[00:00:00.250] - Speaker 1
Before we get into the podcast, I want to share with you an upcoming event that we have that I think you're going to want to join us for because it's going to bring you up to date on what's going on in pickleball in 2025. Specifically, the event is called The State of Play, where the Better Pickleball Coaching Team, headed by CJ and myself, will be sharing with you the latest trends that are going on in our sport, strategically with shots, rules, and otherwise. It's a free event, but you do need a ticket because of the limited space in the room. It's also a live event, so you get to ask us some questions. We're going to send you a survey beforehand where you can share with us what's going on and what you're thinking about so that we can answer it during the event. It's just going to be a lot of fun and interactive live event on a Saturday afternoon where we can talk about pickleball. I'll put a link down in the show notes. You can also just go to betterpickleball. Com if that's easier for you to get your ticket. And I hope you can join us and look forward to seeing you on February 22nd.

[00:00:56.850] - Speaker 1
Now, let's dive into the podcast. Hello and welcome to Pickleball Therapy, the podcast dedicated to your pickleball improvement. Hope you're having a great week. My name is Tony Roig. I am the host of this weekly podcast. This week, I want to talk about this concept of different strokes for different folks, finding your way. I have a way I want to frame it for you and then talk about my own reaction to it, because I think it's interesting. It's an interesting reaction that I had to a couple of things that I'm going to explain, and then show you a little bit about how it works in my mind, how my brain goes places I'd rather not go sometimes. Then from there, I navigate my way to a more constructive space, just like we do on the podcast. As we dive into the podcast, housekeeping item. A couple of housekeeping items I want to share with you. One is, you may know this, you may not know this. Pickleball Therapy is a part of a bigger project called Better pickleball. Sometimes players to ask us what's Better pickleball all about. To make it simple, Better pickleball is all about coaching.

[00:02:06.790] - Speaker 1
That's what we do. We provide coaching, whether it's here, whether it's inside our academy, whether it's inside at a camp, inside our system course. Everything that we do is coaching, including this podcast that you're listening to. That's Better pickleball. If you're not yet part of our Better pickleball community, highly recommend you check that out. You get a lot of good information in there as well. Also want to let you know that we have a couple of interesting events coming up, one in February, one in March. So be on the look out for those. We're going to have some live trainings. One is going to be like a state of the Union type of a thing. We're going to talk about pickleball, big picture, where's Pickleball right now, what you should be looking for. And then the second one is a boot camp. And the boot camp is going to be I believe it's scheduled for four days, I think it is. It's an hour a day, but it's about four days. So it's about four or five hours of content. Really going to help you with your game. So be on the look out for those.

[00:02:56.500] - Speaker 1
If you're on an email list, you will be aware of those. So Get on the email list. Good reason to be on there. You'll be a notified of them. All right, let's talk about different strokes for different folks. I'm going to pull up a couple of reviews here because I thought it was interesting. I wanted to do a shout-out. I started with a shout out, and then I got the second review that I'm going to read to you on this list. I have one review that's a five-star game-changing review, and then the second review is one-star, and it's entitled Hot Air Nonsense. I'm going to read them to you, and then I'll tell you how I reacted to it, and then let's talk about it. I don't have any problem with getting a one-star review, and as you'll understand in a second, I think it's perfectly fine. The five-star review comes from... It's like Chelsaint is what it says on here. It's on December 15th, and it says this, again, five stars. If you want to improve your pickleball game, start here. A huge part of your wins/losses have to do with what's between your ears, your mind.

[00:03:50.180] - Speaker 1
How do you perceive your game and your opponent's game? When you miss an easy shot, how do you stay positive? Where do you aim your shot? How do you keep your partner positive? Tony Roig is a master teacher. By listening to his coaching and embracing his concept, your game will improve. What player doesn't want that? So thank you very much for the shoutout and appreciate the positivity in there. And the next one, it's not the wrong with the next one. The next one's fine. It's positive in a different way in the way that that listener chose. So that's on December 28, 2024. It's a one star entitled Hot Air Nonsense, which I guess it's all right. The thing that's a little bit troubling from it is that it is from Jesus Christ. That's It's literally Jesus W. Christ. I don't know if it's a real Jesus Christ or not, but that's who wrote it. I don't understand why he is speaking words. It's just a bunch of nonsense words, usually. At best, the same idea. Maybe it's a nugget, but it's on repeat for the entire thing without elaborate. I listened to several. So bad, just bad.

[00:04:52.960] - Speaker 1
I would say thank you for listening to the podcast several times and giving it a chance. Obviously, it didn't work out for you, and I appreciate I appreciate your feedback there as well, Mr. Christ. My initial reaction to that when I saw that was the cumulative ratings for the podcast is 4. 8. When we think about... That's on Apple. When we think about what level of player am I? Am I a 3. 5? Am I a 4. 0? As a podcast host, I see 4. 8. My initial reaction was to play with it a little bit and then say, tell everybody, Hey, can you guys go in there and review it? Let's get five-star reviews. Let's get it back up to 4. 9, I guess. We can't get it to five. So can we get it to 4. 9? But then I started thinking about it, right? And I'm like, Is that really why are we doing this? Are we doing this to get ratings or for the sake of ratings? And the answer is no. When we ask you guys to rate and review the podcast, it's for a purpose, right? It's so that we can reach other players who may benefit from this content, not just to play the numbers game.

[00:05:58.280] - Speaker 1
So I wanted to I share that with you because the brain does that. My immediate reaction was, Oh, I don't like the 4. 8. Can we get it from 4. 8 to 4. 9? I know that there's listeners out there, the first reviewer who liked the podcast and received something from the podcast. I was going to say, let's get it up. That's my initial gut reaction. That's that lizard brain activating. I want more. But then I reflect on it for a second. Over the process As of doing this podcast, I've gotten better at this, which is not letting the first thought that comes into my mind completely take over and being able to put the brakes on it and analyze it for a second before continuing down that road, which is the same thing that I do on the pickleball court and the same thing that hopefully you do or are learning how to do on the pickleball court is avoiding that initial instinct from just taking over the whole thing. You can think about it like with an out call or a disputed out call. So there's an out call. I do it. I get an out call, and I might go like, my brain says, That's not out, but I don't say it anymore.

[00:07:10.770] - Speaker 1
And I don't say it anymore because I understand that there's a bigger picture. There's more to it than just what I think the call was. It's what they think it was. Plus, it doesn't matter at the end of the day, all these different layers. Now I'm able to stop myself from that initial, let me jump into this thing right away and maybe problem. It's similar, different application. One's a cumulative review for a podcast, and the other one is a pickleball game. It got me thinking about the... I started thinking about it differently. I looked at The Two. It's interesting, right? You have two human beings both listening to the podcast. I have no other choice but to call the person Jesus because that's how they define themselves. But like, Chel, Chel listens to the podcast and gets one thing out of it. Jesus listens to the podcast and gets something totally different out of it. Just a side note here. I speak Spanish, and I grew up in South America when I was younger. The name Jesus in Spanish is actually not uncommon. I have friends in town who have names Jesús. That's not uncommon.

[00:08:20.560] - Speaker 1
Anyway, I know in English, it sounds weird, or at least it's not common as a name. But going back to the... Here, you have two human beings both listening to the same content. One human being gives a five star, says it really helped me, and explains why. The other human being hears hot air nonsense. I'm going to give them credit for listening to several of them, listening to several podcasts. What it got me thinking about was this idea that I think is worth reminding ourselves from time to time that we're not all identical. How we interact with the sport of pickleball will be different depending on who we are. Some of us will interact with it more competitively, some of us will interact with it more socially, some will interact with it more for exercise. Some are in a place where the understanding of the game is at a level Eight out of 10, others are at a level 5. 5 out of 10. That's okay in terms of just understanding the game. Additionally, there's different ways of approaching how you want to address pickleball, meaning are you going to play the game? This is just strategy talk now, but it's different ways of doing it.

[00:09:37.240] - Speaker 1
Am I going to go all hard, all soft? A little bit of hard with mostly soft, a little bit of soft, but mostly hard. Those a mix of things. Those will depend on your skillset, but frankly, it also depends on your personality, because I know local players who I play with whose personalities spill into how they play the game. They'll play a little more conservative or a little more resetty or a little more aggressive, depending on how they are. That's not a bad thing, it's just how they are. When I think about this, it opens up the idea that you have to find your path. It's helpful to learn things. You listen to this podcast, and hopefully what we talk about on here, some of it at least resonates with you, maybe not 100% of it, but enough of it that you're, Okay, I'm taking a a nugget. Even if Jesus, all he got, I assume it's a he, it could be a she, but all that they got was a nugget, right? Okay, great. I'm happy. I'm happy that you received a nugget. I apologize if I repeated it more than you wanted it repeated, but that's how I think about things and process things and present things.

[00:10:47.050] - Speaker 1
If that helped, great. If it didn't help, that's okay. Then find something else that helps you. Find something that resonates with you. Because that's the other thing as a podcast host and as a coach, not everybody's going to like the ideas that are presented. It's not going to resonate with everybody. The other thing is not everybody can receive this information. Not everybody is attuned to what these words mean. To one player, they receive them and go, Wow, that makes a lot of sense. I like what this host is saying. To another player, it sounds like the parents of Charlie Ryan. It doesn't mean anything, right? And that's okay. That doesn't mean there's anything wrong with them. It doesn't necessarily mean there's anything wrong with the podcast. Just didn't connect with them in the way and where they're at right now. The fact that there's different approaches and different ideas is fine. But what I do suggest to you is that you give some thought to the underlying basis of what it is that you're trying to do. Let me play with that a little bit with you. The idea is this podcast doesn't necessarily have to work for everybody, but I do know that the stuff in this podcast works.

[00:12:11.840] - Speaker 1
I know that the underlying basis of this podcast is sound, and I can tell you it sound for three reasons. First, it's a personal story. What I share with you in this podcast has helped me in my personal development and my personal growth as a player, as a as just a human being. I am not the same person today that I was four years ago in change when the podcast first started, as I started to develop these concepts and really dive into them and study them myself from other thinkers in this area. A good example is our friend Peter Scales, who's a fantastic thinker in this area. Those types of nuggets, if you will, those concepts, seated in my mind, started to sprout other ideas and other concepts that have helped me. So from a From a personal standpoint, I can tell you it works. I'll testify to that, if you will. Secondly, I can tell you that it's worked for other players. Chell is an example, right? But there's hundreds of other players who have come up to me over the years. Also, I think there's like 170 reviews on the Apple podcast. That's 174 reviews with a 4.

[00:13:21.070] - Speaker 1
8 average. You already know that it's mostly fives, some fours, and there was a one and a three in there sporadically. For those players, this podcast has helped. I do know that out from the empirical evidence is that this stuff works. The third reason I would suggest it to you is because it makes sense. That's why I spend time in these podcasts talking about the why of the thing, trying to articulate the rationale for why it is that we... Why it is helpful to look at it a certain way and perhaps issue a different way. Avoid a different way of looking at it. I'll spend time asking you a question about what do you think, because that's more meaningful that way. And generally speaking, when I ask these questions, we're going to get to the same conclusion, because that's how the question is framed in a way that it just illustrates the obviousness of the answer that's going to come to the question. So this process then allows us to understand the underlying bases for the concepts that we articulate or share with you here at the podcast. That way you can yourself make a decision as to whether what you're hearing makes sense to you and sounds like, okay, that has a logical progression to it.

[00:14:41.280] - Speaker 1
That's something that I can get behind. Or, Tony has lost his mind this week, or just in general. Any idea what he's talking about, let me get out of here. That's your call to make. But those are the three reasons why I would submit to you that the information on this podcast is actually valuable transformation for the majority. This is not a slight at Jesus. It is fine that this is not something that resonates with that player. In the end, going back to what I mentioned a second ago, it's about finding your own path. It's about finding the resources that work for you. Hopefully, there are resources that are positive, meaning they're additive to you and to your life and to your experience, and not resources that might lead you down a path of less. One example that I'll give you briefly on that is, and it's not any particular coach or person, this is just a common thing you hear. It's like the concept of giving 110%. That concept can be a concept that can lead you to dark places because it's unattainable. You're setting up an unattainable goal for yourself because either you buy into the 110%, meaning that's actually a thing I'm going to try and do, which by definition is unattainable, or you're just saying words, and then it's not helpful.

[00:16:18.870] - Speaker 1
That's an example of a concept that I would stay away from. It's a concept that in this podcast, I'm happy to explain why I would stay away from it. Anyway, so find your path, find your way, and we're happy to be a part of that process. It's an honor for me to be able to come to you week in and week out and share with you these ideas as we all continue to grow as pickleball players, and as I always like to say, more importantly, as human beings, because this is not a process, this is not a unilateral thing where a basic Unidirectional thing where I'm spouting off stuff for you to grow. I am growing alongside you over the last few years as part of this podcast. Keep the feedback coming. Any feedback. One star is fine. Whatever you feel like you want to share, share. But even if this podcast isn't resonating with you for whatever reason, find something that resonates with you. My only caveat, again, is just be mindful of it, Be mindful of, not of it, be mindful of yourself. Be mindful of you and what you allow into your ecosystem, and ask questions, challenge it, and make sure that it's something that is going to be additive or positive for you in your journey.

[00:17:45.630] - Speaker 1
All right, that's this week's podcast on the Pickleball Therapy podcast, this episode, this week's episode on the podcast. I hope you have a great rest of your weekend and next week. Then we'll be back next week with a regular episode of Pickleball Therapy. In the meantime, check out our Bookmark episode. It should have dropped by now by the time this episode is coming out. It's a Bookmark episode that you can use to get yourself ready for when you're going to go out and play pickleball. I think you'll find it very helpful. Have a great week, and I will see you next time. Be well.