[00:00:03.920] - Tony Roig
Shelley and Sher, it's a pleasure to have you on the Pickleball Therapy podcast. Yeah, I did it again. We just finished a podcast for your all's podcast. Why don't you guys say hello to everybody? Tell them a little bit about yourselves. Sher, why don't we start with you, and then we'll go to Shelley.

[00:00:19.060] - Sher
Oh, man, we just had the best conversation with you, Tony, and I don't think we can keep up. Oh, my God. It was an amazing half hour, 40 minutes. I mean, we didn't want to stop. So thank you so much for having us on your podcast. We are long-time listeners, learned so much from you. Let's see, what about me? I just started Pickleball almost two years ago. Back, met Shelley the very first day I was on the court, and we became fast friends then. I had just ended a marriage. I had just moved. I had a whole new environment and was in a good space. But it's like, Okay, how am I going to meet new people and what am I going to do? I'd retired just recently retired. So everything changed all at once. But it was awesome. And Pickleball has been unbelievably wonderful in every way, shape, and form.

[00:01:11.760] - Tony Roig
That is awesome. I just lost my screen behind you, but that's fine. We're going to keep on share. Thanks for sharing that. We're going to talk about that a little bit more because we just talked about that on the other podcast, too. Let's play a little bit. Sher, why don't you share a little bit about yourself with the listeners?

[00:01:24.490] - Shelley
Yeah. My husband and I had just been traveling. It was in 2018, we sold everything and were traveling around the world. We had just come back. We raised our family here in Seattle, but we had just come back. I was looking for a new community, wondering what I wanted to do. I had a friend say, Hey, you need to go try pickleball. We talked about earlier, I wasn't an athlete. I'm like, Well, pickleball? I never played tennis. Can I do this? I went to my first lesson and I gave it a try, and I've been hooked ever since. I can't believe the amazing community it's brought me, the joy it's brought to my life, and how it's empowered me as an individual. It's just been amazing.

[00:02:11.980] - Tony Roig
That is awesome stuff. Tell us a little bit about what's the genesis for the podcast? Whoever wants to take it, I'll leave it up to you guys. What was the genesis for the podcast? How did you guys decide, Hey, let's do a podcast, and then tell everybody a little bit about what the podcast is about, because we're going to send them there at the end, and we'll put in the show notes Okay, go ahead, Sher.

[00:02:31.630] - Sher
It's called Life Lessons from Pickleball. The way we came about it, as I mentioned, we met on the Pickleball Corp for a lesson and then just became great friends and started realizing all this magic and joy and incredible physical activity and all this. We were having so much fun and met all these other people who were having so much fun, and we wanted to start hearing their stories. We were sharing our own stories with each other, and we wanted to hear everybody else's stories. We have international backgrounds, each We were able to reach out to people all over the world and say, Will you be guests on this show if we do it? We had friends who were our first guests, and they helped us get our feet wet and figure it out. We sat down and came up with how many words, Sher?

[00:03:17.710] - Shelley
Yeah, probably 50 words we brainstormed, what pickleball had brought to our lives. Like wisdom, sharing, connectedness, high vibration, heart, joy. The list went on and on. We were astounded, really, when we sat down and did it. Then we took our list and we distilled it into three pillars. Our three pillars were connectedness, joy, and empowerment.

[00:03:45.670] - Sher
Love it. You have three pillars in your system, too, Tony.

[00:03:48.790] - Tony Roig
We do a lot of stuff in three, so that's awesome. I love it. It's connectedness, joy, and empowerment. That's awesome. Those are great. So community, basically, connectedness, community, joy, your personal reaction and happiness, and then empowerment is this growing or strengthening of yourself. That's awesome.

[00:04:09.910] - Shelley
Yes. Just feeling physically and emotionally and mentally. Like you said, all of a sudden I'm an athlete. It is very empowering. I can do this.

[00:04:20.590] - Tony Roig
I'm going to have to give a little context about the athlete thing in a second. Let me give you a context of that. What happened was during our podcast interview a little bit ago, I mentioned about the idea of using the term athlete to define yourself. If you play pickleball multiple days and host a podcast for a pickleball, you're more than just a casual player. This is something I want to give credit to my co-head coach, C. J. Johnson, because it's something that she was very... C. J. And I didn't tell you guys this during our interview before, but C. J. Has been an athlete her entire life. Imagine she's been an athlete during a lot of times when being a professional woman athlete, which she was, one of the easiest thing in the world. It wasn't like... Not that today is easy, but it's maybe easier than it was 20 years ago. I can't give away your age.

[00:05:09.610] - Sher
Before Title 9.

[00:05:10.690] - Tony Roig
Yeah, a little bit ago. But she was very adamant about that. That connected, I believe, with Sher, because the concept of being an athlete seems to be something that really resonated with you, Sher. That's what I'm hearing.

[00:05:23.940] - Shelley
Yes. Always being the kid that I'm athletic, but I never had the confidence to join a team or go out for sports. So I never thought of myself as an athlete. And so pickleball has been really empowering.

[00:05:36.560] - Tony Roig
What's interesting is just even using that term will potentially start percolating through other things. Because for instance, an athlete is more likely to warm up before they play. An athlete is more likely to stretch a little bit after they play. An athlete is more likely to hydrate before a big day of... Whatever. The things that athletes do. And so now all of a sudden you're like, wait a minute, I'm supposed to do this because I'm an athlete. So then it starts percolating throughout the parts. That's super cool.

[00:06:02.490] - Shelley
Awesome.

[00:06:02.800] - Tony Roig
Yeah, it's really cool. I love the words, and I'm going to put you guys on the spot for a second. Because this is a question that we ask our students, which is, and I'll give you guys a second to think about it because I'll probably ramble on about something for a second, but think about what's your one-word relationship with pickleball? What is the one-word that defines your relationship with pickleball? If you're ready, you can answer. If you need a minute, wink at me and I'll keep about something.

[00:06:31.280] - Sher
Actually, the word that comes for me is presence. I listen to most of them, but one of them that you talk about is even focusing so much on the pickleball that you see the holes of the pickleball. I mean, actually, you can almost feel one with that ball in it. No matter where it goes, you're ready for it. That only happens if we are present in that very moment. I try to carry that into my life, too. Not as well, and not always well on the pickleball court either. But that's the word that comes for me.

[00:07:05.310] - Tony Roig
It's interesting because you can, and I'm going to get you, Sher, in a second, but it's interesting how you can think about using... I like to think about pickleball, and this is something that's fairly recent for me in terms of this thought process, but I've been thinking about pickleball a lot as a canvas. Pickleball itself is fine. It's great. You go out there, hit the ball, but it's more than about the plastic ball and the paddle and whatever. It's a canvas for ourselves. We get to work on ourselves physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually on the pickleball court. What's interesting about presence is this idea, it's almost like a meditation. It becomes like a meditation for you. If you approach it that way, super healthy for you, you're going to be fine with the results, and you're going to get all the benefits from it, plus the additional benefit of the present's practice, which is awesome. All right, Sher, what you got? You got a word?

[00:07:58.480] - Shelley
I got a word. It's joy. Laying in bed the night before, I'm so excited knowing I have a pickleball game the next day. I wake up, I jump out of bed, go to my pickleball game. I love the community. Even if I don't know the people I'm playing, I'm excited to meet new people. And I'm joy with what my body is going to do, what's going to happen that day.

[00:08:22.030] - Tony Roig
I love it. The important thing about the reason I asked the question is, and we asked the question of our students, is that That word, it's your word, right? You came up with it. I didn't come up with it. I didn't even suggest it. You guys came up with it. That word becomes you all's quid pro quo when you go play. Basically, results don't matter because that's not why you went to play. You guys didn't say, I play pickle. My one more relationship is, kick an ass when I play pickleball or winning every game when I play pickleball. If presence for share and joy for Shelley, then you're good to The rest doesn't matter. You went 0-8 today. Okay, cool. I got to see my friends. I got pitzled. I got pitzled. Yeah. It is what it is. You're playing the greatest sport on the planet from my perspective. Yeah. Awesome stuff. Share with us a little bit, if you don't mind. Was there something that happened along your pickleball journey that was either an eye-opening moment for you from the mental side or something, some challenge that you faced that was that you were like, Man, this is tough.

[00:09:33.790] - Tony Roig
It could be how you felt after a losing session. It can be an experience with a player who didn't behave the way that we would like players to behave. Whatever stuff that jumps out to you that was a thing that happened that changed maybe a little bit of the trajectory on your pickleball journey?

[00:09:54.380] - Sher
Yeah, I'm very relationship-oriented. If I'm playing with somebody for whom When I'm winning is the end-all be-all, I have a hard time with that. In fact, I'll start out by saying, I play this for fun. I do try to win. I try to do my best. But if I don't win, no big deal. If I'm playing with somebody for whom that is a big deal, the pressure I feel to support them in their goal to win is pretty tricky for me. I'm an empath, so I'm picking up, so, Sher. I'm picking up their anxiety and yada, yada. The more I can stay in my own zone, which is important in my life, too, to not just be absorbing everybody else's thoughts and feelings and taking them on as mine, just stay in that moment. So I think that might be why presence is such an important word for me, that I stay in my lane, I stay in my mind, I stay in my heart, do the best I can, and have fun in the process.

[00:10:54.810] - Tony Roig
Yeah, that's interesting. And then I think that's something that's greatly undervalued, I would say, in terms of just even performance as an athlete, as a player, is the energy between partners on the doubles court. It's so impactful because I have the same experience. I've gotten to a place in my life where I love playing pickleball, but I don't go play pickleball to be stressed. Exactly. Then don't call me. That's going to be the case. I'll tell you guys a quick side story, and then I'm going to get to you, Shelly, on it. But a quick side story is, I go to Nationals in '23. It was in Dallas, the PPA Nationals thing. I like going to tournaments primarily because I get to see the senior pro players who I don't get to see on a regular basis because they're all over the country. To me, I view it as an open play to me. I get to go and say hi to them and play a couple of games. Whatever happens, happens. I'm fine. But I'm looking around and I'm seeing all my friends and other folks that I know, they look miserable. Absolutely miserable.

[00:12:06.170] - Tony Roig
The faces and the thing and the whatever. I actually wrote a piece about it. I'm like, Why did you go to National? You paid money to go there. You had to travel, you had to take time away, you had to register, you had to be upset. I'm like, wow. We're all 50 plus. I wish 20-year-olds could also do it, but as 50 plus, we're like, come on. Anyway, I find that fascinating, the win-it-all-cost a thing. Anyway, sorry. Cheli, go ahead. Share with us something, if you don't mind.

[00:12:41.510] - Shelley
Where I'm at in my pickleball journey is, like I said, I love it. The first time I'm an athlete, I love doing tournaments. It's so fun, so empowering. But I'm starting to develop this fear that I'm not going to get any better. What if I don't keep getting as good as my partner? And then what if my partner doesn't want to be my partner anymore because I'm not getting better? And so I'm thinking about, what do I do with that? Where do I turn? What do I do to get to get better.

[00:13:15.850] - Tony Roig
Right now, there's folks listening to the podcast and you just touch a nerve. You put a hot poker on a nerve because getting left behind or that is a super stressful feeling for players. I don't want to get left behind. For yours, it's more specific, more micro, because yours is specific to a one partnership in a tournament, which is important. For others, it might just be like, I'm going to be left behind in this group. I'm not going to give out it to this group anymore. That's a difficult It's difficult to answer it in terms of, what do I do to keep up? Because that's almost impossible to exactly do. There's numerous reasons for that. Remember, it could also go the other way. Now, I'm not saying that you would dump your partner, but it happens, where if there's not a congruence of objectives, and that's what I think I would focus on for you and your partner, is why are you guys playing tournaments? If you guys are playing tournaments, let's say your partner is in the same place you are mentally, maybe your partner has better thirds and you have better volleys, whatever.

[00:14:25.730] - Tony Roig
But if your partner is going to the tournament to enjoy Enjoy being with Shelley, enjoy the competition, enjoy the camaraderie, then that would remove some of your stress about, Oh, my God, my third shots are at a 62% rate, and they need to be at a 67% rate in order for this partner to want to play with me. Maybe have a conversation with your partner about what their interests are. Then I would suggest that the... Let's assume that your partner, and obviously, it's very hypothetical, but let's assume that your partner is like, I want to win at all costs. I need to get gold medals, and I'm going to keep going. Then that will inform your decision making in terms of what you want to do. If that's consistent with what you want, it doesn't sound like it's consistent with what you want anyway. That would tell you some information that you go, Okay, and that's if you want the best for your partner, you say, I'll tell you, what I did recently was I got a friend of mine here in Tampa, of ours, me and my wife, very good pickleball players, been working on our game a lot, hasn't really broken through the senior pro-ranks yet.

[00:15:29.250] - Tony Roig
I I think she's under-thinking how good she is in terms of what she can get as a partner. But anyway, she asked me if I would play with her in the US Open. I had no plans of playing in the US Open this year because we got too much stuff going on and we're not going down there for the whole week like we have done in the past. I had a conversation with her and I said, Chris, here's the thing. I want to be up front. I'm not drilling right now. I'm not hardly playing. I play once a week on average of that, 1. 2 times a week or something like that, at most. You You can get a better partner than me if you want to give yourself the best chance to go deep in the draw. I'll do my best. I'm going to go out there, I'm going to give it my all, but I got to be realistic. We had an open conversation about it, and her interest is to work on her strategy, which I am very good at in game strategy, and I'm a very good mixed doubles player. That'll be good for her, I think.

[00:16:25.310] - Tony Roig
She knows I'll give it my all, and she knows I'll be a supportive partner. I do offer some characteristics that are beneficial, but I am not the best option for going deep in a tournament. I have a puncher's chance, if you know what I'm saying. Me and my partners have beaten very good teams, and we've competed against other very good teams very closely. But sometimes I run out of energy or things break down because I'm not doing them as often. I would have a conversation, Sher, with your partner before I put all that burden on myself in terms of... I mean, I would because I I think right now, basically, you're projecting a little bit about what you're thinking to your partner instead of talking to your partner and just have the conversation. The other thing I would suggest, just big picture improvement for anybody listening and for you guys as well, if this interests you. The numbering system works against us in our improvement journey because the jumps are pretty big. When you talk about, I'm a 3-0 and I'm going to go to 3-5, or I'm a 3-5 going to 4-0, those are humongous jumps.

[00:17:33.370] - Tony Roig
It is better to think about it in terms of I'm going from 3-5-5 to 3-6-2, or something like that. Because I would suggest you if you hypothetically knew that team A was a 3. 7 team, 3. 7, and team B was legit 3. 6 team, if we can know that certainly. In that match, the team A, the 3. 7 team wins like 11-2. It's not close. So the difference between 3. 7 and 3. 6 is night and day. And the same thing with 3-8 and 3-7, and 3-6 and 3-5. Do you see what I'm saying? So you got to bring it down a little bit to... Because I think too many players are like, I need to become a 4-0. And you're like, Well, legit 4-0, legit 4-0, it should be hard. Because legit 4-0 is a legit 4-0. The term that I coined and I use is benchmark. So a benchmark 4. 0 player is a standard bearer. They're a standard bearer for pickleball. They know how to play pickleball amazingly well. The reason they don't play 4. 5 is because of some offensive weapons, some other things. But they play every facet of the game at a good 4.

[00:18:47.050] - Tony Roig
0, benchmark 4. 0 player. So that's a standard bearer. You know what I mean? I think we throw these numbers around like they're like, no big deal. 3. 5 is an amazing level. 3. 5 is solid play. Most rec play is not 3-5 play, not good 3-5 play. You know what I mean? They call themselves 3-5, but just not really. That's the other thing, too. It's like these number things, they're deceiving me because it's like players are like, I need to be a 4-0. I'm like, Forget about the number. If you know how to play 4-0, you'll play 4-0 when you're out there on the court. Whatever your number is, you're going to play like a 4-0 player. If your number is 4-0, but you're playing like a 3-3, you're still going to play like a 3-3. The number is not going to help you. But your thing, specifically, big picture, the number thing or like that, just be careful with that because those gaps are huge. 3, 5, 4, 0, 3, 0, whatever, wherever you're at. Then on the partner, I would just have a conversation with your partner. My guess is, based on what you've described as your interest, it sounds like you having fun at tournaments.

[00:19:46.500] - Tony Roig
You're having fun at tournaments, that tells me that your partner is having fun at tournaments, which tells me that your partner is probably in the same place you are. You just need to have a conversation. So you're like, Oh, cool. I can relax now. Anyway, that would be my suggestion on that front. And then obviously, keep working on your game and keep growing the way you want to grow. And one other piece I'll tell you guys and anybody listening is the journey, there's no endpoint. And that's the thing that's tricky because what players think about, and this is the way we explain it. So we go, so where you're standing right now as a pickleball player, wherever you're at. So you're imagining a player, call it six months from now. So you want to be that player, the one six months from that can do all these things and all this stuff. Let's fast forward for a second. So now, six months from now, what do you think is going to happen? You're going to want to be the player. Exactly. You're never satisfied. If you're always looking ahead at the next player, at the next version of yourself, you don't enjoy this player, and you don't enjoy these steps.

[00:20:50.640] - Tony Roig
You really rob yourself because the next player is going to want to be the next player, and it never ends. And so you lose. But it actually works against you because you lose these moments that you should treasure. You should love the little step that you took yesterday and the one day you're going to take tomorrow and the silly thing you're going to do the next day to take a step back, and then you take another step forward. You should enjoy all of those. They're like the present thing that Shera was talking about. Is that your phone?

[00:21:15.930] - Sher
Does that mean time's up? Timer.

[00:21:17.260] - Tony Roig
No, it's not a Timer. You can give me a Timer. But I'm going to tell you what it was. It was my wife calling me. She's the only one that bypasses my phone, but it's fine. That's why at the beginning of the podcast, there's a phone ringing because my wife called during the podcast and I kept it in. That's the story. Anyway, Sher, tell me the thing.

[00:21:34.960] - Sher
It's okay if you want to take that call.

[00:21:37.460] - Tony Roig
No, it's fine. I'll call her back.

[00:21:39.610] - Sher
I was just saying your episode, Are We There Yet? You go into detail about that whole concept. I loved that. It's like it's the journey and who we are now. Yeah, good on you.

[00:21:50.380] - Tony Roig
I love that. Yeah. I think a lot of times it's just a perspective thing. I'm not telling you guys anything that wasn't already there. It's just you maybe weren't seeing it. It's like lifting a blanket or something. You're like, Look, it's right there. You're like, Oh, shit. Yeah, I get it. I'm not teaching you guys anything. I'm just showing you something that's already present, which a lot of times is the work. Anyway, all right, guys. Let me ask you a question here. Players out there, I love the fact that I listen to pickleball Therapy, but I really appreciate the work that you guys are doing to continue to, not continue to, but to share, to share stories from yourselves and from other players, sharing about yourself. Shera, I appreciate you sharing, and Shera, you too, but sharing about your journeys, so that other players out there don't think that they're the only ones that have gone through life changes and then pickleball has been good for them. It's so helpful to hear that information from you and from your guests on the podcast. So I certainly would encourage our listeners to check you guys out.

[00:22:52.900] - Tony Roig
What's the best way for them to find you guys?

[00:22:56.770] - Shelley
Lifelessons from pickleballpodcast.

[00:22:57.840] - Tony Roig
Com. Then the other thing is, they You guys are on Apple, Spotify, wherever there are podcasts, right?

[00:23:03.770] - Sher
Everything, and YouTube.

[00:23:05.610] - Tony Roig
And YouTube, so you can type in Life Lessons from Pickleball, right? Yeah. Okay. Life Lessons from Pickleball. In your podcast feed, the same place you listen to this podcast, unless you're on our platform. So ladies, it was a pleasure chatting with you and getting to know you guys better. I appreciate everything you guys are doing and keep putting up the good work.

[00:23:26.030] - Sher
Tony, you're a hoot. Thank you so much. Thank you. The check's in the mail, I swear. We've already taught it so much. Thanks, guys.