June 13, 2025 • 21 mins
It’s one thing to say, “That was a tough match.” It’s another to say, “I lost that game.” The difference lies in focus. When you focus entirely on your own mistakes, you erase the resilience your opponents showed, the quality of the rallies, and the spirit of the contest. In this episode we explore how our post-game reactions can either elevate or diminish not only our opponents—but ourselves.
Show Notes: https://betterpickleball.com/248-dont-diminish-you/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:04):
Hello and welcome to Pickleball Therapy,the podcast dedicated to
your pickleball improvement.
It's the podcast with you in mind.
I'm your host of thisweekly podcast, Tony Roig.
It's a pleasure to be with you inour new podcast studio environment.
Again, really excited abouthaving this environment.
It charges me up when I come inhere to record this week's podcast.
I think you're reallygoing to enjoy the concept.
We're going to play on theconcept from last week.
(00:28):
AndI think it's really going to help us frame
out better our interaction with the sport,which is always what we're trying to do
with this mental part ofthe sport, in addition to playing better.
But as I always say, when you feel betterabout the sport, you're
going to play better.Period.
End of story.
A couple of housekeeping notesbefore we dive into that.
(00:48):
If you're in Florida or can make it toFlorida the end of July,
I have a camp here.
It's indoor at a beautifulfacility that just opened up.
The courts are spectacular.
It's limited to only 16 players.
So if you want to join me for this two-daycamp, I would recommend acting fairly
(01:10):
quickly because these spotsgenerally fill up pretty quick.
So you can find I gotinformation at betterpickleball.
com under Camps for that one.
And then theother note is if you can't make it to the
camp but still want some training, join mefor our strategy clinic coming up on June.
I believe it's the 25th, but you candouble-check that when
you go to the website.
(01:32):
It's our strategy clinic.
It's a live event.
I'm going to be discussing the soft gameand dinks in particular, how to hit them
better, where to hitthem, things like that.
Some dink concepts that really help you inEurope at the Nonvolley Zone trying
to solve that part of the game.
So check that out.
And we try and make these veryreasonable in terms of price.
(01:52):
And also, obviously, you canwatch them from your house.
About as convenient as we can make them.
Can make them more convenient thanthat coming into your living room.
So check those two things out.
I have a shout out this week, but insteadof doing the shout out, it's actually
a question that was asked by Larry.
So I'll go ahead and do that in the RIF.
(02:12):
So we're going to getto that one in a second.
All right, so let's dive intothe topic for this week, the
main topic for this week.
And it has to do withdiminishing ourselves.
Last week, we talked about the potentialfor diminishing our friends whenever we
behave in a way that that diminisheswhat it is that they accomplish, right?
(02:34):
When basically we react to theirbig comeback or their victory in a way
that focuses on us, it diminishes them.
But then this weekend, there was theFrench Open, and I came
to pickleball from tennis, soI retained some allegiance, some
love for the sport of tennis.
And so it was following the French Openthis weekend and saw
(02:56):
the final on Saturday.
And by now, you mayhave I've already heard.
I shouldn't say probably becauseit doesn't necessarily have
to be in your ecosystem.
But Irina Sebelenka, who was the numberone seed, lost to Coco Gauff, the
American player, the number two seed.
And after the match,Sebelenka made it all about herself,
meaning essentially, Coco Gauffdidn't beat her, didn't win.
(03:22):
Sebelenka made too many mistakes,and the conditions were bad.
And excuse upon excuse, neveracknowledging any work by Koko Gauff.
What's interesting, when you think aboutit objectively, ignores the fact that Coco
Gauff is number two seed, ignores the factthat Coco Gauff made it to the finals of
the French Open, which in and of itself isamazing, ignores the fact that Coco Gauff
pushed Sabalenka in that match to makemistakes, pushed her so that she had to
(03:45):
playharder, meaning she had to go for more
because of the way Coco Gauff was playing.
And so what could have been a nicepost-match interview where there's a
positive taken away,Because as we've talked about on this
podcast many, many times,we play a sport, it's the same as tennis,
where you have a winner and you have aloser, and that's just
(04:07):
what we sign up for.
And so when you contrast Savilenka'sapproach with the approach of Yannick
Sinner, who lost in the men'smatch, it's night and day.
Yannick Sinner was the number one seed.
Carlos Alcaraz was the number two seed.
There, just like in the Savilenka match,the number two seed, Alcaraz, one.
But Center actually had three match pointsearly on in the match and
(04:34):
couldn't convert any of them.
So he had three points where he could haveended the match in his favor and won
the French Open, couldn't convert them.
Carlos Alcaraz came backand in five sets, one.
It's alreadyMost of the folks who know about tennis,
they already consider it aclassic, and I think it is.
The level of play was incredible.
So what Sinder did washe leaned into that.
(04:54):
He basically acknowledged Alvarez's winand congratulated Carlos for his win,
talked about how great it was to be a partof a historic match like that and what an
incredible level oftennis was being played.
Just very positive aboutthe whole experience.
And so it got me thinking.
This whole thing got me thinking aboutthe additional consequence of
(05:18):
making it about ourselvesin those kinds of situations, in acting
like Arena Sabalenka, where it's all aboutwhat we did wrong,
as opposed to acting like Yannick Sinner,where it's about what your opponent did
and just recognizing the factthat you played a tough match.
You were in a good match the whole time.
Soone aspect of it was what we talked about
(05:42):
last week, which is aboutdiminishing your It makes sense.
If you didn't check that one out,highly recommend you check it out.
But the other aspect of it is actually howyou diminish yourself with that conduct.
And there's two different ways, andI'm going to talk about both of them.
One's pretty evident, right?
One as the direct diminution of yourself.
So if you think about, again, going backto Arena Savilenka,
(06:05):
great athlete, obviously, number one inthe world, number one seed in the
tournament, veryaccomplished tennis player.
But her image is taking a hit, right?And rightfully so.
It's taking a hit because of hertrying to basically detract from her
opponent's victory and make itabout herself and her mistakes.
(06:28):
It's There's a direct diminutionthat's happening there.
But beyond that, there's also an indirectdiminution, and this is the one I want
to spend a few minutes on, which is this.
Let me switch it to pickleball now.
So let's go to just a standard example inthese is going to be you're up
(06:48):
10 something, call it 10,9, 10,8.
You can't close it out, right?
Or you miss a shot, something like that.
And then your opponents win 12,10.So it's the comeback.
So you're up 10,8, 10,7,8.
7, 10, 9, something like that.
And then you don't get to 11, they tie itand they get to 12,
and so they win 12, 10.
And in those situations, what is notuncommon,
(07:12):
it's actually common, I guess, isplayers on the losing side of that,
players who got stuck at 10,make it about themselves.
It's all about, I missed that shot.I screwed up.
Sorry, I messed up.That was on me.
Things like that.
Removing or or diminishing theeffort of the opponent, which is, as I
(07:35):
said last week, your friend,to get to 12, right?
To battle the tenacity, thenot making an error, then giving
the game away, and things like that.
The willingness to continue to battle,which all should be celebrated.
And the event itself shouldbe celebrated, right?
Which I'm going to talk about in a second.
This is where you get indirectbecause it's a 12: 10 match.
Listen, 12 (07:53):
10 is your game.
12 (07:54):
10 games are awesome.
Think about this.
Think about if you could make Every gamebetween now and the end of your
pickleball career, 12, 10 or higher.Wouldn't that be awesome?
Every game would be 12,10, 13, 11, 14, 12, 15, 13.
You name it, right?But the lowest would be 12, 10.
(08:15):
I got to tell you something, you'replaying a really awesome
pickleball contest.
They're about as evenlymatched as you can think about.
Everybody's battling.
And the difference between the winner andthe loser is a shot here, two inches
or an inch there on an outball.Something silly, something silly, right?
Something very small.
Compared that to you winning 11-3, howdoes that feel compared to winning 12-10?
(08:41):
And losing 11-3 asopposed to losing 12-10?
I mean, those are entirely differentexperiences.
So the experience itself of finishing agame at 12: 10 is an awesome experience,
whether you win it or whether you lose it.
Now, again, going back to the bowl of icecream, if you win it,
you get some sprinkles.That's great.
But losing 12 (08:59):
10 is awesome.
I mean, that's a great battle by you.
And so when we think about that, when wethink about how we react
when we're on the loser side, becausewe're on the winner
side, it's always easy.
When you win 12 (09:13):
10, then you're always like, Hey, I won.
But when you lose, that'swhen you get tested.
That's when you have the possibility ofdoing a sabalenka, or an arena sabalenka,
which is make it about yourself anddiminish your friends and
your opponents by doing so.
But beyond that,You diminish the experience itself.
(09:33):
You diminish the event,the game that you just experienced.
That was 12 (09:38):
10.
You've taken it down a notch.
You've made it less important, lessmeaningful by making it about yourself, by
making it about a shot you missed ratherthan an entire event, an entire
experience that happened.
You also, by doing that, when you reducethe event, you reduce yourself,
(10:00):
again, but this time, indirectly.
It's not just the direct,not the best way to act, not the best look
for you if you're going to make it aboutyourself, the same way that it doesn't
look good for Savilenka to make it aboutthe wind or whatever it is that she wanted
to complain about for her loss, as opposedto recognizing that her opponent
won and beat her.
(10:21):
It's not just the direct impactof it, a diminution of yourself.
It's the indirect one, because what you'redoing is you're bringing
down the entire event.
And if you take it to its logicalextreme, you'll see what I mean.
So let me go back to ArenaSebalenka for a second.
The only reason that we even talk aboutArena Sebalenka
is because she's the number one playerin a sport that has traction.
(10:47):
So in a sport thatpeople generally care about.
Tennis is not...They do.
Tennis is a sport that's popular.
Players and people ingeneral follow the sport.
So knowing who the number one player intennis is interesting and being the
number one player in tennis has its thing.
So that gets her a certain position,a certain cache, if you will.
(11:10):
Now, if you tear down tennis, let's saytennis becomes irrelevant,
in a hypothetical, your tennis isirrelevant, then what does it matter
if you're number one in tennis?It doesn't matter.
So what Irina Sibelinka is doing that, shedoesn't realize because she's young, she
doesn't realize, is she's tearing downthe very house upon which her
(11:33):
value as a player, that part of her lifebeing number one in tennis, has value
because of the house that it's built upon.
And when she tears down the house,she tears herself down with it.
And it's the same thing for you in yourlocal community, in your local facility.
If you have a really good group of playersthat enjoy playing with each other, you
(11:55):
have really competitive games, andlet's say it's all 12: 10 again.
Every match is 12 (11:57):
10.
Every game is 12 (11:58):
10.
If you tear down those games,you tear down the fabric of what it is
that you and your friends have built inyour group that you play with
or the facility open play.
You bring it down a notch, andthen you bring it down a notch.
And And every time you do that,you reduce its importance.
You reduce yourself as a member of thatfabric, a piece of that fabric.
(12:23):
So when you think about your behavior,think about this context of yourself
inside of a bigger framework.
I meant to do it last week, andI'll go ahead and do it this week.
Credit to one of, I would say, mystrongest mentor in the mental game,
(12:45):
Coach Peter Scales, who developeda Compete, Learn, Honor philosophy.
And his philosophy is compete, learn,honor, with honor being the principle,
the tenet of the philosophy.
And that, I The idea of honoring is theidea that the game itself
is bigger than any one of us.
(13:06):
And so when we act in a way that tearsdown the game, we're
not honoring the game.
And theextension of that is that we're not
honoring ourselvesas members of that community, of
that game, as a part of that world.
And so I think it's a really helpfulway of thinking about it.
(13:27):
I highly recommend Coach Pete'sbook for you if you haven't read it.
Even if you have read it, he's developed aplaybook which is specific to pickleball,
and it has very hands-onideas in there, very hands-on items that
you can work on tocontinue to work on your mental game, on
your mental interaction with thesport of pickleball, specifically.
(13:50):
I'll put a link in the show notes.
And there's a code, I believe.
I'll put all the instructions in the shownotes below this show, and
you can go there and get that.
And I believe it's a verysignificant discount.
So again, the details will be there.
I don't remember them off top of myhead, but take advantage of that.
Coach Peter's ideas are super helpful inthis idea of
(14:12):
where we How we interact with the sportthat we're a part of and how it impacts us
through this ripple effectis really helpful, I think.
So think about when you're behavingin the way you're behaving.
Think about how it carries,I should say, how it impacts your
opponents, how it impacts the gameitself, and how it impacts you.
(14:33):
Because what I would suggest to you isthat if after a 10-something
loss, where you end up losing 10-12,then if you behave in a way that's about
you, you diminish your opponents,you diminish the event itself, the game
itself, and you, by extension, diminishyourself and your partner in that process.
(14:55):
Keep that in mind in terms of how youdecide to interact with with your events.
Hopefully, we can move away from theSavilenka responses and move more towards
center responses in our responses tolosses, which will happen
if you're playing at level.
There's no way to avoid it.
All right, let me dive into the RIF.
Let me Let me pull up the question here.
(15:16):
Larry asked a question on the YouTube, andI appreciate Larry asking the question.
And we were talking about lasttime it was about chasing fairies.
Oh, yeah, the diminishing one was actuallynot last week, it was the week before.
So 2 (15:30):
46 was diminishing.
Last week was chasing fairies.
So Larry said, great concept.It makes so much more sense.
Thank you, Larry, for that.
And then he asked this question, and Ithink this is the question that's going
to apply to a lot of you listening.
Do you have any thoughts on how attitudesof the people you play
with effect to your play?
I play rec level in Florida and NewJersey, and I seem to play better in New
Jersey, and I think, and then he puts inparentheses, at least that's how I feel,
(15:54):
it's friendlier in New Jersey, andI'm less anxious, so I perform better.
Competition is about the same.
Competition is about the same, sobetween New Jersey and Florida.
But the caveat is that I am friendliersocially with the Florida group
and not the New Jersey crowd.
It's interesting, Larry.
So there's twothings that maybe cut against each other a
little bit, meaning It sounds like you'refriendlier with the Florida
(16:16):
folks and feel more pressure.
So is it that, or is it thatthe group in New Jersey is friendlier?
So it sounds like the group is friendly inNew Jersey, but you have closer
contacts here in Florida.
And those probably arecompounding for you.
So let's deal with one at a time.
I agree with the idea that when you'replaying in a group that is a weird vibe,
(16:43):
you're not going to play well.And that's happened to me locally.
There's actually groups.
There's been a couple of groups that Ihave shied away from playing with, not
because the level of play is fine, theycan hit the ball very well and they know
the game, but it's just a weird vibe.
You The vibe's off for me, right?
Let me be clear, it doesn't meanthey're doing anything wrong, right?
(17:05):
They're entitled to live theirlife the way they want to live it.
It's just not the vibe that I relate to.
So I don't go there.
And I notice that when I go there,I'm not really focused on the game.
I'm not really into it, and I don'tplay as well as I can otherwise.
The flip side is when I play with myfriends, like I'm playing tomorrow in a
group, and I expect to see several of myfriends there, and it's going to be more
(17:26):
relaxed,I'll joke around I'll be more relaxed, and
I'll play way, way, waybetter in that environment.
So I do think that...
I actually think I'm pretty confident thathow you feel in the group, the vibe that
you're getting from the group isdefinitely going to impact your play.
(17:47):
Now, the compounding there may be that ifyou feel closer to your Florida friends,
meaning you're closer to them, then youare in New Jersey, then perhaps you're
internalizing what you believe theiropinion of you is based on
your performance on the court.
In other words,if you don't perform on the court, then
(18:09):
you feel morelet down in terms of your friends judging
you, potentially, negatively becauseof your performance on the court.
I would submit to you there, the bestthing I can tell you there, and I
believe we did a podcast on this.
I don't have the number off top of myhead, but the idea is that no
one has bandwidth for that.
(18:30):
Most players don't havebandwidth for that.
As long as you're roughly at level withthe other players,
the fact that you had a rough day orwhatever, most players are in one ear, out
the other, they're notpaying attention to it.
They have their own journey.
My guess is there'sfriends of yours in Florida who are just
(18:51):
as stressed as you are about performingwell in front of their group.
So I would discount that some.
The only caveat I would make there is justbe mindful of...
Try not to make a deal of it.
And what I mean by that is theexample I always give is pop-up.
(19:12):
So players, when they pop the ball up,everybody believes that the music
stops, everybody stops playing, right?
All the lights are on that player and thepop-up and everyone's watching and it's,
Oh, my God, that playerpopped the ball up.
What an awful player,which is not the case.
And the Same as what you're talking aboutin that situation, other players aren't
(19:33):
keeping track of that stuff,for the most part.
I mean, there are exceptions,but for the most part.
But they will if you make a deal of it.
So if you pop it up and then yousay, Man, I always pop the ball up.
Then your friends aregoing to think, What?
You always pop the ball up.
So it's the same thing here.
If you have a bad day, just go about yourbusiness, add everybody, play your games
(19:57):
the best you can, and then And carry on.
Just carry on,carry on, carrying on with your game.
But yeah, I can definitely seehow those would impact your play.
I think you havemore control over the second one.
The vibe is just a vibe thing, andthat's You can work on that in terms
of shutting it out, potentially.
(20:19):
But the others are judging me thing, Ithink that one you can work with more
directly byunderstanding that they probably are not
for the most part, because remember thatthey have their their own problems
that they're dealing with.
All right.It's one more thing.
It reminds me ofwhen you're given the speech, they say,
(20:39):
imagine everybody doesn't have clothes on.Same thing.
They have their own problems.
You have your problems,they have their problems.
They're probably They'regetting their problems.
Anyway, so that's this week's podcast.
I hope you enjoyed it.
I got to be honest witheverybody, I haven't heard.
There's no other shoutouts.
Alan on YouTube is always on there.
There's one or two others.
But on the Apple side and theSpotify side, it's pretty silent.
(21:00):
So if you listen to the podcast and have amoment to rate and review, it
really would appreciate it.
As I always say, it helps us reach otherplayers like you who may
benefit from this podcast.
And as always, if you enjoyed the podcast,please consider sharing it with your
friends, because if you enjoyed thepodcast, they probably will, too.
I hope to see some of you at the end ofJuly at camp in Florida, and maybe the
rest of you at the end of June to learnmore about Dinking in our strategy clinic.
(21:25):
Everything available at betterpickleball.Com.
Be well, have a great week,and I'll see you next time.
Hello and welcome to Pickleball Therapy,the podcast dedicated to
your pickleball improvement.
It's the podcast with you in mind.
I'm your host of thisweekly podcast, Tony Roig.
It's a pleasure to be with you inour new podcast studio environment.
Again, really excited abouthaving this environment.
It charges me up when I come inhere to record this week's podcast.
I think you're reallygoing to enjoy the concept.
We're going to play on theconcept from last week.
(00:28):
AndI think it's really going to help us frame
out better our interaction with the sport,which is always what we're trying to do
with this mental part ofthe sport, in addition to playing better.
But as I always say, when you feel betterabout the sport, you're
going to play better.Period.
End of story.
A couple of housekeeping notesbefore we dive into that.
(00:48):
If you're in Florida or can make it toFlorida the end of July,
I have a camp here.
It's indoor at a beautifulfacility that just opened up.
The courts are spectacular.
It's limited to only 16 players.
So if you want to join me for this two-daycamp, I would recommend acting fairly
(01:10):
quickly because these spotsgenerally fill up pretty quick.
So you can find I gotinformation at betterpickleball.
com under Camps for that one.
And then theother note is if you can't make it to the
camp but still want some training, join mefor our strategy clinic coming up on June.
I believe it's the 25th, but you candouble-check that when
you go to the website.
(01:32):
It's our strategy clinic.
It's a live event.
I'm going to be discussing the soft gameand dinks in particular, how to hit them
better, where to hitthem, things like that.
Some dink concepts that really help you inEurope at the Nonvolley Zone trying
to solve that part of the game.
So check that out.
And we try and make these veryreasonable in terms of price.
(01:52):
And also, obviously, you canwatch them from your house.
About as convenient as we can make them.
Can make them more convenient thanthat coming into your living room.
So check those two things out.
I have a shout out this week, but insteadof doing the shout out, it's actually
a question that was asked by Larry.
So I'll go ahead and do that in the RIF.
(02:12):
So we're going to getto that one in a second.
All right, so let's dive intothe topic for this week, the
main topic for this week.
And it has to do withdiminishing ourselves.
Last week, we talked about the potentialfor diminishing our friends whenever we
behave in a way that that diminisheswhat it is that they accomplish, right?
(02:34):
When basically we react to theirbig comeback or their victory in a way
that focuses on us, it diminishes them.
But then this weekend, there was theFrench Open, and I came
to pickleball from tennis, soI retained some allegiance, some
love for the sport of tennis.
And so it was following the French Openthis weekend and saw
(02:56):
the final on Saturday.
And by now, you mayhave I've already heard.
I shouldn't say probably becauseit doesn't necessarily have
to be in your ecosystem.
But Irina Sebelenka, who was the numberone seed, lost to Coco Gauff, the
American player, the number two seed.
And after the match,Sebelenka made it all about herself,
meaning essentially, Coco Gauffdidn't beat her, didn't win.
(03:22):
Sebelenka made too many mistakes,and the conditions were bad.
And excuse upon excuse, neveracknowledging any work by Koko Gauff.
What's interesting, when you think aboutit objectively, ignores the fact that Coco
Gauff is number two seed, ignores the factthat Coco Gauff made it to the finals of
the French Open, which in and of itself isamazing, ignores the fact that Coco Gauff
pushed Sabalenka in that match to makemistakes, pushed her so that she had to
(03:45):
playharder, meaning she had to go for more
because of the way Coco Gauff was playing.
And so what could have been a nicepost-match interview where there's a
positive taken away,Because as we've talked about on this
podcast many, many times,we play a sport, it's the same as tennis,
where you have a winner and you have aloser, and that's just
(04:07):
what we sign up for.
And so when you contrast Savilenka'sapproach with the approach of Yannick
Sinner, who lost in the men'smatch, it's night and day.
Yannick Sinner was the number one seed.
Carlos Alcaraz was the number two seed.
There, just like in the Savilenka match,the number two seed, Alcaraz, one.
But Center actually had three match pointsearly on in the match and
(04:34):
couldn't convert any of them.
So he had three points where he could haveended the match in his favor and won
the French Open, couldn't convert them.
Carlos Alcaraz came backand in five sets, one.
It's alreadyMost of the folks who know about tennis,
they already consider it aclassic, and I think it is.
The level of play was incredible.
So what Sinder did washe leaned into that.
(04:54):
He basically acknowledged Alvarez's winand congratulated Carlos for his win,
talked about how great it was to be a partof a historic match like that and what an
incredible level oftennis was being played.
Just very positive aboutthe whole experience.
And so it got me thinking.
This whole thing got me thinking aboutthe additional consequence of
(05:18):
making it about ourselvesin those kinds of situations, in acting
like Arena Sabalenka, where it's all aboutwhat we did wrong,
as opposed to acting like Yannick Sinner,where it's about what your opponent did
and just recognizing the factthat you played a tough match.
You were in a good match the whole time.
Soone aspect of it was what we talked about
(05:42):
last week, which is aboutdiminishing your It makes sense.
If you didn't check that one out,highly recommend you check it out.
But the other aspect of it is actually howyou diminish yourself with that conduct.
And there's two different ways, andI'm going to talk about both of them.
One's pretty evident, right?
One as the direct diminution of yourself.
So if you think about, again, going backto Arena Savilenka,
(06:05):
great athlete, obviously, number one inthe world, number one seed in the
tournament, veryaccomplished tennis player.
But her image is taking a hit, right?And rightfully so.
It's taking a hit because of hertrying to basically detract from her
opponent's victory and make itabout herself and her mistakes.
(06:28):
It's There's a direct diminutionthat's happening there.
But beyond that, there's also an indirectdiminution, and this is the one I want
to spend a few minutes on, which is this.
Let me switch it to pickleball now.
So let's go to just a standard example inthese is going to be you're up
(06:48):
10 something, call it 10,9, 10,8.
You can't close it out, right?
Or you miss a shot, something like that.
And then your opponents win 12,10.So it's the comeback.
So you're up 10,8, 10,7,8.
7, 10, 9, something like that.
And then you don't get to 11, they tie itand they get to 12,
and so they win 12, 10.
And in those situations, what is notuncommon,
(07:12):
it's actually common, I guess, isplayers on the losing side of that,
players who got stuck at 10,make it about themselves.
It's all about, I missed that shot.I screwed up.
Sorry, I messed up.That was on me.
Things like that.
Removing or or diminishing theeffort of the opponent, which is, as I
(07:35):
said last week, your friend,to get to 12, right?
To battle the tenacity, thenot making an error, then giving
the game away, and things like that.
The willingness to continue to battle,which all should be celebrated.
And the event itself shouldbe celebrated, right?
Which I'm going to talk about in a second.
This is where you get indirectbecause it's a 12: 10 match.
Listen, 12 (07:53):
10 is your game.
12 (07:54):
10 games are awesome.
Think about this.
Think about if you could make Every gamebetween now and the end of your
pickleball career, 12, 10 or higher.Wouldn't that be awesome?
Every game would be 12,10, 13, 11, 14, 12, 15, 13.
You name it, right?But the lowest would be 12, 10.
(08:15):
I got to tell you something, you'replaying a really awesome
pickleball contest.
They're about as evenlymatched as you can think about.
Everybody's battling.
And the difference between the winner andthe loser is a shot here, two inches
or an inch there on an outball.Something silly, something silly, right?
Something very small.
Compared that to you winning 11-3, howdoes that feel compared to winning 12-10?
(08:41):
And losing 11-3 asopposed to losing 12-10?
I mean, those are entirely differentexperiences.
So the experience itself of finishing agame at 12: 10 is an awesome experience,
whether you win it or whether you lose it.
Now, again, going back to the bowl of icecream, if you win it,
you get some sprinkles.That's great.
But losing 12 (08:59):
10 is awesome.
I mean, that's a great battle by you.
And so when we think about that, when wethink about how we react
when we're on the loser side, becausewe're on the winner
side, it's always easy.
When you win 12 (09:13):
10, then you're always like, Hey, I won.
But when you lose, that'swhen you get tested.
That's when you have the possibility ofdoing a sabalenka, or an arena sabalenka,
which is make it about yourself anddiminish your friends and
your opponents by doing so.
But beyond that,You diminish the experience itself.
(09:33):
You diminish the event,the game that you just experienced.
That was 12 (09:38):
10.
You've taken it down a notch.
You've made it less important, lessmeaningful by making it about yourself, by
making it about a shot you missed ratherthan an entire event, an entire
experience that happened.
You also, by doing that, when you reducethe event, you reduce yourself,
(10:00):
again, but this time, indirectly.
It's not just the direct,not the best way to act, not the best look
for you if you're going to make it aboutyourself, the same way that it doesn't
look good for Savilenka to make it aboutthe wind or whatever it is that she wanted
to complain about for her loss, as opposedto recognizing that her opponent
won and beat her.
(10:21):
It's not just the direct impactof it, a diminution of yourself.
It's the indirect one, because what you'redoing is you're bringing
down the entire event.
And if you take it to its logicalextreme, you'll see what I mean.
So let me go back to ArenaSebalenka for a second.
The only reason that we even talk aboutArena Sebalenka
is because she's the number one playerin a sport that has traction.
(10:47):
So in a sport thatpeople generally care about.
Tennis is not...They do.
Tennis is a sport that's popular.
Players and people ingeneral follow the sport.
So knowing who the number one player intennis is interesting and being the
number one player in tennis has its thing.
So that gets her a certain position,a certain cache, if you will.
(11:10):
Now, if you tear down tennis, let's saytennis becomes irrelevant,
in a hypothetical, your tennis isirrelevant, then what does it matter
if you're number one in tennis?It doesn't matter.
So what Irina Sibelinka is doing that, shedoesn't realize because she's young, she
doesn't realize, is she's tearing downthe very house upon which her
(11:33):
value as a player, that part of her lifebeing number one in tennis, has value
because of the house that it's built upon.
And when she tears down the house,she tears herself down with it.
And it's the same thing for you in yourlocal community, in your local facility.
If you have a really good group of playersthat enjoy playing with each other, you
(11:55):
have really competitive games, andlet's say it's all 12: 10 again.
Every match is 12 (11:57):
10.
Every game is 12 (11:58):
10.
If you tear down those games,you tear down the fabric of what it is
that you and your friends have built inyour group that you play with
or the facility open play.
You bring it down a notch, andthen you bring it down a notch.
And And every time you do that,you reduce its importance.
You reduce yourself as a member of thatfabric, a piece of that fabric.
(12:23):
So when you think about your behavior,think about this context of yourself
inside of a bigger framework.
I meant to do it last week, andI'll go ahead and do it this week.
Credit to one of, I would say, mystrongest mentor in the mental game,
(12:45):
Coach Peter Scales, who developeda Compete, Learn, Honor philosophy.
And his philosophy is compete, learn,honor, with honor being the principle,
the tenet of the philosophy.
And that, I The idea of honoring is theidea that the game itself
is bigger than any one of us.
(13:06):
And so when we act in a way that tearsdown the game, we're
not honoring the game.
And theextension of that is that we're not
honoring ourselvesas members of that community, of
that game, as a part of that world.
And so I think it's a really helpfulway of thinking about it.
(13:27):
I highly recommend Coach Pete'sbook for you if you haven't read it.
Even if you have read it, he's developed aplaybook which is specific to pickleball,
and it has very hands-onideas in there, very hands-on items that
you can work on tocontinue to work on your mental game, on
your mental interaction with thesport of pickleball, specifically.
(13:50):
I'll put a link in the show notes.
And there's a code, I believe.
I'll put all the instructions in the shownotes below this show, and
you can go there and get that.
And I believe it's a verysignificant discount.
So again, the details will be there.
I don't remember them off top of myhead, but take advantage of that.
Coach Peter's ideas are super helpful inthis idea of
(14:12):
where we How we interact with the sportthat we're a part of and how it impacts us
through this ripple effectis really helpful, I think.
So think about when you're behavingin the way you're behaving.
Think about how it carries,I should say, how it impacts your
opponents, how it impacts the gameitself, and how it impacts you.
(14:33):
Because what I would suggest to you isthat if after a 10-something
loss, where you end up losing 10-12,then if you behave in a way that's about
you, you diminish your opponents,you diminish the event itself, the game
itself, and you, by extension, diminishyourself and your partner in that process.
(14:55):
Keep that in mind in terms of how youdecide to interact with with your events.
Hopefully, we can move away from theSavilenka responses and move more towards
center responses in our responses tolosses, which will happen
if you're playing at level.
There's no way to avoid it.
All right, let me dive into the RIF.
Let me Let me pull up the question here.
(15:16):
Larry asked a question on the YouTube, andI appreciate Larry asking the question.
And we were talking about lasttime it was about chasing fairies.
Oh, yeah, the diminishing one was actuallynot last week, it was the week before.
So 2 (15:30):
46 was diminishing.
Last week was chasing fairies.
So Larry said, great concept.It makes so much more sense.
Thank you, Larry, for that.
And then he asked this question, and Ithink this is the question that's going
to apply to a lot of you listening.
Do you have any thoughts on how attitudesof the people you play
with effect to your play?
I play rec level in Florida and NewJersey, and I seem to play better in New
Jersey, and I think, and then he puts inparentheses, at least that's how I feel,
(15:54):
it's friendlier in New Jersey, andI'm less anxious, so I perform better.
Competition is about the same.
Competition is about the same, sobetween New Jersey and Florida.
But the caveat is that I am friendliersocially with the Florida group
and not the New Jersey crowd.
It's interesting, Larry.
So there's twothings that maybe cut against each other a
little bit, meaning It sounds like you'refriendlier with the Florida
(16:16):
folks and feel more pressure.
So is it that, or is it thatthe group in New Jersey is friendlier?
So it sounds like the group is friendly inNew Jersey, but you have closer
contacts here in Florida.
And those probably arecompounding for you.
So let's deal with one at a time.
I agree with the idea that when you'replaying in a group that is a weird vibe,
(16:43):
you're not going to play well.And that's happened to me locally.
There's actually groups.
There's been a couple of groups that Ihave shied away from playing with, not
because the level of play is fine, theycan hit the ball very well and they know
the game, but it's just a weird vibe.
You The vibe's off for me, right?
Let me be clear, it doesn't meanthey're doing anything wrong, right?
(17:05):
They're entitled to live theirlife the way they want to live it.
It's just not the vibe that I relate to.
So I don't go there.
And I notice that when I go there,I'm not really focused on the game.
I'm not really into it, and I don'tplay as well as I can otherwise.
The flip side is when I play with myfriends, like I'm playing tomorrow in a
group, and I expect to see several of myfriends there, and it's going to be more
(17:26):
relaxed,I'll joke around I'll be more relaxed, and
I'll play way, way, waybetter in that environment.
So I do think that...
I actually think I'm pretty confident thathow you feel in the group, the vibe that
you're getting from the group isdefinitely going to impact your play.
(17:47):
Now, the compounding there may be that ifyou feel closer to your Florida friends,
meaning you're closer to them, then youare in New Jersey, then perhaps you're
internalizing what you believe theiropinion of you is based on
your performance on the court.
In other words,if you don't perform on the court, then
(18:09):
you feel morelet down in terms of your friends judging
you, potentially, negatively becauseof your performance on the court.
I would submit to you there, the bestthing I can tell you there, and I
believe we did a podcast on this.
I don't have the number off top of myhead, but the idea is that no
one has bandwidth for that.
(18:30):
Most players don't havebandwidth for that.
As long as you're roughly at level withthe other players,
the fact that you had a rough day orwhatever, most players are in one ear, out
the other, they're notpaying attention to it.
They have their own journey.
My guess is there'sfriends of yours in Florida who are just
(18:51):
as stressed as you are about performingwell in front of their group.
So I would discount that some.
The only caveat I would make there is justbe mindful of...
Try not to make a deal of it.
And what I mean by that is theexample I always give is pop-up.
(19:12):
So players, when they pop the ball up,everybody believes that the music
stops, everybody stops playing, right?
All the lights are on that player and thepop-up and everyone's watching and it's,
Oh, my God, that playerpopped the ball up.
What an awful player,which is not the case.
And the Same as what you're talking aboutin that situation, other players aren't
(19:33):
keeping track of that stuff,for the most part.
I mean, there are exceptions,but for the most part.
But they will if you make a deal of it.
So if you pop it up and then yousay, Man, I always pop the ball up.
Then your friends aregoing to think, What?
You always pop the ball up.
So it's the same thing here.
If you have a bad day, just go about yourbusiness, add everybody, play your games
(19:57):
the best you can, and then And carry on.
Just carry on,carry on, carrying on with your game.
But yeah, I can definitely seehow those would impact your play.
I think you havemore control over the second one.
The vibe is just a vibe thing, andthat's You can work on that in terms
of shutting it out, potentially.
(20:19):
But the others are judging me thing, Ithink that one you can work with more
directly byunderstanding that they probably are not
for the most part, because remember thatthey have their their own problems
that they're dealing with.
All right.It's one more thing.
It reminds me ofwhen you're given the speech, they say,
(20:39):
imagine everybody doesn't have clothes on.Same thing.
They have their own problems.
You have your problems,they have their problems.
They're probably They'regetting their problems.
Anyway, so that's this week's podcast.
I hope you enjoyed it.
I got to be honest witheverybody, I haven't heard.
There's no other shoutouts.
Alan on YouTube is always on there.
There's one or two others.
But on the Apple side and theSpotify side, it's pretty silent.
(21:00):
So if you listen to the podcast and have amoment to rate and review, it
really would appreciate it.
As I always say, it helps us reach otherplayers like you who may
benefit from this podcast.
And as always, if you enjoyed the podcast,please consider sharing it with your
friends, because if you enjoyed thepodcast, they probably will, too.
I hope to see some of you at the end ofJuly at camp in Florida, and maybe the
rest of you at the end of June to learnmore about Dinking in our strategy clinic.
(21:25):
Everything available at betterpickleball.Com.
Be well, have a great week,and I'll see you next time.
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