The podcast dedicated to your pickleball improvement. We are here to help you achieve your pickleball goals, with a focus on the mental part of your game. Our mission is to share with you a positive and more healthy way of engaging with pickleball. Together let’s forge a stronger relationship with the sport we all love. With the added benefit of playing better pickleball too. No matter what you are trying to accomplish in your pickleball journey, Pickleball Therapy is here to encourage and support you.
Hello, and welcome to Pickleball Therapy, the podcast dedicated to your Pickleball improvement. Hope you having a great week. I got ready to record today's podcast. I look out the window. It's just a beautiful day down here in Florida. So I'm outdoors recording this podcast, and maybe a little bit of background noise, some wind, maybe an airplane or something,
but we're gonna be fine. So let's proceed with the podcast in this a beautiful setting in Florida. This week's podcast, we're gonna talk about input and output. It's gonna be really helpful to you to understand the process. We're just gonna break it down and to understand how we get to the outputs that we want when we play Pickleball, because we are in fact,
output oriented creatures. And I'm gonna explain that a little bit in a little bit, okay? A little bit in a little bit. Before we get into the podcast, I wanted to let you know that we have a book coming out in the not too distant future. If you want to hear more about it, check out our special episode on the three spheres of the Pickleball mind.
I think it's really gonna help you further understand how it is that, that you can best train yourself from a mental perspective, from a mental standpoint, in terms of the different spheres that impact how you relate to Pickleball from a mental standpoint. So check out that episode, the special episode on the podcast. All right, let's talk about inputs and outputs and,
and how we can improve our outputs. So we are output oriented creatures. What I mean by that is we are looking for results. We are looking for some sort of outcome based on our efforts. So for instance, you know, you're looking for success at work. Well, that's an output, right? You're looking to win a Pickleball game. That's an output,
right? So we're always looking for results or for outcomes, or for, in this case, outputs, right? Is what we're looking for. So, if we want to improve our outputs, the question is, how do we do that? The way we do that is we improve our inputs. So let's, let's assume that we're gonna bake a cake,
right? We like, you know what, I'd love to bake a cake. Well, in order to bake a cake, at least a cake that anybody wants to eat, I need to know something about what, about how to bake a cake, right? I need a recipe. I need to know, I need this much flour, I need this much sugar.
I need a couple eggs, whatever it is, depending on the recipe, and I'm gonna sneeze in a second. I apologize. It's gonna happen. You know, my apologies for the sneeze, but sitting outdoors, right? So it's Florida. So I need a recipe, right? The recipe in this situation is what? It's the input, right?
The input that allows me to have what? The output, right? So good set of inputs, right? A really good, I don't know what kind of cake you like, but I'm gonna make a chocolate cake. So a really good chocolate cake recipe will help me have what? A really good output chocolate cake. And it's the same thing About,
you know, if you think about it, it's the same thing when you play Pickleball. You want an output, right? You want to win a game. Well, to win a game, you need lots of inputs, because there's a lot of different things that happen in a game. A game is actually, if you think about it, a game is a series of rallies that some are in your favor,
some are not in your favor. And then at the end of the contest, at some stage, you know, one of us reaches 11, and that's the end of the, of the game. So that's, that's a game, right? So in order to have the good output of a good game, I need to have a lot of small good outputs,
which are the rallies. Then in order to have good outputs on the rallies, I need to have good outputs on different, on different phases of the rallies, right? Different steps in the rally, different shots that occur during the rally and things like that. So the, the, at the end of this process, right? How do I improve the outputs in my play?
But the re the way I improve, improve the outputs in my play is by improving the inputs, not so much by having to change you. And that's an important concept here. A lot of times Pickleball players think, and this is just human nature, right? We think that it's our fault, right? I, you know, I'm just not getting it,
or I'm doing something wrong, or this is on me. Am I here to tell you? Probably not on you. And what I mean by that is, at the end of the day, you are a very competent, capable, sentient being running around this planet of ours, right? You have, you are gifted with a supercomputer up in your,
up in your head, right? This amazing machine that can do a lot of things. And you know, at our campus, we like to remind our students, our campers, that they've, everybody's done something probably more than one thing, but at least one thing in your life that's good. Meaning, like, you know, you're good at cooking,
you're good at some work thing you did, or you're good at the house, or you're good at carpentry, you're good at sewing, you're good at at human relations, right? You're nice to other people. Whatever. It's, there's one or multiple things that you are good at. You know, you are competent and you're capable of doing those things.
Pickleball is no different. Pickleball is not some mysterious secret thing that is, you know, beyond your abilities. So the, the, the, but here's the thing. We get bogged down in. It must be me, right? There's something wrong with me. There's nothing wrong with you. What there's wrong with right? Is your inputs. You don't have a good recipe.
You know, you're trying to bake a cake and your recipe calls for you to use like, I don't know, playground, sand and charcoal. And you're like, no wonder the cake tastes terrible. It's not because you're a bad baker. You don't have a good recipe and your Pickleball game, if it's, if it's not Where you want it to be,
it is not because of some deficiency that you bring to the table. It is not because of some inherent problem with you. It is a problem with your inputs. You don't have the good, you don't have good inputs. And if you want to improve as a Pickleball player, right? If you want to be a stronger player, you wanna understand the game,
you wanna understand the recipe of Pickleball, if you want to think about it that way, right? Let's continue that, that sort of thought process. You know, so you, you need a good recipe. You need to know, okay, this is the recipe of Pickleball. This is how the, how the game is constructed, right? This is the oven temperature that I need.
These are the ingredients that go into it, and the ratio of the ingredients. This is the order of mixing them, right? I need to mix the, the dry ingredients over here, the liquid ingredients over here. Then I mix 'em together. Maybe I overmix 'em or underm mix them. Maybe I air them, use some aeration technique with the eggs to,
to make a nice icing or something. So you have all these different steps, right? You have, you have oven ingredients, steps, the type of pan you need, things like that. So all these different things. At the end of that process, right? At the end of those inputs being put into it, you have the output of a cake.
Pickleball, same thing, right? You're in a, in a tough nine, nine match, and you, you know, you just got lobbed over your partner. What do you do? Right? So what's the recipe for the LOBs? That's why inside our Pickleball Academy, we have a course on LOB coverage and defense, right? Because that'll help you know what the recipe is to cover.
LOBs certain recipes that are very, very big picture, right? For instance, if you're gonna bake, it's good to have an understanding of like maybe sifting flour, understanding different types of flour can be helpful. Cake flour versus bread flour versus all-purpose flour versus self-Rising flour, understand different types of pans. Metal pan versus glass pans can not work exactly the same convection oven versus a cooking or a regular baking oven,
those all are gonna be different. Conventional oven, I should have said conventional versus convection. So you're gonna have all those different understandings of baking and Pickleball. It's similar in the sense that you start understanding the framework of the game, right? You understand how it's constructed, you understand advantage, disadvantage, differences on serve and return. A lot of, a lot of stuff in Pickleball,
and let me pause here for a second. That is one of the beauties of our sport. That is one of the, one of the aspects of Pickleball that makes it so attractive. It's that it is a very, it, it's not, it's not impossible to, to learn all of it, but there's a lot to learn. There's a lot of small pieces that are very achievable and very doable,
but they're, they're interesting, right? Sort of like if you got really in heavy into baking, you'd learn all about laminating and, you know, all sorts of other techniques that you can learn in baking. If you want to go that deep Pickleball is the same. You can go as deep as you want with this sport. And so, but,
but you know, it's super helpful to have an understanding of framework, right? Of, you know, how the oven interacts with, you know, or for instance, baking Powder, baking soda, right? The difference between those two and how to use 'em, that's really gonna help your baking Pickleball is the same way. Understanding the importance of the for shot and how you use the for shot on the return side in order to meet your objectives is really gonna help you play better.
Pickleball. That understanding of the for shot, that understanding of serve side and, and return side or advantage disadvantage and things like that are all what, they're all inputs, they're all recipes, right? They're all parts of the recipe Pickleball. And the better that you understand those, the better that you can understand how the, the, the ingredients work and how you put 'em together step by step and things like that,
then guess what? Your cake, IE your Pickleball is going to be much better. So the next natural question is, well, where do I find these recipes? Now that is tricky and, and it's gonna seem like I'm log rolling here. I promise you, I am not trying to log roll here. If I knew of other sources, I'd be happy to share 'em with you.
I'm gonna tell you what's really difficult to do. It's really difficult to get the recipe from YouTube because YouTube is like, it'd be like having a series of YouTube videos. Like one YouTube video says like, this is how you get the most chocolatey cake ever. And then it talks about cocoa some, right? Talks about cocoa's, different coco's, for instance.
Then you have another video that maybe talks about how the element in the oven works with the fans to create convection. Then you have another video that says like, three tips to better flower sifting. Okay? It's fine, you know, good to know about flower sifting, good to know about the oven, good to know about cocoa, but I can't,
I don't know how to make a cake yet, right? It's not like, you know, like, like, like recipe videos will go through all the steps in, in the recipe 'cause it's very limited, right? But they're not gonna teach you how to become a master chef or a master baker in that video. Same thing with Pickleball YouTube videos,
you know, little pieces, little pieces about little pieces of this, but they don't give you the recipe that you want in order to have the output that you're hoping for as a Pickleball player. There is, I mean, you in theory, you can do it. You know, that's what cj, CJ Johnson and I did for hours and years.
That hours, hours and hours and hours over years. And with our own study and our own, our own thinking about the game we came up with the recipe and the recipe that we came up with, we publish it in a, in a course called the Pickleball System. That's the beauty of the Pickleball system, is it provides the inputs that will then help you achieve the outputs that you want when you play Pickleball.
So if you take a couple things away from this podcast, I hope you take the following away, understand that, that it's, it's fine to one output, right? It's fine to wanna know what to do in, in different situations. It's fine to wanna know how not to make as many errors in your game. It's fine to want to know better partner play concepts,
all these things, right? That's why we have academy courses that cover those different areas, you know? But, but Here's the thing. So if you want output, you need input, and you need an actor, right? What I want you to, to, to take off the table is that you're the problem because you are not the problem.
You are not the reason why you're not having the outputs that you want. The re what's holding you back from the outputs that you want is lack of clear inputs. It's lack of, lack of clarity on the recipe that you're gonna follow as a Pickleball player in order to play really amazing Pickleball. Because here's the other thing I forgot to touch on earlier about YouTube,
is that YouTube will just overwhelm you with noise, with just, it's too much. You know, it's like, it, it'd be like going back to the recipe metaphor slash analogy. It'd be like, you, you all you wanna do is bake a cake, but you're the one video's talking about, you know, how to slice bell peppers better,
and the other video's talking about how to pick a watermelon and the other video's telling you how to see a steak or something like that. And you're like, all I wanna do is bake. I wanna bake a, a chocolate cake. And so you're overwhelmed with all this stuff that has nothing to do with what it is that you wanna do as a Pickleball player,
because I'm gonna tell you that a lot of the YouTube content out there, it's not that there's anything wrong with the content itself, right? Like the content itself is lacking, it's that the content isn't appropriate or applicable to where you are in the game. Again, you're trying to make a chocolate cake and they're trying to teach you how to, how to so eat a steak or how to,
how to, you know, make barbecue chicken or something. And so you end up just all over the place within that process. But it's not you, it's the inputs that are messing you up. So if you wanna improve your outputs, give some thought to how am I gonna improve my inputs? And if, you know, you happen to be blessed in living in a community with a good,
you know, Pickleball pro or Pickleball professional or something you can work with, fantastic. You know, that's great. 'cause they, they are out there. Unfortunately, there's a lot of 'em out there that aren't that great. But, you know, if you, if you're, if you know that this, this pro is good and you wanna work 'em,
that's fantastic. Otherwise, I highly recommend that you give us a, they give us a try at the Pickleball system. We have a course launching in, in, I think it's like six weeks now, something like that. It's in sometime in March. But check out, we'll have our miniseries. You can join us in our miniseries. You'll learn a lot during the miniseries,
a lot more about the chocolate cake of Pickleball. And then you'll, you'll make a decision whether the Pickleball system is right for you, so that at the end of the day, you can get the inputs that you need in order to get the outputs that you desire. I hope you enjoyed this week's podcast. If you enjoyed the podcast, as always,
please consider rate and reviewing it and share with your friends. If you enjoyed the podcast, I'm gonna bet that they'll enjoy it too. I hope you have a great week and I'll see you the next podcast.