Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Jim Morrison. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Jim , appreciate you joining us today. Before we get into specifics, let’s talk about success more generally. What do you think it takes to be successful?

I believe that success can only be defined by each individual, and that definition of success should benefit the greater good of humanity. Each one of us is blessed with certain gifts to share with the world. One person may be blessed with the gift of patience and understanding, and would make out to be a great counselor or therapist. Another may be blessed with the gift of healing and would make out to be a great nurse or doctor.
The list goes on.
One of our chief tasks in life is to find out what unique gifts that we have to offer to others and to use those gifts in the service of others. Often, whatever those gifts are, it comes naturally and we enjoy the process of sharing them.
I’ve been through a lot of jobs in my lifetime and I finally found that I love to help people find the best in themselves. I do this through coaching golf, but there are many ways to be a good coach. I think that a good coach points the student/player to find the true answer within themselves.
A large part of being successful is being able to help others each and every day.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

My name is Jim Morrison and I am a golf teaching professional, teaching and coaching the game out of Dobson Ranch GC in Mesa.
I was born and raised in North Carolina where I lived until I was 19 years old and then joined the armed forces as a member of the US Navy. I spent 5 years serving in the military, mostly on the east coast in Norfolk, VA and was deployed once to the Persian Gulf.
After my term in the Navy, I was considering which career path to take and was having some difficulty in setting sail in a certain direction. I knew from growing up around so many sports, that I wanted to do something in athletics. I had played golf ever since I was 12 years old and loved the game. So I thought, “What the heck, why not try to play golf for a living?” and it was this one thought that set me on the path to going to college to play golf.
I applied to National University in San Diego and was enrolled in their Sports Psychology program. I was really only interested in playing golf at the time and wanted to see how good I could become and possibly make a run at playing professionally. However, deep down, I always wanted to know more about how our minds worked as human beings.
This interest of mine stemmed from my childhood and my inability to control my emotions.
I think everyone deals with this to a certain extent, but I remember the anxiety I sometimes felt as a kid was debilitating to the point where I would completely shut down.
This led me to seek out solutions and one of the first things I stumbled upon was alcohol. Alcohol provided temporary relief to my anxiety. For a time, it felt as if I could finally relax and be myself. But as anyone knows who has struggled with substance abuse, that feeling is very short lived.
The alcohol led to other substances; marijuana, pills, and other narcotics and pretty soon I was in serious trouble with the local police, was in and out of courtrooms, and juvenile detention.
My early life was a mess and my parents were at a loss for what to do.
Luckily for me, a good childhood friend and my brother were able to talk me into joining the military. Some people go through rehab and AA to reform, I joined the military and it was likely the best decision of my life.

Now I tell my backstory because way later down the line, after college and a failed career playing professional golf, I came to realize that it is our thinking that creates how we feel. So if that is the case, then the crippling anxiety I felt as a kid was coming not from anything outside of me, but from within my own beliefs and patterns of thinking. Once realized, this gave me a certain comfort because I could stop seeking things outside of myself to solve my problems and state of mind.

This realization is not only relevant in golf, but in all walks of life itself. I just happen to be a golf coach. So much of the joy I find in what I do is, yes, helping people with their game, but also with the way they think about things.

I eventually created my coaching business, Perform Better Golf, out of this inspiration. To help others perform at their best on and off the golf course. I believe that the game of golf is a great medium, or platform to test and see how your inner state of mind currently is. Although life itself is the ultimate test or training ground.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

Something that I am most proud of, is becoming sober.
Apart from the game of golf, one of my other passions is running trail ultra marathons. I ran my first 50K trail race in October of 2021 with my brother, Sean, who is also currently in the United States Navy.

I trained for this race for four months, and during that time didn’t have a single drink of alcohol. After the race, I felt the accomplishment that comes with finishing something that you’ve trained for and dedicated yourself to. I also felt an amazing sense of clarity that I was no longer reliant on a substance to give me any sort of peace of mind.

I drank once the following Christmas and haven’t touched alcohol since then. I credit this shift in my life to finding Ultra running and having something else to put my energy into.

This has also poured into my golf and golf coaching as well. I started my coaching business that same year.

Have you ever had to pivot?

After my playing career was over, I took a job in the insurance industry as a underwriter. I never really wanted to take the job, but I was broke and desperate. This was in 2018 and I was 31 years old. It was, to say the least, one of the low points of my life. I had left behind the game that I found so much joy being in, and traded it for a desk job.

Over the next four years, I worked like crazy. I built a pretty sizable book of business and became one of the lead underwriters in the company. I thought that if I just made enough money, then that would replace the hole that I had inside me where my love for golf used to be.

It didn’t work. I became miserable in my job, but was too afraid to leave. By this time I had move from San Diego, to Phoenix to help expand the company. I felt lost. In a new city with hardly anyone I knew.

I was playing in some amatuer golf tournaments at the time with an organization called the VGA (Veterans Golf Association). By what seemed like random chance at the time, one of the coordinators with the VGA was invited to be on a podcast with Smashers On, which is a sub group to Paradigm Golf Group who manages Dobson Ranch GC.
The VGA coordinator asked me to accompany him on the podcast and that’s how I was introduced to Dobson Ranch and the community of people there. I was immediately drawn to the place.

I knew that I wanted to get back into the game of golf somehow, and I always had enjoyed coaching. So I reached out to the GM at Dobson Ranch and the director of instruction for the junior golf program. I offered to volunteer my time helping out with the junior golf program there, The Pop’s and Junior Youth Golf Program. In exchange, I was offered a place to teach at the course.

I made the leap and left my job in insurance. It wasn’t easy because I didn’t have any clients to begin with and I was mainly just volunteering at the course to start. So to pay the bills, I delivered food in between lessons and watched dogs on the weekends. I really don’t know how I made it work, but I knew that it would all turn out for good in the end. My first day at Dobson Ranch was January 1st, 2023 and I have been there ever since, working with the junior program and building my coaching business at Perform Better Golf.

I have also co-founded Quantum Golf Academy alongside Cheyanne Stewart, who played a major role in helping me to get started at the course from the very beginning. Through Quantum Golf Academy we are focused on creating golf programs for the community that help to foster a fun and friendly environment for people of all walks to learn and enjoy the game of golf.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://performbettergolfpro.com/
• Instagram: @perform_better_golf
• Youtube: @jimboslice381
• Other: https://www.patreon.com/c/PerformBetterGolf

Image Credits

Cheyanne Stewart
Dobson Ranch
Paradigm Golf Group