What Is the Murph Workout?
For those unfamiliar, the Murph is a CrossFit benchmark workout named after Lt. Michael Murphy, a Navy SEAL killed in action in Afghanistan in 2005. It's performed as a tribute - commonly on Memorial Day - but serious practitioners keep it in regular rotation as a fitness benchmark.
Purists complete the workout unpartitioned and wearing a weighted vest. I don't wear the vest anymore - my back made that call for me. And I partition it: rounds of 10 pull-ups, 20 pushups, 30 squats until the targets are hit, then run. But the 45-minute completion mark stays as the benchmark.
This routine kicks my ass every time. So why do it? It's a gut-check - a way to measure whether I'm maintaining, slipping, or improving. There's no hiding from the clock. No ambiguity about the result. Just an honest read on where you are.
The Parallel: Building a Business from Scratch
I started my Fractional Sales Leader business after 25+ years working for 12 different companies - from tiny startups to some of the largest organizations in the world - all as a W-2 employee. The leap to solopreneurship was self-imposed and, like the Murph, significantly harder than it looks from the outside.
The Murph
- Self-imposed difficulty
- Clear benchmarks - no hiding from the clock
- Kicks your ass every time
- Builds resilience through repetition
- Measurable: maintaining, slipping, or improving
- The discomfort is the point
Solopreneurship
- Self-imposed difficulty
- Clear metrics - pipeline, revenue, client outcomes
- Kicks your ass regularly
- Builds resilience through iteration
- Measurable: clients served, problems solved, growth
- The discomfort is also the point
As a solopreneur, I'm the founder, BDR, account executive, legal, marketing, business development, and finance - all wrapped into one. It's a mix of rewards, doubts, hard work, and genuine gratification - especially when I help clients solve their GTM challenges and achieve predictable growth.
"Taking on new challenges, having a growth mindset, absorbing new things as a lifelong learner, and getting out of one's comfort zone - all are incredibly hard to do. But the more you do it, the easier other difficult tasks and undertakings become."
Why Difficulty Compounds
There's a reason the most accomplished people in any field - athletes, founders, operators - tend to embrace hard challenges outside their domain. The capacity for discomfort is trainable. The habit of following through on difficult commitments transfers across contexts.
The self-imposed challenges matter not just for what they produce - a fitness milestone, a business result - but for what they build: the muscle to keep showing up, especially when things get tough. That muscle doesn't stay in the gym. It shows up in the boardroom, on a difficult client call, and on the days when everything about building something feels uncertain.
That's the point. Not the workout. Not the rep count. The habit of choosing difficulty - and finishing.
A Few Shoutouts
Frequently Asked Questions
The Murph is a CrossFit benchmark workout named after Lt. Michael Murphy, a Navy SEAL killed in action in Afghanistan in 2005. The workout consists of a 1-mile run, 100 pull-ups, 200 pushups, 300 air squats, and another 1-mile run - all for time. Purists complete it wearing a weighted vest. It is commonly performed on Memorial Day as a tribute to Lt. Murphy. Completion in under 45 minutes is a standard benchmark for experienced athletes.
Taking on hard challenges builds psychological and physical resilience that transfers across domains. When you regularly push through discomfort - in fitness, career transitions, or business - you develop a tolerance for uncertainty and a track record of surviving hard things that makes the next challenge less intimidating. The act of choosing difficulty, repeatedly, builds the muscle of adaptation and follow-through that shows up everywhere else in life.
Building a fractional sales business from scratch requires functioning as the founder, BDR, account executive, legal, marketing, business development, and finance simultaneously - especially early on. After 25+ years as a W-2 employee, the transition to solopreneurship means losing the infrastructure of large organizations and building everything independently. The rewards are real, but so is the difficulty - making the habit of embracing hard things essential from day one.
Wrestling with GTM Chaos? Let's Talk.
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