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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.
[00:00:00.160] - Alec Martone
[00:00:05.520] - Tony Roig
Hello and welcome to Pickleball Therapy, the podcast dedicated to your pickleball improvement. I'm your host, Tony Roy. This is a special episode of our podcast. I am super happy to have with me Alec Martone from Fail First Project. Alec, how you doing today?
[00:00:18.480] - Alec Martone
Tony? Absolutely fabulous. I feel like this conversation is well overdue since the last time that we met at the US Open. I think it was a couple years ago now.
[00:00:28.410] - Tony Roig
At least two years, Alec. It's definitely overdue. And it's one of these things that's been on the back of my mind for a while. And I, I finally, I think, I think I asked Kyleen from our team, I said, colleen, will you please. You. You need to. I. I lost the contact information. I know it's called Phil first, do your thing. So she did her magic and here we are, Alec and, and me speaking on the podcast. Alec, tell us. I want to, I wanna, I don't wanna beat around the bush too much. I want to go right into Phil first because it's such a powerful. Just, you know, when the listeners heard Fail first project, what in the world are we talking about? Just give us a little bit of a feeling for this Fail First Project. Its idea, it's progeny and we'll start talking from there.
[00:01:06.450] - Alec Martone
Yeah. So I'll brief you a little bit about my story and why it resonates so close to me to give the whole picture. So I grew up playing high level hockey and long story short, in the end of my high school career, career, I set a lot of expectations on myself. I had a lot of external environmental factors that also set those expectations on me. A lot of people telling me that I can carry the team when it's a championship, etc, I'm a prettily, I'm a pretty emotionally in tuned individual. So at the time I definitely had a fear of letting people down. Right. Which led into this big fear of failure as a whole. And what ended up happening was I crumbled underneath it. And from hockey, that translated into baseball. So anybody that really knows my story to this point, I got the yips in baseball. So basically I was a catcher, pretty strong arm, can really throw at any base. And two times it, it happened where I threw it past the pitcher's head. And then it was don't miss, don't miss, don't miss, don't miss. And what happens when you're like, don't miss, don't miss, don't miss.
[00:02:17.540] - Alec Martone
Your mind can't think in doubts. So what happens is you miss every single Time. And that just takes an emotional toll. So what ended up happening was after. After high school, I ended up playing college club hockey down south at the University of South Carolina. But in this space, I had so much regret. I had a chip on my shoulder. I knew the talent that I had and really wasn't able to apply myself because of what was happening between the ears. And I dove into it. So I did a really, a long journey involved in therapy and other external things, trying to figure out what causes this, right? Like what causes this, like freezing or fleeting moment. And why do some athletes even lean into it? Like, when fear comes at them, they actually level up. Like the top players right now, you see Annalee, you see Ben, Facts against the wall. They kick it not only one gear, but two, three or four gears they're kicked into to really double down. So when I saw that I wanted to dive into it. When I navigated all the emotions associated to that, I had a lot of people come to me and ask me, like, how are you carrying yourself differently?
[00:03:31.050] - Alec Martone
Meaning, like, they saw the work that I put in, they saw that I was very open about being an emotional individual and that I was carrying myself with a lot of confidence. And the question was like, what did you do? So that led into me really sharing that online. So I did about 20 episodes on my own and I had a lot of people give me really good feedback saying that they could relate to it, saying that some of the stuff I was sharing that I was doing, that they were using in their lives and it was really helping them as well try and navigate the space that they were in. So I ended up saying, you know what, who else can I ask about these things? So I started talking to neuroscientists. I had a couple on that I reached out to for the podcast cement performance coaches as well as some sports psychologists. And you can imagine that led into talking to pro athletes about what they are actually dealing with and which led into the whole other domain, which is entrepreneurs, C suite executives, business owners. Because so much of that same domain that high level athletes deal with translates right into business.
[00:04:42.340] - Alec Martone
So the fail proof product as a whole is we are trying to fail first. To learn first is really what our narrative is, because we talked slightly off air beforehand. But it starts with that first step, which is action. So if we can say, you know what, we're willing to fail first, we're going to learn a lot faster than anybody else. But the problem is you with point A and point B, there is this gap that is the unknown and people struggle to take that step into the unknown when they don't know what's on the other side. And sometimes that gap, that time delay that's associated to the unknown can be years, can be lifetimes. And that's where you have conversations with people at 8085 saying, I wish I did this, I wish I did that. You know, and those are the tough conversations to hear because they're approaching the end of this journey that is life. So that's where I, as a host of the podcast and with the Fail first product as a whole, like, how can I have as many of these conversations as possible so that nobody has that long time delay where they have to look back on life and have regret?
[00:05:56.230] - Alec Martone
There's anything that I could do. It is give people the ability to not have the regret when they're sitting in that seated 85. So that's really our goal with the fail first project.
[00:06:06.550] - Tony Roig
Nice. That's. That's awesome, Alec. And, you know, appreciate all the work you've put into it. You may not know this, we didn't talk about this earlier, but, you know, I've been on this podcast journey myself since 2020, and it started off similar to you. It started off as a personal journey. Basically it was, you know, I played tennis my whole life, you know, played reasonably competitively when I was a young, young person, and then picked it up again as an adult. Never had any mental side of the sport training, which is weird. You know, I talked to friends of mine and they're like, no, never. Just, you know, they taught us how to hit tennis balls, but, you know, not how to deal with stuff, which is like, okay, well, that's kind of important. But anyway, and no, no, no aspersions cast on the coaches that we had either, because, you know, that's. That they didn't know either. You know, it's like, it's basically like the blind leading the blind to some extent on that stuff. So, you know, I appreciate all the work that you're putting in, but let me, Let me, let me circle back to something.
[00:06:59.230] - Tony Roig
So it sounds like there's two, if I may. The way what I took away from your introduction to the Fail first project, there's really two things that, that are maybe not focuses, but like, like areas of thought. So one is take action, right? So that's the avoiding the gap idea, right? The regret, the, you know, the, the, you know, take. Take action even though it's uncertain. But I think inherent in that taking action is be prepared to fail, right? In Other words, accept that failure is maybe not even. I don't know how you think about it. You think of failure is possible and it's okay if you fail or failure is actually probable, particularly if it's something new that you're doing. You and I talked a little bit earlier about some of the stuff that both of us are doing in terms of our respective spaces. And there's uncertainty in our life in terms of will this work, will that work, how should we do it? But being being willing to fail, understanding that it's possible or maybe probable and willing to fail, I think is kind of inherent in the process. Right? Yeah.
[00:08:03.120] - Alec Martone
The stat that I love to use, Tony, which so many people know, and it's why so many people hesitate to start businesses, is it's that 9 out of 10 businesses fail. It's actually higher than that. So for you to actually conceptualize the fact that nine out of ten businesses fail, when you start something new, there is a 90% chance that you are going to fail in the first time. 90%, 10% success rate. And the reason I like to use that status because a lot of people have heard that before and it's very accurate. So to that point, it is a higher chance when you start something new that you're going to fail. So you kind of have to accept that failure is a part of the journey. It really, really is. But when you have most of these conversations with entrepreneurs, most of them do not have success on their first, second or third. Go at it. To give a concept for a lot of the athletes that we talk about a lot is it's like, I'll relate directly to pickleball immediately. You are in a main draw. We're not even talking about qualifiers. Main draw, what happens, let's talk singles.
[00:09:12.930] - Alec Martone
But there's 32 people that lose one winner. So same concept, 95% of that field is losing and one is winning. So the odds are stacked against you. But the point is, to your point is if we can't take consistent action, our stats get higher and higher and higher because our skills get better and better and better. Right. So the more skills that we acquire, the likelihood of success that we have gets higher. So that's really why, to your point, there is two narratives. One is really being willing to fail. Do it. Accept that it's a part of the process. Lean into it anyways, because it's your best chance at learning. Like you are going to learn so rapidly from failing. Um, the second part, to your point, and I can't fully steal this concept, but I'm gonna say it anyways. People call it like the aim principle or the do something principle. So there's this really good book called the Subtle Art of Not Giving a by Mark Manson, one of the best books I've ever read. He also writes with such a comedic undertone, so it's a really easy read. He talks about the do something principle, which basically says, rather than like sitting around on your couch waiting for inspiration or motivation to go do something, the first step is the action.
[00:10:38.350] - Alec Martone
Take the action. First, inspiration is going to follow. You'll notice after multiple actions in a row, they're like, huh, I could kind of do this. Like, what else can I do? And then that's where the motivation and the inspiration kicks in is it's like you notice that you can do things and you're kind of like, huh, what else can I. Can I accomplish?
[00:10:58.350] - Tony Roig
Yeah, it's interesting. It's interesting because, you know, you and I, we briefly. When we spoke earlier, we briefly touched on the subject that I learned about recently, which is this idea of, like. And I forget the gentleman's name that did it, but it's a philosopher. It talks about, like, Basically puts her life in like a 4,000 week. You have 4,000 weeks, basically, right? Which is, you know, I guess that's 80 years, roughly. So 4,000 weeks of time. And so, like, like, it's like 4,000 sounds like a lot, but it really isn't once you take out, like, you know, sleep and when you're a kid and you couldn't do anything anyway, whatever. I mean, all that stuff. So you only have so many weeks. And so, you know, going to the point about the regret, right? It's. It's like, why, why wait? Right? I mean, you know, to me, like, I'm. I don't know if you've heard the concept Sonder, Alec, but I'm a huge fan of this sonder concept, both outward and inward. So basically it's the idea that, like, understanding that every. Every person that you come across with has their own dreams, aspirations, their own, you know, path through the universe, if you will.
[00:11:54.050] - Tony Roig
And you do too, right? And so I'm. I'm, you know, the. The older I get, the more I'm like, you know, like, just go for it. As long as you're not hurting anybody else. Right? And you want to do it. Knock yourself out. Right? Give it a try. Who know. And that might. That might not be the thing. I. I'll tell you a quick story. I have a good friend of mine, actually I'm gonna send this podcast because we talked about it last week and he's been like, frankly just dicking around with like these ideas that he has for like a couple through three years now. And I, I told him I'm like, I need a date and I need going to launch. He, he, he does woodworking and stuff on the side. You know, it's not his main work, but he's trying to do it. So I'm like, go to Etsy, doesn't cost anything and you're going to put one thing on there. I don't care what it is. I don't give a. If it's like, you know, a cutting board or what, whatever, you're putting something on Etsy and make it a price that like you can handle.
[00:12:42.010] - Tony Roig
So it's like, you know, if you got to put a cutting board on there for $800 because that's all it takes you to make it okay. But I'm there for $800. No one buys it. What you do, you know, you just put something on Etsy and nobody bought it. No big deal. You know, but it's, it's interesting, right, how you like you have these delays that are just until everything's perfect, until I know exactly the right number, until I know this. What are we doing? Yeah, you'll figure it out as you go.
[00:13:02.520] - Alec Martone
So you know what, it's that like to your point, it's the, it's the fear of the unknown is really what it comes down to. And what I will say too is like even for myself and a lot of the conversations that we have, usually the barrier is some sort of financial instability. Like that sometimes is a huge barrier. So I don't know what the situation is with your friend with woodworking, but like let's say he has a full time job, full salary, right? That comfort that you currently have, right, Doing the same thing every day makes it really challenging for you to want to go do something else because you have this zone of comfortability. So like stepping outside of this zone of comfortability into the discomfort, that's the time delay we talked about is it's like how long does it take you to step out of the comfort zone and into the discomfort to try and sometimes it takes people years. I said lifetimes.
[00:13:58.130] - Tony Roig
But to your point, and oftentimes, oftentimes they never do. Alec. And that's where you, you know, you're, you're sitting there with like a, you know, end of life, whatever the end of life situation is. Because it's unavoidable, right? You have an end of life situation come up and you're like, oh crap, I wish I had done fill in the blank. And that's, that's, I think is, it's gotta, it's gotta be like the worst feeling, you know, and there's, and there's nothing you can do about it, at least not retroactively. Maybe you get a, you get a new lease on life and you can do something going forward, but you can't ever get those days back, you know, those times back.
[00:14:33.270] - Alec Martone
So, you know, it sounds like, I feel like it's taboo talking about death sometimes because it sounds like so satanic, right?
[00:14:40.590] - Tony Roig
I'm with you, man.
[00:14:42.040] - Alec Martone
But the thing is, like, it is, I don't think there's anything that levels perspective more than understanding that this clock runs out at some point. And that's really why I've had the conversation about being at 85 deaths knocking at your door. What do you want to do? Because I can't think of anything more I'll say inspiring or motivating than that. Right. Especially when you're sitting in that hole and you can't take the first step. Something I want to go back to though, because I want to be very blunt here. Not easy. So like I procrastinate still. So like it, it is not easy to take the first step. Like, I know it kind of seems like I may come across as it being easy. It's one of the hardest things that you're going to do often is to step into that discomfort. Also from a financial standpoint, there's anything that I can give from my personal experience it is to actually, and some people say, like take the huge leap. I would honestly hold the safety blanket while you test and trial. And the reason I'm saying that is because a mistake that I actually made that put us into about like a six month hole that we had to dig out of was I was in that place of comfortability, not able to cross the gap into discomfort.
[00:16:10.810] - Alec Martone
So what I did was I took extreme action and said originally I was going to go part time in my job, which I did. But then I sent an extra extreme action and left it. Did I have a safety blanket of a couple years? Yes, I did. But that goes by way quicker than you think. Way, way quicker than you think those. So if there's anything I can give financially, it is take the discomfort steps first. Identify what the market is looking for. What I mean by that is woodworking example that you brought up. He has no idea what people are willing to pay for his actual woodwork until he posts it. To your point, if it's 800 to the table, someone might buy and goes, holy. And I don't know if I could swear on this podcast, so I apologize. However, he might go, holy crap, someone paid $800 for my table? Well, it's like, now you know that there's value to what you're doing, but
[00:17:11.450] - Tony Roig
you're never gonna know that if you don't. If you don't put it out there. If you don't put it out there. And. And they might go like, oh, my God, this is such a good deal. This is such good quality. And I can't believe I got this for $800. You know, but until you have the. You're putting yourself there. I, I do agree, Alec, that I think, you know, to the extent that, that, you know, particularly if it's bigger picture items, right? On, like, on, like growth and stuff like that, you do have to consider, you know, everything around it. But let's. Let's dive into pickleball for a quick second, Alec, because I want to. I want to talk about. A lot of. A lot of the listeners to this. A lot of the listeners to this podcast are not just, you know, pickleball. You know, they don't mess around pickleball. They're like all in on pickleball, you know, otherwise you don't listen to this podcast. So they're on their own in their own journeys. And I, I like to think about. I like to think about pick. The mental side of pickleball. And I don't.
[00:18:09.990] - Tony Roig
You and I haven't had this conversation, but I like, I just. We just published our book, Pickleball Therapy. The book. So as I was writing the book, you know, I. I think about the mental side of sports in three buckets. So one bucket is the easiest one to think about, is play. So that's like the one you use while you're playing. How to focus, how to stay in the moment. You know, like Ben John's taking as many timeouts every time he's back there. You know, all that, all that. That's all play. Mental. Super important and super helpful to your game. The other one is perspective. That's one. What the book was written on. And that's like the bigger picture, right? That's the bigger, like you and the game and how you interact with it, the other actors in the game and how you interact with them and, you know, how you feel at the End of a session, it's not about, like, the. The particular moments of rallies and stuff. And then the, the third piece, which is the one I want to touch on here, is progress, right? Or improvement. That's a whole. Has its own challenges, right?
[00:19:03.170] - Tony Roig
In terms of, like, you're trying to grow as a player. And so. And so let's talk about that a little bit, because one of the things I think that can be scary for players, right, is like, you know, you. You. You learned a certain way of doing things, right? And so a lot of times when players come to us, they're. They. They want more. And so now they have to perhaps unwind some stuff or, you know, take a couple of steps back, if you will. To me, they're still forward because they're making progress. But, you know, in their minds, they have to, like, undo a couple of things, and it can kind of be scary. So let's talk a little bit, if you can, about, like, failing and this idea of growing in a sport and maybe some. You can talk about some personal things that you've experienced in that. In that world.
[00:19:44.210] - Alec Martone
Yeah. So what I would say first when it comes to progress specifically is that I frame this in my brain, and I've gotten this frame from other athletes, which is basically saying that as you climb in skill level, there are new rooms and doors that you need to open. What I mean by that is when you started as a beginner, everybody is allowed into that room. However, on the next room, there's a door there, there's a barrier for entry. So you need to acquire certain skills to unlock that door. Once you get into the next room, you need to acquire certain skills to get into the next room. The reason I'm getting at that is because when you're trying to find the key to each of those doors, you don't know what the key is. So therefore, the only way to find it is to take action in acquiring skills, right? So in order to gain progress, start somewhere on that first action, right? There's anything that I could advise. It's asking questions to people around you. Meaning, like, be curious, going with an open mindset. Be curious, ask questions to people around you that are already doing it.
[00:21:00.020] - Alec Martone
So therefore, you can now know what to go and work on. Okay, let me go work on this. So, for example, let's talk. If we talk about pickleball, one on one, one on one, and you go right to the serve, it's like, first off, everybody wants to get the serve into the box, and then it's like, okay, how can I be more accurate with my serve? Simple framework is like pick a target on the court, right? Pick a little small cone on the court. When someone first hears that, they're like, oh my God, I've never done that before. And like oh my God, I'm more accurate, right? Picking a spot on the court. So you're only acquiring that information by being curious and asking those questions. So if there's a summary in this entire thing of what you asked me on progress, it's curiosity is the number one thing that you can have. And each one of those rooms, when you get into them is now new curiosity. You are no longer the expert, so you need to have curiosity into the next room. So let's say the first door is 3, the second door is 4o, the third door is 5o.
[00:22:00.290] - Alec Martone
And there's in betweens, right? I would say there's more in between. In between like 40 to 45 and then 45 to 50 and so on and so forth. But there is still a little bit of a gap too between like 3, 035 to 4, 0 as well. So each one of those stores we need to be curious. However, there's a caveat here that I think is really the kicker, which is I also encourage people to answer questions of others and I think that is overlooked. And I get this from a coaching standpoint, as you probably know, Tony too is it's like you may be struggling with something yourself and you're like, I don't know what the freak it is, meaning like you're running through your brain on what might be doing wrong technically or strategically. And then you go and coach a player on it in your pickleball one on one class or your 30 class, your 3O clinic. And you're like, oh my God, that's what I'm missing. So the reason that I say that is not only have the lens of curiosity, meaning asking people who are doing what you're currently want to do, asking them the questions, just being curious on the back end side of things.
[00:23:07.300] - Alec Martone
It's when people ask you those same questions, answer them, right, answer them knowing from the standpoint that you're doubling down on your fundamentals by you having to learn and explain them, you're going to get better as a player. It's not like this player is not good enough to have this conversation with, right? It is saying to the fact of like I am physically going to get better as a player by sharing this information with somebody else who's also curious and one day down the line. That might pay off more for you than you think. And here's where I'll give the last piece of this, and then I'll let you ask me again. If you need me. To kind of chime in differently is like, there may come a point where that player grows quicker than you do, and by establishing that relationship early, they're going to allow you into the next room, because that happens often. Meaning, like, as you're growing, the player that was originally a 30 is now a 4 5, and you're stuck at 4o. You already built that relationship early on, so guess what happens? You want to get to four or five, they're now going to invite you to play.
[00:24:12.360] - Alec Martone
But that all starts with the early investment. And I think that is really overlooked when it comes to progressing in pickleball.
[00:24:17.960] - Tony Roig
Yeah, I agree with you. I think, you know, it's interesting. You said about, you know, you're like as the. As the player answering the other player's question, you gain something too, because in our coaching, in our camps and things like that, we always. We have, you know, cooper, cooperative play sessions, right, where we're. I mean, they're trying to win the rally, but at the end of the rally, the idea is, okay, well, why don't you share with your opponents what you saw that they did that they could have done better, right? Did they help you out of the shot? They hit a short four shot that brought you forward so you're able to attack or whatever, you know, excuse me, things like that. So. And the key to them is, like, one, it's good, kind of nice to do anyway. But number two, if you see it, like, the better you see it, the better you can exploit it in the future, right? If you. If you're able to see that, oh, I see what's happening here, then, you know, the better you're able to read the story that's being told on the pickleball court, the better you're going to play.
[00:25:09.850] - Tony Roig
Uh, and the other thing is, I think, you know, the idea of the rooms is an interesting way of doing it, putting it. I'm gonna have to give that some thought and maybe see if I can bring that into some of my coaching. But. But the idea is of. Of, you know, like, if. If you're not willing. If you're not willing to answer, you know, the other players questions, then why would I be willing to answer your question? You know, if we live in a world of, like, I. I'm the one who gets to ask questions, but not answer questions. It's the same thing, you know, we do the same thing with play up, play down kind of idea, you know, because players don't want to play with players who are quote, unquote, below them. And I'm like, well, then why would I play with you? You want to play with me, right? I assume so. If you want to play with me. I'm not playing with you. Because you don't. Apparently. I don't play with players below me. Right. Neither do you. So we're all in the same boat, which is. It's an interesting way of looking at things.
[00:25:56.020] - Tony Roig
Right. You know, so I am actually so
[00:25:57.820] - Alec Martone
happy you brought that up because I feel like that's another thing that I've learned and I feel like a lot of players struggle with, especially when it comes to tournaments, is like three different skills are especially mentally from playing an opponent that you feel like is worse than skill level, playing an opponent that's at your skill level and playing an opponent that is above your skill level. The mindset is completely different for all three of those. So to your point, once again, you are becoming a better player by having those practice sessions with the group that you think is a bump below your skill level. Because now you're learning how to win those games, which is completely different than you playing at your skill level or above. If I were to go into more detail, if I'm a 45 and I'm playing down to 4 0, the points are a lot more chaotic, right? Not as much structure, a lot more chaotic. So what can you do to put the ball in your court? A lot of it is bringing a little bit more structure to the game, right. Making the other team uncomfortable. They're used to playing more chaotic, a lot less dinking involved.
[00:27:15.810] - Alec Martone
Now what you can do is you bring structure to the game, force them to be more structured, put them into their discomfort zone.
[00:27:24.210] - Tony Roig
Bum.
[00:27:24.730] - Alec Martone
No going into 4 5, where, let's say that is the level that I'm at now. The mindset is like, okay, we are all the same skill level. What's the difference maker? What do I need to look for? This is where some strategy comes into play that I. You've. You talk about all the time. You're so good at breaking down matches. And it's like, what's the strategy involved? Or like, what are the weaknesses of the other team? But like, what are my strengths too? Like, are my strengths better than their weaknesses?
[00:27:54.970] - Tony Roig
Right.
[00:27:55.250] - Alec Martone
But like, that frame is different. Is. It's not like I'm always identifying like If I go back down to the level below at 4 0, it's not as complicated as a recipe as you may actually think. But if you go in there and just try and blast balls away with them, they're used to playing that game.
[00:28:15.450] - Tony Roig
You're kind of giving up. You're giving up your advantage, basically. So, like you're giving up your control. You may win. But why, why take a 65, 35 proposition and a 52, 48 proposition when you don't have to, you know, I
[00:28:26.470] - Alec Martone
mean, so absolutely, you're making it. You're making the odds like the, the randomness to the game is not in your favor. Right. You're making it very, very close. Now then, if we're going up in skill level 50 position, I love being in right. A lot of people love being the underdog. However, not everybody loves that mindset. Some people love the reverse of being like the better opponent. So that varies person to person. But let's say the underdog mindset, like you now have to very strategically think. I am currently playing somebody that has more skill than I do. How can I put the odds as close in my favor as possible? They're probably not going to get to a point where they're where I'm favorite in this match. But how can I maximize my chances
[00:29:18.050] - Tony Roig
of winning, go from a 22, 22 dog to a 30 dog? Better. Better 30 than a 22. So.
[00:29:23.800] - Alec Martone
Yeah, exactly. So then like it's strategically thinking through that. So like each room that you go into, the thought process is a little bit different. Long story short, it's a skill to play somebody below your skill level at it and above. I encourage people to play at all levels. I'm not saying go play with 4 O's every single day if you are a 5 0, but you should be playing every so often down a skill level to keep hanging on to that skill and challenging yourself to think through. How can I still win these games even though there's a lot of chaos and randomness to it? Can I bring structure to them?
[00:29:57.800] - Tony Roig
And you can also. I mean, the other thing we always say is you can also work on other parts of your game. Like, you know, I, I'll sometimes play some open play out there and I'll just play a lot of soft game, a lot of trying to reset, just trying to like stuff that I don't in a right, you know, against my guys that I play with and gals that I play with. I'm, you know, you, you like you, you go up hot I'm going hot back. We're gonna.
[00:30:16.500] - Alec Martone
Right.
[00:30:16.700] - Tony Roig
But you know, when I'm on and I pull a lot and I do a lot of stuff like that, but when I play an open play session, I'm much more chill, much more resetty, much more, you know, and I work on some dink concepts, move the ball around, try and stay alive, you know, which then it translates. I'm going to tell you one more thing and then I want you to, I'm. Let me tee up the question and I'm going to share something with you and then we're gonna, we're gonna give the, the, the everybody how to connect with fail. First, I want you to think about one other piece if you can alec something you haven't shared yet that you, you know, like. Again, our listeners primarily is going to be, generally it's going to be a player that's probably, you know, not spring chickens anymore. You know what I mean? So maybe retired, maybe close retirement, stuff like that. And they're all, most of them are looking to grow in the sport to feel better about the sport. So I'm going to tee you up in a second. But one thing that I've noticed recently is I've been, I've been studying a lot of US Open content in the 35 world because I think that's a nice area to, to look at in terms like what's going on, what works, what doesn't work.
[00:31:14.200] - Tony Roig
And I have a video coming out that's basically gonna like, basically just Forget about the third shot drop until you're a 4 0, because it's not really important part of the game. And I can show you the numbers. But what's interesting is I'm looking at, I'm watching these matches, right? And I'm, you know, I'm eyeballing some of these players and I'm like, three five. Really? You're three five? I'm like, all right, so then it's not hard to do. I just look up like the names of the players and then I go, okay, what does Duper say about the match? And I'm like, I got one player, four four. This is three five, four four. And I got another player according to Duper's four nine. Now, no offense to this player, he's not a four nine, but he ain't a three five either. And the four four might be closer to like a four one, you know, in terms of my eyeballing it, but ain't no 3 5. And I'm just like, it's crazy man. How players will just basically play down but we don't have to touch on that one. I just wanted to share with you because you mentioned that the thing.
[00:32:06.910] - Tony Roig
But so one message if you have it, Alec or something to be in touch on or something you want to expand on that might help a player out there who, let's say they're 3, 5, you know, trying to get to 37 or 4 0, trying to get the 41 or whatever, you know, beginner trying to get to wherever they want to get to or however you want to frame it. Someone who wants to feel better about their engagement with this beautiful sport of pickleball. Some kind of parting words that you might have to share with them.
[00:32:30.290] - Alec Martone
Yeah, I have something that completely change the way I go about playing games. And the reason I'm saying that is because I still just like everybody else gets nervous in the games you play, I still underperform, I still over perform. However, there is something that completely changed the way that I think about matches and I'm going to give it to you right now. Okay. When you think about playing a game, pickleball is a game of problem solving. So realistically, regardless of the score, I like to think of it as a time clock, meaning the time is to 11. I did not necessarily lose the match. I just ran out of time while I was problem solving through this game. So the best thing that I feel like you could do as a player is problem solve the entire match and unfortunately you eventually run out of time. So it's not associated to winning and losing is the fact of I just couldn't find the solution before the clock got to zero. That is one of the best frameworks I can use and give away during every game that you play because you're no longer focused on winning and beating somebody you should or losing to someone you shouldn't.
[00:33:51.170] - Alec Martone
It is about I am looking for the recipe and the solution to the problem in front of me and sometimes the clock just runs out before I find it.
[00:34:02.180] - Tony Roig
I love it. I love it. Yeah, I love that idea. The problem solving and. Yeah. And coming at it as it's a challenging game and you know, we, we tell our players all the time we're like, pickleball is supposed to be challenging. If it wasn't challenging, you wouldn't come back, you wouldn't play it. Because the whole point of it is the variables change who you're playing against, how you're feeling that day, you know, the wind condition, whatever. I mean there's, there's A bunch of variables that come into the game and, and being able to navigate those in real time is beautiful. Alec, if players out there want to follow you, we talked earlier, Instagram is probably a good entry point you had mentioned. So how can they find you on Instagram?
[00:34:37.920] - Alec Martone
Yeah, so really across all platforms. It's just it would be at Fail First Podcast, whether that is Instagram, YouTube, TikTok or we started to release some mindset work on, on X as well or Twitter. But main thing that we post everything to is Instagram. So if you want to be up to date with the latest stuff, it's at Fail First Podcast on Instagram so you can keep up with us.
[00:35:01.250] - Tony Roig
Is it first the number 1st or is it first written out?
[00:35:05.250] - Alec Martone
Oh, all written out. So be at Fail F a I l 1st f I r S T Podcast Phil at all spelled out and
[00:35:17.040] - Tony Roig
we'll put that in the show notes. Alec, it was a pleasure spending this time with you. Really appreciate you giving up your time to our players and sharing your personal story. I think it's always helpful to hear you know that other players have their own journeys, their own struggles, their own ups and downs. And that's a normal thing for anybody listening and for sharing some of the principles that you've been studying and developing with the neuroscientists and players and other folks that you've talked to and appreciate everything you're doing. Alec, not just for pickleball, but for, you know, for society at large to help us continue to grow as humans and understanding that failing is just a part of the deal. Anybody out there listening, follow Alec on Fail First Podcast, Instagram, anywhere else. And Alec, they can also find you. The Fail first podcast is a podcast so they can look for the podcast wherever they're listening to this podcast, you can type in Fail first, go there and listen to Alec with his teachings. Alec, really appreciate, appreciate your time today.
[00:36:12.820] - Alec Martone
Tony, I just want to take a minute to say thank you. I mean this is, these are the conversations that I love having. Really diving in to two pieces, right? It's, it's the vulnerability about failure. It's not easy to talk about and the transparency behind it. But also like I'm also a pickleball junkie studying this game, like all of us. And there's something so cool about this game that brings so many people together, diversity across the entire board, accessibility as well as age. So I'm very thankful for it and I'm very thankful that we got to have this conversation today. So thank you, Tony.
[00:36:50.330] - Tony Roig
Thanks Alec and we'll see you. This is a special episode. We'll see. This Friday, a regular episode of Pickleball Theory. Everybody out there, be well.