5 Keys to Peak Performance | Julius Thomas & Jim Kwik

I think the commitment is the beginning of achieving anything meaningful and anything that you can dream about. So you have to first start and ask yourself, you know, how motivated, how hungry are you to actually go pursue and achieve that?

Our guest today is Julius Thomas.

Julius Thomas. Julius Thomas. The Julius Thomas, the man of the hour. I wasn't the best 10-year-old and the best 14-year-old, and everybody knew I was gonna Go on to play pro sports. Mine was the exact opposite. He played basketball and football at Portland State. And then when I transitioned from basketball to playing football, I was on the bench again to start my NFL career. And he played with the Broncos, Jags, Dolphins.

The first tight end in NFL history to have 12 touchdowns in back-to-back seasons.

Really what was in my power was the power to choose to get back up.

2-time NFL Pro Bowler turned clinical psychologist.

Investigating the effects of contact sports on brain trauma.

He's the vice president of the Society of Sports Neuroscience.

A player advisory board member for the Football Players Health Study at Harvard. Elite athlete speaker and researcher. Great husband, great father, and now he's going to be a great doctor helping athletes. The next big thing that I want to take on in my life is putting my knowledge and my expertise to the test by committing myself to helping Nowadays, it's not just physical training that will get you there.

It's kind of mental training.

If there's one thing I think that all people should talk about more, it's curve. And also, he's a co-founder and chief health and performance innovation officer at Nestree Health and Performance.

That helps others reach their peak potential through science and psychologically based practices.

He has a passion for helping others create a greater quality of life. Once you had it, you then committed your life to helping other people get it. And Julius Thomas is one of those guys who's fought For everything that he has earned in order to be the best that he can be.

For me, that's a life very well lived. In the game of high-stakes sports and peak performance, winning or losing is determined just as much by the strength of your mind as it is by your physique. And the question I have for everybody listening right now, or if you're watching this on YouTube, is what sets apart top-level professional athletes from the rest and what is their secret to overcoming mental challenges under immense pressure? Welcome back, Kwik Brains. I am your host and your brain coach, Jim Kwik. Our guest today is Julius Thomas. We've had the pleasure of sharing the stage this past year more than once. Welcome to the show, Julius.

Thank you. I appreciate you having me on and giving me the opportunity to talk to your audience about something that I love. I know you love and I'm just really excited to talk about what we always talk about, right? Like, how do people leverage this tool like the mind to get just a little bit closer every day to what their goals and their aspirations are?

Yeah, I feel like as people, you know, want to win more this year in sports, it's a great metaphor because the stakes are so high. So Julius and I are going to be talking about this, how to strengthen our mindset like a pro athlete to achieve peak performance at work and also in life. Before we start, what made you want to study clinical psychology after a successful career as a professional athlete? And how was this journey for you?

Oh man, that's a great question. And I think really what pulled me into the mind-brain sciences and wanting to go back and pursue a doctorate in clinical health, which, you know, I'm almost there, one year left. But what drew me in was 2 things. One, I just love people. Like, I truly care about people and I want to help people every single way I can. And I also have been a learner my whole life, always been very stimulated by the intellectual fields. But because I was pursuing sports, I wasn't really able to feed that part of who I was. And I just felt my intellectual side calling out for more difficulty, more challenge. So those 2 things combined really led me to seek out a field that could be a second career for me, but at the same time allowed me to do what is aligned with my values, which is helping other people achieve what they're after and be great in their own ways. And I thought, well, in psychology, they really understand the mind and how to help people. So that's what made me sign up to pursue a doctorate in psychology.

I could tell everyone personally spending time with Julius, he has a brilliant mind, but it's matched by his giving heart. And so that's why I've been wanting to get you on our podcast for some time. Did you experience yourself, you know, throughout life, I would imagine these, these mental challenges that we're going to discuss here, did you face them in your athletic career or your personal life? And, you know, I'm wondering with everything you know about the brain and the mind, what's an example of how you personally overcame?

It's very interesting in my story because my story is so much different than your typical pro athlete. Like, I wasn't the best 10-year-old and the best 14-year-old and everybody knew I was going to go on to play pro sports. I was the exact opposite. I like to tell people my story starts at the end of the bench and very unique to me. When I first started playing basketball, I played on the freshman team and I was the last guy. I mean, I was so far down the bench that like people had to tell me that the coach said, now it was time to go get in the game.

Wow.

And I talk so much about being at the end of the bench in high school when I started playing basketball, when I got to college as a college basketball player. And then when I transitioned from basketball to playing football, I was on the bench again to start my NFL career. And the bench teaches you something. The bench, first thing it teaches you is to be resilient because nobody wants to sit on the bench. Nobody wants to be placed in a position where they understand and everybody else understands that they're the lowest person on the totem pole. And then they have so far to go till they're out there to actually be able to participate in doing the thing they want to do. And the second thing that the bench does, the bench gives you this opportunity to observe. And I think that that's where I truly started to become a student of observation.

Hmm.

And similar to your story, right? Once you take a step back, And then you start to think about how you can influence and affect the things that are happening around you. Now you start to get a little bit of insight. And then that insight, if you stimulate it with practice and repetition, becomes growth. And so for me, some of my biggest challenges early in life were coping with the divorce of my parents and me being forced to step into this whole brand new world. And then also to have to be at the beginning, at the end of the bench and then work my way up to being really successful at all 3 levels of my athletic journey. And I think that was truly some of the defining moments that helped me understand, number one, what people can go through mentally and how hard it can be. But 2, really everybody's potential to go through their challenge and reach greatness.

You know, I've had the opportunity to work in the coaching and athletics, the NBA, the NFL, the MLB. And it's interesting because you could codify. So someone who's great doesn't necessarily know the mechanics of what makes them great. They know certain attributes, but you know so much about the brain. And I'm curious, when we're talking about high-level professional athletes, They get high-level coaching and they get high-level support. And everybody who's listening, they have some kind of arena, right, of play, whether it's a field, whether it's a court, whether it happens to be at their office or in their home. So what kind of, I don't know, insights or instructions would you like to give our listeners when it comes to situations where they need to perform under that kind of high-pressure situations, to be able to bounce back after maybe a big setback and still maintain their own self-belief, their own confidence in themselves.

One of the first things that I like to do, and I think you study this so much in the field of psychology, is to normalize the human experience. And I've talked to so many people and I've worked with patients and I've coached individuals through the challenges that they're having. One of the things that stands out to me the most is people feel like they're inadequate because they're having the challenge. People feel like something's wrong with me because I feel the anxiety, or people feel like something's wrong with me because I don't feel as confident as I would like to be. And so one of the first things I want to do is set the stage and say it's normal. Everybody's mood fluctuates throughout the day, week, across time. Everybody's confidence fluctuates throughout time. And so one of the things that I constantly talk about is resilience. And if you see that the top athletes in the world, they just keep getting back up. I tell people, that's the secret to being successful in anything. Life is going to come deliver you a punch, whether it's a big loss like I had. I've had to play in one Super Bowl and it was one of the worst Super Bowl losses a team had ever experienced in the history of the NFL. There's no way that I wanted that. There's no way that I was training and preparing for years to get to that point. And then to have to live through something as disheartening and downright embarrassing as that. But really what was in my power was the power to choose to get back up, was the power to choose to continue to pursue that goal that I have. So I think when people look at the top athletes in the world, they focus so much on the glamour and the shiny.

Yeah.

They overlook the hard, the struggle, and both are always going to be present in life. So I think people first have to give themselves some space to be imperfect, to have challenges with their mood and their confidence. And then just remember that it's as you keep showing up in the arena, as you keep taking the steps to be resilient about what you're pursuing, that's where you grow. And that's what gives you that next opportunity because eventually you're going to hit some home runs out of the park, but you have to keep stepping up to the plate.

Yeah. And that persistence and the resilience is so very important. Sometimes you're right, we see the highlights and we tend to focus on that, but we don't see how people dealt with mistakes and failures and stumbles and falls. You and I have had conversations offline when we're speaking at events together. And these are high performers, right? And in these audiences that you and I have shared stages with, even recently for YPO, I mean, these are top founders, executives, CEOs. If somebody has— if we're going to talk about mindset, what sets someone who has a not so strong mindset compared to someone who has a stronger mindset when we're talking about things like resilience and mindset? Are there 1, 2, or even 3 things that you would recommend our listeners that they could do, some kind of perspective or exercise or point of view to help them to strengthen their own minds?

Absolutely. And one of the things that I kind of developed and I've really made the cornerstone of my company, Mastery Development, is really these 5 keys to peak performance. And I put them together over a lot of experiences of being around some of the greatest athletes in the world. But then also sitting in clinical psychology classes and clinical trainings and thinking, man, how do you bring both of these worlds together to create something that a person could use 5 simple ways to take what they're doing to another level and be healthy at the same time? And so for me, it's commitment, it's discipline, guidance, quality support, and resilience. And I'll break it down a little bit because I think the commitment is the beginning. of achieving anything meaningful and anything that you've been dreaming about. So you have to first start and ask yourself, you know, how motivated, how hungry are you to actually go pursue and achieve that? And that's one of the first areas where I ask people, it's like, I hear you saying it, but how hungry you are is going to be defined by what you're willing to sacrifice. I hear so much. I'm sure you have too. Hey, chase this. Go be great at this. But no one asks people, what are you willing to sacrifice? When I go speak and I talk to groups, I say, write down how many things you're going to sacrifice to get towards that. Because then that helps people start realizing, oh, how bad do I want it? Then the other thing is discipline. You have to pursue things with a high level of effort and you have to pursue perfection. Now, we've heard a lot about perfectionism and I used to suffer from this too. And I don't want anybody to think they have to be perfect. The one thing that great athletes do is they're always trying to do the perfect rep. You're never going to get there, but that consistent drive to refine what you're doing and to get incrementally better over time is what helps a person be great. Guidance for me comes from a state of humility. We talk about some of the audiences and individuals that we work with, and a humble person is able to find people that have more experience. Or have more expertise than them and say, hey, how'd you get there? How'd you do that?

Right?

Like, I think in our relationship, I understand that you've been doing this for decades and this is space that I want to grow into. So I need to humble myself and be like, Jim, man, how are you doing that? How'd you build this? Which path did you take to get there? So that guidance and that humility piece is important. And then quality support. If you want to go do something amazing and you want to do something that changes your life forever, You want to do something that no one said you could do, man, you're going to need support on that journey. Do not think that you have to handle that load alone, those challenges alone. Make sure that you find the people that you can spend quality time with, find active listeners, find those people that can be in your corner. And then lastly, I say resilience comes down to 2 things, acceptance and courage. Accept the enormity of the task at hand. Whether that enormity is the odds, like wanting to be a pro athlete and they say only the 0.0001% get to do it, or whether you're in a rehabilitation hospital, like the patients that I've worked with and you just had a leg amputated. And now you have to accept the fact that you have to learn a new way to live with one leg and then have the courage to do it. If there's one thing I think that all people should talk about more, it's courage. I hear so much about the suffering, mental health challenges in this world. But I don't hear enough about courage. And that's just the capacity to step into that next challenging experience and try to give your best.

I love that. So as a quick review for everybody, it's, you know, and people could rate themselves if they have this goal in mind, you know, rating their commitment, right? On a scale of 0 to 10. When we're talking about discipline, guidance, having the support system and also resilience. We have a program, Julius, called Kwik Success, and it's kind of— it's our monthly that we do. It's the only place where I go live. And we also have it as part of a book club that we do and we read it. We have a— we had a number of questions when we posted that we'd be interviewing you. And you had some serious fans in there also.

I love it.

One of them was, and probably, I don't know if you could come up with an exact number, but in your opinion, How much of high performance or peak performance is determined by mindset? You know, because obviously to be a top athlete, there's a lot of physical training, right? But nowadays it's not just physical training that will get you there. It's kind of mental training. But looking at mindset as an asset, is it like 1%? Is it 100%? Is it somewhere in between in terms of, you You know, the equation for greater performance?

That's actually a great question. And I'm really thankful to whoever asked that question and excited that people were excited that I was going to get a chance to come on the show today. But in athletes, as athletes, we've said it in sports a long time, the game is 90% mental. And you think about that. And this is a space where there's a huge physical component, but still the game is 90% mental. Every athlete knows that's what we've all been taught. We understand So what about if you want to be a professional? What if you want to be an entrepreneur? What if you want to be a small business owner? You name it. Then mindset is somewhere between 90% and 100% of importance. And I tell the corporate professionals that I work with, I say, you know, your job is not dependent on your body in a, you know, in a one-to-one situation, right? Like, yes, your body is important in your health, but No one's asking you to go run a 40, do a vertical jump, bench press 300 pounds so that your mind is 100% important for you to be able to achieve what you need for your company, for your team, and for your customers. And so I think mindset is the most critical component of any performance journey. I've seen it play out with some of the world's best, like Peyton Manning, who who I got to play with and who really played at the highest level. You look at guys like Kobe Bryant, Tom Brady, and you start to say, well, they're all different shapes and sizes. What do they have in common? They have an elite mindset and they have a consistent elite mindset. And I think that's one of the big things that I would recommend people do is you have to build consistency into the mindset approach that you have. Because we can always have a great mindset when things are good or to start off a new year. But we have to build consistency into our mindset, even through the challenge. And that's when greatness starts to show up.

So how people experience, like the people around us, how they perceive our mindset, are there signs that you would say of somebody who has a quote unquote weak mindset compared to somebody who has a strong mindset? Like what would some of those indicators or signs be? That, you know, it would just like be these symptoms if somebody was sick that to be able to look into, you know, and get proper training or treatment. Are you a high achiever constantly seeking that next level of success? Welcome to the Kwik Success Program. It's a deep dive and support system to master your life and scale to new heights in personal and professional achievement. Included is our exclusive monthly book club where we process transformative ideas from amazing books to level up your learning and your life. We also bring the author to the club to answer your burning questions. You can also participate in monthly live coaching calls with me where your questions meet my decades of expertise. Simply go to That's kwiksuccess.com and choose the plan that works best for you.

That makes perfect sense. And this is one of the things I talk about a lot when I do corporate workshops and I'm doing consulting. And I'll say one of the first indications of a person whose mindset is not where it needs to be is a person that starts to change the level of their effort because of the last result.

Oh, yeah.

Right? If you're going to talk about a person with an amazing mindset, their effort is not result dependent. It's process dependent. People that start to change their effort because they're not getting the result that they want, they don't have the mindset that they need to get to where they're going. The second thing that I noticed, and I think is super important for people with mindset, is whose attitude is changing? When things aren't going your way, when the results are not coming out the way you want, Are you treating people different? And are you showing up different? When you think about mindset, right, there's a certain confidence that comes from that. And the people with mindsets that are resilient, people that you want to be led by, people that you want to work with, are people that show up. They walk into the room with the same attitude and the same way of treating other people regardless of the situation. Because that's an indication of resilience. Because what happens, and this is normal, Human psychology. When tough times happen, people start to reduce their effort. People start to point the finger, blame other people. But then one person walks in the room and they come in with a smile. They come in with a belief and they pull people together and you go, wow, that's different. So those are some of the things that I can look at and I can notice right off the bat if somebody's mindset is where it could be or if somebody's mindset needs improvement.

So professional athlete, mental performance expert, cognitive scientist. What's the next field of play? I mean, what are you passionate about now yourself in terms of your personal evolution?

That's great. So for me, one of my biggest challenges, I talk about climbing mountains. Like I use this metaphor of wanting to be a mountain climber. Once I go from being in the valley or a beginner and climb to the mountain and start to develop expertise in something or to master that discipline, Then I'm always looking for that next mountain. So first it was basketball, then it was football, then it was, you know, clinical psychology. And I'm almost to the top of that mountain and then I'll come back down. But the next big thing that I want to take on in my life is putting my knowledge and my expertise to the test by committing myself to helping other people reach their awards. And I think that there's just a A very metaphysical aspect of mastery that once you've mastered something, then the next biggest challenge is to help other people master that thing. And similar, you're very analogous to your story, right? Like, as you started to master how to be able to utilize the power of the mind, the next step you took was to help other people. I mean, you told a story the other day of when you were working with your first client and it was a young woman. that she wanted to learn how to read all these books. And you were like, yeah, I'll help you. And then she reads all these books and you ask her why. And it was like, because my mother had cancer and I wanted to help her.

Right.

And so that, that shows me that that's, that's how things work. Once you had it, you then committed your life to helping other people get it. And that's what you've done. And that's what I want to do. Like, I feel like I've now achieved the level of mastery that I was after. And so it's incumbent on me to share that with others, share that with the world. And that's really my next big mountain to climb.

I love it. I just got goosebumps. I call them truth bumps. I feel like we learn until we earn and then we return, right? And it's like the hero's journey. You are called, you know, to on this quest, you face dragons, you find mentors and guides, you We fall a whole lot. We stumble, but we're able to make it to that mountaintop. And you come back to the world and you want to bring that treasure to them also as well. And for me, that's a life very well lived. Julius, how do people— I know people are going to want to connect with you more. What's the best way for them to get to dial in and And stay connected to your work?

Yeah. So, the best way to stay connected to what I'm doing right now is to follow me on my social media platforms, julius_thomas on Instagram. I'm always putting out weekly videos breaking down peak performance from professional athletes, what I call the mental performance tips from the pros. I do a Mental Mastery Monday where I talk about different mindset and mental strategies that can help a person to attack their year and achieve what they wrote that they want to get done in 2024. So I'm continually looking to grow my way to give and to serve others. So follow me there. I'm also on Facebook, Julius Thomas there as well. And so I'm putting out as much content as I can because I want to democratize high-quality information similar to what you're doing. It's funny, man. It's just when it comes from inside and a true passion for others, the blueprint is out there.

Give it. I love that. We'll put links to your Instagram and Facebook in our show notes as we always do at jimkwik.com/notes. Do you have a website also as well?

Yeah, I have a website. It's www.mastery-development.com. So, if you're interested, you can learn more about how I work with individuals, teams, and organizations to help really architect peak performance for an individual or in that space. And then, there's some more information about me and my background and some of the clients that I have.

I would highly recommend anybody who's looking to have a great advisor or a great speaker or just to get dialed in with your own performance, whether you have an organization or not, to make sure you follow Julius on social media, check out his website. And maybe Julius, you ever think about codifying it and putting it into— I know you do research and academic work for maybe publish a book. You know what?

It's actually funny that you say that. And publishing a book is something that I'm so much looking forward to. I've told myself that I'm going to publish my first book after I finish my 1-year internship/residency this next year, because I just want the book to say Dr. Thomas on the front. It's been a hell of a journey, but I really would love to write a book. I think I'm going to call it A Simple But Not Easy Way to Achieve Anything.

I like that title a lot.

Yeah, I appreciate it.

Amazing. Julius Thomas, thank you so much for being on the show.

Thanks for having me. I'm excited to continue to watch you and follow you and See all the things that you're going to do this year. Thank you so much for being one of my mentors in the space and graciously giving me your time and your expertise because I got to follow my own principles, right? And you're one of the persons that I look up to in this space. So thank you so much for your continued friendship.

I feel the same way. I want to thank everybody who's tuning in and listening. Make sure you lean into these 5 traits. Again, when everything, I mean, this will just enhance everything. When you have the right commitment and discipline, you have the guidance and the support and you're building resilience. I mean, there's not anything that that won't accelerate and magnify in your life. And I love the way you've codified that through your own personal experience and also working with the clients that you have matched with your academic research. Also, your prowess there. If you've got value out of this, please make sure you subscribe and leave a review. That's the thing that, you know, we don't have sponsors for this show. We subsidize it ourselves. But the thing we want to do, like Julius, is democratize this information and this wisdom to the world, to people who need it most. And I feel like, you know, now is the time for all of us to shine. Make sure we put the extended version on YouTube so you could join our 1.3 million subscribers there. So, you know, we put out daily content. So make sure if you haven't watched, even if you're listening to this on Spotify or iTunes, make sure you checked out this episode also on YouTube because there'll be more golden nuggets there. And make sure you subscribe because that allows us to get even, you know, just the quality guests that we get. Because it allows us to have more reach and impact. So again, Julius, thank you so much, buddy. And thank you everyone who's listening. And we'll see you next episode. Until then, be limitless. Limitless.