August 8, 2025 • 18 mins
"Do your best to play your best" is a deceptively simple idea, but its depth can transform the way you experience the game—and yourself. It reshapes how we approach both coaching and personal growth because the key to unlocking the best pickleball is not found in your strokes, but in how you speak to yourself after a tough game.
Show Notes: https://betterpickleball.com/256-do-your-best-to-play-your-best
Mark as Played
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.
I hope you're having a great week.
My name is Tony Roig.
I'm the host of this podcast.
As I say these words, I realized that Iprobably hadn't said that
the last couple of weeks.
It's an interesting part of any process,and I'll tie it into
pickleball in one second.
But we get used to certain ways of doingthings on the pickleball court and behind
(00:27):
the microphone, and it's easy to revertback to those ways of doing things,
including right now, or not right now, butbefore where I was not mentioning my
name at the beginning of the podcast.
Just a friendly little quickreminder here of the process.
If you're playing pickleball and trying toimprove and you revert back to
what you were doing before,perfectly understandable, right?
(00:49):
That's expected.
All right, in today's podcast, I'm goingto be talking to you about this concept
of do your best to play your best.
Before we get into that, I have a coupleof housekeeping items I want to share with
you a personal story that happened to meyesterday, the day before, and it also
has to do with the growth process.
I think you'll find that helpful to yourprocess if that's what you're doing right
(01:13):
now, trying to grow asa pickleball player.
And in the RIF, I'm going to share withyou an email that I received from
one of your fellow players, Samy.
He was fine with me sharing his name andthe email, so I'm going to
share that with you in the RIF.
As we dive into the podcast, acouple of housekeeping notes.
One, if you happen to listen to thepodcast on Apple, on the podcast on the
(01:35):
Apple platform, if you would leave areview, that would be really helpful.
We haven't had one in there for a while,and I think Apple is probably thinking
that, Hey, nobody listensto the podcast anymore.
Just kidding, because they see thedownloads, but it'd be helpful to get a
review on there just to let the systemknow as well as other players
know about the podcast.
And the review can be whatever you like.
It doesn't have to be a good review.
(01:55):
Just leave a review if you would.
We have some camps coming upat We have camps coming up in Minneapolis.
There's another place I can'tremember right off top of my head.
I know we have some in Tampa.
So go to betterpickleball.
com if you're looking for a camp and seethe list of camps and find
one that's right for you.
If you are a former camper or formerPickleball System student, TPS student.
(02:20):
We also have a graduate camp coming up inOctober in Tampa, which is basically the
next stage of the processin your development.
So check that out.
And then also in September, ifyou're wondering, what's TPS?
What's the system?
In September, we're going to have aworkshop where we're going to
teach you some pickle and then give youthe opportunity to join the next class of
(02:43):
the Pickleball System, which opens inSeptember, which launches in September.
So be on the look out for that.
If you're on our email list,you'll be notified of the pickleball
system's next steps in your emails.
All right, let me share with you apersonal story that happened to me that I
believe will help you withyour processes in
(03:05):
terms of your forward movement inyour sport and in anything in life.
So if you listen to the podcast for awhile, you may know that
I dabble in gardening.
It's something that I stop and start andtry and get involved in, but I'm making a
concerted effort to build a garden bed,and I'm using a new approach
that I haven't done before.
I actually think it'srelatively easier once you get to know how
(03:28):
to do it, but basically it'slike stacking four by four.
It's like interlocking them, drillhole, drive some rebar through them.
Good to go.It looks really nice and it's sturdy.
I've been working on that, and I got myholes drilled, which was its own process.
And thenI had the wood stacked, then I'm driving
(03:49):
the rebar, and I realized that I'm havinga little bit of difficulty lining up the
last hole, the bottom hole.
Everything shifts a little bit as you'redriving the rebar and things like that.
So then I basically had to pull it apart.
I hadn't driven the rebar all the wayin because at least I didn't do that.
I didn't drive the rebar all theway in, so I had them sticking out.
I was able to shimmy itout and things like that.
(04:12):
But through that process,I figured out a better way of
coming at it from the front-end.
I won't bore you with the details, butit's basically
taking some steps in the middle that willallow me to then do it quicker the next
time and more efficiently the next time.
So I was thinking about that interms of...
(04:33):
Because I'm always thinking aboutpickleball whenever I'm doing stuff, a
pickleball is alwaysin the back of my mind.
What happens is when we're trying to learna new shot or develop a strategy, things
like that, invariably what will happenis you'll head down a certain route.
You'll start doing something this way.
Then you'llperhaps have to take a step back for a
(04:56):
second because, let's say, there's a shotthat you need in order to build that
strategy, or there's a concept that youdidn't really understand that well
that will help you with the strategy.
I think we get a little bitdown on ourselves, maybe even frustrated
whenever we have to take those steps backto gain perspective on what's happening
and then be able to take astep forward more productively.
(05:17):
That's exactly what happenedto me with this project.
Not that I felt...
I did feel for a moment, I was like, Oh,man, I got to pull these apart and
then reassemble them.
But you know what?
It was, A,perfectly understandable because this is
my first time building this type of gardenbed, and so it's a new process for me.
(05:37):
I'm learning as I go.
And B, I see it clearer now in terms ofwhat are the steps that are going to help
me continue to do this in the future?
Because my plan is to buildfurther garden beds like this.
So there's basically one, andit would be enough just to
say, that makes sense, right?
That you needed to take a step backbecause there was something along the that
(06:00):
you couldn't foresee because you hadn'tdone it before until you get there.
And now you're like, Oh, now I see.
And then you take thatstep back, you see the...
Because you have to.
But the second benefit, the secondarybenefit is, next time you go forward,
you're more empowered.
You have a better understandingof how everything fits together.
And it's the same with pickable.
(06:20):
Again, if you're working in an area,don't get frustrated.
Try not to get down on yourselfif you have to take a step back.
And we're talking about thatthese days because we have a
guide that we developed, which isa three, five must-have shot guide.
And you're welcome to get a copy of it.
(06:41):
I'll try and put a linksomewhere in the show.
I'll put a link in the show notesif you want to get a copy of that.
But it leads into what we're going to bedoing in our September
conversation and then so on.
But basically, and it also leads into theAugust clinic if you want to join us for
that, because we're going to be talkingabout that more in-depth,
the must-have shots.
(07:01):
But what happens, the reason this isrelevant to what we're talking about right
now is, what will happen is this, right?
So let's say you're a 4.
0 player, and I tell you,Here's a must-have shots for 3.
5 play.
Naturally, you might think, Well,I don't need that because I'm 3.
5 already, so I don't need those shots.
(07:22):
But the reality is thatif you want to be...
I'm sorry, you're already 4.0.
If you want to play 4.
0 and keep going above, you need all theshots from before, including the
shots that a three, five needs.
So it's not like, well, a 3.5 needs those.
Therefore, ergo, I don'tneed those because I'm not 3.
5, I'm 3.7 or 3.
8 or 4.0.
That is not correct.
Now, if you have the shots,you have the shots, right?
(07:44):
But you should at least check it to makesure that you have those shots,
because this is an area where sometimesyou may have to take a step back, because
what will happen is you'll end up stuck ifyou're missing stuff that's
in your rear view mirror.
So hopefully, that helps you with yourprocess and not getting bogged down with
When you have to take stepsback, because that's natural.
All right, let's dive in to doyour best to play your best.
(08:08):
I'm going to read from the book here.
Quick update on the book is that we are ontrack for a I think
it's fall, technically.
That might still be summer.No, it's fall.
I think it's fall.
Fall launch of it.
The team, Jeff, Dave, Michelle, Penny,everybody's rolling in the direction, and
(08:30):
we're going to get this thing done here.
All right, so this is from a section.
This is from part four, OurPlace Within Pickleball.
We've been talking about control andagency and basically control
the controllables, essentially.
It wraps up with this idea ofdo your best to play your best.
I'm reading from the book now.
This teaching point wraps up well asfollows, do your best to play your best.
(08:58):
The maxim has to your best,but each applies to a different
aspect of your performance.
Part one, do your best, is subjective.
This part acknowledges our fallible humannature and includes this fallibility
within the scope of whatwe are able to do that day.
A side story here to explainwhere this part originates.
One day, we're walkingthrough a downtown area.
(09:20):
I noticed a car thatwasn't parked quite right.
It was in a row of cars that were allparallel parked as you would expect, all
neatly in a row, except for this one car.
The car had been leftat an angle to others.
Its back-end protruded out into the narrowone-way road, making it difficult
for cars to navigate past it.
The driver was nowhere in sight,presumably at a nearby
restaurant enjoying a meal.
(09:40):
Two ways occurred to meto think of this driver.
One way to think about it was What a jerk.
The driver was rude andinconsidered of others.
Or perhaps another way to come at the samesituation, this parking job was the best
that this fellow humanbeing was able to do today.
They did not mean any ill will towardsothers, and this is just
(10:00):
the best they could do.
You can see how the way we frame ourthinking about the same parking deficiency
elicits a different response.
The first framing, what a jerk,leads to becoming upset and perhaps
even an argument with a driver.
The second framing, best they could do,leads to empathy and perhaps even an offer
(10:21):
to help the driver park the car better.
Why not apply the sameframing to ourselves?
Say you lose a game that you should,quote, Ever, close quote, lose.
How should you react to it?
Option one, you can fight yourself.
Unacceptable, or I'm such a loser.
(10:41):
Or option two, practice some self-empathy.
I have a lot on my mind, or Idid not sleep well last night.
Note that these are not making excuses.
Option two does not include saying, Musthave been the wind, or those
net shots were the reason.
Option two is simply acknowledgementof the fallible nature of being human.
Part two, play your best, is objective.
(11:04):
How well can you reasonably expectyourself to perform in a game?
Contrasting two different versions of youis the best way to see
how the second part works.
Version one of you has spent the lastthree three months, immersed in
serious drilling and improvement.
You've also been playing lots, eachtime with intentionality and purpose.
Version two of you has been preoccupied...That's version one.
(11:25):
Version two of you has been preoccupiedthe past three months
with family and work.
Zero your time drilling or practicingand only playing once or twice a week.
And even then, you're just going for thesocial interaction and exercise more than
focusing on your strategic development.
You're now in a game.
You're feeling like your shots are justnot working the way
you expect of yourself.
(11:45):
If it's version one of you, thenperhaps there's something to it.
Maybe you need to get a little lower intoyour shots or focus your
attention on the ball better.
If it's version two of you, though, thenperhaps your drop in play
is just objectively okay.
Why should you expect to perform at alevel that is commensurate with your
practice and play leading up to the game?
Putting it together.
(12:06):
Do your best is a subjective componentthat asks you to try your hardest while
still accepting the normalebbs and flows of being human.
And two, play your best is the objectivecomponent that asks you to perform as well
as you can, given the realisticbar that you can clear.
Tying these concepts together, there'sonly one factor on the pick-able court
that you can control,and that factor is you.
(12:29):
There's also only one factor for whom theperformance is important to you,
and that factor is you as well.
You are the factor A in your ownongoing pickleball experiment.
That's explained before in thebook, when you got the book.
You can control your performance on anygiven day Only to the extent that you put
forth your best effort, that's doing yourbest, and play the sport you
(12:51):
love as well as you possibly can.
That is playing your best.
So in sum, do your best to play yourSo hopefully that helps you think a little
bit differently about how you come atyourself, how you evaluate yourself.
Every day you're going to comeat it as a fallible human.
(13:11):
You're going totry your best, do your best.
And then even within that, you're going toplay your best, given where you're at in
the game right now, based on how longyou've been playing, based on the amount
of time you put into it, based onyour understanding of the game.
And you need to accept thatobjective reality of yourself.
You put those two pieces together, thesubjective and the objective,
and that gives you what you can control.
(13:33):
Anyway, so that's, I think, a powerfulconcept that is still fairly new to my way
of thinking and my processes, interms of as a mentor or teacher.
And so that'll keep on gettingrefined as we move forward.
Let me pull up Sammie's email now in theRIF, and I'm going to read it to you.
The reason I'm sharing this with you, andI asked Sammie for permission to do this,
(13:57):
is because it makes the case formental process, or focus on
mental process, I should say.Now, let me be clear.
I'm not talking aboutthe case for focus as a mental process.
That's one way of using the term focus.
I'm talking about focusingon mental process, where mental process
becomes a serious objective inwhat you spend your time on
(14:21):
relative to the sport of pickleball.
And what I'm going to share with you ishow how Sammie realized that the...
Or how it clicked for him, and he said hehad an epiphany, the
importance of the mental side.
And he already knew this, asyou'll see from his email.
Buteven though he knew it, he knew it in his
(14:45):
other professional life as a doctor,hadn't really applied it to himself.
And that's the trick for us, isto do these things for ourselves.
So the subject line is epiphany.
And then starts off, Tony, my servedepth is much more consistent now.
As you know, I'm a retiredanesthesiologist and used breathwork to
calm the anxiety of patients before andsometimes after surgery, instead of
(15:06):
drugging them with a drugon here that hard to read.
As you also know, taking a deep breath inand a longer exhalation leads to
engagement of theparasympathetic nervous system.
Rest and digest, decrease heart rate,decrease muscle tension,
increase oxygenation.
The opposite of thesympathetic nervous system.
(15:27):
Bight or flight, increase tension,increase muscle tightness,
increase My heart rate, etc.
My previous attempts at deeper servesled me to trying to increase the energy
of the serve in order to get it deeper.
Now, I take a deep breath prior toinitiating the serve and serve during the
exhalation, adding increased trajectoryand, in all caps, decreased energy.
(15:49):
The energy is surprisingly lowcompared to the depth of the serve.
Profound.Best, Samy.
The point of sharing that with you, again,is that
it's a tangible understanding or tangibleexpression, I should say, of
the interaction between your mindand how you perform on the court.
(16:13):
And as we like to say on the podcast inour athletic pillar training at Better
Pickable, the athleticpillar is body and mind.
And so the menthol part of pickle ballis going to allow you to feel better.
And we can stop there.You're going to feel better.
I don't have to more case, do I?
But there's a bonus, right?
(16:33):
The mental side of pickle ball orprogressing on the mental side of
pickleball, improving on your mentalprocesses, will help you feel better
and also play better, as youcan see from Sammie's email.
So Sammie, thanks a lot forsharing that with the group.
If you're a pickleballtherapist, be on the lookout.
(16:56):
You should have received an email from usfor an upcoming get together
for the pickleball therapist.
If you don't know what I'm talking aboutwith pickleball therapists, but
you'd be interested in becoming one.
Basically, in a nutshell, you're going towork on yourself in the mental part of
your processes relative to pickleball.
And you're also going tobe an ambassador, if you will, where you
(17:17):
help others if you can.
And helping them can justsharing the podcast with them.
It's perfectly fine.
But we're on the lookout for others whoare maybe beating themselves up, having a
hard time on the mental side of pickleballand just offering a
friendly word, including simply saying,Hey, I got a podcast I listen
to that might help you out.
So if you're interestedin that, send us an email.
(17:38):
Go and send us a supportat betterpickleball.
com.
My email is getting a little inundatedthese days, and I hate to miss
out on those in case they come in.
So usually, I have them come to me, butjust send it to support
at betterpickleball.com.
That'll make it easier for us to track theinquiry and to get you the
information in a timely manner.
But again, if you're already atherapist, make sure you got an email.
If you did not get an email and you're atherapist, then please email, also email
(18:03):
support, and we'll get it to the rightfolks to make sure that you're
notified of that meeting.
All right, guys, that'sthis week's podcast.
I hope you enjoyed it.
As always, you have a minute to rate andreview it, particularly on
Apple, as I mentioned earlier.
That would be much appreciated,and it can be any review.
If it's nice, that's great.
If it's not nice, that's great, too.
I hope you have a great week, and I'll seeyou guys on the next episode
(18:25):
of Pickleball Therapy.
Be well.
Hello and welcome to Pickleball Therapy,the podcast dedicated to
your pickleball improvement.
I hope you're having a great week.
My name is Tony Roig.
I'm the host of this podcast.
As I say these words, I realized that Iprobably hadn't said that
the last couple of weeks.
It's an interesting part of any process,and I'll tie it into
pickleball in one second.
But we get used to certain ways of doingthings on the pickleball court and behind
(00:27):
the microphone, and it's easy to revertback to those ways of doing things,
including right now, or not right now, butbefore where I was not mentioning my
name at the beginning of the podcast.
Just a friendly little quickreminder here of the process.
If you're playing pickleball and trying toimprove and you revert back to
what you were doing before,perfectly understandable, right?
(00:49):
That's expected.
All right, in today's podcast, I'm goingto be talking to you about this concept
of do your best to play your best.
Before we get into that, I have a coupleof housekeeping items I want to share with
you a personal story that happened to meyesterday, the day before, and it also
has to do with the growth process.
I think you'll find that helpful to yourprocess if that's what you're doing right
(01:13):
now, trying to grow asa pickleball player.
And in the RIF, I'm going to share withyou an email that I received from
one of your fellow players, Samy.
He was fine with me sharing his name andthe email, so I'm going to
share that with you in the RIF.
As we dive into the podcast, acouple of housekeeping notes.
One, if you happen to listen to thepodcast on Apple, on the podcast on the
(01:35):
Apple platform, if you would leave areview, that would be really helpful.
We haven't had one in there for a while,and I think Apple is probably thinking
that, Hey, nobody listensto the podcast anymore.
Just kidding, because they see thedownloads, but it'd be helpful to get a
review on there just to let the systemknow as well as other players
know about the podcast.
And the review can be whatever you like.
It doesn't have to be a good review.
(01:55):
Just leave a review if you would.
We have some camps coming upat We have camps coming up in Minneapolis.
There's another place I can'tremember right off top of my head.
I know we have some in Tampa.
So go to betterpickleball.
com if you're looking for a camp and seethe list of camps and find
one that's right for you.
If you are a former camper or formerPickleball System student, TPS student.
(02:20):
We also have a graduate camp coming up inOctober in Tampa, which is basically the
next stage of the processin your development.
So check that out.
And then also in September, ifyou're wondering, what's TPS?
What's the system?
In September, we're going to have aworkshop where we're going to
teach you some pickle and then give youthe opportunity to join the next class of
(02:43):
the Pickleball System, which opens inSeptember, which launches in September.
So be on the look out for that.
If you're on our email list,you'll be notified of the pickleball
system's next steps in your emails.
All right, let me share with you apersonal story that happened to me that I
believe will help you withyour processes in
(03:05):
terms of your forward movement inyour sport and in anything in life.
So if you listen to the podcast for awhile, you may know that
I dabble in gardening.
It's something that I stop and start andtry and get involved in, but I'm making a
concerted effort to build a garden bed,and I'm using a new approach
that I haven't done before.
I actually think it'srelatively easier once you get to know how
(03:28):
to do it, but basically it'slike stacking four by four.
It's like interlocking them, drillhole, drive some rebar through them.
Good to go.It looks really nice and it's sturdy.
I've been working on that, and I got myholes drilled, which was its own process.
And thenI had the wood stacked, then I'm driving
(03:49):
the rebar, and I realized that I'm havinga little bit of difficulty lining up the
last hole, the bottom hole.
Everything shifts a little bit as you'redriving the rebar and things like that.
So then I basically had to pull it apart.
I hadn't driven the rebar all the wayin because at least I didn't do that.
I didn't drive the rebar all theway in, so I had them sticking out.
I was able to shimmy itout and things like that.
(04:12):
But through that process,I figured out a better way of
coming at it from the front-end.
I won't bore you with the details, butit's basically
taking some steps in the middle that willallow me to then do it quicker the next
time and more efficiently the next time.
So I was thinking about that interms of...
(04:33):
Because I'm always thinking aboutpickleball whenever I'm doing stuff, a
pickleball is alwaysin the back of my mind.
What happens is when we're trying to learna new shot or develop a strategy, things
like that, invariably what will happenis you'll head down a certain route.
You'll start doing something this way.
Then you'llperhaps have to take a step back for a
(04:56):
second because, let's say, there's a shotthat you need in order to build that
strategy, or there's a concept that youdidn't really understand that well
that will help you with the strategy.
I think we get a little bitdown on ourselves, maybe even frustrated
whenever we have to take those steps backto gain perspective on what's happening
and then be able to take astep forward more productively.
(05:17):
That's exactly what happenedto me with this project.
Not that I felt...
I did feel for a moment, I was like, Oh,man, I got to pull these apart and
then reassemble them.
But you know what?
It was, A,perfectly understandable because this is
my first time building this type of gardenbed, and so it's a new process for me.
(05:37):
I'm learning as I go.
And B, I see it clearer now in terms ofwhat are the steps that are going to help
me continue to do this in the future?
Because my plan is to buildfurther garden beds like this.
So there's basically one, andit would be enough just to
say, that makes sense, right?
That you needed to take a step backbecause there was something along the that
(06:00):
you couldn't foresee because you hadn'tdone it before until you get there.
And now you're like, Oh, now I see.
And then you take thatstep back, you see the...
Because you have to.
But the second benefit, the secondarybenefit is, next time you go forward,
you're more empowered.
You have a better understandingof how everything fits together.
And it's the same with pickable.
(06:20):
Again, if you're working in an area,don't get frustrated.
Try not to get down on yourselfif you have to take a step back.
And we're talking about thatthese days because we have a
guide that we developed, which isa three, five must-have shot guide.
And you're welcome to get a copy of it.
(06:41):
I'll try and put a linksomewhere in the show.
I'll put a link in the show notesif you want to get a copy of that.
But it leads into what we're going to bedoing in our September
conversation and then so on.
But basically, and it also leads into theAugust clinic if you want to join us for
that, because we're going to be talkingabout that more in-depth,
the must-have shots.
(07:01):
But what happens, the reason this isrelevant to what we're talking about right
now is, what will happen is this, right?
So let's say you're a 4.
0 player, and I tell you,Here's a must-have shots for 3.
5 play.
Naturally, you might think, Well,I don't need that because I'm 3.
5 already, so I don't need those shots.
(07:22):
But the reality is thatif you want to be...
I'm sorry, you're already 4.0.
If you want to play 4.
0 and keep going above, you need all theshots from before, including the
shots that a three, five needs.
So it's not like, well, a 3.5 needs those.
Therefore, ergo, I don'tneed those because I'm not 3.
5, I'm 3.7 or 3.
8 or 4.0.
That is not correct.
Now, if you have the shots,you have the shots, right?
(07:44):
But you should at least check it to makesure that you have those shots,
because this is an area where sometimesyou may have to take a step back, because
what will happen is you'll end up stuck ifyou're missing stuff that's
in your rear view mirror.
So hopefully, that helps you with yourprocess and not getting bogged down with
When you have to take stepsback, because that's natural.
All right, let's dive in to doyour best to play your best.
(08:08):
I'm going to read from the book here.
Quick update on the book is that we are ontrack for a I think
it's fall, technically.
That might still be summer.No, it's fall.
I think it's fall.
Fall launch of it.
The team, Jeff, Dave, Michelle, Penny,everybody's rolling in the direction, and
(08:30):
we're going to get this thing done here.
All right, so this is from a section.
This is from part four, OurPlace Within Pickleball.
We've been talking about control andagency and basically control
the controllables, essentially.
It wraps up with this idea ofdo your best to play your best.
I'm reading from the book now.
This teaching point wraps up well asfollows, do your best to play your best.
(08:58):
The maxim has to your best,but each applies to a different
aspect of your performance.
Part one, do your best, is subjective.
This part acknowledges our fallible humannature and includes this fallibility
within the scope of whatwe are able to do that day.
A side story here to explainwhere this part originates.
One day, we're walkingthrough a downtown area.
(09:20):
I noticed a car thatwasn't parked quite right.
It was in a row of cars that were allparallel parked as you would expect, all
neatly in a row, except for this one car.
The car had been leftat an angle to others.
Its back-end protruded out into the narrowone-way road, making it difficult
for cars to navigate past it.
The driver was nowhere in sight,presumably at a nearby
restaurant enjoying a meal.
(09:40):
Two ways occurred to meto think of this driver.
One way to think about it was What a jerk.
The driver was rude andinconsidered of others.
Or perhaps another way to come at the samesituation, this parking job was the best
that this fellow humanbeing was able to do today.
They did not mean any ill will towardsothers, and this is just
(10:00):
the best they could do.
You can see how the way we frame ourthinking about the same parking deficiency
elicits a different response.
The first framing, what a jerk,leads to becoming upset and perhaps
even an argument with a driver.
The second framing, best they could do,leads to empathy and perhaps even an offer
(10:21):
to help the driver park the car better.
Why not apply the sameframing to ourselves?
Say you lose a game that you should,quote, Ever, close quote, lose.
How should you react to it?
Option one, you can fight yourself.
Unacceptable, or I'm such a loser.
(10:41):
Or option two, practice some self-empathy.
I have a lot on my mind, or Idid not sleep well last night.
Note that these are not making excuses.
Option two does not include saying, Musthave been the wind, or those
net shots were the reason.
Option two is simply acknowledgementof the fallible nature of being human.
Part two, play your best, is objective.
(11:04):
How well can you reasonably expectyourself to perform in a game?
Contrasting two different versions of youis the best way to see
how the second part works.
Version one of you has spent the lastthree three months, immersed in
serious drilling and improvement.
You've also been playing lots, eachtime with intentionality and purpose.
Version two of you has been preoccupied...That's version one.
(11:25):
Version two of you has been preoccupiedthe past three months
with family and work.
Zero your time drilling or practicingand only playing once or twice a week.
And even then, you're just going for thesocial interaction and exercise more than
focusing on your strategic development.
You're now in a game.
You're feeling like your shots are justnot working the way
you expect of yourself.
(11:45):
If it's version one of you, thenperhaps there's something to it.
Maybe you need to get a little lower intoyour shots or focus your
attention on the ball better.
If it's version two of you, though, thenperhaps your drop in play
is just objectively okay.
Why should you expect to perform at alevel that is commensurate with your
practice and play leading up to the game?
Putting it together.
(12:06):
Do your best is a subjective componentthat asks you to try your hardest while
still accepting the normalebbs and flows of being human.
And two, play your best is the objectivecomponent that asks you to perform as well
as you can, given the realisticbar that you can clear.
Tying these concepts together, there'sonly one factor on the pick-able court
that you can control,and that factor is you.
(12:29):
There's also only one factor for whom theperformance is important to you,
and that factor is you as well.
You are the factor A in your ownongoing pickleball experiment.
That's explained before in thebook, when you got the book.
You can control your performance on anygiven day Only to the extent that you put
forth your best effort, that's doing yourbest, and play the sport you
(12:51):
love as well as you possibly can.
That is playing your best.
So in sum, do your best to play yourSo hopefully that helps you think a little
bit differently about how you come atyourself, how you evaluate yourself.
Every day you're going to comeat it as a fallible human.
(13:11):
You're going totry your best, do your best.
And then even within that, you're going toplay your best, given where you're at in
the game right now, based on how longyou've been playing, based on the amount
of time you put into it, based onyour understanding of the game.
And you need to accept thatobjective reality of yourself.
You put those two pieces together, thesubjective and the objective,
and that gives you what you can control.
(13:33):
Anyway, so that's, I think, a powerfulconcept that is still fairly new to my way
of thinking and my processes, interms of as a mentor or teacher.
And so that'll keep on gettingrefined as we move forward.
Let me pull up Sammie's email now in theRIF, and I'm going to read it to you.
The reason I'm sharing this with you, andI asked Sammie for permission to do this,
(13:57):
is because it makes the case formental process, or focus on
mental process, I should say.Now, let me be clear.
I'm not talking aboutthe case for focus as a mental process.
That's one way of using the term focus.
I'm talking about focusingon mental process, where mental process
becomes a serious objective inwhat you spend your time on
(14:21):
relative to the sport of pickleball.
And what I'm going to share with you ishow how Sammie realized that the...
Or how it clicked for him, and he said hehad an epiphany, the
importance of the mental side.
And he already knew this, asyou'll see from his email.
Buteven though he knew it, he knew it in his
(14:45):
other professional life as a doctor,hadn't really applied it to himself.
And that's the trick for us, isto do these things for ourselves.
So the subject line is epiphany.
And then starts off, Tony, my servedepth is much more consistent now.
As you know, I'm a retiredanesthesiologist and used breathwork to
calm the anxiety of patients before andsometimes after surgery, instead of
(15:06):
drugging them with a drugon here that hard to read.
As you also know, taking a deep breath inand a longer exhalation leads to
engagement of theparasympathetic nervous system.
Rest and digest, decrease heart rate,decrease muscle tension,
increase oxygenation.
The opposite of thesympathetic nervous system.
(15:27):
Bight or flight, increase tension,increase muscle tightness,
increase My heart rate, etc.
My previous attempts at deeper servesled me to trying to increase the energy
of the serve in order to get it deeper.
Now, I take a deep breath prior toinitiating the serve and serve during the
exhalation, adding increased trajectoryand, in all caps, decreased energy.
(15:49):
The energy is surprisingly lowcompared to the depth of the serve.
Profound.Best, Samy.
The point of sharing that with you, again,is that
it's a tangible understanding or tangibleexpression, I should say, of
the interaction between your mindand how you perform on the court.
(16:13):
And as we like to say on the podcast inour athletic pillar training at Better
Pickable, the athleticpillar is body and mind.
And so the menthol part of pickle ballis going to allow you to feel better.
And we can stop there.You're going to feel better.
I don't have to more case, do I?
But there's a bonus, right?
(16:33):
The mental side of pickle ball orprogressing on the mental side of
pickleball, improving on your mentalprocesses, will help you feel better
and also play better, as youcan see from Sammie's email.
So Sammie, thanks a lot forsharing that with the group.
If you're a pickleballtherapist, be on the lookout.
(16:56):
You should have received an email from usfor an upcoming get together
for the pickleball therapist.
If you don't know what I'm talking aboutwith pickleball therapists, but
you'd be interested in becoming one.
Basically, in a nutshell, you're going towork on yourself in the mental part of
your processes relative to pickleball.
And you're also going tobe an ambassador, if you will, where you
(17:17):
help others if you can.
And helping them can justsharing the podcast with them.
It's perfectly fine.
But we're on the lookout for others whoare maybe beating themselves up, having a
hard time on the mental side of pickleballand just offering a
friendly word, including simply saying,Hey, I got a podcast I listen
to that might help you out.
So if you're interestedin that, send us an email.
(17:38):
Go and send us a supportat betterpickleball.
com.
My email is getting a little inundatedthese days, and I hate to miss
out on those in case they come in.
So usually, I have them come to me, butjust send it to support
at betterpickleball.com.
That'll make it easier for us to track theinquiry and to get you the
information in a timely manner.
But again, if you're already atherapist, make sure you got an email.
If you did not get an email and you're atherapist, then please email, also email
(18:03):
support, and we'll get it to the rightfolks to make sure that you're
notified of that meeting.
All right, guys, that'sthis week's podcast.
I hope you enjoyed it.
As always, you have a minute to rate andreview it, particularly on
Apple, as I mentioned earlier.
That would be much appreciated,and it can be any review.
If it's nice, that's great.
If it's not nice, that's great, too.
I hope you have a great week, and I'll seeyou guys on the next episode
(18:25):
of Pickleball Therapy.
Be well.
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