Welcome to the special episode of Pickleball Therapy. As you may know, by now, we are in single, single topic mode during the regular Friday episodes of Pickleball Therapy. So these special episodes are intended to give us an opportunity to reach out to you about other subjects that aren't necessarily covered in our longer format Friday episodes of the podcast. And what I wanted to do this week is,

in this special episode is talk about a, it was a project that, that, that they, a Pickleball therapist had brought up and said, you know, this Pickleball therapist, if you don't know who that, what that is or, or who that is, those are folks who have made a commitment to their mental game and, and, and particularly relevant to that being the,

the Pickleball Therapy Podcast. So it's a commitment made to themselves to become Pickleball therapists. If you wanna know what that more about that and you're interested in that, send me an email at therapy at better Pickleball dot com therapy at better Pickleball dot com and I'll send you the information and you can decide whether it's right for you. But a therapist has sent me a suggestion about doing a Word of the Week during the podcast.

I thought that was a really good idea. I did it for a few weeks, but it never really stuck with me. So it was kind of one of those things that, that just never really stuck with the, with the, that, what we were doing. And now that we have a single, single concept podcast on Fridays, what I wanna do is instead of doing a Word of the Week,

I'm gonna try and do a word of the month, because I think I can do that one. So the word of the month, it relates to the, one of the podcasts we did recently on gratitude, but I want to shift it a little bit here and talk about gift, right? Not gratitude it directly itself, but gift, and you'll understand more how I'm using it in,

in, in a second. But I want you to think about is as we enter into the season, I want you to think about, you know, the importance that Pickleball has in your life. Can we do that for someone else? Can we introduce them, encourage them, cajole them into enjoying this amazing sport? And so I'm gonna give you three different suggestions in terms of how you can share,

how you can share Pickleball as a gift with someone else, or parts of Pickleball as a gift with someone else, or strengthen someone who's already playing Pickleball. But before I do that, I do have a request, if I may. What I'd like to do is ask you if you'll send us, again, a therapy at better Pickleball dot com, if you'll send us a phrase that you relate to the podcast.

So something, some sort of phrase that is used by me, primarily 'cause I'm the primary host of the podcast, but some sort of phrase that is used during the podcast that resonated with you, something that stuck with you, and that that maybe meant something to you. Send that to us at therapy at better Pickleball dot com. We're going to put those together on a,

on a list and, and, and maybe we'll like publish the top five or something. I'm not sure yet, depending on how many responses we get and, And how, you know, if the, if the answers are, you know, can be grouped or not the answers, but the phrases or the, the, whatever the words are that resonated with you.

I'll give you an example of one. The one that resonates with me is, you know, it's the one that I say at the end of every podcast, right? If you enjoy the podcast, chat with your friends. If you enjoyed it, they probably will too. But there may be something else that I've said during the podcast, and particularly if it's something that I use repeatedly,

send it to us at therapy at better Pickleball dot com. Appreciate it. And we'll put together some sort of a report back to you, let you know what, what other listeners are, what's resonating with them about the podcast. All right, let's talk about the season and gifting this beautiful sport. So there's three different levels that I'm going to suggest to you.

One level is gifting the sport itself. And that is the, that's the one where, you know, you have a friend or family member who you say, you know what this person would really benefit from the activity, the social, the exercise, whatever it is about playing, you know, that Pickleball provides, I'm going to take some steps and help them get into the sport of Pickleball.

It may take a minute to think through your, you know, kind of go through your mental Rolodex, but I guarantee you have a friend or family member who would benefit from Pickleball. Obviously, if they're nearby, it's easier. So you can pick 'em up, drive 'em to the open play and go out there and play with them. Even if it's not your level of play,

it's fine. Go out there, enjoy it with them. If it's remote, maybe you can find a place for them to play. Maybe make connection for them with someone who, you know, like reach out to somebody in that community. See if you can find somebody who knows somebody in that community. Make a connection. Make it easier for your friend to get into Pickleball.

Those types of things. If it's, you know, a dear friend and you want to get them a paddle or something, you know, you can buy paddles nowadays for, you know, 30 or $40. There's a really good paddle that our friend, that our friend, our friends at Pickleball Rocks have, it's their, I don't remember the name of the paddle right off the top of my head,

but it's basically their $39 paddle. I believe it is a budget paddle. It's a solid paddle. We played with it in Dallas at just, you know, the team got to play with it. And we all said, you know what, for the price, hard to beat this paddle so you can get a nice, you know, $40 paddle,

send it to 'em with some balls. Get somebody into the sport of Pickleball. Now, if you know somebody who's in Pickleball and they want to get better, and you are a system member and you've benefited from the system, you don't consider, you don't have to get them a system membership, you can, but you don't have to do that. But consider pointing them in the right direction.

I know that sometimes as players, you know, just as human beings, right? We may not feel comfortable letting the world know that, you know, we are currently in a coaching program. I, we get that feedback. Sometimes players, you know, aren't comfortable sharing that, and that's perfectly fine. We're not telling you to wear a, you know,

wear a, a, a banner when you go play that says, Hey, I'm in the Pickleball system. It's help me out. If you're not comfortable with that, if you are comfortable with that, by all means, please do. But if you're not comfortable with that, that's fine. But if you have A special friend, right? Maybe pull 'em aside and say,

Hey, you know what? I know you've been struggling with the game. There's this program that I've been working with, it's helped me out. What you're giving them is a gift of empowerment, right? Whether they choose to join the system or not, join the system, that'll be their choice at that point, but at least you will have communicated to them to the best of your ability information that will help them with their game.

Again, I'm assuming that it has helped you if, if you're doing this right? So if it's helped you consider sharing it with somebody else. And then the last one should be the easiest one because it's how we end every single podcast that we, that we, that we put put out, which is, you know, there are players out there who like you,

perhaps, you know, would benefit from some, you know, some mental, some thinking, right? About the, the mental side of things. Some perspective, maybe, maybe the, the bowl of ice cream, maybe some concept, right? That would just resonate with them and help them have a healthier relationship with the sport of Pickleball. If you know somebody like that,

share the podcast with them, and don't just do it one time. Like, don't just tell 'em, Hey, I, there's a podcast I listen to. Remind me next time when you're listening to the podcast, no matter which podcast platform you're on, they have a share button. So you go up to the little share button, usually like a little arrow or a little square with an arrow coming out of it.

You go to that little arrow, you click on it, it'll say, message or copy, link some options or email. And then what you'll do is you'll send it to your friend and you'll say, I'm listening to this podcast this morning. Why don't you join me and listen to it as well? Because the reason we do Pickleball therapy is because we under,

we know that there's a, there's a whole world of the mental side of the game that can really help not just how we play, but how we feel about Pickleball. It's a journey that I've personally experienced over the last three or so years, and it's really changed my relationship with this sport and also just how I get around in life. And it's just been very positive for me personally.

And if you listen to the podcast, I believe it's been positive for you as well. So share that with your friends and let them know that there's a podcast out there that can help them and take the next step and actually send them a podcast episode that you want them to listen to. If you have one in mind that's, that's specific to them,

even better send them that one. If it's just the one you're listening to currently and you wanna send it to them, send them that one as well. So that's, that's the special episode of the podcast. This is the new format. So we'll be doing short episodes like this just to bring you something special during the week, and then our regular Friday podcast with the single topic going deep into a subject.

I hope you continue to have a great week, and I'll see you in this Friday's podcast.