[00:00:05.370] - Speaker 1
Hello and welcome to Pickleball Therapy, the podcast dedicated to your pickle improvement. I hope you're having a great week. This week, we are in the midst of our spring boot camp. It's a lot of fun. It's always fun to figure out better ways to deliver the content that's actually going to help pickleball players. And that's what we're going to do in this boot camp, is we're going to provide some help with control controlling shot trajectory primarily so that players can enjoy a better play experience. In this process, it got me thinking about control. Here we're going, during the boot camp, I should say, we're going to go deep into control of a shot. And that's important, knowing how to control a shot, knowing how to control the action as much as you can when you're playing, where you exercise control during games. But then I started thinking bigger picture about this concept of control and agency, and that's what I want to cover in today's podcast. It's the concept of control and agency as it pertains to your overall journey as a pickleball player, but also just as a human being. I'm going to share with you during our conversation today, I'll share with you about my own journey, about my own journey as a pickleball player now, as an athlete.

[00:01:30.470] - Speaker 1
I used to play tennis before this and what my journey has been inside this sphere, inside the mental sphere. And then, and I'm going to leave you with a quote, really good quote that a friend of mine sent me that I think will really help you. It's actually a quote that had to do with golf, but I think it really applies to... It will nicely tie everything up. As we move into the podcast, if you happen to be hearing this podcast right when it drops and you're interested in the pickleball system. The course is open now. If you know, our courses only open usually two times, sometimes three times, usually two times per year. So if you've been thinking about it, this is a great time to get involved with that. Sometimes it gets a little confusing out there because we have a boot camp. And then the boot camp, the idea of the boot camp, or part of the idea of the boot camp is to allow players to come in from the outside, who haven't studied this before, and they get to see what it's all about and a taster, if you will.

[00:02:32.890] - Speaker 1
And so then if they like that, then they're given an opportunity to join the pickleball all system, if they so choose. But the pickleball all system is our big course that we have every year. So if that's something of interest, you check that out. All right, let me dive into this idea of control. And it's something that we've been doing this podcast for a few years now, and we've covered a ton of subjects, a ton of areas about the game. But I'm not sure that we have an episode specifically on this topic, because I guess for me, when I was doing the podcast, it always seemed implicit, right? That baked in, that we... Of course, we have agency, right? Of course, we have control over our lives and we can decide what we want to do with it. But I don't think that we really apply that a lot of times in this area. And let me give you the way that I'm thinking about it, the way I'm framing it out. So obviously, you're listening to this podcast, Who picked the podcast? You did. I appreciate that, and that's great. But fantastic. But it's your decision, your control, your agency to pick this podcast to listen to right now.

[00:03:40.820] - Speaker 1
The last time you went out to eat, hopefully you picked something on the menu that you wanted. So you pick these things. But what happens is sometimes when things happen to us in pickleball, we sometimes externalize those things. It's like we lack control over our process. Sometimes it's bad partners, unlucky situation, bad call, whatever, things like that. Our mental journey can also feel sometimes like it's outside of our control, outside of our agency, because it's just too big. It's like too much stuff going on out there. But the reality is that at the end of the day, we can decide how we navigate this process, how we navigate the... Not just situations, because for instance, going back to, let's say you're upset when you lose and ask you why you're upset, instead of going to something else, you can just put perspective on it. You can say, You know what? The perspective here really is, I can feel a little bit upset, that's fine, but let me grab the reins. Before this wagon starts going down the path like the horses lose control in this going crazy, let me grab the reins of it a little bit because I can apply a perspective to it because I have control over this situation.

[00:05:08.410] - Speaker 1
And if you want to go deep on it or a little bit broader than this. The Buddhist talk about it, the Stoaks talk about it, things like that. But basically, the idea is that I can't control events. I can't control all events. Things will happen, good, some good, some bad, some whatever. But I can't control what? How I react to those events. I can control how I allow those events to come into my mind and how I then react to those events. For example, you could make the decision not to let certain things into your mind. That is your decision, whether it comes into your mind or doesn't come into your mind. You have control over that. And once they come into your mind, then you can assign certain values to them. And then third tier, I guess, would be you could also deal with it once you've already had a reaction. So let's work that through a second. So let's talk about winning and losing in pickleball, since that's the focus that we have in this podcast, the podcast for your pickleball mind, as we say. When you think about the win and loss, the first thing you can do is not let it in your mind.

[00:06:31.780] - Speaker 1
What I mean by that is it's just not something that you consider. If you think about it, there's a lot of things in life that you don't consider in your decision making. But there's other things you decide to. You decide to let into your decision making. So in this case, you just say, okay, winning and losing, the scores don't matter to me. And obviously it takes some time to work on that. But once you work on it, then eventually it just becomes where you don't even hear the score anymore. You're just like, is it my server or your server? First server, second server, are you guys serving? Whatever. Score doesn't matter to me. So that's number one. Number two is the score is led into my mind. How do I deal with it? And then maybe it's just a data point. It's just, okay, the numbers I have in my mind, their numbers, they're not going to make or break me. They're not going to change my life significantly, so I'm good. That's another way of dealing with it. Now you've led it into your ecosystem, but you're constructively dealing with the information, with the data that you led into your mind.

[00:07:43.700] - Speaker 1
Another way, and Let me just, before I move on to the next one, let me just tell you what you're trying to avoid is you're trying to avoid it basically hijacking your mind, hijacking your processes, making your day not good, things like that, feeling upset. That's what you're trying to avoid with this second stage. Obviously, if you do the first one, which is the wins and losses don't even come into your mind, then you won't have an adverse reaction because it's not even in there. Second one is, let's see if we can avoid an adverse reaction. The third one is, you've had an adverse reaction, meaning you've allowed the wins and losses into your mind. They've affected you negatively now. You don't feel good, you're upset, whatever it is, whatever the negative feeling is. But now you're able navigate that and get out of that sooner rather than later. Meaning you're able to then apply the perspective a little bit, perspective prospectively, right? Or I'm sorry, retrospectively. So you're able to apply the perspective retrospectively and say, Okay, I recognize what's happening. I'm getting down on myself. They say you start asking yourself questions like, why did we lose that last match?

[00:08:53.850] - Speaker 1
I'm not playing well today. Or you start beating yourself up a little bit. You're able to, again, grab the reins of the of the wagon, of the horse's reins, and say, whoa, whoa, whoa, let's relax here a second, and then apply perspective retrospectively to help you unwind that situation as quickly as possible. Those are three different ways that you can exercise control over your processes. And then bigger picture, it's exercising control over your journey, over your journey as in the mental side of the game. And that includes listening to this podcast. Kudos to you for listening to the podcast. We continue to try and reach additional players, and we do our best to do that. And so we know that it resonates with some players, and other players don't have time for this, and I respect that. But kudos to you for taking a few minutes from your day and assigning it to this process. I would suggest you, depending on where you're at in your journey, maybe you need to devote a little more time. Think about it. It's your decision at the end of the day, but think about it. Is that something that you would benefit from?

[00:09:59.150] - Speaker 1
Whether it's picking up book. I think I've mentioned this before, but I'm going to mention it again. The book that got me started on this whole path was now my friend and mentor, Dr. Peter Scales, Coach Pete's Book, Mental and Emotional Training for Tennis, Compete, Learn, Honor. You can forget the tennis part. It's the same principles. But Compete, Learn, Honor really is a key foundation to my thinking on this journey. That's a really good book. And there's other good books, The Inner Game of Tennis by Tim Galway. There's The Art of Learning by Josh Whets, Whetskin, I think it is. All those books are on... If you go to betterpickleball. Com under resources, there's a series of books there. You're welcome to use those links I got the books. But anyway, so that's a way to continue going deeper in your journey. And the question for you at the end of the day is, how important is this to you? When I say this, I mean your mental journey. How important is it for you to continue to grow in the mental side of things. And remember that when you grow in pickleball, on the mental side of pickleball, what you're learning extends well beyond pickleball.

[00:11:12.710] - Speaker 1
It extends well beyond just the court and the games that you're playing. Those principles that you learn and you work on, or you're going to take off the court and be able to work on off the court as well. So exercise your agency. And let me pivot now the story I promised you about my journey. That's what happened to me. I came from tennis. I played tennis since I can remember, since I could walk almost, and pivoted to pickleball in 2015 to 16, that time frame. But I've always played some level of competitive sport. Took some gaps here and there in adulthood and when life happened stuff. But I did not have a positive mental relationship with sport. When I was younger, I used to break rackets. When I played pickleball, I chucked paddles. I did all the things, right? And got upset at myself, got down after losses, the normal, the gamut. If it's happening to you, it's happening to me, probably. And so about four years ago, and I actually, to be honest with you, I cannot really remember the impetus for it anymore. Maybe I got to go to my old podcast to see how it That's how it started.

[00:12:30.460] - Speaker 1
But I know that I was exposed to Coach Pete's book. I started reading it. I started thinking it. Perhaps it was coaching, probably, now that I think about it. Becoming a coach later in life made me think about these things in a different light, because I'm trying to help players, and I'm seeing them players struggle, and so I'm thinking about it, and then I start thinking about it for myself. And so anyway, I've been on this journey for, seriously, about four, four and a half years. I can tell you that my approach to life has changed given this approach. And obviously, my pickleball is much more relaxed now. I still compete. I go out there, I battle. I still get upset at myself if I don't clear the net, for instance. If you're a system student, you know that one of our tenets is, Don't hit the net. I'll lose rallies. Losing rallies is fine. That's part of the deal. But I don't want to hit the net because I have control over that. But that's another We'll get a conversation. But anyway, my overall interaction with the sport has improved significantly over the years.

[00:13:38.030] - Speaker 1
And so what I would suggest you is there's really no reason it can't be the same for you if you so choose. If you choose to exercise your control and your agency over the entire process of your mental training. This is that athletic pillar that we talk about inside the pickleball system and inside all of our coaching, the three pillars of pickleball, the athletic pillar, Body and mind. In fact, I have teed up for next week's podcast. I'm going to be talking about the other half of that because I think sometimes we overlooked that when we're focused solely on the mind. Super important, the mind. We can't forget the body, and I'm going to tee it up in next week's episode. All right, before we sign off, I'm going to read you this. My friend David, who's actually on a similar journey. He's been working on his mental side of the pickleball, and I can tell you that I've seen a great improvement in him, and I think he feels a great improvement improvement in terms of how he feels after a session, regardless of the results. So this is about golf, but just replace golf with pickleball.

[00:14:36.920] - Speaker 1
I'm going to read it the way it is, but you can replace golf with pickleball on it, and it works great. And thanks, David, for sharing this. So no one cares the The title of it is No One Cares What Your Score Was, Ever. Love it. I had the most miserable round I played in years yesterday. Dropped three straight into the water on my 90-yard approach on the third hole. Had a 10 on two separate holes on my way to a I didn't get mad. I enjoyed the day with my playing partners because I realized that no one, not my wife, not my playing partners, not my best friends, no one cares about my golf score. I could shoot a 72 or a 120, and my life will not change an Iota in either case. Get out there, enjoy the game, savor the great drives and flushed iron shots. Let the mistakes roll off your back. Have fun because if you're not, you're spending a lot of money in mental language for no reason at all. And that's a fantastic way of framing it. I assume it's a... I don't know if it's a man or a woman.

[00:15:38.530] - Speaker 1
It's that player exercising their control, their agency over their process and how they Whether it's a 72 or 120, I'm going to be fine. No one else cares about it, so I'm not putting that pressure on myself. Just a really positive way of doing it. So maybe take that quote with you next time you're out there on the courts. That's this week's podcast. I hope you enjoyed it. As always, if you enjoyed it, consider rating and reviewing it. We haven't seen a review in a while on Apple, so if you have any on Apple, it'd be nice, if you don't mind jumping in there and sharing a review. And you can review whatever you want. I read on a prior podcast, I read a review of someone who was like, why is this guy? What does it say? Like, why? Hot air nonsense or something like that? Whatever. I mean, whatever you feel like. So put a review on there. We appreciate it. And as always, share it with your friends. Remember, if you enjoy this podcast, and if it helps you out, it's probably going to help them out, too. I hope you have a great week, and I will see you next week for talking about the other half of that.

[00:16:34.680] - Speaker 1
Until then.