SPEAKER_03: 0:00

Hi, I'm Shelly Mauer. And I'm Cher Emmerich. Welcome to Life Lessons from Pickleball, where we engage with pickleball players from around the world about life on and off the court. Thanks for joining us. So Shelly, you and I recorded an entire episode with Lorraine Schneider, but instead of introducing her to our viewers and our listeners, we just jumped right into a conversation and realized the entire episode we never said her full name, Lorraine Schneider. So I'm saying it now, and it was really a lot of fun talking with her.

SPEAKER_00: 0:39

It was a really fun conversation, and I know everyone's going to enjoy it.

SPEAKER_03: 0:44

So enjoy, everyone. So I think it's great that you guys are doing

SPEAKER_00: 0:48

this. Well, I think it's fun just like meeting you, like just chatting with you. It's going to be so fun. And that I know that's what I love about this podcasting.

UNKNOWN: 0:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 0:57

Yeah. So it's interesting. So Cher and I, we play pickleball together and we got to know each other through pickleball and we started looking around, noticing all the joy and and the community and then we started really thinking about like the life lessons we were getting from pickleball so that's what really got us started thinking we wanted to do this podcast and so i was googling around seeing what other people on the internet said about life lessons and that's where i came across your medium article i thought that was so awesome let me let me what's that what was the title three everyday lessons i learned as a pickleball aficionado and i thought i've got to meet this pickleball aficionado awesome so Tell us about you and what inspired you to write the article about pickleball. Yeah. So up

SPEAKER_01: 1:49

until last week, I lived in Los Angeles for the last 10 years, very close to Santa Monica. And I was working from home for... I started working from home in 2020, like most people. And... I was also playing softball at the time for several years, and one day a friend of mine from softball showed me that next to our softball field there were some tennis courts, and I always heard the noise, but I never... inquired to see what the noise was about. And then he told me to come along and brought me over to pickleball. And that was my first time going. And that kind of opened up a whole new chapter of my life, I felt. And I became really addicted to pickleball, started playing very intensely. And that was January of 2022 that I started.

SPEAKER_00: 2:49

And I loved in the article where you said the three things that you really got from pickleball. Do you remember? Yeah,

SPEAKER_01: 3:00

I do. So I think the first one was patience is virtue, which is a virtue, which was a good reminder of– I think we feel that– Well, generally, I'm not the most patient person in life in general. I like things to move fast and everything is scheduled to the T on my schedule. But at Pickleball, it's all about slow pace and the precision of the game and how you feel internally about is reflected onto the court as well. I know I've realized that when I would come to pickleball after work and I was amped up after the day, or there was just like a lot going on and I just wanted an outlet. If I brought that heightened level of energy to the court, it didn't always serve me well. It was better to slow down a little bit and calm my mind. and it's at the same time too when I started playing pickleball that I started getting into meditation and that helped my game quite a bit actually of just calming my body, calming my mind and yeah just playing with more intention and I've noticed recently where I have not meditated as much as I used to. And I started realizing, oh, this is something I should go back to because I can see the other day I was playing and I just had so much energy and I was not playing my best game because the balls were going out of bounds and it was just not my best performance. So I was very aware of that. So I remember that being one of the topics I discussed in the article that I wrote. And another one was about feedback and constructive criticism. That was fantastic. Yes. So how to receive and to give feedback. which is something that we all do in our lives in our daily lives whether it's at home at work and especially when you start out at pickleball you you're just learning the game so you need the support of other people you need the help the mentorship and some people are very good at giving and receiving criticism and others, not so much. And so, yeah, so I, thankfully I feel like generally too, in my, in my work life, I'm very open to constructive criticism because I just think that's a good way to learn and grow. And so always open to people who, who will share techniques and, and be open about that. And my friend group, we have a, a friend, her name is Karen and we call her coach K because anytime we play, she's the one to give pointers to every person playing. And some of us really like it. And some of us, it stresses other people out, but I, I really like it. And then the third lesson that I shared, I'm trying to remember what that one was. Oh, I think it was about the energy that you bring to the, the energy you bring and how it rubs off on people. And that might be the biggest lesson of them all for me personally. I, I, I started playing in tournaments a few months into playing pickleball. And I ended up having a regular mixed doubles partner and a regular women's doubles partner. And the people that I ended up pairing with, it was a very intentional decision of playing with them in tournaments. I wanted for it to be someone who is... who wants to win, who definitely has an appetite for competition, but who also doesn't take it too seriously and who doesn't get too much in their head and who doesn't let their emotions run wild at a tournament because that's not fun for them, it's not fun for you as a partner and it's not fun for the other participants around. And I learned a ton with those partners that I've had over the last couple of years. And it's that team chemistry. And there was one tournament where we did so well in both categories. We medaled. And then less than a month later, with my mixed doubles partner alan we went to another tournament and we ended up losing every single game at that tournament even though we had just meddled you know four weeks before and it was the same level and every single game we lost and it was of course like not you know not what we hoped for but I actually really cherish that experience because of how we went through it together where we didn't get upset at each other. We stayed calm. We still tried to give our best, even though clearly our best was not very good that day. And after it all wrapped up, our wives were there and had been cheering for us. And we just went to go get tacos. And then we went to the batting cages, actually, and hit a little bit at the batting cages. So that was fun.

SPEAKER_03: 9:16

Good way to

SPEAKER_00: 9:18

get that energy out. Yeah, I just finished a tournament this past weekend. And I just really agree with everything you said. And we had, we finished second before medal play, but then ended up not getting a medal. And it's like what you say, it's really what we focus on grows. So, right, when you focused on how you cherish the experience, like all the positive things, it really, and that's something we can take into life, right? It's just, we really need to focus on, I had to keep focusing on, but we were second before the medal round, or, you know, we, you know, focus on all the things that we did really well and positive, you know, like you were talking about and how that's really something we take into life. We should take into life too, right?

SPEAKER_03: 10:03

Yeah, absolutely.

UNKNOWN: 10:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 10:04

And speaking of life, Lorraine, we are absolutely fascinated by your career. I mean, all the... So you are the chief operating officer for the Resiliency Initiative, which is a crisis management and business continuity consulting firm, which is a lot of words. And you've... made your way to this position, but you've been in crisis management for a long time. And before you talk about the career that you have, was there something in your life that made you interested in crisis in particular? Because it's such an important transition in a person in the world right now. My gosh, we need you badly. But what happened in your life, if anything, that really inspired you to pursue that?

SPEAKER_01: 11:00

Yeah, crisis management is quite a unique field. Not a lot of people are aware that crisis or emergency managers exist. And it's a field that I was actually... I wasn't aware of until I stumbled into it. So I grew up in Europe. I'm French-German, and I studied abroad at UCLA during my undergraduate years and was really keen on finding a way to stay here in the U.S., finding something that is aligned with my career aspirations. And at the time, I thought I wanted to get more into the security and defense space. But then I came across UCLA Extension's program in emergency management and homeland security, and that piqued my interest. And so I signed up for it, not really realizing what it is that I was getting myself into, because I understood more of the homeland security, the anti-terrorism aspect of things. But then my first class ever was a three-hour lecture on seismology. And... Wait, wait.

SPEAKER_03: 12:08

Seismology? Is that like earthquake?

SPEAKER_01: 12:11

Yes. Earthquake science. And... At that point, I'd lived in Los Angeles for a year. I'd never felt, I hadn't felt an earthquake during that time. No one, when I arrived at the university, had told me what to do in case of an earthquake. So for me, earthquakes were something that I remembered seeing in the news for the Haiti earthquake, or I remember the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, like those hugely devastating disasters. But to me, they were happening far away and just, I hadn't even really thought about them occurring here in the US. And so that evening class, I was just completely taken aback and I actually went home crying that night thinking, what did I get myself into? This is not at all what I pictured my degree to be in. And within just a few weeks, I actually ended up falling in love with the subject matter. because it's just a way to serve your communities, whether you work for government on the local level or for a Native American tribe or the federal government, or you work for a private company and are in support of keeping the employees and the guests and clients safe. And so very quickly, I... I started to see the huge benefit of working in this field, and it's been a pleasure ever since to help people in their greatest time of need, whether that's post-earthquake or hurricane or the pandemic, of course, cybersecurity events. We really use an all-hazards approach, so we focus on all kinds of disasters.

SPEAKER_03: 14:02

So would you say that your life... kind of is at a level of adrenaline most of the time.

SPEAKER_01: 14:10

So the vast majority of our days are spent planning for these catastrophes to happen. So during those, what we call blue sky days, when things are okay, we do a lot of planning, a lot of meeting with stakeholders, making sure we think through all possible scenarios of things that could happen and bring the people together who would be essential in facilitating a response. So it can be people from who have logistical capabilities, people who can get people from A to Z, so transportation. When we had the pandemic, we had lots of places set up, medical points of dispensing, where we had vaccination sites. So all these things get planned year round. And that's most of what we do. We create these plans and then we train people on those plans. And then my favorite piece about the work that I do is running exercises where we put people in scenarios and we tell them, hey, this event is going on. What would you do in your role as the CEO or as the chief security officer? And yeah, we let them play with the scenario and run with it in the hopes that when the real deal happens, they've already built that muscle memory. and can execute. So it's not always high level stress, but it is a lot of thinking about worst case scenarios day in and day out.

SPEAKER_03: 15:47

Wow. Well, first, thank you very much for doing what you do, because you're the ones that we always rely on when those unexpected things happen, like, oh, there's an earthquake. And I've been in a few, and thank you very much for what you do. But Shelly and I were talking about how your work is so similar kind of to the court, being on the court. Shelly, you had some really interesting insights.

SPEAKER_00: 16:12

Yeah. Well, first, I... Lauren also writes her futuristic. What do you call, what is that platform? That was the first time I'd ever seen it where you're futuristic. What's it called? It's called Substack. Substack. Yes. So she has on Substack, she has her futuristic is what you call, what is that called? Your album or what is that? It's It's

SPEAKER_01: 16:36

a monthly newsletter called Future Risk, where I talk about crisis management and international relations and climate change. So three topics that I'm very interested in and kind of the nexus of the three of them together.

SPEAKER_00: 16:54

Yes. And I read them and they're, they're so interesting. And so when you were talking about like letting meditation go, or when Shara was talking about the adrenaline, I was, you know, one of your articles talks about the big five that are coming up or like, you're so in tune to all of the potential things that could happen that how do you deal with that? Like just meditation, you're able to let it go more thinking about being in the present moment. What,

SPEAKER_01: 17:24

Um, so meditation helped pickleball help. I mean, pickleball was really came at a time where I really needed it. We, I was working from home, like most people for a long time and the social, and I liked working from home, but, and I still do, but there's an element of social connection that you just miss and And pickleball was instrumental in helping me regain that social connection and building a whole new friend group through pickleball. So that was great. And at the time, too, I was actually going to therapy because I think because of the line of work that I was in. Good for you. And the... losing loved ones during the pandemic and such, I developed this intense fear of dying. And so much so that I would get panic attacks about it. And so I went to therapy for several months to try to address that. And I was building my toolkit so that in case I could feel myself getting back into that thinking and going down the rabbit hole of picturing myself dying or a close person in my life dying, I can come back from that. And pickleball was very helpful in that. Meditation was very helpful in that. These were really the things where I really changed a lot of things about how I set up my daily life with habits as well. And now I can... probably say that since then. I haven't had any panic attacks about it. And yeah, I should be doing a better job of meditating again more regularly. It's true for

SPEAKER_03: 19:27

all of us.

SPEAKER_01: 19:28

Yeah, you go through some periods in life where everything matches and then you start traveling and your whole routine gets off track and it's hard to come back. But that was really big. And the pickleball too, it was really fantastic. What I find really fantastic about it is the ability to be outside, especially in LA where, you know, I was playing. You can play play year-round outside. And so you're out, you're out, you're breathing fresh air, you have a blue sky most of the time. And then you're also surrounded by people and surrounded by people with a shared passion. And that builds community. And there's nothing better than that.

SPEAKER_00: 20:14

Right. And I just love how we meet such diverse people from all walks of life that we wouldn't meet any other way. It's just... Yeah,

SPEAKER_01: 20:23

absolutely. That was another thing that I loved is just being able to play with people of all kinds of ages, had me interact with people significantly older than I am, who I rarely would otherwise interact with. Recently, I've seen more young people like 10-year-olds play and play really well and competitively, where I'm just jealous that Pickleball was not there when I was their age, or I didn't know about it, or I could have gotten a head start. But yeah, that is a big factor of driving community as well, is just interacting with people who you otherwise would not get to meet.

SPEAKER_03: 21:04

Yeah. Which actually happens in a crisis usually too. People come together in a crisis that we would never think to communicate with or get to know, but everybody kind of comes together. in the right circumstances. Everybody comes together and you discover all kinds of new relationships that you didn't have before the crisis. So yeah, that maybe is the one rainbow of a crisis. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01: 21:31

Yeah, no, that is true. It definitely drives that human connection. That's a very good point.

SPEAKER_00: 21:37

The other one is identifying the issues. something that is really important when we're in a tournament or even playing in a game, trying to figure out what the issues are. And I can imagine in crisis management, that's very important.

SPEAKER_01: 21:55

Yeah, you have common pitfalls that we're aware of that a lot of organizations, whether it's governments or private sector entities, fall into. And being able to see those coming and putting your best foot forward to prevent those from happening is key.

SPEAKER_03: 22:15

Yeah. And you were saying in your tournament that you'd meddled and then you played again the mixed doubles and you weren't winning any games. And so it's that, okay, what shifted? What do you think did shift that time? What was different? I tried

SPEAKER_01: 22:33

thinking about that, what was really different, if it was just the level of competition was higher. Yeah. if our bodies just physically were just not as well prepared. And I think it must have been a combination of multiple things at once. It was sad that we could not come back for any game and that it just... wasn't in our cards that day but that was another piece of how it connects to crisis management is that resilience building that obviously it's fun to win but it's you have to go through these tough times and you it makes you come back stronger you adapt and I think it fortified our connection as teammates. And the fact that we handled something that was so bad so well to me was a very big positive.

SPEAKER_00: 23:39

Huge.

SPEAKER_03: 23:40

That's huge. That's huge. That's that personal integrity, personal sense of self. The win wasn't what you identified with as much as

SPEAKER_01: 23:52

who you are.

UNKNOWN: 23:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 23:53

And I think pickleball to me is really an outlet to have fun. I do get competitive and I love playing in tournaments, but at the end of the day, it's important that I keep something in my life that is really just for me and to play because I am very passionate about my career. I have a lot of extracurricular activities that involve sports. And that is the one pickleball is the one area in life where I like to just fully disconnect and just be present on the court and just have fun with the people I'm with. And so that's another neat thing about it.

SPEAKER_03: 24:36

And the stakes are not high. Correct. Like we are in your job. Yes.

SPEAKER_01: 24:43

Lines are not on the line. Thank

SPEAKER_00: 24:47

goodness. Another one is making a plan, which is the most important thing in crisis management, right? That we all have a plan.

SPEAKER_01: 24:55

Correct. That is, if you think about, if you put your The biggest thing we say about planning is it's not about having an actual plan, an actual document or a three ring binder that you're going to go open when that earthquake hits. It's the motion of preparing yourself mentally for things to happen, because just by thinking about it, thinking, you know, what resources do I have available? Do I have my spouse's phone number saved in my head in case my cell phone dies? in an emergency, like knowing these things is going to help you feel more at ease once the real emergency happens. And so it's similar to pickleball where you're planning your moves, you're planning your strategy based on how you work as a team, if one of you is a lefty, or if you look at your opponents and one of them is a lefty, then you might kind of like switch your strategy. So you combine a lot of those things together.

SPEAKER_00: 26:00

That's interesting that you say it's not about the three ring binder, because when I used to work at my school or even at home, you know, we'd have all these detailed instructions and I would always worry that I wouldn't be able to follow all those. And I was so focused on those instead of what you said, just really, thinking about what resources I do have and not worry about every line in that three ring binder. I really like that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 26:27

Yeah. And that's also where the training element comes in of having, making sure that we train our employees on how, emergency preparedness because we know when something bad happens and let's say we mentioned schools right and right now the epidemic in schools are active shooter incidents and when that happens you hear gunshots you're not going to be looking at your at your plants you're going to have those natural instincts that kick in and lots most schools these days go through these drills and that's to build this muscle memory and know where you're supposed to go what you're supposed to to do what you're not supposed to do. And so training folks on that. And there is no perfect crisis response. And every situation is different, right? No disaster, no earthquake, no active shooter event, no hurricane is exactly the same. And so you're going to need to adapt your response based on what's happening in front of you.

SPEAKER_03: 27:36

I like that too. Just to add to that, the the reason we do drills in pickleball is to get that muscle memory. And, but because we don't know what the opponent is going to do, we have to be ready for all the variety of options as it's coming, but we've had the drills and you were saying that you do practice also in communities and you make sure that the communities are, have a sense of preparedness for what might come their way in your job. And it's very internal and, We think of pickleball as a very external, because gosh, it's so fun to hit the ding dang ball as hard as you can and pass the other person if possible. But it's that all of the pieces coming together when we are prepared. That's how we can have more success.

SPEAKER_00: 28:31

That was my last one. The better we understand something, the better we make decisions or the better decisions we make, right? There you go. And that's just what you were saying, Lorraine. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 28:43

Yeah. And if I can add another comparison to my day job, one of the most common pitfall in any crisis response is communication. If you read any after action report from pick any disaster that happened in the US in the last 15 years, and is one of the top takeaways, you're going to see that communication could have been better. And I think that's just a human condition that we as people are not very good at communicating with one another. And It can create chaos. It can lead to bad decision-making. It can lead to a lot of things. And I think it's the same thing in pickleball as well, where there's a... I know as soon as I play with someone new that it takes a couple of games to kind of get into a groove because we don't know exactly, okay, with my typical partner, I go a bit more into their space or I take these shots. I know their strengths and weaknesses and so we pair them up. And so I think that's another good way of comparing the two.

SPEAKER_03: 30:04

You're a terrific writer. Have you thought about or have you written a book or thought about writing a

SPEAKER_01: 30:09

book? I've thought about writing a book. So thank you for saying that, because that is encouraging to hear. I have thought about writing a book on crisis management. So it's... and deep thinking process. I'm glad. I'm glad about that.

SPEAKER_03: 30:32

Well, Lorraine, tell us how we can let our audience know how to find you and your writings. So you can find

SPEAKER_01: 30:41

me on LinkedIn is the best place. Lorraine Schneider on LinkedIn with the Resiliency Initiative. Feel free to follow me, reach out to me, like send me a connection request and let me know that you found me through LinkedIn. this podcast. And you can also follow my writing, Futurisk on Substack, which is linked on my LinkedIn as well. So you can find it there as well. But yeah, it'd be great to hear from all of you and expand on that pickleball community. Brilliant.

SPEAKER_03: 31:15

Well, thank you, Lorraine. You're just, it's very heartwarming to know that you and all of your team are doing preparing for us. And we are so grateful that you are doing the work you're doing. There is so much crisis in the world. And it's so nice that Pickleball brings so much joy in the midst of all that's going on in life. And I'm glad that you found that as well. And thank you so much for being our guest on this show. Thank you, Cher. Thank you, Shelley. Really

SPEAKER_01: 31:49

enjoyed speaking with the both of you.

SPEAKER_03: 31:52

And we loved having all of our viewers and listeners listening to Life Lessons from Pickleball. And we look forward to our conversation next week. Bye, everyone.

SPEAKER_00: 32:04

If you love what we're doing, please follow us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and wherever you get your podcasts. And we'd

SPEAKER_03: 32:12

love a five-star rating. Thanks so much.