[00:00:00.160] - Tony Roig
Hello and

[00:00:05.680] - Tony Roig
Welcome to Pickleball Therapy, the podcast dedicated to your pickleball improvement. Hope you're having a great week. My name is Tony Roig. I'm your host of this weekly podcast. I have some exciting news that's going to be coming out in the next few weeks, so be on the lookout for it.

[00:00:20.600] - Tony Roig
I think you're going to find it exciting. Some new developments in terms of pickleball coaching and delivering some additional products, some additional coaching services that I think are really add a lot to the pickleball landscape. And I think it's something that, you know, I'm super excited about it and I think you will be too. So be on the lookout for those. Today we're actually going to have an excerpt from Pickleball Therapy, the book.

[00:00:45.820] - Tony Roig
I asked Jeff, a member of our team and who's integral in putting the book together, if there were some sections of the book that he thought would be particularly helpful to the listener. And he said, you know what, I got some pages for you. So I got the book with me here. We're going to read it to you. Uh, it's about setting expectations and avoiding frustration or minimizing the chance for frustration based on the expectations that you set for yourself.

[00:01:08.930] - Tony Roig
Uh, because oftentimes what happens is when you're feeling frustrated, you're feeling let down with something, it's because of the expectations that you set going into the. Going into the contest. Right. Going into the. The.

[00:01:20.290] - Tony Roig
The. The game. Right. And if you haven't picked up a copy of the book yet, um, I may or may not have said this before on the podcast that it's now available on Barnes and Noble, Walmart as well as Amazon. So you can get a copy of the book in locations.

[00:01:33.310] - Tony Roig
So we dive right into the language of the, of the book that I want to share with you, which has to do with setting realistic expectations. So next we are going to apply our framing, the recognition that every pickleball game has both a winner and a loser to better set our expectations. Specifically to avoid the potential for disappointment that can accompany unrealistic expectations. Disappointment is defined as sadness or displeasure caused by the non fulfillment of one's hopes or expectations. Feeling disappointed then originates with the expectations that we set.

[00:02:11.460] - Tony Roig
Setting expectations that are not grounded in reality increases the chance that we end up introducing disappointment into our lives. The worst part is that this is a point. Disappointment is completely unnecessary and mostly avoidable. The Ballad of Ricky Bobby is one of my favorite, my favorite movies. Though billed as a comedy, the movie Talladega, the Ballad of Ricky Bobby is, at its core, a deep dive into mental and emotional growth.

[00:02:38.420] - Tony Roig
The biggest takeaway from the movie comes when the movie's protagonist realizes the fundamental flaw in how he had been setting expectations his whole life. The story follows Ricky's evolution from the win or bust mentality that is common in our competitive endeavors to a more mature appreciation of the competition itself and its part in a bigger picture of his life. The arc of the movie story begins in earnest when the estranged father of the movie's main character, Ricky Bobby, makes a surprise appearance at his school. On the day when parents are explaining to the class what they do for a living. His father is a cantankerous fellow and gets himself forcibly removed from the school by the security guards.

[00:03:16.440] - Tony Roig
Before he jumps into his car to dramatically drive off, he makes what appears to Ricky Bobby to be a deep pronouncement about life. Always remember, son, if he ain't first, your last. These words become foundational to teenage Ricky Bobby as the movie fast forwards him as an adult. We find a character whose entire expectations framework is built around this hugely flawed win or else you are in last place maxim. When Ricky Bobby achieves his dream of being a race car driver, the maxim is perfect at first as he wins every race he enters.

[00:03:47.420] - Tony Roig
Eventually, however, reality kicks in and Ricky Bobby loses. Because he has built his entire Persona around a win or bust mentality, he is unable to deal with losing and his whole world world comes crashing down around him in the most spectacular fashion. After Ricky Bobby reaches rock bottom, he begins to examine the way he's always viewed life. An important step in that process is when Ricky Bobby confronts his father about the win or bust maxim that his father had imparted to him at school that day. His father searches his memory and finally chuckles that he was probably high and that on if you ain't first, your last mentality makes no sense.

[00:04:24.590] - Tony Roig
You can be second, you can be third, fourth. Heck, you can even be fifth. The flaw in first or last is thus laid bare and Ricky Bobby is now forced to reframe his approach. His approach. In the end, Ricky Bobby understands that while racing is important, it is but just one part of a bigger picture that makes up his life.

[00:04:42.190] - Tony Roig
If you have not seen the movie, I highly recommend it. I say that to you here and also said it in the book. That's how. That's how powerful I think the movie can be. If you see it from that perspective.

[00:04:50.790] - Tony Roig
As we sit here calmly reading this book, a maxim like if you ain't first, you're last sounds absurd. But when it comes down to it, don't we often resort to this reductive way of thinking when we're playing a pickleball session and win two but lose five? Is that an acceptable outcome to us or are we in the either I win all my games today or I failed school of thought? My experience as a player and coach is that we all have a bit of the unreformed Ricky Bobby in us. Unless you're okay with a session where zero wins, meaning all losses, is an acceptable outcome, then you have set expectations for yourself that will not be met.

[00:05:24.940] - Tony Roig
Sometimes the next chapter is unrealistic. Expectations equals increased disappointment. The frequency with which you will fall short of expectations increases as you increase the demands on the results of your performance. When you set expectations, you set a bar for yourself. If you clear the bar, then you're good.

[00:05:45.510] - Tony Roig
If you do not clear the bar, then you feel no bueno. The thing is, you get to set the bar to begin with. Are you going to set it at some crazy high level? Maybe even an objectively unachievable one? The best way to see how this works is with tournament play.

[00:06:01.190] - Tony Roig
Even if you do not play in pickleball tournaments, the potentially damage like damaging psychology of the tournament player translates to all levels of play. Most tournament players have one bar that will satisfy their tournament experience. Winning the gold medal. Anything short of the gold medal is disappointing. I cannot tell you the number of Facebook posts I've come across from players with silver or bronze medals who begin with now we'd hoped for or similar language.

[00:06:25.530] - Tony Roig
Does this not seem extreme? Either I win the whole tournament or what I failed? Here's another side story from the 2023 Nationals to show you the real effects of this framing. A good friend of mine won the silver medal at Nationals in the Senior Pro Division. Pretty sweet, right?

[00:06:43.360] - Tony Roig
Not so quick. At least with the framing. That day I happened to see my friend my friends right after the match and noticed that they were upset. I could not wrap my head around that feeling as I had watched the end of the match. It had been an amazing contest between two phenomenal teams.

[00:06:59.440] - Tony Roig
In fact, the match had been pushed as far as possible in terms of games played. Each team had given their all and left everything on the court. It's just that one team had to win and one team had to lose. And to complete the context, this was the gold medal match in a Nationals Senior Pro draw that is the toughest of the tournaments in our sport. Period.

[00:07:17.740] - Tony Roig
Yet my friends were upset with only winning a silver medal. Sounds a Bit like Ricky Bobby, doesn't it? My friends and many others who competed in Nationals would clearly benefit from some improved perspective here. At least I know that my friends are putting in the work. I've spoken with my friends since Nationals and they're in a much better place, having reframed their game for the better.

[00:07:39.970] - Tony Roig
Returning to the problem in general, when a tournament player sets their bar as gold or fail, they're setting unrealistic expectations. If the only way that a player can feel good about the performance is to be the last team standing among a bracket full of other amazing teams, all battling as hard as they can, then I would submit that this player has an expectations problem. This player is applying the nonsensical if you're not first you're last mentality from the movie. We can often do this in our play as well. How we set the bar can be a bit different for each of us, but generally it is something along the lines of how we perform during a pickleball session or in a league.

[00:08:16.620] - Tony Roig
We need to set a bar for our sessions that is consistent with reality. The reality is that losses and wins are expected in our play. I am not saying that we should go out there thinking we will lose. There is a nuance here that is important to comprehend. We are not expecting to lose.

[00:08:32.310] - Tony Roig
We are expecting that we might lose. That loss is a possible outcome. It is not a pessimistic expectation. It is the realism that we need to be open to and accept, part of the bargain we entered into when we decided to play pickleball. We go to our pickleball sessions with eyes open and a bar that is appropriately set.

[00:08:50.230] - Tony Roig
We know that we are playing at level and we know that one of us will will lose the game. With this framing, we know that a loss by us is not an unexpected result. It is perfectly natural. With our eyes open and an appropriately set bar, we avoid falling short of unreasonable expectations when we unavoidably end up losing a game. When we feel bad after a losing session of play, it is most likely because our expectations going in were unrealistic.

[00:09:16.050] - Tony Roig
Often we did not consider our expectations, much less set them. We just go out and play with an automatic expectation that we should win. The good news is that we can avoid the potential of post session disappointment. We avoid the fantasy first or last world by setting realistic expectations that appreciate the nuance of sports, including the fact that we will fairly often lose games that we play and there's nothing wrong or disappointing about that result. So the message here is one of control, one of agency where you can set the expectations for your day and have in those expectations the possibility of loss.

[00:09:58.380] - Tony Roig
If you're playing at level and you're playing against your friends and competitors who out there battling as well as you are, as much as you are, I should say the fact that you might lose the game should be on the table. And when you lose the game, you won't be as disappointed because you have set the expectation more realistically for that day. So I hope you enjoyed this brief excerpt from the book Pickleball Therapy. The book again, it's available on Amazon, on Barnes and Noble and on the Walmart website. Feel free to order.

[00:10:28.720] - Tony Roig
Your book's also available on Kindle. I should have said it's also part of the Kindle. I can't remember. It's unlimited or plus or it's like the membership Kindle program. So if you're in that program, you already have access to the book.

[00:10:37.880] - Tony Roig
So you can just look it up and read as much of the book as you care to read as often as you care to read it. If you have already read the book, if you can, leave us a review on any of those sites, on Amazon, on Barnes and Noble, Walmart really helps us reach other players who, like you, would benefit from the book. And if you enjoyed this particular podcast episode and you believe one of your friends out there is struggling with setting expectations, maybe they're using that Ricky Bobby either first or last mentality and you want to help them out, feel free to share a copy of the or feel free to send this episode. Right. Share this episode with them.

[00:11:14.810] - Tony Roig
Because as always, if you enjoyed the podcast, they probably will too. I hope you have a great week. I'll be in camp this week, so I'll be a little bit tied up, a little bit out of touch, but I'll be back next week for another regular episode of Pickleball Therapy.