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Hello
and welcome to pickleball Therapy, the

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podcast dedicated to your
pickleball improvement.

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More specifically, the podcast
dedicated to your pickleball mind.

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I am your host of this
weekly podcast, Tony Roig.

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It is a pleasure to be with you this week
and every week, bringing you

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content to help you with that part of the
game that is sometimes

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overlooked, your mind.

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A part of you that will radically improve
how you play pickleball, how you feel when

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you play pickleball,
and not just pickleball.

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Also, how you feel throughout life.

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In this week, what I want to talk about
is I want to talk about competition.

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I want to reframe how we think about
competition so that we can see what's

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really happening out there
and how we can use that information in

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terms of how we feel about what's happened
during a contest, and also

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how we can view it in terms of our
trajectory, our journey

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as pickleball players.

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Before we dive into Before that,
a couple of housekeeping notes.

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Number one, in the next few months, you
may see some changes to the structure

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and delivery of the podcast.

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The content of the podcast will remain
this content, the content that you've

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come to hopefully enjoy and be beneficial
to you, and I'm still going

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to be the host of the podcast.

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But there are some changes that we're
making to the podcast to help

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us continue to grow the podcast.

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Then the second point of housekeeping is
that we have our Better Pickleball Academy

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a subscription model launching
in a couple of weeks.

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If you're on an email list, which I assume
if you listen to this podcast, you

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are, you will get notified by email.

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Be on the lookout for that.

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If you are not on the email, you can
join the email at betterpickleball.

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Com and simply subscribe to the email.

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All right, let's talk about competition
and how we view it and what is, I would

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submit to you, a more beneficial
way of thinking about it.

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The way that we view a pickleball game
is it's a contest

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between us and our partner against two
other opponents,

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and then there's a result.

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You have the input in the situation is
the pickleball game that's going on.

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The factors that affect the outcome of the
game are us, our partner,

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and our two opponents.

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And so you shake that all up, and at the
end, you have either we won

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the game or we lost the game.

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And what we end up doing is we end up
looking at it in terms of

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we lost to our opponents, or we beat our
opponents, or our partner did this, or

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our partner did that, things like that.

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What I'm going to submit to you or suggest
to you is that

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what's really happening when you play
pickleball is it's really a

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contest of you against you.

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Now, against there is not meant to
be any a negative fight a thing.

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It's simply a fact that
when you're playing

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pickleball, It's really,
at the end of the day, a contest where

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you are testing yourself against yourself.

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To help explain that, let's
use an analogy/metaphore.

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By now, you probably know I don't
distinguish between those two because

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I can't remember which one's which.

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What we're going to do is we're going to
use an analogy metaphor where we're going

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to go into a laboratory,
and we're going to test the

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impact of four factors
on the outcome, on the results,

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given the inputs that are put into them.

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We're going to have our inputs go in, we
have four factors, and we have our output.

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Now, we want to know
how factor A of the four factors, A, B, C,

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and D, so I have factor A,
factor B, factor C, factor D.

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I want to know how factor A
impacts the results based on the

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inputs that we're putting in there.

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If I allow all four factors to run free,
in other words, to have an impact on the

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results, I cannot tell
how factor A impacted the results.

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Because it could have been that
if the results were, say, positive,

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it might have been B, it might have been
D, it might have been a combination of

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some A and some C, or
some F, A, B, C, and D.

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I can't tell.

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The only way to isolate factor A
and the impact of factor A in this

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lab experiment is to restrict
factors B, C, and D.

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Now, quick side note here in case
you're either in science or you remember

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your science well,
normally the term that's used for that is

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I want to control for B, C, and D,
and let A run free.

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The reason I'm using the term control here
is because I'm going to come back to the

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term control later and talk
about it in terms of our control.

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I don't want to mix those words up.

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We're going to use the term restrict here.

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In our...

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Going back to the experiment,
I have my four factors.

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I'm going to restrict B, C, and D,
and I'm going to allow factor A to run

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free, to basically be the
only factor that's a variable.

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Then I can apply inputs
into my experiment.

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I have my output, and then I know that the
output was the result of

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factor A's influence on the inputs, or the
inputs acting on factor A

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will give me my output.

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When we play pickle ball,
it is going to be the same situation

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where we have four factors.

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We have factor A, that's going to be us,
you if you want to

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think about it that way.
So factor A is our person.

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Factor B is going to be our partner.

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Then you have factor C and D, those are
our opponents, our two

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players across the net.

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So we're on a pickleball court
playing a pickleball game.

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We have four factors.

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The input in a pickleball game is going to
be the game, the rules, the ball, the wind

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conditions, all the things that are
happening, all the things that are

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going to playing a pickleball game.

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The court size, which is a standard, but
still you have a You have the court size,

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you have the court
conditions, all those things.

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Those are inputs.

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Then you have the four factors, A, B,
C, and D, and then you have an output.

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The output here is win the game
or lose the game.

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What
you want to think about is you want to

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think about the fact that
if you want to know

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how well you did or how much influence you
had

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on the inputs in order to get the output,
whether it's a win or a loss,

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you have to restrict B, C, and D.

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In other words, the only way you can know
for sure whether you had a good day or a

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bad day or whether the win was because of
you or the loss was because of you,

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is to control or restrict B, C, and D.

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Let me run through some scores so you get
a better sense of the idea

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I'm talking about here.

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Let's assume that you played four games in
a row, and the score of the games are,

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first game, you lost 5 to 11,
second game, you lost 9 to 11,

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third game, you won 11 to 9.

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And the fourth game, you won 11 to 5.

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So you go from a 511 loss to a 911 loss.
Titer, right?

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Better result in terms of being closer.

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Then you flipped it, and now you won 11-9.

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And then the last game, you
won pretty decisively 11-5.

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If you think about it in terms of
everybody on the court,

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if you allow for A, B, C, and D to be
variable, then how

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can you deduce anything from those scores?

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In other words, when you went from 511 to
911 to 119 to 11,5,

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was that because of your play?

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Or was that factor B?

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Or was that your opponents, factor C and
D, you have no way of knowing, right?

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Whether it was you
or your opponents or your partner

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who were the actual causes of
some or all of those results,

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including the trend that you see there.

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Now, let's go back to the lab
experiment and restrict for B, C, and D.

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I'm going to restrict B, C, and D.

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We're going to make your partner
and your opponent's constants.

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What that means is they're going
to play identical every time.

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They're going to make
the same basic decisions.

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They're going to play the
same way every single game.

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If we could do that and we had the scores
of 511, 911, 119, 115,

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first, we would know that all of those
scores are the result of

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your play as factor A.

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So it's you as factor A
are the cause of all those scores.

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The second thing we'd be able to tell is
that you were playing better over the

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course of those games
because you went from a loss of 5:11 to a

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win of 11-5, and the
two nines in the middle.

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But you basically went from losing,
not that great, to to losing pretty well,

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to winning pretty tight,
to winning really well.

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And if factors B, C, and D
are restricted or constants,

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then the only difference in those games
and in those scores is you as factor A.

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Now, in the real world, we can't do that.

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In the real world, we can't
make B, C, and D constant.

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That's just not how the real world works.

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But we can do is we can say, the only
thing that matters, the only thing that

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I can control, and this is where the term
control comes back in and the way I want

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to use it for this podcast,
the only thing that I can control is what?

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It's a factor A.

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The only thing I can control is
me and my play.

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Now, I can't look at the results of
the game to determine how I played.

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You see?

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That's the beauty of
thinking about it this way.

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The results of the game are a result
of a combination of A, B, C, and D.

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All those factors played into the outcome
of the game, the result, the win or the

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loss, and the score, whatever it was, a
blowout by us, a blowout

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by them, or a tight game.

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That is all dictated by four factors
all working in sync.

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Or not in sync, but at the same time.

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They all have an effect on the result.

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Because that's the world that we live in,
it doesn't make sense to look at the

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result and then impute that result
to one factor, factor A or ourselves.

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Instead of
viewing the result

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and saying, That's because of me,
or something I could have done better,

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the only thing that makes sense is
evaluating how factor Factor A did,

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that's you, relative to what?

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Relative to what factor A can do.

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In other words, what is it that you...

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What are you able to do?

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Within that, there's some nuance in
the sense of you're having a bad day.

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You didn't get good sleep last night.

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You have something going on with
your family, whatever it is.

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You don't feel well physically
Basically, any of those things.

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Well, you can't expect that you're going
to play at your baseline level or at your

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top level if you're not in tip top shape.

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You would factor that in there.

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Let's assume that you're in
great Everything's fantastic.

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Everything's great.
You're focused.

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Everything's wonderful.

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Even there, you still have a baseline
where you say to yourself,

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I'm a human being.

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I'm a human being, so I'm going to make
mistakes when I play.

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I'm I'm going to make silly decisions.

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I'm going to do all sorts of things that
I wish I had done otherwise, or in a

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perfect world, I could have done
otherwise, because you're human.

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So you have your baseline in any event.

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And so you want to evaluate factor A, u,
relative to factor A.

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So every time that you go out to play,
it's not a contest where

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you're evaluating the results.

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You're not attributing the results to you.

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All you're attributing to you is how you
did relative to

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you, relative to your baseline, relative
to what you're able to do,

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relative to what you can bring that
day to the court, and nothing else.

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Not extrapolating from the scores
onto you as a player, because that, as

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you've seen, makes no sense, because
you cannot control factors B, C, and D.

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You cannot restrict, you cannot
make constant factors B, C, and D.

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B, C, and D are going to run free.

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They're going to go up and down, play
better, play worse as games move along.

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In that a world, in that environment,
which is the real environment that

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we inhabit,
it only makes sense to evaluate factor

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A relative to what factor A can do.

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What that does is then it makes
the pickleball contest

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about how you perform relative to
how you can perform

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with the caveat of, or not the caveat, but
the qualifier of as well as you can

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under your current circumstances.

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So this approach then allows you some
peace of mind

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because you don't need to worry about the
score, because there's

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three other factors that you cannot
control that impact the score.

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And it also helps you in terms of your
development as a player,

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because the fact that maybe you went from,
let's say, you started with a winning

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streak that day and ended up losing three
games at the end,

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is not indicative necessarily of your play
or of your improvement as a player.

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What you need to do is look at your play
and determine whether your play is

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improving or not improving
during a session and also over time.

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As an example, if you're working on a
specific part of your game,

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say you're inside the latest
You're one of the students inside our

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00:15:16,705 --> 00:15:20,760
latest TPS class, the pickleball system
class, and you're focusing

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on your punch following.

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In that situation,
at the end of a game, if you want to

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think about, how did I do that game?

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Focus on on what?

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Focus on how you were hitting your punch
volleys, if that's what you're focused on.

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Knowing that the better that I hit my
punch volleys,

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the better I'm going to play.

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The better I'm going to play, the better
my factor, factor A,

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is going to have The more positive impact
my factor, factor A, is going to have

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on the results of the game.

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It doesn't mean we're going to win,
but everything that I do inside my factor,

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the only one I can control
to improve my play,

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the best chance I give our team of
being successful in that contest.

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So hopefully this way of thinking about it
might resonate with you and give you a way

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of framing your impact on the game or lack
of control over the result of a game

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and focus you on the areas over which you
have actual control, which is your

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play and your performance, again, with the
qualifier of within the best that you

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can do under your circumstances that day.

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I hope you enjoyed this week's podcast.

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These messages, these thoughts
take some time to

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sink in sometimes or to make an effect,
but I can assure you that the cumulative

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effect of these conversations that we
have, of these

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concepts that we share, can have a
definite positive impact on your approach

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to the game, on your performance as
a player, how you feel as a player.

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Also, you can then take these ideas and
then apply them in your life at large,

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including the one we talked about today.

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If you enjoyed the podcast, please
consider taking a moment

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to rate and review it.

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As always, please share
it with your friends.

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Remember, if you enjoyed the podcast,
they probably will, too.

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I hope you have a great week, and I'll see
you next week on a regular

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episode of pickleball Therapy.

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Be well.