Hello and welcome to Pickleball Therapy,
the podcast dedicated to your Pickleball improvement.
It's the podcast with you in mind.
This is a special episode of our podcast.
It's a special episode where I wanted to talk about the
three spheres of the Pickleball mind.
This is an at the board special episode at the board
means that I am literally standing in front of the board
where I do the teaching from my classroom,
right? My studio classroom,
if you will.
And so if you want to the benefits of the visual,
check it out on YouTube as well.
You'll get full benefit of listening to it on the podcast,
so you don't have to run away right now and watch
it on YouTube,
but later on,
if you wanna check it out on YouTube,
you just look at Pickleball therapy on YouTube and you get
to see it on the board displayed behind me.
The, if you do go to the Pickleball therapy on YouTube,
consider subscribing to the channel.
It really helps us reach more players just like you who
would benefit from this sort of and told training.
So let's talk about the three spheres of Pickleball,
how this all came to fruition.
So, you know,
as you know,
we've been doing the Pickleball Therapy podcast for a number of
years now.
You know,
if you've,
if you've been following it for any period of time,
you know,
it's been three plus years of,
of recording this podcast.
It's been a fantastic journey for me personally as a,
a human being and as a Pickleball player.
It's helped me tremendously to be able to bring these podcasts
to you,
you know,
in terms of my thinking and,
and, and understanding a better understanding the,
the mental side of Pickleball and frankly,
the importance of it.
And, you know,
I came from 40 some years of tennis,
never really dealt with this stuff in tennis,
you know,
just play tennis,
just, you know,
didn't really think about the mental side of tennis.
And I,
I'm positive I left a lot,
you know,
on the shelf,
if you will,
in terms of my tennis,
in advancement,
my tennis play,
by not paying any time,
any minds,
I guess pun intended,
right? Without not paying any mind to the mental part of
tennis. But in Pickleball,
I've been fortunate to have been exposed to it.
You know,
coach Peter Scales is a great mentor to me and to
CJ Johnson,
my partner,
my business partner,
and she and Pete,
coach Pete,
is, you know,
his teachings have been,
has changed,
you know,
my, my life really,
my Pickleball life and my life,
you know,
'cause I,
I understand things better now.
But anyway,
so the,
the podcast has been a,
a, a growth journey for me as a mental trainer and
mental thinker about Pickleball.
And through that process,
you know,
we wanted to then bring the,
the teachings of the Pickleball therapy philosophy,
if you will,
in written form.
And so,
over the past year or so,
when working on a book and,
and it started off as one book,
and it's gonna end up being,
looks like three volumes of books covering each one of the
Spheres that I'm gonna cover in this podcast.
The three spheres of the Pickleball Mind.
But when you put pen to paper,
it just really crystallizes everything,
right? And basically you're,
you're, you know,
you're starting to bring together different concepts from different,
different teachers that I've had,
right? Books I've read,
folks I've dealt with,
situations, I've,
I've faced podcasts,
concepts, things like that.
So you start crystallizing that,
and it,
it got me to thinking about the best way to organize
the different parts and this for reason in terms fears,
right? But the different areas or different parts of the mental
aspect of our sport of Pickleball.
Because here's the thing,
there's not one,
it's not one.
And that's really important,
right? 'cause what happens is,
you know,
we end up like mashing all of it together.
And so,
you know,
we'll read a book like The Inner Game of Tennis or
like Coach Pete's book or,
or like the Art of Learning for instance.
You know,
books like that.
And so what happens is we think,
okay, we've covered mental training,
but the reality is we haven't,
because there's a lot to it.
And there's a lot of,
there's different,
there's different parts that,
that are different spheres that each cover different part of our
mental relationship with the sport.
And focusing on one's great,
but if you want to be as complete as you can,
and if you want to improve as a player,
right? Because that's one of the spheres you want to focus
on, understand that there's more than one and pay attention to
the different areas,
particularly focusing on the ones that most are going to give
you benefit.
And I'll,
I'm gonna give,
give you some more thoughts on that during today's podcast.
Now let's talk about the three spheres and,
and what they are.
So the three spheres of mental training are perspective,
play and progress.
So perspective is your big picture,
right? That is,
that's relational,
right? That's your relationship with Pickleball.
And that's an area that I think players don't spend enough
time on.
You're gonna,
when I talk about play,
you're gonna be like,
oh yeah,
that's what I understand to be mental training.
And that's fine 'cause that's normal.
What normally what most players would say,
they think mental training involves perspective is really big picture stuff.
You know,
it's, it's,
it's, and we use the term relationship with Pickleball.
I know it's an unusual term to hear because,
you know,
we think about playing Pickleball and that's fine,
that's part of it.
But we really do have a relationship with the sport.
And so if we understand that and we understand that we
can strengthen that and we can strengthen our,
our perspective or the way that we come at the game,
the way that we interact with this game and that we're
gonna feel better,
and I always like to say is,
'cause we,
we want to be pragmatic too.
I know players wanna play better,
right? Not just feel better,
you're gonna play better.
That's perspective.
And, and I learned a ton of perspective from Coach Peter
Scales and like the book that,
like, I'm gonna give you an example of a book that
covers each one of these areas so that you have an
idea of how they're different.
For instance,
for perspective,
I would turn to Coach Pete's book,
which is mental and emotional training for tennis.
You can drop the for tennis,
but his really,
his key tenet is compete dash learn,
dash honor.
So it's compete,
learn, honor,
that's his philosophy.
That's how he cr how he,
you know,
comes at the mental part.
And I will tell you that is primarily a perspective.
Now, some of that applies to play and think and progress,
right? But really it's a perspective builder,
right? So that's perspective.
And, and I will tell you this from the three perspective,
play in progress.
I will tell you that the from my money,
the best bang for your buck is perspective.
Meaning, like that's gonna really radically change how you interact with
the sport.
Play will help you play a little better.
You'll have a little better focus,
maybe drop some anxiety while you're playing.
But if you help perspective,
anxiety will goes away anyway.
So it just,
it pervades everything else.
The second sphere is play.
Play is what you think of when you think of mental
training. Again,
I'm not no criticism,
right? It's normal is that's what we think of,
right? Me,
you know,
mental stuff is like mental toughness,
mind of a champion,
110%, you know,
that kind of thing.
All that is play.
So that is the mental,
our mental framing or our mental mindset while we're in the,
in the act of playing.
So it's while we're on the court,
right? Right.
You know,
around the time we're playing and during our game.
That's play.
That's the mental that that,
that's that that mental sphere.
The book that I like there is the Inner Game of
Tennis by Tim Galloway is a really good book for play.
He talks a lot about self oneself.
Two and,
and things like that.
He also has improvement.
It has some perspective,
but I like his for play helps you focus on the
court and some techniques like that.
So play is a really important sphere as well.
And then the third sphere.
And now the third sphere may not apply to you.
You know,
it probably does.
I would say if you're listening to this podcast,
you're probably not a casual player,
but no matter what your relationship is pickle.
But no matter what your engagement is,
right? What you want to do,
perspective and player are always gonna be in play,
pun intended,
right? They're always gonna be active,
right? The third sphere progress,
that's an entirely different type of mental training because that one
deals with your Pickleball journey,
right? That's your journey as a Pickleball player in terms of
your improvement.
So it's the journey to go from where we are to
where we want to go.
And an example of a really good book there is Josh
Watkin's book,
the Art of Learning.
Josh Waitzkin is a prodigy chess player.
He was the,
he's the actual player in,
in search of Bobby Fisher.
He's the actual boy depicted in that movie.
If you saw the movie.
That's a really good book on the journey of a,
of a,
of growth,
right? And so that's,
that requires its own kind of mental Thinking,
right? His own mental approach.
So these three spheres together,
right? If you're a Pickleball player who wants to maximize your
relationship with Pickleball,
play your best and progress or improve as a player,
you want to have all three spheres.
So on the board here,
if you're watching it,
you'll see it on the video,
but on the board,
if you're listening to it,
I have a,
you know,
all three spheres overlapping.
And you have that,
that sort of Venn diagram I think it's called,
where you have the they overlap.
And so that's,
that's where you have all three spheres.
So as you progress in your mental part of your,
your game,
just remember that there are three spheres and we are trying
to, we,
we, in in our podcast,
we are being more intentional ourselves,
right? Intentionality is something we talk about a lot.
We do it in our work as well inside the podcast.
We're trying to be more intentional about making sure that we
cover all three spheres with you as we come out with
podcasts. So we'll have a podcast that'll cover maybe like perspective,
right? That's Bowl of Ice Cream would be a good podcast
on perspective,
right? What's your play on play there?
There was a podcast that we have on hyper focus right
on, on focusing on the ball while you're playing that's really
gonna help you maximize your mind while you're in the middle
of a game.
And then for progress,
I know we have several,
one that comes to mind would be the,
the lifelong learning maybe is a good one there,
you know,
that, that there's no,
the, the mountain top thing where basically like there's always a
mountain to climb.
That's a progress because that's not perspective itself,
right? You can play Pickleball without climbing mountains,
you can just play the way you play.
That's fine.
And it's not really about playing the game,
it's about understanding the journey of an improving Pickleball player and
how you have to climb mountains and there's valleys and you
plateau. So that's an example of three podcasts that cover the
three spheres.
So as you think about yourself and your growth as a
Pickleball player,
I highly recommend the books that I mentioned.
You don't,
if you can go to better Pickleball dot com,
there's a resources tab,
there's a link in there to an Amazon page that's an
affiliate page,
but the same price anyway.
But it's an Amazon page.
You can order any of those books on there.
Obviously once our book's out comes out,
we hope that you'll check out the book and,
and you know,
give it a,
give it a read.
I think you'll find it really helpful,
especially on perspective.
'cause that's the first volume of the book that's gonna come
out is on perspective.
So all three and focus on the,
I would say focus on the one that most calls out
to you.
And if you're not sure what to do,
start with perspective with Coach Pete's book.
That's gonna be a really good place to start.
If you feel good about your perspective,
you want a little bit of more help in terms of
your on court,
I think inter Game of Tennis can play great place to
start. And if you just wanna understand the growth journey,
you know,
have a big picture,
view of growth and all that.
Josh Watkin's book,
the Art of Learning is a really good,
really good resource for that.
So anyway,
so those are the three spheres.
I hope you enjoyed the presentation of the three spheres.
It Helps you further under,
you know,
further develop or deepen your understanding of your mental process and
your growth as a more complete,
you know,
Pickleball player.
If you enjoyed the podcast,
please consider rating and reviewing.
It really helps us reach other players.
And as always,
please share the podcast with your friends.
If you enjoyed the podcast,
they probably will too.
And if you're interested in the book,
shoot us an email therapy at better Pickleball dot com and
we'll start putting together a list of email addresses of folks
who are interested in the book and we'll make sure that
you know when it is available for pre-order so you can
be one of the first to receive a copy of the
book. I hope you have a great week this week and
I'll see you this Friday for a regular episode of Pickleball
Therapy.