on love and how I can send my love out into the world (not always easy).
After that short period of meditation, I’ll pour a cup of coffee, feed my cat (Cal) and go up into my office to read for a short period of time. Probably about 20 minutes. I’m normally reading something very spiritual or philosophical to point my mind in the right direction. Cultivating a mindset that is attuned to higher forces in the Universe is the sole purpose of all of these exercises.
All of this takes about an hour to an hour and a half. This is my opportunity each day to connect with God without the distractions of screens, emails, or any other outside stimulus.
After that, I will shower, shave, dress, and head to the golf course. If I don’t have early morning lessons, I will go for a run, do a workout, answer emails, or study swing videos from various clients to try and find as many solutions to their swing faults as I can.
I love to study the golf swing and find different ways to solve problems for clients, whether that is through drills, new concepts, exercises, or biomechanics.
I’ll typically have five lessons per day on average, so I spend a lot of the day teaching. Outside of that I work on the golf academy Cheyanne Stewart and I have founded at Dobson Ranch called Quantum Golf Academy. We hold group/co-ed golf clinics, junior programs, 9-hole scrambles, and many different other programs. So working on creating programs for that takes a portion of the day.
I like to run trails in my free time, so five days out of the week, I’m getting in some kind of training run, strength session, yoga class, or just random mobility wherever I am. I’ll also find one day out of the week to play golf and get in some practice there.
During the evening hours, I’m relaxing, reading, cooking, and hanging out with my cat Cal. I value sleep, so I’m normally in bed no later than 9PM so I can wake up early the next day and do it all over again. I love it.

Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
My name is Jim Morrison and I teach and coach golf out of Dobson Ranch GC in Mesa. I currently run a golf coaching/performance service. Basically I give golf lessons, but I like to put a focus on the mental side of the game. I encourage students to focus on cultivating not only the physical practices that we discuss, but also the mental practices of gratitude, love, and acceptance.
This may sound cheesy at first, but I wholeheartedly agree that these are spiritual gifts given to us from higher powers or forces to deal with the challenges of life. Not only to overcome challenges, but to grow spiritually in the process.
I believe that golf is a spiritual game. It is a platform to compete, but at the end of the day, people rarely remember who won a tournament.
Unless you’re a golf history buff, you’d be hard pressed to tell me who won the Open Championship four years ago without having to look it up in the Google search bar. The character we develop along our journey in playing golf and the person we become is much more important at the end of the day.

Okay, so here’s a deep one: Who taught you the most about work?
My Dad taught me the most about work. From a very early age, I can remember being assigned tasks to complete around the house. My father was a disciplinarian to say the least, so I was inclined to complete the work so I wouldn’t have to pay a steeper price of him finding out that I didn’t do the job.
This work was based out of fear, and for a long time that worked. But what eventually happened was I started doing jobs later in life with a fear based mindset as opposed to a loving mindset.
I eventually had to change that to find the work that I really love doing. That’s the key. I still work on that to this day because a fearful approach to life lurks right around the corner. This is why I actively work on cultivating love each and every day.

Was there ever a time you almost gave up?
There have been plenty of times that I have almost given up. There have been times that I have given up. I struggled with drugs and alcohol in my late teens before I enlisted in the Navy.
Prior to the Navy, when I was deep in that depression of substance abuse, it felt as if I had given up.

I can only attribute my choice to become clean to higher forces. I remember praying as if my life depended on it for some shred of hope that my drug test would come back clean to enter in to US Navy boot camp. Not because I necessarily wanted to go to bootcamp, but because I was terrified of wasting away in my hometown as a drug addict.

Next, maybe we can discuss some of your foundational philosophies and views? Is the public version of you the real you?
I almost find it pretentious to think of myself as a public figure, but I will take my appearance at the golf course and teaching golf as public.
I strive to be as authentic as possible at home and in public. This is not always easy, because our natural tendency as human beings is to choose the easy way around things. Dealing with people and people related problems is not always easy and clear cut. In the midst of that I try and remember that we are all spiritual beings and one of my main tasks is to be a good human.
Again, not always easy, but if I aim at that each and every day it helps me to show up in a more authentic way.

Okay, so before we go, let’s tackle one more area. If you knew you had 10 years left, what would you stop doing immediately?
I would stop complaining. Even to myself.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://performbettergolfpro.com/
• Instagram: @perform_better_golf
• Yelp: Perform Better Golf
• Youtube: @jimboslice381