August 19, 2025 • 23 mins
In this special episode I sit down with longtime student and friend Jeff Renshaw for a behind-the-scenes conversation about my upcoming book. We explore core mental performance themes—like balancing self-importance on the court, rethinking mistakes such as pop-ups, and how these concepts have shaped my journey. Listen to the full episode for a first look at the insights driving the new book.
Show Notes: https://betterpickleball.com/1531-special-episode-the-book-conversations-part-1
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Episode Transcript
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(00:04):
All right, welcome to the PickleballTherapy, the podcast dedicated
to your pickleball improvement.
This is a special episode of the podcast.
I'll let you say hello in a second,Jeff, but I'm joined by Jeff Renshaw.
Jeff has become a friend, probablyknown each other four years.
You'll have to correct that, but someamount of time, longer
than a year, less than 10.I know that much.
(00:26):
I can definitely bracketit pretty successfully.
And you'll understand why this episodeis coming together in a second.
It has to do with thebook that's coming out.
This is just Jeff and I having aconversation about the book, about how
it impacted him, et cetera.
But I want to let Jeff say hello for aminute, and then I'll come back in and
maybe explain a littlemore what we're doing.
(00:47):
So Jeff, say hello.Hi, everybody.
I've known Tony for twoyears, I think it is.
It feels like four.
I think you're in the right range there.
One to 10, I guess.You're definitely right.
It feels like we know each otherlonger because we've been...
Jeffhas been a student, and again, now has
(01:08):
become a friend, but started offas coach-student relationship.
I don't think we broke any rules, Jeff, bybecoming friends outside of that, but
I think it's fine, ethically fine.
But anyway, so we become friends.
And now Jeff has agreed to join our team.
He's helping with various things.
But the thing that's relevant to thisparticular episode is
(01:29):
if you listen to the podcast, you knowthat we have a book coming out,
and a book is a very big lift.
There are a lot of movingparts, a lot of pieces.
I think I'm good at some of the pieces,maybe some of the ideas and
writing and things like that.
I am not very good at some of the otherpieces, getting it out and all the other.
(01:49):
There's a bunch ofstuff that has happened.
So Jeff has agreed to join theteam and help out with that.
I don't want to not mention Michelle andDave because they've been absolutely
instrumentalin getting the book to where we are now,
and they're still helpingus out with the book.
So Dave is helping with the editing.
Michelle is helping with some great ideas.
But in terms of the day to day,we need to get the bio done.
(02:11):
We need to get the things out.
We need to connect with Penny who'shelping us out on the
publishing, all these pieces.
Jeff is in charge of that.
So what happened is as part of thisprocess is the book has five...
It's intro in five partsor five parts total?
I don't remember.So basically, Jeff knows.
Intro in five And so I asked Jeff,because here's the thing.
(02:34):
So eventually, I got to drawa line in the sand in terms of knowledge.
But I just recorded an episode today ofthe podcast that I would like to be in the
book, and it will be in a subsequentepisode or a subsequent update of the
book, but we just got to get the bookfinished right in cross finish line.
So Jeff has been reviewing the book,giving me some really good ideas in terms
(02:55):
of parts that weren't that clear, thatcould be cleaned up, editing, just plain
editing and also substantive editing.
So what Jeff didn't know was hewas writing comments on the side.
Some of the commentsare just conversational.
Some comments were like,what do you think of this?
I'm not sure about that.
So I wanted to save the comments.
So I saved them in a file.
(03:16):
And I told Jeff we weregoing to have conversations.
These are conversations with Jeff wherewe're going to explore
the concepts in the book.
And we'll probably do about,I don't know, 15 or 20 minutes today.
We'll see where there'sa good stopping point.
And then we'll probablydo two or three of these.
But it gives you, if you like what we do,gives you a more behind the scenes
view as to what we're doing.
If you're watching this live, you'll seethat I'm not even sitting in my studio and
(03:39):
I'm holding the microphone in my handbecause I'm just like, we're just
having a conversation with Jeff.
When I read the book, I was like, amI going to learn anything different?
I mean, I'm an avid podcast listener.
And so I thought, am I goingto learn anything different?
I think the concepts are very consistentwith what you talk about, but you talk
about them in some different ways thatmade it hit home with
(04:01):
me in different ways.
So it was a good experience.
It was like having my mind renewed aboutthings that I knew conceptually, but it
was I'm in a different place in my life.
And you talked about some of the conceptsin a new way that just hit
home with me in different ways.
So it was a joy to read.
(04:22):
I look forward to everybody elsehaving that same opportunity.
Thank you, Jeff.
Now, I'll tell you, even as the author ofthe book, when I go back and look at it
and work through it, sometimesit lands differently.
It connected dots differently.
Actually, the podcast Irecorded today drops on Friday.
(04:46):
When that podcast drops, what you're goingto see is it's another progression
along the Sonder route.
So we're taking another stepin the podcast in our thinking.
But the first steps are clearlylaid out inside the book, right?
And they're more in-depth because we cango into a little more about being the
center of the universeand things like that.
So, yeah, that's thehope of the book, right?
(05:09):
Is that it'll help playerswith their perspective idea.
All right, I'm going to read andthen We're going to talk, Jeff.
So there was a sentencein the book that says...
Well, I'll just go and read the sentence.
So the sentence was, We are thestar of our pickleball show.
And then Jeff wrote, The sentence It gaveme a little bit of heartburn, considering
(05:32):
something you, I think, correctly saidabove, we need to get away from thinking
of ourselves as the centerof the pickleball universe.
I feel like the sentenceputs us back at the center.
I feel like the rest of the paragraphstands up just fine without the
sentence, just my gut reaction.
So I'm going to give you, Jeff, I'll giveyou my two-cent response to the
comment, and then we can have aconversation about it
(05:53):
and see where it goes.
So first of all, I think you're absolutelycorrect in the sense that
they're does appear.
They appear to beconflicting concepts, right?
So one concept is you'rethe star of the show.
The other concept is that you're notthe center of the pickleball universe.
Actually, I flushed that out a little bitbetter in the episode that, not better
(06:14):
than the book, but a little bit betterthan we might right now in the
podcast that's dropping on Friday.
And so the way to think about it is, theway I think about it anyway, is
for you, Jeff,the last time you played pickleball,
You are the star of that show, right?
And you're the star of whatyou're doing right now, right?
(06:35):
For yourself.I'm the star of my little show.
You're the star of your little show.
Right now, our Venn diagram,we're overlapping.
So we're starring in ajoint show right now.
But I'm assuming, well, I know we have ameeting with a therapist in a little
bit, so we'll be together again.
But after that, you're going to godo the things that you like doing.
I'll go do the things that I like doing.
And so in that sense, we are the star ofour own show, and we that are absolutely
(07:00):
relevant to our experience in pickleball.
The other concept is one of basicallynot allowing our stardom to override or
out shine the other pieces that areimportant inside the pickleball
universe in which we live.
And so I think those twoconcepts can live in harmony.
(07:24):
But anyway, so that'smy thinking about it.
But I'm happy to have,what do you about it?
I think that sentence that you just readcame from part one of the book,
if I'm remembering correctly.
Probably.
This is in chronological order, so itwould have been Which is a section
(07:45):
about understanding ourselves, right?
And when you're understanding yourself,yes, you are at the
center of the universe.And so my gut reaction was what you read.
But I think by the time you come to theend of the book
and you realize, you flush this out, thatwe're not the only player in this play.
(08:07):
There's interactions with other peopleon the court, and you get into all that.
By the time I finish the book, theheartburn that I referenced is resolved
for all the reasons that you mentioned.
But I do think, Jeff, that it's avery natural reaction, your reaction.
And what I mean by that isthat's what makes it, I I think
(08:30):
challenging sometimes becausewe're trying to balance the
importance of ourselves,which we are important.
I mean, because you can gosuper deep on this if you want to.
And basically, without Jeff,the universe is irrelevant to Jeff.
I mean, it's not relevant to you.
(08:52):
I mean, not relevant without you to you.
But it is still going to continueeven after you and I are gone.
The universe will stillbe here in theory, anyway.
But there's this apparentdichotomy between...
And it's like everything matters, nothingmatters, but it's about us as people.
So to us, we're the most important part ofthe story, but
(09:16):
things will go on without us anyway.
So it's this weird, Ithink, conflict, right?
And I think that managing that conflict, Ithink,
first of all, I do think that it takes alittle bit of thinking and time, right?
And the second thing is I think it canhelp a player navigate things
more constructively, potentially.
(09:37):
Yeah.
And I know that you're afriend and fan of Peter Scale's work.
And where he talks about honoring thegame and your opponents and yourself.
And I think what I hear you saying isthat, yeah, you can be
the center of your own universe, but partof being the center of that universe is
(10:00):
acting in a way that honors theother parts of the game, which includes
your partner and your opponents.
Yeah.
And I think I agree with you on Coach Kaelis a mentor, and I credit him
with getting me on this path.
And it really...
He's probably a big reason why I startedto think about the mental part of the
(10:23):
sport, not just pick-able, but sport inthose three spheres that we've talked
about, perspective, play, progress.
And part of the reason wasbecause I was trying to...
I had read Peter Scale's book, I had readTimothy Galway's book, Josh
Watzkind or Watzkind's book.
And each one had something different toteach about
(10:47):
our relationship with the sport.
And to me, it felt very...
It felt too reductive or too simplisticjust to put all of our eggs in the
mama mentality, 110 %, get in the zone,part of the mental game or part of the
mental understanding, which is part of it.
That's that play part, right?
(11:07):
But if you look at Coach Pete's book,Coach Pete's book is more
perspective than play.
He has play stuff in there, right?
There's not going to be a perfect line.
But most of his stuff and the stuff thatmost impacted me was
the perspective stuff.And then Josh Wetskins' progress.
Anyway, so yeah, I agree.
And if you haven't read Coach Pete's book,I know you have Jeff,
but out there listening.
If you haven't read Coach Pete'sbook, it's at betterpickupall.
(11:29):
Com.Com.
You just click on resources.
You'll see a bunch oftraining books on there.
And Coach Kael's book is a top book.
All right, Jeff, I'm goingto move on to the next one.
If that's all right.Can I ask you a question?
Can I ask you a question first?And you don't have to go.
You can go in there as much as you want.
This is a conversation, Jeff.You can do anything you want.
I think I know some of the answer, andpeople that read your
(11:53):
book will find out more.
But when and why did you start down thethe mental aspect of
pickleball rabbit hole?
I know that you hadan amateur tennis career before this, but
it was really when you got intopickleball, I think,
(12:15):
that you started down this path?
Yeah, you're 100.
Yes, you are correct on all counts.
I played tennis before.
I played tennis when I was a little kid.
I played competitively USTAteam league when I was older.
Never played collegeor anything like that.
I gave it up in high schoolbecause I was a teenager.
But basically, so what got me into it?
(12:38):
I don't know that I can pinpoint somethingother than the only thing I can think of
is interaction with Coach Pete becauseof the coaching work we were doing.
Frankly, I can't even really remember.
I may have to reach outto Coach Pete and Martha.
I think Martha introduces to Coach Pete.
Martha is a student of ours,and Coach Pete is her husband.
(12:59):
And And she obviously is a big fan of hiswork because it's good work
and also it's her husband.
So we were turned on to CoachPete, and then that started me.
I think that's where Istarted thinking about it.
I don't think, Jeff, that I had amajor a health center like that.
I mean, I will tell you that before myreaction,
(13:21):
I didn't have as good of amindset when I engage with any sport,
tennis or pickleball, as I do now.
And so I know that in 2020, I started thepodcast, and at the very first episode of
the podcast, I welcomed anybody to followalong with the journey, but I made it
clear that it was for me because I wantedto do it and I wanted to learn more.
(13:43):
But what I can tell you isit is probably the most,
not probably, it is the most profoundpositive impact on my
life out of pickleball.
Friends, I mean, I've met some greatfriends, and I don't want to...
(14:04):
Maybe it's the same.
Friends and stuff like that, right?
But other than that, from a technicalstandpoint is what I guess
what I'm trying to say.
I'm not trying todiscount the friend side.
That's probably more important.
And also the traveling and all that stuff.
But from a learning, from mygrowth as a human being, right?
I mean, third shot drop.Okay, great.
Drives.Okay, great.
(14:25):
Volley's whatever.Good.
But mental growth, next level.
I mean, it's like, and it helps you withso much other stuff where you can just...
And how about you, Jeff?I mean, what was your...
I don't know, come to...
I don't want to say come to Jesus, butcome to like, I need a wake up call that
I'm going to do this, or arewe always doing this stuff?
(14:45):
Yeah.So I've been a fan of...
There's an author named Ryan Holladaywho's written several books on stoicism.
And then I started playing pickleball, andI was looking for good
pickleball the pickleball coaching, and Ihappened upon the things that you and C.
J.Do.
And I really like the the the pickleballcoaching just in terms of
(15:11):
the Foss approach.
I like understanding the framework ofsomething and then how other pieces
of the puzzle fit into that frame.
So I like how you talkabout the whys of things.
So anyway, in starting to learn aboutwhat you do, I found the podcast.
And what I found out by listening thepodcast is that there's a whole lot of
(15:33):
consistencies between the things you talkabout the podcast and a lot of the things
that I've read and learned about stoicism.
So I was having a lot of the things that Ithought before, reinforced and learning
how to apply them in this area that I waslearning about, which was
pickleball at the time.
And I think so that was my introduction toyou and why I gravitated to that
(16:01):
part of what you offer as a company.
And that was the beginning.
But what I think that I also am gettingout of this mental journey is, yeah, it
does help me a lot in myoutside of pickleball life.
But I also think that it gives me acompetitive edge in pickleball, right?
(16:24):
Because if I'm playing somebody who isequally skilled But
I know some of these concepts, like I'mnot going to freak out when
they make what I think is a bad line calland they are going to freak out in a
spiral, then these two people who areequally matched, all of a sudden I
(16:44):
feel like I've got the edge, right?
So, yeah, it helps me to feel betterand it helps me to play better.
But it also helps me, I think, to winmore, actually, because maybe
I've learned some things that otherequally skilled players
haven't learned yet.
I agree with that.
(17:05):
I think there's definitely apragmatic side to this work, right?
You and I have talked about this before.
Just the feel betteralone is enough to do it.
Just the fact you're going to feel bettershould be like, you're getting
all the food you can eat.You're getting everything.
You're getting the whole shebang.
(17:25):
But on top of that, you get like, youplay better because your mind is clear.
And yes, it will give you an edge againstopponents who don't have
the same mental capacity.
And if you look at, what's the pros?
When I watch pros, a lot of the lossesthat I'm seeing these days by Federico,
(17:45):
by Hayden, by amazing athletes.It's all in their head.
Christian Alshon, he's gotten better.
But still, you look at it, a lot of it'sjust Lea Janssen, amazing athlete,
sometimes has difficulty navigating.
And these players all would benefit arebenefiting because they are doing work.
I'm not trying to take it away.
I know Lea is doing somework, and that's great.
And I've seen it.
(18:05):
You can see it because you can seethe progress of her mental journey.
But the more that you have, the more thatyou're saddled with mental
stuff, the less you can perform.
And by extension, the less,the lower your chances of winning that
game, all things being equal, right?
So that's cool.All right.
Yeah, and I agree with you.
(18:26):
I think this stoicism, a lot of what wetalk about is very similar to a lot of
what's taught in the stoic principles.
There's some of the stuff is Buddhist,some of the stuff is stoic, some of the
stuff, whatever, a mishmash of ideas.
And to me, given my background, my priorlife and my work and everything like that,
and just the way that I am,If there's a logical connection between
(18:48):
things or if you canlogically flow it, I'm all in.
If it doesn't logically flow,I don't want to talk about it.
If it logically flows, count me in.
All right, Jeff, we're going to hit onemore thing and then we're going to wrap
because we got a meeting coming up.
So we're going to talkabout pop-ups for a second.
So you wrote this, and when I was doingthese early ones, I wasn't always
capturing the language, but I know it hadto do with basically how there's such
(19:09):
a negative reaction to pop-ups, right?
And so you wrote, This is interesting.
We do seem to react more negatively topop-ups than, say, a drop shot
into the net or an outball.
Strange that we do that, considering thatpop-ups extend rallies, but balls in
the net are out of bounds, end them.
I guess there's a certain sense ofembarrassment that comes
with eating plastic.
(19:30):
And I would agree with you that I think,and we talked about this in a podcast, I
think it was either threeor four podcasts ago.
And this is for me personally, this is adeveloping concept in my mind
that I'm continuing to refine.
But I think a lot of timeswhen we have these outsized negative
feelings, they flow from insecurity.
They flow from embarrassment, insecurity.
(19:52):
And Jeff, you and I have talked about thisbefore, and we just in our cans,
pop-ups are part of the game.
They're just part of pickleball.It's like any shot.
And half the game is I'm trying to getJeff to pop the ball up, Jeff is
trying to get me to pop the ball up.
The pros pop the balls up.
Pop-ups are not a bad thing.
They're just somethingthat happens in the game.
(20:12):
But you're absolutely correct.
There's an outsized negative feeling abouta pop-up relative to, even Jeff, I would
even say missing a return to serve.
I don't think players get as upset withmissing a return to serve as
they do with hitting a pop-up.
And missing a return to serve, I don'tknow, it's It's like 80 degrees
worse than popping the ball up.
(20:34):
Yeah, I think I stopped worrying aboutpopping the ball up, probably
in the last six months.
I've only been playingfor about two years.
And man, once I stopped worrying aboutpop-ups, one, I don't pop
it up as much anymore.
But two, you live to fight another daywith a pop-up, but not with some of those
(20:55):
other shots, the onesthat we've talked about.
The net's interesting, because theargument for hitting low, right?
These feelings drivewrong strategy because the feeling that I
don't want to pop it up and me or mypartner gets smashed and I get
embarrassed, then forces us.
(21:16):
And I put forces in quotes here becauseit's not forcing you to do anything.
But in our mind, it forces usto risk the net hit super low.
And so we're not embarrassedwhen our ball goes into the net.
So we're missing a ton more shots than weshould otherwise because
we're we're picking the wrong metric orthe wrong strategy and the wrong shot
(21:37):
selection because of somemental baggage that we have with pop-up.
All right, Jeff, I think that'sit for conversation number one.
I got to tell you, I wantto give you a heads up here.
So we're not even a thirdaway down page one of six.
So we'll keep doing these.
And as long as Jeff wants to do them, I'malways happy to talk basketball in the
(22:00):
mind, and we'll push them out, and itgives you guys a behind the scenes
look at how the sausage is made, so tospeak, and you get to see what's going on.
We'll update you on thebook as we do these.
In the meantime, if you're listening tothis and you're like, I love the book, I'm
interested in the book, I think we'regoing to come up, and I don't think we
have it ready, Jeff, but Ijust want to foreshadow it.
(22:21):
We will have a pre-orderthing and stuff like that.
So we're going to do, I guess, a softlaunch first, where if you listen to the
podcast and you want to get a look in thebook, we'll have a digital version of it,
and then you'll be able to orderthat, pre-order and whatever.
So we'll be updating you onthat throughout this process.
So be on the lookout for special episodeswith Jeff about the upcoming book.
(22:43):
And Jeff, anything else before we wrap?No, I'm good.
But thanks for having me.This is fun.
I look forward to the next one.
A hundred %.
So we'll set it up and we'll keep updatingyou guys on the book, like I said.
And this is interesting behindthe scenes conversation.
You get to see how we thinkand how we approach the book.
(23:06):
So thanks, Jeff, for your time on this.
We'll see you on our next special episodeor on the regular episode
that comes out on Friday.So long, everybody.
All right, welcome to the PickleballTherapy, the podcast dedicated
to your pickleball improvement.
This is a special episode of the podcast.
I'll let you say hello in a second,Jeff, but I'm joined by Jeff Renshaw.
Jeff has become a friend, probablyknown each other four years.
You'll have to correct that, but someamount of time, longer
than a year, less than 10.I know that much.
(00:26):
I can definitely bracketit pretty successfully.
And you'll understand why this episodeis coming together in a second.
It has to do with thebook that's coming out.
This is just Jeff and I having aconversation about the book, about how
it impacted him, et cetera.
But I want to let Jeff say hello for aminute, and then I'll come back in and
maybe explain a littlemore what we're doing.
(00:47):
So Jeff, say hello.Hi, everybody.
I've known Tony for twoyears, I think it is.
It feels like four.
I think you're in the right range there.
One to 10, I guess.You're definitely right.
It feels like we know each otherlonger because we've been...
Jeffhas been a student, and again, now has
(01:08):
become a friend, but started offas coach-student relationship.
I don't think we broke any rules, Jeff, bybecoming friends outside of that, but
I think it's fine, ethically fine.
But anyway, so we become friends.
And now Jeff has agreed to join our team.
He's helping with various things.
But the thing that's relevant to thisparticular episode is
(01:29):
if you listen to the podcast, you knowthat we have a book coming out,
and a book is a very big lift.
There are a lot of movingparts, a lot of pieces.
I think I'm good at some of the pieces,maybe some of the ideas and
writing and things like that.
I am not very good at some of the otherpieces, getting it out and all the other.
(01:49):
There's a bunch ofstuff that has happened.
So Jeff has agreed to join theteam and help out with that.
I don't want to not mention Michelle andDave because they've been absolutely
instrumentalin getting the book to where we are now,
and they're still helpingus out with the book.
So Dave is helping with the editing.
Michelle is helping with some great ideas.
But in terms of the day to day,we need to get the bio done.
(02:11):
We need to get the things out.
We need to connect with Penny who'shelping us out on the
publishing, all these pieces.
Jeff is in charge of that.
So what happened is as part of thisprocess is the book has five...
It's intro in five partsor five parts total?
I don't remember.So basically, Jeff knows.
Intro in five And so I asked Jeff,because here's the thing.
(02:34):
So eventually, I got to drawa line in the sand in terms of knowledge.
But I just recorded an episode today ofthe podcast that I would like to be in the
book, and it will be in a subsequentepisode or a subsequent update of the
book, but we just got to get the bookfinished right in cross finish line.
So Jeff has been reviewing the book,giving me some really good ideas in terms
(02:55):
of parts that weren't that clear, thatcould be cleaned up, editing, just plain
editing and also substantive editing.
So what Jeff didn't know was hewas writing comments on the side.
Some of the commentsare just conversational.
Some comments were like,what do you think of this?
I'm not sure about that.
So I wanted to save the comments.
So I saved them in a file.
(03:16):
And I told Jeff we weregoing to have conversations.
These are conversations with Jeff wherewe're going to explore
the concepts in the book.
And we'll probably do about,I don't know, 15 or 20 minutes today.
We'll see where there'sa good stopping point.
And then we'll probablydo two or three of these.
But it gives you, if you like what we do,gives you a more behind the scenes
view as to what we're doing.
If you're watching this live, you'll seethat I'm not even sitting in my studio and
(03:39):
I'm holding the microphone in my handbecause I'm just like, we're just
having a conversation with Jeff.
When I read the book, I was like, amI going to learn anything different?
I mean, I'm an avid podcast listener.
And so I thought, am I goingto learn anything different?
I think the concepts are very consistentwith what you talk about, but you talk
about them in some different ways thatmade it hit home with
(04:01):
me in different ways.
So it was a good experience.
It was like having my mind renewed aboutthings that I knew conceptually, but it
was I'm in a different place in my life.
And you talked about some of the conceptsin a new way that just hit
home with me in different ways.
So it was a joy to read.
(04:22):
I look forward to everybody elsehaving that same opportunity.
Thank you, Jeff.
Now, I'll tell you, even as the author ofthe book, when I go back and look at it
and work through it, sometimesit lands differently.
It connected dots differently.
Actually, the podcast Irecorded today drops on Friday.
(04:46):
When that podcast drops, what you're goingto see is it's another progression
along the Sonder route.
So we're taking another stepin the podcast in our thinking.
But the first steps are clearlylaid out inside the book, right?
And they're more in-depth because we cango into a little more about being the
center of the universeand things like that.
So, yeah, that's thehope of the book, right?
(05:09):
Is that it'll help playerswith their perspective idea.
All right, I'm going to read andthen We're going to talk, Jeff.
So there was a sentencein the book that says...
Well, I'll just go and read the sentence.
So the sentence was, We are thestar of our pickleball show.
And then Jeff wrote, The sentence It gaveme a little bit of heartburn, considering
(05:32):
something you, I think, correctly saidabove, we need to get away from thinking
of ourselves as the centerof the pickleball universe.
I feel like the sentenceputs us back at the center.
I feel like the rest of the paragraphstands up just fine without the
sentence, just my gut reaction.
So I'm going to give you, Jeff, I'll giveyou my two-cent response to the
comment, and then we can have aconversation about it
(05:53):
and see where it goes.
So first of all, I think you're absolutelycorrect in the sense that
they're does appear.
They appear to beconflicting concepts, right?
So one concept is you'rethe star of the show.
The other concept is that you're notthe center of the pickleball universe.
Actually, I flushed that out a little bitbetter in the episode that, not better
(06:14):
than the book, but a little bit betterthan we might right now in the
podcast that's dropping on Friday.
And so the way to think about it is, theway I think about it anyway, is
for you, Jeff,the last time you played pickleball,
You are the star of that show, right?
And you're the star of whatyou're doing right now, right?
(06:35):
For yourself.I'm the star of my little show.
You're the star of your little show.
Right now, our Venn diagram,we're overlapping.
So we're starring in ajoint show right now.
But I'm assuming, well, I know we have ameeting with a therapist in a little
bit, so we'll be together again.
But after that, you're going to godo the things that you like doing.
I'll go do the things that I like doing.
And so in that sense, we are the star ofour own show, and we that are absolutely
(07:00):
relevant to our experience in pickleball.
The other concept is one of basicallynot allowing our stardom to override or
out shine the other pieces that areimportant inside the pickleball
universe in which we live.
And so I think those twoconcepts can live in harmony.
(07:24):
But anyway, so that'smy thinking about it.
But I'm happy to have,what do you about it?
I think that sentence that you just readcame from part one of the book,
if I'm remembering correctly.
Probably.
This is in chronological order, so itwould have been Which is a section
(07:45):
about understanding ourselves, right?
And when you're understanding yourself,yes, you are at the
center of the universe.And so my gut reaction was what you read.
But I think by the time you come to theend of the book
and you realize, you flush this out, thatwe're not the only player in this play.
(08:07):
There's interactions with other peopleon the court, and you get into all that.
By the time I finish the book, theheartburn that I referenced is resolved
for all the reasons that you mentioned.
But I do think, Jeff, that it's avery natural reaction, your reaction.
And what I mean by that isthat's what makes it, I I think
(08:30):
challenging sometimes becausewe're trying to balance the
importance of ourselves,which we are important.
I mean, because you can gosuper deep on this if you want to.
And basically, without Jeff,the universe is irrelevant to Jeff.
I mean, it's not relevant to you.
(08:52):
I mean, not relevant without you to you.
But it is still going to continueeven after you and I are gone.
The universe will stillbe here in theory, anyway.
But there's this apparentdichotomy between...
And it's like everything matters, nothingmatters, but it's about us as people.
So to us, we're the most important part ofthe story, but
(09:16):
things will go on without us anyway.
So it's this weird, Ithink, conflict, right?
And I think that managing that conflict, Ithink,
first of all, I do think that it takes alittle bit of thinking and time, right?
And the second thing is I think it canhelp a player navigate things
more constructively, potentially.
(09:37):
Yeah.
And I know that you're afriend and fan of Peter Scale's work.
And where he talks about honoring thegame and your opponents and yourself.
And I think what I hear you saying isthat, yeah, you can be
the center of your own universe, but partof being the center of that universe is
(10:00):
acting in a way that honors theother parts of the game, which includes
your partner and your opponents.
Yeah.
And I think I agree with you on Coach Kaelis a mentor, and I credit him
with getting me on this path.
And it really...
He's probably a big reason why I startedto think about the mental part of the
(10:23):
sport, not just pick-able, but sport inthose three spheres that we've talked
about, perspective, play, progress.
And part of the reason wasbecause I was trying to...
I had read Peter Scale's book, I had readTimothy Galway's book, Josh
Watzkind or Watzkind's book.
And each one had something different toteach about
(10:47):
our relationship with the sport.
And to me, it felt very...
It felt too reductive or too simplisticjust to put all of our eggs in the
mama mentality, 110 %, get in the zone,part of the mental game or part of the
mental understanding, which is part of it.
That's that play part, right?
(11:07):
But if you look at Coach Pete's book,Coach Pete's book is more
perspective than play.
He has play stuff in there, right?
There's not going to be a perfect line.
But most of his stuff and the stuff thatmost impacted me was
the perspective stuff.And then Josh Wetskins' progress.
Anyway, so yeah, I agree.
And if you haven't read Coach Pete's book,I know you have Jeff,
but out there listening.
If you haven't read Coach Pete'sbook, it's at betterpickupall.
(11:29):
Com.Com.
You just click on resources.
You'll see a bunch oftraining books on there.
And Coach Kael's book is a top book.
All right, Jeff, I'm goingto move on to the next one.
If that's all right.Can I ask you a question?
Can I ask you a question first?And you don't have to go.
You can go in there as much as you want.
This is a conversation, Jeff.You can do anything you want.
I think I know some of the answer, andpeople that read your
(11:53):
book will find out more.
But when and why did you start down thethe mental aspect of
pickleball rabbit hole?
I know that you hadan amateur tennis career before this, but
it was really when you got intopickleball, I think,
(12:15):
that you started down this path?
Yeah, you're 100.
Yes, you are correct on all counts.
I played tennis before.
I played tennis when I was a little kid.
I played competitively USTAteam league when I was older.
Never played collegeor anything like that.
I gave it up in high schoolbecause I was a teenager.
But basically, so what got me into it?
(12:38):
I don't know that I can pinpoint somethingother than the only thing I can think of
is interaction with Coach Pete becauseof the coaching work we were doing.
Frankly, I can't even really remember.
I may have to reach outto Coach Pete and Martha.
I think Martha introduces to Coach Pete.
Martha is a student of ours,and Coach Pete is her husband.
(12:59):
And And she obviously is a big fan of hiswork because it's good work
and also it's her husband.
So we were turned on to CoachPete, and then that started me.
I think that's where Istarted thinking about it.
I don't think, Jeff, that I had amajor a health center like that.
I mean, I will tell you that before myreaction,
(13:21):
I didn't have as good of amindset when I engage with any sport,
tennis or pickleball, as I do now.
And so I know that in 2020, I started thepodcast, and at the very first episode of
the podcast, I welcomed anybody to followalong with the journey, but I made it
clear that it was for me because I wantedto do it and I wanted to learn more.
(13:43):
But what I can tell you isit is probably the most,
not probably, it is the most profoundpositive impact on my
life out of pickleball.
Friends, I mean, I've met some greatfriends, and I don't want to...
(14:04):
Maybe it's the same.
Friends and stuff like that, right?
But other than that, from a technicalstandpoint is what I guess
what I'm trying to say.
I'm not trying todiscount the friend side.
That's probably more important.
And also the traveling and all that stuff.
But from a learning, from mygrowth as a human being, right?
I mean, third shot drop.Okay, great.
Drives.Okay, great.
(14:25):
Volley's whatever.Good.
But mental growth, next level.
I mean, it's like, and it helps you withso much other stuff where you can just...
And how about you, Jeff?I mean, what was your...
I don't know, come to...
I don't want to say come to Jesus, butcome to like, I need a wake up call that
I'm going to do this, or arewe always doing this stuff?
(14:45):
Yeah.So I've been a fan of...
There's an author named Ryan Holladaywho's written several books on stoicism.
And then I started playing pickleball, andI was looking for good
pickleball the pickleball coaching, and Ihappened upon the things that you and C.
J.Do.
And I really like the the the pickleballcoaching just in terms of
(15:11):
the Foss approach.
I like understanding the framework ofsomething and then how other pieces
of the puzzle fit into that frame.
So I like how you talkabout the whys of things.
So anyway, in starting to learn aboutwhat you do, I found the podcast.
And what I found out by listening thepodcast is that there's a whole lot of
(15:33):
consistencies between the things you talkabout the podcast and a lot of the things
that I've read and learned about stoicism.
So I was having a lot of the things that Ithought before, reinforced and learning
how to apply them in this area that I waslearning about, which was
pickleball at the time.
And I think so that was my introduction toyou and why I gravitated to that
(16:01):
part of what you offer as a company.
And that was the beginning.
But what I think that I also am gettingout of this mental journey is, yeah, it
does help me a lot in myoutside of pickleball life.
But I also think that it gives me acompetitive edge in pickleball, right?
(16:24):
Because if I'm playing somebody who isequally skilled But
I know some of these concepts, like I'mnot going to freak out when
they make what I think is a bad line calland they are going to freak out in a
spiral, then these two people who areequally matched, all of a sudden I
(16:44):
feel like I've got the edge, right?
So, yeah, it helps me to feel betterand it helps me to play better.
But it also helps me, I think, to winmore, actually, because maybe
I've learned some things that otherequally skilled players
haven't learned yet.
I agree with that.
(17:05):
I think there's definitely apragmatic side to this work, right?
You and I have talked about this before.
Just the feel betteralone is enough to do it.
Just the fact you're going to feel bettershould be like, you're getting
all the food you can eat.You're getting everything.
You're getting the whole shebang.
(17:25):
But on top of that, you get like, youplay better because your mind is clear.
And yes, it will give you an edge againstopponents who don't have
the same mental capacity.
And if you look at, what's the pros?
When I watch pros, a lot of the lossesthat I'm seeing these days by Federico,
(17:45):
by Hayden, by amazing athletes.It's all in their head.
Christian Alshon, he's gotten better.
But still, you look at it, a lot of it'sjust Lea Janssen, amazing athlete,
sometimes has difficulty navigating.
And these players all would benefit arebenefiting because they are doing work.
I'm not trying to take it away.
I know Lea is doing somework, and that's great.
And I've seen it.
(18:05):
You can see it because you can seethe progress of her mental journey.
But the more that you have, the more thatyou're saddled with mental
stuff, the less you can perform.
And by extension, the less,the lower your chances of winning that
game, all things being equal, right?
So that's cool.All right.
Yeah, and I agree with you.
(18:26):
I think this stoicism, a lot of what wetalk about is very similar to a lot of
what's taught in the stoic principles.
There's some of the stuff is Buddhist,some of the stuff is stoic, some of the
stuff, whatever, a mishmash of ideas.
And to me, given my background, my priorlife and my work and everything like that,
and just the way that I am,If there's a logical connection between
(18:48):
things or if you canlogically flow it, I'm all in.
If it doesn't logically flow,I don't want to talk about it.
If it logically flows, count me in.
All right, Jeff, we're going to hit onemore thing and then we're going to wrap
because we got a meeting coming up.
So we're going to talkabout pop-ups for a second.
So you wrote this, and when I was doingthese early ones, I wasn't always
capturing the language, but I know it hadto do with basically how there's such
(19:09):
a negative reaction to pop-ups, right?
And so you wrote, This is interesting.
We do seem to react more negatively topop-ups than, say, a drop shot
into the net or an outball.
Strange that we do that, considering thatpop-ups extend rallies, but balls in
the net are out of bounds, end them.
I guess there's a certain sense ofembarrassment that comes
with eating plastic.
(19:30):
And I would agree with you that I think,and we talked about this in a podcast, I
think it was either threeor four podcasts ago.
And this is for me personally, this is adeveloping concept in my mind
that I'm continuing to refine.
But I think a lot of timeswhen we have these outsized negative
feelings, they flow from insecurity.
They flow from embarrassment, insecurity.
(19:52):
And Jeff, you and I have talked about thisbefore, and we just in our cans,
pop-ups are part of the game.
They're just part of pickleball.It's like any shot.
And half the game is I'm trying to getJeff to pop the ball up, Jeff is
trying to get me to pop the ball up.
The pros pop the balls up.
Pop-ups are not a bad thing.
They're just somethingthat happens in the game.
(20:12):
But you're absolutely correct.
There's an outsized negative feeling abouta pop-up relative to, even Jeff, I would
even say missing a return to serve.
I don't think players get as upset withmissing a return to serve as
they do with hitting a pop-up.
And missing a return to serve, I don'tknow, it's It's like 80 degrees
worse than popping the ball up.
(20:34):
Yeah, I think I stopped worrying aboutpopping the ball up, probably
in the last six months.
I've only been playingfor about two years.
And man, once I stopped worrying aboutpop-ups, one, I don't pop
it up as much anymore.
But two, you live to fight another daywith a pop-up, but not with some of those
(20:55):
other shots, the onesthat we've talked about.
The net's interesting, because theargument for hitting low, right?
These feelings drivewrong strategy because the feeling that I
don't want to pop it up and me or mypartner gets smashed and I get
embarrassed, then forces us.
(21:16):
And I put forces in quotes here becauseit's not forcing you to do anything.
But in our mind, it forces usto risk the net hit super low.
And so we're not embarrassedwhen our ball goes into the net.
So we're missing a ton more shots than weshould otherwise because
we're we're picking the wrong metric orthe wrong strategy and the wrong shot
(21:37):
selection because of somemental baggage that we have with pop-up.
All right, Jeff, I think that'sit for conversation number one.
I got to tell you, I wantto give you a heads up here.
So we're not even a thirdaway down page one of six.
So we'll keep doing these.
And as long as Jeff wants to do them, I'malways happy to talk basketball in the
(22:00):
mind, and we'll push them out, and itgives you guys a behind the scenes
look at how the sausage is made, so tospeak, and you get to see what's going on.
We'll update you on thebook as we do these.
In the meantime, if you're listening tothis and you're like, I love the book, I'm
interested in the book, I think we'regoing to come up, and I don't think we
have it ready, Jeff, but Ijust want to foreshadow it.
(22:21):
We will have a pre-orderthing and stuff like that.
So we're going to do, I guess, a softlaunch first, where if you listen to the
podcast and you want to get a look in thebook, we'll have a digital version of it,
and then you'll be able to orderthat, pre-order and whatever.
So we'll be updating you onthat throughout this process.
So be on the lookout for special episodeswith Jeff about the upcoming book.
(22:43):
And Jeff, anything else before we wrap?No, I'm good.
But thanks for having me.This is fun.
I look forward to the next one.
A hundred %.
So we'll set it up and we'll keep updatingyou guys on the book, like I said.
And this is interesting behindthe scenes conversation.
You get to see how we thinkand how we approach the book.
(23:06):
So thanks, Jeff, for your time on this.
We'll see you on our next special episodeor on the regular episode
that comes out on Friday.So long, everybody.
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