May 30, 2025 • 20 mins
Ego has a sneaky way of turning every match into a personal story—even when our friends earn the win. In this episode, I challenge you to rethink how you interpret losses, especially after a comeback. When we reframe the moment, we not only grow ourselves—we honor those we play with. A must-listen for any player serious about strengthening their mental game.
Show Notes: https://betterpickleball.com/246-dont-diminish-your-friends/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:05):
Hello and welcome to Pickleball Therapy,the podcast dedicated to your pickleball
improvement with the focus on your mind.
That super important and sometimesoverlooked part of our process as
pickleball players and biggerpicture as human beings.
My name is Tony Roig, by the way, before Idive into this, I'm the
host of your weekly podcast.
(00:25):
Sometimes I forget tointroduce myself to you.
If you're new to the podcast,Welcome to the podcast.
It's great to be with you.
If you're returning listening to thepodcast, it's always
great to have you with us.
We strive to provide youcontent every week that will help you
navigate a healthierand a more constructive relationship
(00:47):
with this beautiful sport of pickleball.
And that's what I was getting at a secondago, getting to, which is we get feedback
from players from time to time about howonce you embrace the mental journey or
the mental part of your journey, becauseyou're going to have a mental part
of your journey no matter what.
But once you embrace it, once youface it head on and improve
(01:09):
it, work on yourself, that the benefitsfar extend far beyond
just the pickleball court.
They apply to your life, theyapply to everything that you do.
And you're just going to feel better abouteverything once you have a clarity about
your mental processes and improving them.
And this week, what I'm going to do I'mgoing to read to you
(01:31):
from the book, Acuity.
Well, Acuity is not necessarily the name,but that's what I call it internally,
Acuity for the Mental Process,or Mental Acuity for pickleball.
And that'll be in the rift today.
Before that, I'm going to talk to youabout what I see as a fallacy in thinking
that is pretty pervasive out there.
(01:51):
And I want to address it in case it'ssomething that
affects you from time to time.
And what I want to do isshare with you how that approach is
actually It doesn't work the way you thinkit might, if that's what you're doing, and
might help you with some friends as wellin terms of if you see them doing that.
Before we do that,though, a couple of items.
One is we have our academy for50 plus players open right now.
(02:16):
It's a super good price, I think,relative to what else is out there.
It's basically likea lesson and a half, if you want to think
about that way, at mostlocal lesson rates.
And you get a year worth of coaching fromC, Jamie, and the Better Pickleball
Coaching Team inside theBetter Pickleball Academy.
It's just bang for your buck,can't get better than that.
(02:37):
So give that a check.Betterpickleballacademy.
Com, I believe it is.We'll put a link in the show notes.
I also want to do acouple of shoutouts here.
I appreciate you all taking a momentto rate and review the podcast.
As I always mentioned at the end, it helpsus reach other players who, just like
you, might benefit from this process.
So the first one I'm going todo is from Mike from May 5.
Thanks, Mike, for leaving this.
(02:58):
The Zen approach to Pickleball.
Love it.
Lots of great advice on how to relax andenjoy the game instead of always striving
for perfection and feeling bad whenwe fail to meet our expectations.
Embrace the process.
That's also my great way offraming it, and thank you for that.
And then the other one isfrom Marion on May 12th.
I look forward to every episode.
(03:19):
I love that every episodeis short yet impactful.
The tips and lessons Tony shares help mewith my mental game,
help me to maintain an appropriateperspective, and remind me to be grateful
every time I get to playthis amazing game.
Thank you very much, Marion,for leaving that review.
And if you enjoy the podcast,I'll say it again at the end.
(03:40):
If you have a moment to leave areview, that would be appreciated.
All right, let's dive into the first topicI want to talk about,
which is this idea of...
It's the idea of quick gratification,of immediate gratification.
We live in asociety that is increasingly, and I'm not
talking just about thissociety, the society in general.
(04:02):
We're living in a time, I guess I shouldsay, where instant gratification, or
immediate gratificationis becoming the norm.
We want everything yesterday.
There's comedians doing jokes about AmazonPrime and how you can
get something delivered.
One could be that's something pretty funnywhere he says
that Amazon basically is going to startdelivering to you before you even know
(04:25):
you want it because they know you want it.
So they're just going to bring it to you.
Then you want it yesterdayand stuff like that.
As humans, it's hard to fight it.
How do I swim upstream here?
And the pickleball and pickleballlearning is no different.
And so thisconcept that I've been working on and
(04:46):
wrote a couple of articles about recently,arose from a video that I did
on basically the one shot thatyou need, the most important shot.
And I focused on 50 plus play, becausethat's where I'm at in my game.
But basically, it's the most importantshot in pickleball, period, end of story.
If you follow, if you're a system studentor been following us for a while,
(05:08):
you already know what shot it is.
And you also know that theshot is completely not sexy.
And You also know that a lot of players,and you know these players, right?
You're friends with a lot of them, and soam I, the minute you say
the shot, they tune you out.
They're gone, right?They're done.
So I did a video on it, and the video wasset up basically to give two tips on how
(05:34):
to hit it, two keys to it,and then three benefits about why hitting
the shot that way will help youwith your game.
I can't believe how many comments I got.
I mean, I can't believe it, but I got alot of comments basically
saying, This took forever.
Two minutes to even mention it.
And players were justlike, Where's my fix?
(05:58):
I need shot right now.
Shoot me up, shoot me up.
So it got me thinking, right?
Because this is not uncommon.
If you imagine if I hadfive or six comments like that, there's
probably 500 behind thereI mean, actually, boring.
This video already has like 25,000views, which is a lot for our channel.
(06:20):
So happy about that.
But when I see thisbucking of information get delivered by a
coach who's thinking about the game ina way that will help, it's pause, right?
And I also went back andlooked at the video, right?
I went back and I said, You know what?
Maybe did I spend the first twominutes just like dancing or something?
(06:40):
I like doing something weird?
Or was there somethingthat I did for a reason?
Because usually, not usually, but usually,like 90% of the time when I'm coaching,
there's a reason why I'vedone it the way I've done it.
And so I go back and look at the video.
And so let me just tell you how it waslaid out so you'll understand the thing.
Because there's two pointsI want to make here.
(07:00):
Let me lay it out for you first,and I'll tell you two points.
So the first two minutes of thevideo are basically I set the stage.
And what I'm talking about here is I talkabout how this player
that we were talking aboutwas getting attacked early in rallies and
(07:22):
was losing a lot of points quick, right?
So how do we fix it?
And then I talked about the There'sshots that you could work on, right?
So you could work on a role volley, a hardserve, figuring out every answer
to every dink, things like that.
Then I introduced the concept ofconsequential importance,
which again, if you're a student of ours,you've probably already heard before.
(07:43):
But the idea is How do I prioritizemy journey, my improvement journey?
Because we're being specific here.
If you're watching this video, it'sbecause you want to learn something
better for your game.
So how do I How do I prioritizemy improvement journey?
Well, consequential importance tells mewhich shots are most consequentially
(08:05):
important to my game, meaningwhich ones have the biggest impact.
So then I asked questions about the rollvolume, things like that, basically
saying how often you hit those.
And then I said, well, compare that to themost important shot that I'm going to
discuss, which is the return to serve.
So the phrase return to serve isnot said for the first two minutes.
But there's a reason for that, because asI mentioned already,
(08:26):
the minute I say return to serve, if Ilead with that,
who's watching in that video.
Not you, but most players don't understandwhy it's that important.
So if I start the video by saying, Hey,let me explain to you about the return to
serve,you leave without really understanding
that it's going to give you all of thesebenefits and also not thinking about
(08:46):
this concept of consequential importance.
So there's lessons inside lessons.
So I'm teaching aboutthe benefits of it indirectly by talking
about how you get attacked early and howyou lose a lot of points if you don't have
a good It's indirect at the beginningby saying, This is what's happening.
How do we fix it?This shot will fix it.
I also validated the shot by saying, Thisis important to me as a senior pro player.
(09:10):
So when I play in a tournament as a seniorpro, return of serve is absolutely
on my mind and as a coach.
So I've already set thestage for that concept.
And then I go into the return to serve,talk about the two keys to it,
and then the three benefits.
So there's two things.
One is, I think players have a hard timeSometimes recognizing when
(09:33):
teaching is occurring.
For the players who commented, and Iresponded to them and I told them this is
a process for them, and I offered to sharethe article with them if they wanted.
So I have the team looking out, and ifthey reply and say they want the article,
give us an email, send them the article.
But basically, the one fallacy is thatthey're already learning,
(09:55):
but they're not recognizing that they'relearning because their reaction is, I
just want to I was on to have a shot.
And the problem there is it'snot fulfilling that way, right?
And it's not as complete andit's not as long lasting, right?
Because you just have a quick littleanswer and you don't have
the context for it, right?
So there's a reason why the video isstructured the way it's structured,
(10:17):
because it's going to be more impactful.
Now, in fairness, the vast majority ofplayers who watched it and commented
got the impact.
They were like, Whoa, okay,I got to think about that.
Yeah, that makes sense.That type of thing.
So there was comments like that.
But there is a significant number ofplayers who just want the quick answer.
(10:39):
So one, there is teaching that's happeningthat may not be readily apparent because
It's not like, this is the shot, here'show you hit it, which is part of
it, but not the overall story.
And then the other thing isthis idea of time.
So some players were basically sayingsomething like, this could have been done
(11:00):
in a minute, two minutes,90 seconds, whatever, right?
Yeah, sure.We do shorts.
I do YouTube shorts, not all day long,but we're getting more into those, right?
And because that's whatplayers are reacting to.
So we'll do shorts, but shorts are notYou're not really learning.
You get a little...
It's getting a glimpse.
It's like watching a trailerand watching a movie.
(11:21):
Actually, I hadn'tthought about that before.
But it's like that.
It's like you're trying to get the essenceof the Godfather in a
three-minute trailer.
But How much of the movie do you miss?
That way.
The other thing is if it's the mostimportant shot, which it is by a country
mom, this video was onlysix and a half minutes long.
It wasn't a 20-minute video.
I could talk about thereturn of surf for an hour.
(11:42):
And with meaning and substance.
It's only six and a half minutes of it.
So for the most importantshot, that's well worth it.
But the other thing,here's the other fallacy.
It's time.
So players think that it couldhave been explained in 60 seconds.
Okay, sure.Yeah.
What's the most important shot?Return to serve.
How long does that take?
(12:03):
Four seconds, five seconds?Sure.
There you go.Done.
I'm out.Mic drop.
But that's not a way to learn pickleball,and that's not a way to
learn anything long-lasting.
And the example, the analogy And the lastmetaphor that I used in the article was,
so imagine you're building a piece of IKEAfurniture, and there's this one piece
of the puzzle that you can't figure out.
(12:24):
It's like some doorhanger or something.
And so you go on YouTubeand you find a 90-second video that
shows you exactly where to put it.And great.
I mean, that's perfect.
I don't need a 15-minute video onputting a piece on IKEA furniture.
The reason is because it's a one-off.
(12:44):
But now change that.
And you're not building aone piece of IKEA furniture.
You're going to be anIKEA furniture builder.
You're doing it four days aweek for three hours a day.
It doesn't work the same.
Meaning you want to understandwhat the different parts do.
(13:05):
Right?
These hangers, these door pieces, allthese, so that when you come across one on
a new piece of furniture that you haven'tseen before, you don't have
to go find a quick fix.
Otherwise, you're justconstantly finding quick fixes.
And that's how some playerspursue their pickle ball.
That's what got methinking about this, right?
That they just want 30 second sound bitesabout this and about this and
(13:28):
about this and about that.
But that's That's whatyou're always doing then.
Again, not you personally,the player doing that.
Basically, it's likejust sound bite after sound bite.
How do I do this?How do I do that?
How do I do this?How do I do that?
But I never understand how it all works.
I don't know.
I don't know about you,but A, it's not fulfilling.
But B, I do know this, you're You'regoing to lose time in the long term.
(13:48):
If you're going to play pickleball for 10years and you're always trying to figure
out what it is, what it is, what it is,what it is, what it is, what it is, as
opposed to understanding the why,understanding the framework, understanding
the game, it's going to take you longer.
You're not going to save time, andit's not going to be as fulfilling.
Anyway, so those are the fallacies of thatapproach, and I wanted to share them with
(14:10):
you because it's something that's been onmy mind based on
feedback to a recent video.
And you're welcome towatch a video yourself.
By the time you listen, this may not bethe very last video on
the IntuPickle channel, but it'llbe in the last three or four.
It's like the number one mostimportant shot or something like that.
I have a big number one on myfinger, so you can see it.
All right, let me dive into the RIF.
(14:33):
I probably already said this.
I said it last episode, I know that.
But if you're not already in our emaillist, make sure you join our
email list, betterpickleball.Com.
We send out a weekly email with tips andstuff like that, but we also keep
you appraised of what's going on.
So I'm going to imagineyou're already on there.
But if you're not, check it out.
All right.
So I'm going to read youa piece from the book.
This is from part four of the book.
And I'm not going to belabor the wholestructure of the book right now.
(14:57):
But I don't know if I use theword belabor there properly.
Let me know.
But I'm not going todive into that too much.
But I do want to tell you that this partfour is basically how we fit
into the sport of pickleball.
So it's understanding that...
Actually, I'm going to tell you.
So the first parts of the book have to dowith you as a player, and
understanding yourself.
(15:17):
Next part of the book, we talk about thegame, understanding that's framework and
understanding that part of the game interms of the game itself so we
can interact with it better.
And then this next part ishow there's other actors in this play.
So this section that I'mlooking at has to do with...
Or this section that I just finishedreediting has to do with a
(15:40):
downsize to an ego approach.
And we discuss...
So below, I'm going to read this part toyou, and then I'm going
to go to second scenario.
Below, we explore two scenarios thatcommonly play out on the courts.
Each scenario illustrates the downside,even harm, that can be caused by an
egocentric approach to pickleball.
In the first, we explore its impact on us.
In the second, on our friends.
(16:01):
And I want to focus on the friends becauseI think that's something that
we often overlook.
So this section is calledscenario 2, the Come Back Kids.
Let's move on to another scenario to seehow a self-centered perspective
can negatively impact our friends.
In this scenario, we are up 10-2-1against our opponents, Jeff and Vicky.
One more point, and we finishour mission and win this game.
(16:25):
We're almost there.
A few minutes later, we're at the nettapping paddles at the end of the game,
but there's a twist.
Jeff and Vicky actually won the game.
They came all the way back to win 12-10.
I cannot tell you how many times I'vewitnessed this behavior after a comeback
like that, a comebackloss by the losing team.
(16:46):
The losing team walks off murmuring,Man, we screwed that up,
or similar to each other.
The losing team has made the result,their loss, all about them.
The losing team's egocentric perspectiveis controlling the narrative.
The reality, though, is that for Jeff andVicky to mount a comeback from 2: 10 down,
(17:11):
they had to play anear-perfect returnside.
Plus, They had to score 10points when they served.
That's pretty impressive, right?
Yet when the losing team, us in thisscenario, walks off the court saying, We
screwed that up, the accomplishmentof the winning team is drowned out.
Rather than being about Jeff and Vicky'sincredible play,
(17:33):
it's all about our bad play.
This perspective robs Jeffand Vicky of their moment.
To make sure this is not lost,Jeff and Vicky are our friends.
Let that sink in for a moment.
In our Man, we messed that up,we diminish our friend's accomplishment.
(17:59):
To make matters worse,there's no gain in it for us.
What is the advantage to you and Iof adopting the, It was on us, conclusion?
There's none.
I am not suggesting that we shoulddiminish our friends Even were we
able to gain some advantage here.
Pointing this out helps drive homehow completely useless and silly it is for
(18:24):
us to turn our friend's 'awesome' playinto our failure.
Switch the scenario around for a minutebecause I am 100% confident
that you have experienced an awesomecomeback in your playing career.
You have been downand battled back to win.
Imagine in that situation that you go upto the net to tap paddles
(18:47):
and hear one of your opponents,again, your friends, say to the other,
Sorry, I gave that game away, orMan, we messed up.
How does that make you feel?
It's difficult not to feel abit reduced in that moment.
The victory was not due toyour amazing and tough play.
(19:08):
Your victory was justbecause of their mistake.
Now, it should be pretty apparent thatrobbing joy and accomplishment
from each other is not desirable.
With the better framing we gain in thispart of the book, we have the tools to
better navigate the different actorsin the play that we call pickleball.
The first step is acknowledgingacknowledging that there are other actors.
(19:33):
Pickleball is about more than just us.
So that's an exit from the book.I hope you enjoyed it.
We're still working, plugging away at thebook, figuring out the last piece is to
get this thingin play by the end of the year.
If it's not up by the end ofthe year, folks, I don't know.
I may think I have to takea month off the podcast.
I have to get this done.
But I hope you enjoyed it.
(19:54):
And I'm going to be asking for anyinterest that you have in
reviewing the book and things like that.
But that's a little premature to do thatin this episode, hopefully the
next one or the one after that.
That's my hope.
And we'll keep plugging away on it.
Anyway, that was this week's podcast.
(20:15):
I hope you enjoyed the podcast.
As always, if you have a minute torate and review it, we appreciate it.
And share it with your friends.
Remember, if you enjoyed thepodcast, they probably will, too.
Be well, and I'll see you in thenext episode of pickleball Therapy..
Hello and welcome to Pickleball Therapy,the podcast dedicated to your pickleball
improvement with the focus on your mind.
That super important and sometimesoverlooked part of our process as
pickleball players and biggerpicture as human beings.
My name is Tony Roig, by the way, before Idive into this, I'm the
host of your weekly podcast.
(00:25):
Sometimes I forget tointroduce myself to you.
If you're new to the podcast,Welcome to the podcast.
It's great to be with you.
If you're returning listening to thepodcast, it's always
great to have you with us.
We strive to provide youcontent every week that will help you
navigate a healthierand a more constructive relationship
(00:47):
with this beautiful sport of pickleball.
And that's what I was getting at a secondago, getting to, which is we get feedback
from players from time to time about howonce you embrace the mental journey or
the mental part of your journey, becauseyou're going to have a mental part
of your journey no matter what.
But once you embrace it, once youface it head on and improve
(01:09):
it, work on yourself, that the benefitsfar extend far beyond
just the pickleball court.
They apply to your life, theyapply to everything that you do.
And you're just going to feel better abouteverything once you have a clarity about
your mental processes and improving them.
And this week, what I'm going to do I'mgoing to read to you
(01:31):
from the book, Acuity.
Well, Acuity is not necessarily the name,but that's what I call it internally,
Acuity for the Mental Process,or Mental Acuity for pickleball.
And that'll be in the rift today.
Before that, I'm going to talk to youabout what I see as a fallacy in thinking
that is pretty pervasive out there.
(01:51):
And I want to address it in case it'ssomething that
affects you from time to time.
And what I want to do isshare with you how that approach is
actually It doesn't work the way you thinkit might, if that's what you're doing, and
might help you with some friends as wellin terms of if you see them doing that.
Before we do that,though, a couple of items.
One is we have our academy for50 plus players open right now.
(02:16):
It's a super good price, I think,relative to what else is out there.
It's basically likea lesson and a half, if you want to think
about that way, at mostlocal lesson rates.
And you get a year worth of coaching fromC, Jamie, and the Better Pickleball
Coaching Team inside theBetter Pickleball Academy.
It's just bang for your buck,can't get better than that.
(02:37):
So give that a check.Betterpickleballacademy.
Com, I believe it is.We'll put a link in the show notes.
I also want to do acouple of shoutouts here.
I appreciate you all taking a momentto rate and review the podcast.
As I always mentioned at the end, it helpsus reach other players who, just like
you, might benefit from this process.
So the first one I'm going todo is from Mike from May 5.
Thanks, Mike, for leaving this.
(02:58):
The Zen approach to Pickleball.
Love it.
Lots of great advice on how to relax andenjoy the game instead of always striving
for perfection and feeling bad whenwe fail to meet our expectations.
Embrace the process.
That's also my great way offraming it, and thank you for that.
And then the other one isfrom Marion on May 12th.
I look forward to every episode.
(03:19):
I love that every episodeis short yet impactful.
The tips and lessons Tony shares help mewith my mental game,
help me to maintain an appropriateperspective, and remind me to be grateful
every time I get to playthis amazing game.
Thank you very much, Marion,for leaving that review.
And if you enjoy the podcast,I'll say it again at the end.
(03:40):
If you have a moment to leave areview, that would be appreciated.
All right, let's dive into the first topicI want to talk about,
which is this idea of...
It's the idea of quick gratification,of immediate gratification.
We live in asociety that is increasingly, and I'm not
talking just about thissociety, the society in general.
(04:02):
We're living in a time, I guess I shouldsay, where instant gratification, or
immediate gratificationis becoming the norm.
We want everything yesterday.
There's comedians doing jokes about AmazonPrime and how you can
get something delivered.
One could be that's something pretty funnywhere he says
that Amazon basically is going to startdelivering to you before you even know
(04:25):
you want it because they know you want it.
So they're just going to bring it to you.
Then you want it yesterdayand stuff like that.
As humans, it's hard to fight it.
How do I swim upstream here?
And the pickleball and pickleballlearning is no different.
And so thisconcept that I've been working on and
(04:46):
wrote a couple of articles about recently,arose from a video that I did
on basically the one shot thatyou need, the most important shot.
And I focused on 50 plus play, becausethat's where I'm at in my game.
But basically, it's the most importantshot in pickleball, period, end of story.
If you follow, if you're a system studentor been following us for a while,
(05:08):
you already know what shot it is.
And you also know that theshot is completely not sexy.
And You also know that a lot of players,and you know these players, right?
You're friends with a lot of them, and soam I, the minute you say
the shot, they tune you out.
They're gone, right?They're done.
So I did a video on it, and the video wasset up basically to give two tips on how
(05:34):
to hit it, two keys to it,and then three benefits about why hitting
the shot that way will help youwith your game.
I can't believe how many comments I got.
I mean, I can't believe it, but I got alot of comments basically
saying, This took forever.
Two minutes to even mention it.
And players were justlike, Where's my fix?
(05:58):
I need shot right now.
Shoot me up, shoot me up.
So it got me thinking, right?
Because this is not uncommon.
If you imagine if I hadfive or six comments like that, there's
probably 500 behind thereI mean, actually, boring.
This video already has like 25,000views, which is a lot for our channel.
(06:20):
So happy about that.
But when I see thisbucking of information get delivered by a
coach who's thinking about the game ina way that will help, it's pause, right?
And I also went back andlooked at the video, right?
I went back and I said, You know what?
Maybe did I spend the first twominutes just like dancing or something?
(06:40):
I like doing something weird?
Or was there somethingthat I did for a reason?
Because usually, not usually, but usually,like 90% of the time when I'm coaching,
there's a reason why I'vedone it the way I've done it.
And so I go back and look at the video.
And so let me just tell you how it waslaid out so you'll understand the thing.
Because there's two pointsI want to make here.
(07:00):
Let me lay it out for you first,and I'll tell you two points.
So the first two minutes of thevideo are basically I set the stage.
And what I'm talking about here is I talkabout how this player
that we were talking aboutwas getting attacked early in rallies and
(07:22):
was losing a lot of points quick, right?
So how do we fix it?
And then I talked about the There'sshots that you could work on, right?
So you could work on a role volley, a hardserve, figuring out every answer
to every dink, things like that.
Then I introduced the concept ofconsequential importance,
which again, if you're a student of ours,you've probably already heard before.
(07:43):
But the idea is How do I prioritizemy journey, my improvement journey?
Because we're being specific here.
If you're watching this video, it'sbecause you want to learn something
better for your game.
So how do I How do I prioritizemy improvement journey?
Well, consequential importance tells mewhich shots are most consequentially
(08:05):
important to my game, meaningwhich ones have the biggest impact.
So then I asked questions about the rollvolume, things like that, basically
saying how often you hit those.
And then I said, well, compare that to themost important shot that I'm going to
discuss, which is the return to serve.
So the phrase return to serve isnot said for the first two minutes.
But there's a reason for that, because asI mentioned already,
(08:26):
the minute I say return to serve, if Ilead with that,
who's watching in that video.
Not you, but most players don't understandwhy it's that important.
So if I start the video by saying, Hey,let me explain to you about the return to
serve,you leave without really understanding
that it's going to give you all of thesebenefits and also not thinking about
(08:46):
this concept of consequential importance.
So there's lessons inside lessons.
So I'm teaching aboutthe benefits of it indirectly by talking
about how you get attacked early and howyou lose a lot of points if you don't have
a good It's indirect at the beginningby saying, This is what's happening.
How do we fix it?This shot will fix it.
I also validated the shot by saying, Thisis important to me as a senior pro player.
(09:10):
So when I play in a tournament as a seniorpro, return of serve is absolutely
on my mind and as a coach.
So I've already set thestage for that concept.
And then I go into the return to serve,talk about the two keys to it,
and then the three benefits.
So there's two things.
One is, I think players have a hard timeSometimes recognizing when
(09:33):
teaching is occurring.
For the players who commented, and Iresponded to them and I told them this is
a process for them, and I offered to sharethe article with them if they wanted.
So I have the team looking out, and ifthey reply and say they want the article,
give us an email, send them the article.
But basically, the one fallacy is thatthey're already learning,
(09:55):
but they're not recognizing that they'relearning because their reaction is, I
just want to I was on to have a shot.
And the problem there is it'snot fulfilling that way, right?
And it's not as complete andit's not as long lasting, right?
Because you just have a quick littleanswer and you don't have
the context for it, right?
So there's a reason why the video isstructured the way it's structured,
(10:17):
because it's going to be more impactful.
Now, in fairness, the vast majority ofplayers who watched it and commented
got the impact.
They were like, Whoa, okay,I got to think about that.
Yeah, that makes sense.That type of thing.
So there was comments like that.
But there is a significant number ofplayers who just want the quick answer.
(10:39):
So one, there is teaching that's happeningthat may not be readily apparent because
It's not like, this is the shot, here'show you hit it, which is part of
it, but not the overall story.
And then the other thing isthis idea of time.
So some players were basically sayingsomething like, this could have been done
(11:00):
in a minute, two minutes,90 seconds, whatever, right?
Yeah, sure.We do shorts.
I do YouTube shorts, not all day long,but we're getting more into those, right?
And because that's whatplayers are reacting to.
So we'll do shorts, but shorts are notYou're not really learning.
You get a little...
It's getting a glimpse.
It's like watching a trailerand watching a movie.
(11:21):
Actually, I hadn'tthought about that before.
But it's like that.
It's like you're trying to get the essenceof the Godfather in a
three-minute trailer.
But How much of the movie do you miss?
That way.
The other thing is if it's the mostimportant shot, which it is by a country
mom, this video was onlysix and a half minutes long.
It wasn't a 20-minute video.
I could talk about thereturn of surf for an hour.
(11:42):
And with meaning and substance.
It's only six and a half minutes of it.
So for the most importantshot, that's well worth it.
But the other thing,here's the other fallacy.
It's time.
So players think that it couldhave been explained in 60 seconds.
Okay, sure.Yeah.
What's the most important shot?Return to serve.
How long does that take?
(12:03):
Four seconds, five seconds?Sure.
There you go.Done.
I'm out.Mic drop.
But that's not a way to learn pickleball,and that's not a way to
learn anything long-lasting.
And the example, the analogy And the lastmetaphor that I used in the article was,
so imagine you're building a piece of IKEAfurniture, and there's this one piece
of the puzzle that you can't figure out.
(12:24):
It's like some doorhanger or something.
And so you go on YouTubeand you find a 90-second video that
shows you exactly where to put it.And great.
I mean, that's perfect.
I don't need a 15-minute video onputting a piece on IKEA furniture.
The reason is because it's a one-off.
(12:44):
But now change that.
And you're not building aone piece of IKEA furniture.
You're going to be anIKEA furniture builder.
You're doing it four days aweek for three hours a day.
It doesn't work the same.
Meaning you want to understandwhat the different parts do.
(13:05):
Right?
These hangers, these door pieces, allthese, so that when you come across one on
a new piece of furniture that you haven'tseen before, you don't have
to go find a quick fix.
Otherwise, you're justconstantly finding quick fixes.
And that's how some playerspursue their pickle ball.
That's what got methinking about this, right?
That they just want 30 second sound bitesabout this and about this and
(13:28):
about this and about that.
But that's That's whatyou're always doing then.
Again, not you personally,the player doing that.
Basically, it's likejust sound bite after sound bite.
How do I do this?How do I do that?
How do I do this?How do I do that?
But I never understand how it all works.
I don't know.
I don't know about you,but A, it's not fulfilling.
But B, I do know this, you're You'regoing to lose time in the long term.
(13:48):
If you're going to play pickleball for 10years and you're always trying to figure
out what it is, what it is, what it is,what it is, what it is, what it is, as
opposed to understanding the why,understanding the framework, understanding
the game, it's going to take you longer.
You're not going to save time, andit's not going to be as fulfilling.
Anyway, so those are the fallacies of thatapproach, and I wanted to share them with
(14:10):
you because it's something that's been onmy mind based on
feedback to a recent video.
And you're welcome towatch a video yourself.
By the time you listen, this may not bethe very last video on
the IntuPickle channel, but it'llbe in the last three or four.
It's like the number one mostimportant shot or something like that.
I have a big number one on myfinger, so you can see it.
All right, let me dive into the RIF.
(14:33):
I probably already said this.
I said it last episode, I know that.
But if you're not already in our emaillist, make sure you join our
email list, betterpickleball.Com.
We send out a weekly email with tips andstuff like that, but we also keep
you appraised of what's going on.
So I'm going to imagineyou're already on there.
But if you're not, check it out.
All right.
So I'm going to read youa piece from the book.
This is from part four of the book.
And I'm not going to belabor the wholestructure of the book right now.
(14:57):
But I don't know if I use theword belabor there properly.
Let me know.
But I'm not going todive into that too much.
But I do want to tell you that this partfour is basically how we fit
into the sport of pickleball.
So it's understanding that...
Actually, I'm going to tell you.
So the first parts of the book have to dowith you as a player, and
understanding yourself.
(15:17):
Next part of the book, we talk about thegame, understanding that's framework and
understanding that part of the game interms of the game itself so we
can interact with it better.
And then this next part ishow there's other actors in this play.
So this section that I'mlooking at has to do with...
Or this section that I just finishedreediting has to do with a
(15:40):
downsize to an ego approach.
And we discuss...
So below, I'm going to read this part toyou, and then I'm going
to go to second scenario.
Below, we explore two scenarios thatcommonly play out on the courts.
Each scenario illustrates the downside,even harm, that can be caused by an
egocentric approach to pickleball.
In the first, we explore its impact on us.
In the second, on our friends.
(16:01):
And I want to focus on the friends becauseI think that's something that
we often overlook.
So this section is calledscenario 2, the Come Back Kids.
Let's move on to another scenario to seehow a self-centered perspective
can negatively impact our friends.
In this scenario, we are up 10-2-1against our opponents, Jeff and Vicky.
One more point, and we finishour mission and win this game.
(16:25):
We're almost there.
A few minutes later, we're at the nettapping paddles at the end of the game,
but there's a twist.
Jeff and Vicky actually won the game.
They came all the way back to win 12-10.
I cannot tell you how many times I'vewitnessed this behavior after a comeback
like that, a comebackloss by the losing team.
(16:46):
The losing team walks off murmuring,Man, we screwed that up,
or similar to each other.
The losing team has made the result,their loss, all about them.
The losing team's egocentric perspectiveis controlling the narrative.
The reality, though, is that for Jeff andVicky to mount a comeback from 2: 10 down,
(17:11):
they had to play anear-perfect returnside.
Plus, They had to score 10points when they served.
That's pretty impressive, right?
Yet when the losing team, us in thisscenario, walks off the court saying, We
screwed that up, the accomplishmentof the winning team is drowned out.
Rather than being about Jeff and Vicky'sincredible play,
(17:33):
it's all about our bad play.
This perspective robs Jeffand Vicky of their moment.
To make sure this is not lost,Jeff and Vicky are our friends.
Let that sink in for a moment.
In our Man, we messed that up,we diminish our friend's accomplishment.
(17:59):
To make matters worse,there's no gain in it for us.
What is the advantage to you and Iof adopting the, It was on us, conclusion?
There's none.
I am not suggesting that we shoulddiminish our friends Even were we
able to gain some advantage here.
Pointing this out helps drive homehow completely useless and silly it is for
(18:24):
us to turn our friend's 'awesome' playinto our failure.
Switch the scenario around for a minutebecause I am 100% confident
that you have experienced an awesomecomeback in your playing career.
You have been downand battled back to win.
Imagine in that situation that you go upto the net to tap paddles
(18:47):
and hear one of your opponents,again, your friends, say to the other,
Sorry, I gave that game away, orMan, we messed up.
How does that make you feel?
It's difficult not to feel abit reduced in that moment.
The victory was not due toyour amazing and tough play.
(19:08):
Your victory was justbecause of their mistake.
Now, it should be pretty apparent thatrobbing joy and accomplishment
from each other is not desirable.
With the better framing we gain in thispart of the book, we have the tools to
better navigate the different actorsin the play that we call pickleball.
The first step is acknowledgingacknowledging that there are other actors.
(19:33):
Pickleball is about more than just us.
So that's an exit from the book.I hope you enjoyed it.
We're still working, plugging away at thebook, figuring out the last piece is to
get this thingin play by the end of the year.
If it's not up by the end ofthe year, folks, I don't know.
I may think I have to takea month off the podcast.
I have to get this done.
But I hope you enjoyed it.
(19:54):
And I'm going to be asking for anyinterest that you have in
reviewing the book and things like that.
But that's a little premature to do thatin this episode, hopefully the
next one or the one after that.
That's my hope.
And we'll keep plugging away on it.
Anyway, that was this week's podcast.
(20:15):
I hope you enjoyed the podcast.
As always, if you have a minute torate and review it, we appreciate it.
And share it with your friends.
Remember, if you enjoyed thepodcast, they probably will, too.
Be well, and I'll see you in thenext episode of pickleball Therapy..
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