September 5, 2025 • 22 mins
Setting the right expectations can transform your mindset on the court and open the door to stronger, calmer, and more resilient play. In this episode, I'll share personal reflections and practical strategies to help you expand the “acceptable band” of behavior rather than striving for perfection. Listen now for insights you can bring directly to your play to prepare mentally, use your agency, and approach the game with balance and clarity.
Show Notes: https://betterpickleball.com/260-set-the-expectation-band-that-is-right-for-you
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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(00:05):
Hello and welcome to Pickleball Therapy,the podcast dedicated to
your pickleball improvement.
Hope you're having a great week.
I'm excited about the subjects thatwe're going to talk about this week.
We're actually going to cover three.
I know we usually doone main one and sometimes a rift, but
this week I want to talkabout three different areas.
There's some relation in the first two,and the last one is just something that
I've been holding on to for a minute thatI feel needs to come into the podcast to
(00:28):
help you navigate some of the experiencesthat we have on the court and off the
court, and I think you'llfind it interesting.
As we dive into the podcast,we are in the midst of our final
preparations for our upcoming fall clinic.
It's going to be a really, reallyawesome clinic, the way it's structured.
(00:48):
Obviously, I have the inside baseball onit, and I can tell you that it is going to
be game-changing for many of you, even ifyou're familiar with our teaching,
familiar with ourour philosophy about this game.
I believe that the way that we'representing this clinic, the way we're
structuring it, the information you'regoing to receive, I think you're going to
(01:09):
find it a very helpful clinic to attend.
As I mentioned the last time, and I'llmention the end the next time, is
the pick-up-ball system courseopens up for our fall class.
If this is your time to do that, thisis an amazing time to be a part of that.
The other thing I wanted to mention withyou was we continue to
work forward on the book.
(01:29):
I We're still shooting forend of month, September 2025.
If it's not September 30th, it'llbe October seventh or something.
It'll be very shortly thereafter.
So we're in the final throws of it andjust getting some pieces
put together so that we can releasethe book in the soft launch.
(01:51):
And hopefully by the next podcast,I'll have more information about...
We're going to do a pre-order.
If you want a pre-order, or if you want tosecure your book and get an early copy of
it, we'll do something for youand have an ability to do that.
We'll talk about that in the next podcast.
All right, let's talk about...
(02:11):
There's a couple ofconcepts that interrelate here.
I'll start with the easy onefirst, the easier one first.
And then I'm going to share with you guysa personal struggle that I had today in my
game that maybe help you see howI try and navigate this process.
And I believe that what I came up with inmy own navigating of the
(02:34):
process surely helped me.
I think it helped you, too.
Plus, you get to see that even though Ithink about this a lot and I'm the host
of the podcast, still a human being.
I haven't been able to shake thatlimitation in my existence.
I'm kidding, obviously, because I don'tsee it as a limitation, but it is
something that you have to factor intohow you behave and everything you do.
(02:58):
Let's start with the easiest one first.
I was watching some US Open.
This is about a week or so ago, and I'mwatching an early round match, and
there's a younger player on the court.
When I say younger, he'sprobably around 20-ish.
They're in the four set.
(03:18):
I think it was a pretty competitive match.
And he misses a forehand.
And as soon as he misses a forehand, itwas a rally that they hit several balls,
and he misses a forehand, then I see hejust tosses the racket onto the court.
And it was interesting to me becauseit's obviously this player
is playing from a standpoint of, Iguess he's not allowed to miss a shot ever
(03:44):
because he missed up beforehand, so hedecided he needed to throw his racket.
And it got me thinking about howthis idea of preparing yourself mentally
so that you can avoid thethe potential let down during game time
when you invariably miss a shot, becauseas you know by now, you're
(04:08):
going to miss shots.There's just no way about it.
The key is to get yourself mentally readyfor that reality before you step out
on the court, before you go play.
I think if you were speaking to thisplayer that I mentioned, the one who threw
his racket in the tennis game,before he went out on the court or just
(04:33):
over a dinner or something, you'dbe like, Hey, what do you think?
Next time you play,do you think it might miss a shot?
Even a forehand thatyou're pretty good at?
I'm guessing that the player would say,Yeah, probably.
Probably going to miss a shot.
So if you go into it knowing that you'reprobably going to miss a shot, not just
probably, you're 100% going to miss shots.
(04:56):
Then perhaps when you do miss the shot, itdoesn't come as such big shock to you
that, Oh, my God, I missed a shot, and youdon't have that negative reaction
that comes along with it.
And it also made me think of some of thegreats, Federer, Jokowitch,
Nadal, players like that.
Do you think they miss shots?Of course, they did.
Federer famously had, I believe it was acommencement speech at a graduation that
(05:20):
he gave where he talked about how manyshots he's missed, the percentages, and
it's like 40 % or 48 or50 %, something like that.
I mean, it's a really big number.
And that That's expected, right?
That the rallies end with an error by him,not that he's missed 50 % of the shots,
but that the rallies end by him missinga shot about 40 some, 50 % of the time.
And so he's not going to be excited aboutmissing, but it's just
(05:45):
part of the deal, right?
It's just part of what happens whenyou play a sport, tennis or pickleball.
And so when you look at players like that,their behavior when they miss shots,
next rally, next point, let's go.Let's just play again.
No big deal.
And when you watch players who have notmaybe prepared mentally
(06:06):
before they go out to the court and notworked on their mental game enough, when
they miss a shot, it'slike the end of the world.
Throw a racket, smashracket, things like that.
I mean, think of like RogerFederer smashing a racket.
Unheard of.What are you talking about, right?
Because he has a better understanding ofthe big picture of the sport of tennis.
And for us, it's about having a biggerpicture about the sport of pickleball and
(06:30):
preparing before we step out on the courtto understand that we are going to make
mistakes when we play, so that when weinvariably make those mistakes,
we're not going to get as upset.
And what I recommend here is, I want tosay now it's been like six weeks or eight
weeks back, we did an episode called the85, 15 Rule, or might else
be called the Oops Bucket.
Go back and listen to that one.
And then the key to that one is usethat before you step out on the court.
(06:52):
Get yourself ready for that Oups Bucket sothat when you miss, you can just dump the
miss into the Oups Bucket and move on.
So that And it relates then to the secondarea that I wanted to talk about, which is
a personal one to me thathappened to me today.
And what happened was, I'm not going toget into the details too much, not because
I don't want to share them, just becausethey're not relevant now that I understand
(07:13):
better how to frame it to my thinking.
So what happened was we were playing as aclosed open play.
So it's a closed group, but it's openplay within the group that we move around.
So I get on one of the courts, and oneof the players is hitting shots that...
Listen, he's entitled tohit whatever shots he wants.
(07:33):
I don't have any complaints abouthim hitting whatever shots he wants.
But there were shots that basic...
I guess I have to tell you some details.
So basically, there were kick-outlittle serves that go out.
They kick and they go wide.
And there's nothing wrong with that serve.
There's nothing wrongwith hitting that shot.
It's illegal, it's fine.
But on these courts, there are thesedividers between the courts, these little
(07:56):
dividers that they've put out there.
And so the serve basicallygoes into the dividers.
So the only way to really retrieve theserve on one side or the other side is
you basically have to run into something.
You have to run into a divider or run intothe bags that are next to
the wall on the other side.
I'm not interested in doing that.
I'm not going I'm not going to risk myphysical safety by going to chase a ball,
(08:22):
plastic ball in a game, and thentrip on the thing and whatever.
So I was not...
When you would hit the serve, I would justsay, nice, here's the ball point,
serve the other way, whatever.
And I'm okay with that.I'm perfectly okay with that.
But I was thinking afterward whether Ibehaved well otherwise, meaning
(08:44):
because I became disinterestedin the game itself, that game.
The other games were fine, and we hadnice competitive matches and all that.
But I became disinterested in thatgame, and so I didn't really care.
We've talked about agency on thispodcast, exercising your agency.
I exercised my agency tosimply allow the game to complete itself,
(09:07):
and then I was done playing in thatgame, and I'd move on to something else.
I asked myself afterwards, I was like,Was I a little too petulent, like a child.
I don't want to playanymore because whatever.
Now, I will say this, I'm okaywith the not returning the serves.
I'm not second-guessing that part because,again, there's a safety issue there.
(09:30):
And it got me thinking aboutsomething that I do when I play.
I'm a very good baseline lopber, so I canbaseline lop third shots all day long.
And it's very effective.
I win a lot of points doing it.
And I do it occasionally.
I do do it occasionally when I play inthese groups, but I
(09:51):
don't do it all the time.
Now, if I was playing in a competitivematch, I might do it more
because the competitive...
And when I say competitive, tournament,not just competitive, like I'm playing in
my level, tournament or something likethat, then maybe I might lob more because
I know how effective it can be anddisruptive to the opponents
and things like that.
But when I play, I actually pay attentionto how often I lob in these groups
(10:14):
because I know it is not a shot that isfun to play against.
It changes things.
I try and be mindful of how often I do it.
Same Another thing, I try and be mindfulabout how often I initiate offensive body
attacks, which is perfectly legal shot.
(10:36):
Competitive play, maybe I'lldo more of it in a tournament.
And that's where you basically flick theball into the player's body,
either hits them or they defend it alittle bit, and then you
put the next one away.
Super effective shot.
You see the pros use it where they do thebody flicks, and it's a perfectly fine
shot to do, especially forthe pros in tournaments.
But I try not to do too much of that,either of at all, in rec play
(10:59):
because of it's rec play.
Anyway, so I'm not concernedabout not going after the stories.
I'm fine with that.
But I wonder, did Igo too far in just basically not being
interested in the rest of the game?
And here's what I came at.
Maybe I was right.I was wrong about that.
Maybe I was wrong about that.
But I'm not framing it correctly.
(11:22):
And here's maybe the powerful thing.
Maybe not the powerfulthing, I don't know anymore.
But the idea that I what I said was,if I frame it differently, which I think
is a healthier framing, then I think I'mfine with what happened,
with the way I behaved.
And the framing is asking the questionalong a wider band
(11:48):
than, did I do everything perfectly?
Because the question I was asking myselfabout my behavior,
other than not returning the serve,was, did I do everything
at the absolute perfect situation?
Did I do everything perfectly otherwise?
(12:09):
And that's where theanswer is maybe, maybe not.
It's gray, it's not clear whether Ishould have done things differently.
But I don't think that'sthe right question.
I think the right question is, did Ibehave in a manner
that is acceptable within a bandthat is a little bit wider,
(12:31):
or maybe a lot wider, than the perfectbehavior band, which is very narrow?
And that band allows formy humanity that I mentioned
earlier, that I'm burdened with.
I did get annoyedby the repeated use of that shot because I
(12:52):
felt it undermined the spirit of the gamethey were trying to play in a rec play.
I felt that it was needlessly dangerous tome and to my partner because the
same serve was going both ways.
I did get annoyed as a human.
Anyway, so that may have contaminatedor carried over to my other behavior.
(13:15):
So the question is, not did I actperfectly within a very narrow band of
perfection, to repeat that,but did I step out of line?
I think that's a better question.
Did I behave in a way that is unacceptablein terms of,
was I rude to my opponent or my partner?
Did I toss my paddle?
(13:36):
The answer to those questions isno, I didn't do any of those things.
And so I feel that when you frame thequestion, when you find the
correct framing for it, then youcan find the better answer for it.
And I will tell you this, this is a verybig picture item for me, and
not just for a pickleball.
This applies to me outside of pickleballas well and everything I've ever done.
(13:59):
What I've oftenconcluded is that
sometimes when we find ourselves in adifficult mental situation, we're
trying to figure things out.
The difficulty that we face is becausewe're asking the wrong question.
We haven't figured out the right way toframe out the question that will then give
(14:23):
us an answer that is more in linewith what we're trying to figure out.
To be clear, I'm I'm not suggesting thatwe need to find a question that just
happens to fit the narrative that we want.
That's not what I'm saying here.
What I'm saying here is thatwe find a question that
properly gets at what we want to know.
For me today, what I wanted to know frommyself myself is, was my behavior
(14:50):
okay or not okay?
Now, was it perfect?That's the difference.
I think once I framed it out that way,was my behavior okay, Then I'm good.
I was okay with my behavior,and everything is fine.
If I had stepped out of line, if I hadanswered the question,
Was my behavior okay?
No, it was not okay, and here's why.
(15:11):
Then I have further reflection to do,maybe apologies to issue, whatever.
But again, I don't believethat that was the case today.
I believe that I was within an acceptablerange of behavior, and I
did not step out of line.
Anyway, just one way to think about it.
I would also say,if you When you think about this way of
thinking about how we react as humans tocertain events in our lives,
(15:35):
whether it's applicable or not,it's very similar to what happens, what we
were just talking about, the idea thatyou're going to miss shots when you play.
You're going to miss the perfect responseto a situation very often during the day.
You're going to say something that maybewasn't exactly the best thing you could
have said on reflection, or you'regoing to, whatever, respond to something
(16:01):
that doesn't agree with you in a way thatmaybe you could have done differently
and could have done it better, right?
Or you're a perfect person.
And so if you analyze yourselfrelative to perfection on your behavior,
it's very similar to analyzing yourselfrelative to perfection in your game, that
(16:21):
you got to hit every shot in the court andnever miss a shot, which is
ridiculous, frankly.
So give yourself the same latitudeattitude in your personal
life and then how you behave.
So that's my suggestion on that.
All right, I'm going to give you one morequick story, and then we're at for today.
(16:42):
This last one is morelike a rift, I think.
So this happened a couple of weeks ago,and I think it's really interesting.
It did not happen on a pickleball court.
It happened in a cafe, in a diner.
But I think it helps us think throughthe cause of
(17:02):
uncomfortable situations that arisesometimes in life,
and that can happen on the pickleballcourt, so I wanted to share with you.
So the story goes a little bit like this,or it doesn't go a little bit like this.
It goes like this.
So this is after a pickleball session.
No, before a pickleball session.
Before a pickleball sessionwhere I was going to go record.
So I went to go grab lunch.
There's a little cafe right next tothe courts where I do the recording.
(17:26):
And I had my legal pad.
I'm writing notes, Igot my music I'm gone.
I ordered my lunch.
I'm sitting there, I orderedcoffee, and then my lunch.
And I'm sitting there up at the counter.
And there was an open chair to my left,and then to the left of that one, there
was a gentleman who came in behind me,about my age, I would
(17:48):
say, and had sat down.So I got my coffee.
I'm talking to the waitress,having a conversation.
They're literally right there.There's two waitresses right there.
And then in the meantime, a lady comes andsits between me and the gentleman
and orders a coffee and whatever.So they're just...
She talked to the wait a second.
I'm writing my things, whatever.
(18:10):
So a few minutes go by, and the lady askedthe guy to my left
if he wouldn't mind moving toanother spot, which is behind me.
It's the other angle, but it was behind mebecause her boyfriend is
coming, and so would he mind?
So he says,Well, I've been sitting here for however
long, and they haven't takenmy order yet, and just leaves.
(18:32):
So he leaves the place,he leaves the cafe.
Now, the two waiters that are standingright in front of him on the other side of
the counter because thecash register is there.
And they're like, Oh.
One asked, What happened?
And he said, Nobody took care of him.And so he left.
Now, the two waitresses, obviously, didnot intend not to serve this person.
(18:53):
And they were standing right there, andthey were a little
bothered by it, personally.
They're like, Oh, we failed.
But I'm going to suggest to youthat it was the patron who failed.
And if you hear me out, Ithink you might agree with me.
So we have a situation wherethere's clearly been some an internal
(19:15):
breakdown on the server side.
Remember, there's two waitresses, right?
So I think you're serving him.
You think I'm serving him.Can happen, right?
That's human.
But a breakdown happened, right?
They They clearly would rather have servedhim than not served him,
so there was a mistake.
And that led to the gentleman leaving.
(19:36):
Now, how do we fix this?
How do we maybe preventthis in the future?
One way is this small diner could, Iguess, bring in a hostess or an advanced
computer system to track all the chairsand make sure that everybody has an
assigned person and to double-check tomake sure the assigned
person got assigned.I mean, it's a nightmare.
(19:57):
It's a absolute nightmare.
Or We could solve it by the patron who'ssitting there with no coffee in front of
him,looking up and saying, I have to laugh
now, but saying to the waitress,May I have a coffee?
Or, No one has served me yet.
(20:18):
Would you mind bringing me a coffee?Anything.
I think about it, and again, it's a littlebit comical, and I don't want to make
light of it because I know this gentlemanis trying to do the best he can
through life, and that's all fine.
But it just reminds me of when you talkto a child where you say, Use your words.
Just use your words.
(20:38):
I think about that there because Ithink there was an unfortunate...
He's probably never come backto the diner ever in his life.
He's probably upset at the diner.
I don't know if he left a reviewor not, but he's pissed off.
He thinks it's their fault, andhe was mistreated, so he left.
The waitresses, for the moment anyway,they probably don't think about it
anymore, but in the moment,they felt bad about it.
(20:58):
Like, Oh, my God, welet this gentleman down.
And all of that, plus he wouldhave gotten a great cup of coffee.
They have really goodcoffee and food there.
He would have enjoyed his diner experienceby just saying, May I
have a cup of coffee?
And you solve the problem.
And so when you're in a situation inpickleball or in life, where you're
(21:19):
unclear, unsure, whatever, make it clear.
Use your words.
Ask, say.
Don't assume, don't wait around, don't.
Sometimes, it'll be alittle uncomfortable.
It'll be maybe a little weird.
If you're at the courts and you're notsure whether they need a fourth, then
you go say, Hey, do you need a fourth?
(21:39):
They say, Our friend is in the bathroomcoming back, or, No, we're fine.
We're drilling, whatever.But you know what?
Oftentimes, they'll say, You know what?Yeah, that'd be great.
Let's play.
And so now you made new friends, andit's much better when you use your words.
So hopefully that helps you.
I think it's a great way to exerciseyour agency and just go about life.
(22:00):
All right, that's this week's podcast.I hope you enjoyed it.
As always, if you have a minute to rateand review, I really appreciate it.
I haven't had a chance to check lately tosee how that's going in that world there,
but hopefully, you all are in there everyday, all the time, rating and reviewing.
If you enjoyed the podcast, alwaysconsider sharing with your friends,
because remember, if you enjoyed thepodcast, they probably will, too.
(22:20):
I didn't say this before,so I'm going to say it now.
My name is Tony Roig.I'm the host of the podcast.
I always forget to say that.
I didn't forget this time,I said it at the end.
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the podcast.
Have a great week, and I'll see you inthe next episode of Pickleball Therapy.
Be well.
Hello and welcome to Pickleball Therapy,the podcast dedicated to
your pickleball improvement.
Hope you're having a great week.
I'm excited about the subjects thatwe're going to talk about this week.
We're actually going to cover three.
I know we usually doone main one and sometimes a rift, but
this week I want to talkabout three different areas.
There's some relation in the first two,and the last one is just something that
I've been holding on to for a minute thatI feel needs to come into the podcast to
(00:28):
help you navigate some of the experiencesthat we have on the court and off the
court, and I think you'llfind it interesting.
As we dive into the podcast,we are in the midst of our final
preparations for our upcoming fall clinic.
It's going to be a really, reallyawesome clinic, the way it's structured.
(00:48):
Obviously, I have the inside baseball onit, and I can tell you that it is going to
be game-changing for many of you, even ifyou're familiar with our teaching,
familiar with ourour philosophy about this game.
I believe that the way that we'representing this clinic, the way we're
structuring it, the information you'regoing to receive, I think you're going to
(01:09):
find it a very helpful clinic to attend.
As I mentioned the last time, and I'llmention the end the next time, is
the pick-up-ball system courseopens up for our fall class.
If this is your time to do that, thisis an amazing time to be a part of that.
The other thing I wanted to mention withyou was we continue to
work forward on the book.
(01:29):
I We're still shooting forend of month, September 2025.
If it's not September 30th, it'llbe October seventh or something.
It'll be very shortly thereafter.
So we're in the final throws of it andjust getting some pieces
put together so that we can releasethe book in the soft launch.
(01:51):
And hopefully by the next podcast,I'll have more information about...
We're going to do a pre-order.
If you want a pre-order, or if you want tosecure your book and get an early copy of
it, we'll do something for youand have an ability to do that.
We'll talk about that in the next podcast.
All right, let's talk about...
(02:11):
There's a couple ofconcepts that interrelate here.
I'll start with the easy onefirst, the easier one first.
And then I'm going to share with you guysa personal struggle that I had today in my
game that maybe help you see howI try and navigate this process.
And I believe that what I came up with inmy own navigating of the
(02:34):
process surely helped me.
I think it helped you, too.
Plus, you get to see that even though Ithink about this a lot and I'm the host
of the podcast, still a human being.
I haven't been able to shake thatlimitation in my existence.
I'm kidding, obviously, because I don'tsee it as a limitation, but it is
something that you have to factor intohow you behave and everything you do.
(02:58):
Let's start with the easiest one first.
I was watching some US Open.
This is about a week or so ago, and I'mwatching an early round match, and
there's a younger player on the court.
When I say younger, he'sprobably around 20-ish.
They're in the four set.
(03:18):
I think it was a pretty competitive match.
And he misses a forehand.
And as soon as he misses a forehand, itwas a rally that they hit several balls,
and he misses a forehand, then I see hejust tosses the racket onto the court.
And it was interesting to me becauseit's obviously this player
is playing from a standpoint of, Iguess he's not allowed to miss a shot ever
(03:44):
because he missed up beforehand, so hedecided he needed to throw his racket.
And it got me thinking about howthis idea of preparing yourself mentally
so that you can avoid thethe potential let down during game time
when you invariably miss a shot, becauseas you know by now, you're
(04:08):
going to miss shots.There's just no way about it.
The key is to get yourself mentally readyfor that reality before you step out
on the court, before you go play.
I think if you were speaking to thisplayer that I mentioned, the one who threw
his racket in the tennis game,before he went out on the court or just
(04:33):
over a dinner or something, you'dbe like, Hey, what do you think?
Next time you play,do you think it might miss a shot?
Even a forehand thatyou're pretty good at?
I'm guessing that the player would say,Yeah, probably.
Probably going to miss a shot.
So if you go into it knowing that you'reprobably going to miss a shot, not just
probably, you're 100% going to miss shots.
(04:56):
Then perhaps when you do miss the shot, itdoesn't come as such big shock to you
that, Oh, my God, I missed a shot, and youdon't have that negative reaction
that comes along with it.
And it also made me think of some of thegreats, Federer, Jokowitch,
Nadal, players like that.
Do you think they miss shots?Of course, they did.
Federer famously had, I believe it was acommencement speech at a graduation that
(05:20):
he gave where he talked about how manyshots he's missed, the percentages, and
it's like 40 % or 48 or50 %, something like that.
I mean, it's a really big number.
And that That's expected, right?
That the rallies end with an error by him,not that he's missed 50 % of the shots,
but that the rallies end by him missinga shot about 40 some, 50 % of the time.
And so he's not going to be excited aboutmissing, but it's just
(05:45):
part of the deal, right?
It's just part of what happens whenyou play a sport, tennis or pickleball.
And so when you look at players like that,their behavior when they miss shots,
next rally, next point, let's go.Let's just play again.
No big deal.
And when you watch players who have notmaybe prepared mentally
(06:06):
before they go out to the court and notworked on their mental game enough, when
they miss a shot, it'slike the end of the world.
Throw a racket, smashracket, things like that.
I mean, think of like RogerFederer smashing a racket.
Unheard of.What are you talking about, right?
Because he has a better understanding ofthe big picture of the sport of tennis.
And for us, it's about having a biggerpicture about the sport of pickleball and
(06:30):
preparing before we step out on the courtto understand that we are going to make
mistakes when we play, so that when weinvariably make those mistakes,
we're not going to get as upset.
And what I recommend here is, I want tosay now it's been like six weeks or eight
weeks back, we did an episode called the85, 15 Rule, or might else
be called the Oops Bucket.
Go back and listen to that one.
And then the key to that one is usethat before you step out on the court.
(06:52):
Get yourself ready for that Oups Bucket sothat when you miss, you can just dump the
miss into the Oups Bucket and move on.
So that And it relates then to the secondarea that I wanted to talk about, which is
a personal one to me thathappened to me today.
And what happened was, I'm not going toget into the details too much, not because
I don't want to share them, just becausethey're not relevant now that I understand
(07:13):
better how to frame it to my thinking.
So what happened was we were playing as aclosed open play.
So it's a closed group, but it's openplay within the group that we move around.
So I get on one of the courts, and oneof the players is hitting shots that...
Listen, he's entitled tohit whatever shots he wants.
(07:33):
I don't have any complaints abouthim hitting whatever shots he wants.
But there were shots that basic...
I guess I have to tell you some details.
So basically, there were kick-outlittle serves that go out.
They kick and they go wide.
And there's nothing wrong with that serve.
There's nothing wrongwith hitting that shot.
It's illegal, it's fine.
But on these courts, there are thesedividers between the courts, these little
(07:56):
dividers that they've put out there.
And so the serve basicallygoes into the dividers.
So the only way to really retrieve theserve on one side or the other side is
you basically have to run into something.
You have to run into a divider or run intothe bags that are next to
the wall on the other side.
I'm not interested in doing that.
I'm not going I'm not going to risk myphysical safety by going to chase a ball,
(08:22):
plastic ball in a game, and thentrip on the thing and whatever.
So I was not...
When you would hit the serve, I would justsay, nice, here's the ball point,
serve the other way, whatever.
And I'm okay with that.I'm perfectly okay with that.
But I was thinking afterward whether Ibehaved well otherwise, meaning
(08:44):
because I became disinterestedin the game itself, that game.
The other games were fine, and we hadnice competitive matches and all that.
But I became disinterested in thatgame, and so I didn't really care.
We've talked about agency on thispodcast, exercising your agency.
I exercised my agency tosimply allow the game to complete itself,
(09:07):
and then I was done playing in thatgame, and I'd move on to something else.
I asked myself afterwards, I was like,Was I a little too petulent, like a child.
I don't want to playanymore because whatever.
Now, I will say this, I'm okaywith the not returning the serves.
I'm not second-guessing that part because,again, there's a safety issue there.
(09:30):
And it got me thinking aboutsomething that I do when I play.
I'm a very good baseline lopber, so I canbaseline lop third shots all day long.
And it's very effective.
I win a lot of points doing it.
And I do it occasionally.
I do do it occasionally when I play inthese groups, but I
(09:51):
don't do it all the time.
Now, if I was playing in a competitivematch, I might do it more
because the competitive...
And when I say competitive, tournament,not just competitive, like I'm playing in
my level, tournament or something likethat, then maybe I might lob more because
I know how effective it can be anddisruptive to the opponents
and things like that.
But when I play, I actually pay attentionto how often I lob in these groups
(10:14):
because I know it is not a shot that isfun to play against.
It changes things.
I try and be mindful of how often I do it.
Same Another thing, I try and be mindfulabout how often I initiate offensive body
attacks, which is perfectly legal shot.
(10:36):
Competitive play, maybe I'lldo more of it in a tournament.
And that's where you basically flick theball into the player's body,
either hits them or they defend it alittle bit, and then you
put the next one away.
Super effective shot.
You see the pros use it where they do thebody flicks, and it's a perfectly fine
shot to do, especially forthe pros in tournaments.
But I try not to do too much of that,either of at all, in rec play
(10:59):
because of it's rec play.
Anyway, so I'm not concernedabout not going after the stories.
I'm fine with that.
But I wonder, did Igo too far in just basically not being
interested in the rest of the game?
And here's what I came at.
Maybe I was right.I was wrong about that.
Maybe I was wrong about that.
But I'm not framing it correctly.
(11:22):
And here's maybe the powerful thing.
Maybe not the powerfulthing, I don't know anymore.
But the idea that I what I said was,if I frame it differently, which I think
is a healthier framing, then I think I'mfine with what happened,
with the way I behaved.
And the framing is asking the questionalong a wider band
(11:48):
than, did I do everything perfectly?
Because the question I was asking myselfabout my behavior,
other than not returning the serve,was, did I do everything
at the absolute perfect situation?
Did I do everything perfectly otherwise?
(12:09):
And that's where theanswer is maybe, maybe not.
It's gray, it's not clear whether Ishould have done things differently.
But I don't think that'sthe right question.
I think the right question is, did Ibehave in a manner
that is acceptable within a bandthat is a little bit wider,
(12:31):
or maybe a lot wider, than the perfectbehavior band, which is very narrow?
And that band allows formy humanity that I mentioned
earlier, that I'm burdened with.
I did get annoyedby the repeated use of that shot because I
(12:52):
felt it undermined the spirit of the gamethey were trying to play in a rec play.
I felt that it was needlessly dangerous tome and to my partner because the
same serve was going both ways.
I did get annoyed as a human.
Anyway, so that may have contaminatedor carried over to my other behavior.
(13:15):
So the question is, not did I actperfectly within a very narrow band of
perfection, to repeat that,but did I step out of line?
I think that's a better question.
Did I behave in a way that is unacceptablein terms of,
was I rude to my opponent or my partner?
Did I toss my paddle?
(13:36):
The answer to those questions isno, I didn't do any of those things.
And so I feel that when you frame thequestion, when you find the
correct framing for it, then youcan find the better answer for it.
And I will tell you this, this is a verybig picture item for me, and
not just for a pickleball.
This applies to me outside of pickleballas well and everything I've ever done.
(13:59):
What I've oftenconcluded is that
sometimes when we find ourselves in adifficult mental situation, we're
trying to figure things out.
The difficulty that we face is becausewe're asking the wrong question.
We haven't figured out the right way toframe out the question that will then give
(14:23):
us an answer that is more in linewith what we're trying to figure out.
To be clear, I'm I'm not suggesting thatwe need to find a question that just
happens to fit the narrative that we want.
That's not what I'm saying here.
What I'm saying here is thatwe find a question that
properly gets at what we want to know.
For me today, what I wanted to know frommyself myself is, was my behavior
(14:50):
okay or not okay?
Now, was it perfect?That's the difference.
I think once I framed it out that way,was my behavior okay, Then I'm good.
I was okay with my behavior,and everything is fine.
If I had stepped out of line, if I hadanswered the question,
Was my behavior okay?
No, it was not okay, and here's why.
(15:11):
Then I have further reflection to do,maybe apologies to issue, whatever.
But again, I don't believethat that was the case today.
I believe that I was within an acceptablerange of behavior, and I
did not step out of line.
Anyway, just one way to think about it.
I would also say,if you When you think about this way of
thinking about how we react as humans tocertain events in our lives,
(15:35):
whether it's applicable or not,it's very similar to what happens, what we
were just talking about, the idea thatyou're going to miss shots when you play.
You're going to miss the perfect responseto a situation very often during the day.
You're going to say something that maybewasn't exactly the best thing you could
have said on reflection, or you'regoing to, whatever, respond to something
(16:01):
that doesn't agree with you in a way thatmaybe you could have done differently
and could have done it better, right?
Or you're a perfect person.
And so if you analyze yourselfrelative to perfection on your behavior,
it's very similar to analyzing yourselfrelative to perfection in your game, that
(16:21):
you got to hit every shot in the court andnever miss a shot, which is
ridiculous, frankly.
So give yourself the same latitudeattitude in your personal
life and then how you behave.
So that's my suggestion on that.
All right, I'm going to give you one morequick story, and then we're at for today.
(16:42):
This last one is morelike a rift, I think.
So this happened a couple of weeks ago,and I think it's really interesting.
It did not happen on a pickleball court.
It happened in a cafe, in a diner.
But I think it helps us think throughthe cause of
(17:02):
uncomfortable situations that arisesometimes in life,
and that can happen on the pickleballcourt, so I wanted to share with you.
So the story goes a little bit like this,or it doesn't go a little bit like this.
It goes like this.
So this is after a pickleball session.
No, before a pickleball session.
Before a pickleball sessionwhere I was going to go record.
So I went to go grab lunch.
There's a little cafe right next tothe courts where I do the recording.
(17:26):
And I had my legal pad.
I'm writing notes, Igot my music I'm gone.
I ordered my lunch.
I'm sitting there, I orderedcoffee, and then my lunch.
And I'm sitting there up at the counter.
And there was an open chair to my left,and then to the left of that one, there
was a gentleman who came in behind me,about my age, I would
(17:48):
say, and had sat down.So I got my coffee.
I'm talking to the waitress,having a conversation.
They're literally right there.There's two waitresses right there.
And then in the meantime, a lady comes andsits between me and the gentleman
and orders a coffee and whatever.So they're just...
She talked to the wait a second.
I'm writing my things, whatever.
(18:10):
So a few minutes go by, and the lady askedthe guy to my left
if he wouldn't mind moving toanother spot, which is behind me.
It's the other angle, but it was behind mebecause her boyfriend is
coming, and so would he mind?
So he says,Well, I've been sitting here for however
long, and they haven't takenmy order yet, and just leaves.
(18:32):
So he leaves the place,he leaves the cafe.
Now, the two waiters that are standingright in front of him on the other side of
the counter because thecash register is there.
And they're like, Oh.
One asked, What happened?
And he said, Nobody took care of him.And so he left.
Now, the two waitresses, obviously, didnot intend not to serve this person.
(18:53):
And they were standing right there, andthey were a little
bothered by it, personally.
They're like, Oh, we failed.
But I'm going to suggest to youthat it was the patron who failed.
And if you hear me out, Ithink you might agree with me.
So we have a situation wherethere's clearly been some an internal
(19:15):
breakdown on the server side.
Remember, there's two waitresses, right?
So I think you're serving him.
You think I'm serving him.Can happen, right?
That's human.
But a breakdown happened, right?
They They clearly would rather have servedhim than not served him,
so there was a mistake.
And that led to the gentleman leaving.
(19:36):
Now, how do we fix this?
How do we maybe preventthis in the future?
One way is this small diner could, Iguess, bring in a hostess or an advanced
computer system to track all the chairsand make sure that everybody has an
assigned person and to double-check tomake sure the assigned
person got assigned.I mean, it's a nightmare.
(19:57):
It's a absolute nightmare.
Or We could solve it by the patron who'ssitting there with no coffee in front of
him,looking up and saying, I have to laugh
now, but saying to the waitress,May I have a coffee?
Or, No one has served me yet.
(20:18):
Would you mind bringing me a coffee?Anything.
I think about it, and again, it's a littlebit comical, and I don't want to make
light of it because I know this gentlemanis trying to do the best he can
through life, and that's all fine.
But it just reminds me of when you talkto a child where you say, Use your words.
Just use your words.
(20:38):
I think about that there because Ithink there was an unfortunate...
He's probably never come backto the diner ever in his life.
He's probably upset at the diner.
I don't know if he left a reviewor not, but he's pissed off.
He thinks it's their fault, andhe was mistreated, so he left.
The waitresses, for the moment anyway,they probably don't think about it
anymore, but in the moment,they felt bad about it.
(20:58):
Like, Oh, my God, welet this gentleman down.
And all of that, plus he wouldhave gotten a great cup of coffee.
They have really goodcoffee and food there.
He would have enjoyed his diner experienceby just saying, May I
have a cup of coffee?
And you solve the problem.
And so when you're in a situation inpickleball or in life, where you're
(21:19):
unclear, unsure, whatever, make it clear.
Use your words.
Ask, say.
Don't assume, don't wait around, don't.
Sometimes, it'll be alittle uncomfortable.
It'll be maybe a little weird.
If you're at the courts and you're notsure whether they need a fourth, then
you go say, Hey, do you need a fourth?
(21:39):
They say, Our friend is in the bathroomcoming back, or, No, we're fine.
We're drilling, whatever.But you know what?
Oftentimes, they'll say, You know what?Yeah, that'd be great.
Let's play.
And so now you made new friends, andit's much better when you use your words.
So hopefully that helps you.
I think it's a great way to exerciseyour agency and just go about life.
(22:00):
All right, that's this week's podcast.I hope you enjoyed it.
As always, if you have a minute to rateand review, I really appreciate it.
I haven't had a chance to check lately tosee how that's going in that world there,
but hopefully, you all are in there everyday, all the time, rating and reviewing.
If you enjoyed the podcast, alwaysconsider sharing with your friends,
because remember, if you enjoyed thepodcast, they probably will, too.
(22:20):
I didn't say this before,so I'm going to say it now.
My name is Tony Roig.I'm the host of the podcast.
I always forget to say that.
I didn't forget this time,I said it at the end.
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the podcast.
Have a great week, and I'll see you inthe next episode of Pickleball Therapy.
Be well.
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