Life Lessons From Pickleball Player Julie

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Hi, I'm Shelley Maurer. And I'm Cher Emrick. 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.

SPEAKER_01 0:16

Hi, everyone, and welcome to Life Lessons from Pickleball. We are so excited to have the wonderful Julie Billett as our guest today. Julie, you are an avid pickleball player and a real estate professional. Yes, I would say yes to both of those.

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You've been a Seattle area resident for the past 30 years, and you're an expert in your local real estate market. You're one of the top-selling agents in the area, and you've been voted in consecutive years the five-star real estate agent by Seattle Magazine.

SPEAKER_01 0:53

Congratulations on that, by the way, my dear. Thank you. Thank you. And you're not only an avid player, but so is your family, your husband, adult kids, their spouses, and your son, Nate, is even a high-level player, clearly a family affair. Yes, for sure. I noticed, Sherry, that you put Kurt in the first line in that sentence. litany of people in my family. He would be the most reluctant, but he still plays.

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He's a good

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sport. He's a good sport. Okay. Do I have to? Okay. But yes, it was really fun. We all play and we just have so much fun. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_02 1:34

Well, Julie, I just thank you for being on the podcast and welcome today. You're the reason I'm playing pickleball. Julie's is actually the reason that I'm an athlete at all. I remember when I moved into the neighborhood and I met Julie and I would see her running down the road and I just, she made me so curious about Running. And before I knew it, I was right next to her running with Julie because she's just that way. She just includes everyone. And she's just such a wonderful person. And then. Oh.

SPEAKER_01 2:10

Can I start over again? No, Shelly, these tears are real. And I mean, she totally influenced you in so many ways. Julie, we're talking about you like you're not even here, but you are here and you're the reason.

SPEAKER_02 2:25

She's the reason that I am an athlete. And so the first we were running together and the next thing I knew, Julie had me in the aerobic studio. Then she was teaching spinning classes and had me on that spinning bike. And the biggest shock of all was one day she came to me and said, you know, Shelly, we're going to start doing triathlons. And I'm like, oh, oh, we are. Well, the only problem is I don't know how to swim, Julie. Well, we'll take care of that. And before I knew it, she had me down at the swimming pool. At 5.30 in the morning. I'm not a morning person. In the cold pool, swimming, learning how to swim.

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I remember, Shelly, we both had the float belts on. It wasn't just you not moving forward. I'm right there with you. Yeah, we

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had our float belts on, but we did it. We did a few triathlons together. That was amazing. And so when Julie told me I had to try pickleball, I had to. And here I am about a year and a half later, and it's my passion.

SPEAKER_01 3:29

I knew she would love it. I knew she would love it. I knew she would be good at it. And she is. And she is. I'll say she is. But how did you even get introduced to it, Julie? Well, I think as long ago as high school, I think it was a unit. Now I'm... not a spring chicken. And it was around, I think we had a unit in our PE in high school. But then, so I've hit the ball around a few times over the years. And when we bought this current house, which we've lived here since 06, it had a slab of concrete. We fashioned a net across it. My son, he did that with a little contraption on the side of the garage. And we would play, nothing fancy. But I would, being in real estate for the last 19 years, I've been pretty busy. It's a busy job. And I would go down to what's now Woodinville Sports Club at the time, Gold Creek for Shelly and all of us for so long. And I would look at, watch these people playing pickleball. And I think, oh my goodness, look at this group of people. And having played tennis before, Before I got into real estate, oh, I loved playing tennis with the team and the other women and the cup and the USDA team. And so that got put aside when real estate came along. And I would go by and watch these people. In fact, one day I was watching and this guy came up to me and said, hey, you want to join in? I go, oh, sorry, I can't right now. And anyway, it was very welcoming. But I knew I am going to jump in one of these days. So About two and a half years ago, I decided to jump in and I went to one of those open plays. So that's how it all got started. Wow. In just two and a half years and now you are so freaking good at this game. Oh, I don't know about that. Oh, you are. You are incredible. So here's an interesting point. We did this conversation with you. We recorded an episode with you early on when we were first doing episodes, and we loved our conversation with you. And then when it was all over, I said, okay, I'm going to stop recording. And it turned out I hadn't even started the recording.

UNKNOWN 5:57

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 5:58

And so we lost that beautiful, wonderful conversation. I was mortified. But it turns out, Julie, I think the universe is at work because a lot has changed since we had that conversation with you. And you are kindly willing to share that change that's going on in your life because we know how inspiring your story can be. So can you share with us what has changed so much since that last fun conversation? conversation. Yes. Thank you, Cher. So I know the exact date. It's like life changed. I'll just compose myself here a moment. So April 15th, I had a callback mammogram because something they had spotted on the regular yearly mammogram. So It was that time that then I was told by the radiologist, after looking at the ultrasound, you have breast cancer. And so I looked around, I said, me? Like, are you talking to that person behind me? You know, all of that kind of, whoa, so shocking. And, you know, suddenly life is different. So... In one minute, your life. Your life just turns on a dime, as we say. And so now I have a new journey. But I'm trying to live my life. Excuse me, let me get a sip of water. Sure. And it turns out even that your cancer is aggressive. Yes. So there's a few different kinds of breast cancer. And even though My background is nursing and healthcare. I didn't, and I've had many friends and acquaintances who've experienced breast cancer, but I didn't know all the details about the different kinds. I mean, I knew some basic hormone receptor, but yes, so mine is called a triple negative. So I have none of the three types of receptors, which is hormone, which is two of the ones, and then another HER2 receptor. So when you have none of those receptors on your tumor, it's called triple negative. And so that tumor is a little bit more aggressive and not the one you want to sign up for. No, no. But the good news is, and it is really good news, that I was caught early. and has not spread to other nodes or other tissues or any lymph nodes.

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So

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that's very good news. And I'm very grateful that I had that yearly mammogram. So everybody out there, please, if you listen to this, please get your yearly mammogram. Heads up. In fact, I just scheduled mine. Some of my friends said, Julie, okay, I was going to kind of skip it or whatever, but... Yeah, now I'm going to do it. Don't skip it. Don't skip it. So right now you're in chemo. Yes. So right now my regimen is 24 weeks of chemo. Then I will have surgery. And then I will have three weeks of radiation as kind of an ending to the treatment. So I'll be done probably December.

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Wow.

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So I started in May, May 2nd. And then I will be done with everything around probably mid-December, by Christmas, I say. How has your diagnosis, besides the physical impact, how has it changed your life? Good question. Well, first of all, you come face to face with your own mortality. And you say to yourself, well, I have cancer now. And at some point, I could die of this. And you are totally out of control. You have absolutely no control, and you have to have trust and faith in the healthcare system and the regimen, and you don't... Is that new for you to be out of control? Has your life generally been you like to have control of things? Oh, sure. Are you kidding? Yeah. And the last thing I didn't actually get out, sorry, my voice gets a little scratchy when it's emotional, is that you don't, I don't want to, you know, you realize you can't take things for granted. It's kind of that last piece, mortality. And... out of control, trust in the system. And you can't, you learn, I can't take this life for granted. So yes, no, like most people like Shelly, like I'm sure you share, we all like to be in control of our lives, right? Yes, we do. Who doesn't? And absolutely, even though in, you know, in my life, brain, I know that, uh, we are not in control, you know, in this world, we are really not, we're fooling ourselves to think we are. And yet you, uh, kind of practice your life as if you do. It's just, I think human nature as you know, and until something comes along, uh, you like this, you realize that, oh goodness, I'm not in control. And, uh, You know, one of my favorite theologians is Richard Rohr, and he says the two ways to grow as a person is through suffering.

UNKNOWN 12:36

Sorry.

SPEAKER_01 12:38

Yeah. Through suffering and love. And I am walking, holding on to both of those with each hand. Growing through suffering and love. Love. That's how we grow. If we don't experience those things, we don't grow as people.

SPEAKER_02 12:55

Right. There's no pearl without the grit.

SPEAKER_01 12:59

Exactly. Yes. Shelly gave me a beautiful gift. And it talks about the pearl that, you know, there's no pearl without grit. And we have to, you know, it's... process in life, I think that we experience difficult things and suffer, and that's how we grow. So I'm kind of growing quite a bit. You

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are. And you are truly just such an inspiration, Julie, the way that you've gone through this so far. I mean, seeing you out on the pickleball court with your smile. Still playing. Still playing. It's incredible.

SPEAKER_01 13:47

Well, I think that when you're in something like this, you just want to have your life as normal as possible, right? And so you don't want to be a victim and you don't want to be Someone to feel sorry for you. I don't want to feel sorry for myself, and I don't want others to feel sorry for me. And you want to just live your life in a normal fashion. And pickleball is one of the joys of my life. And I tell people, okay, people are so kind. It's one of the lessons. If we have time enough, we'll get to all the

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lessons.

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People are so kind. My friends and family checking in with me, and I say... hey, if my barometer is pickleball, and if I'm playing pickleball, I'm doing pretty well. And I'm playing about three times a week. I just played the other day, and then our whole family played Sunday. And I just played yesterday with Nate and two other of my buddies, my regulars, Nancy, Donna, shout out.

UNKNOWN 15:02

And

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It was so fun. And with Nate, because Nate, my son, who's the former tennis player, he is so good at pickleball. And if you're his partner, you just look like you're a rock star, you know? So anyway, so pickleball is one of the joys of my life. And I am not going to give that up. I don't care if I'm huffing and puffing, but actually I've felt pretty good. Yeah. Yeah. So... And what about your pickleball community? How has that influenced you? Oh, gosh, I love my pickleball community. They have been – so, you know, and you read any kind of study now about longevity and people who live in the blue zones, people who live, you know, to be 100 or even close to that. One of the characteristics of their lives – is community. And it really makes the quality of your life so much better. And the pickleball community has just rallied around me with this cancer. And that's another thing. It's like, oh, I want to go play pickleball because I want to see them. Because as I tell my one friend, Janine, shout out, gives me a joy uptick. I have Even pre-cancer, joy uptick was a thing for me. I go, okay, kids, look for joy upticks in your day. And pickleball is definitely a joy uptick for me. I love that phrase, joy uptick. I'm going to borrow that. That is really good. I think it's trademarked share. Say that again? I think I trademarked that tip. I'm just teasing, teasing. You have to ask permission. I'll pay you. No, no, no. It's a total joy uptick. So not only playing it, But I think seeing the people is more important than playing. I mean, you know, and I love playing. But the people, the playing, the joy, and they are just really behind me in this. And it's very nice. Yeah. Have there been some surprises for you in this journey with cancer and pickleball? Oh, gosh. There's so many surprises in a good way. Just... I just, I never knew I had so many friends, you know, I mean. We all know you have a lot of friends. Everybody loves Julie. People have been so kind and even people, you know, that I might know remotely who've heard maybe from, cause it's, it's no secret. I'm not trying to keep it to myself or anything. I have been, you know, open and sharing with my friends from the get-go and, And so, um, someone had messaged me, uh, that I just, you know, don't know that well, but it was just, she had heard from another person, just kindness. You know, I just have been overwhelmed with the kindness of people and the love and the caring about me. And, um, and of course all my old friends from, you know, first grade and way back are just behind me and, uh, Anyway, I've been surprised in awe and thanksgiving, gratitude about that. It's just, wow, so nice. And it makes me want to be that person for someone else. I want to be there for someone else who's going through a difficult time. So those are important things.

SPEAKER_02 18:47

Well, just like you said, how we learn through suffering, right? Yes. Like you're really learning. Yes. And what you want to do for others.

SPEAKER_01 18:57

Oh, and the empathy, you know, now, you know, I have a dear friend who's going through stage four cancer treatment. And, oh, I always have had empathy, like I thought, because I'm pretty empathic person. But now, even more empathy. And then I have another friend who experienced cancer probably like nine years ago, and I was thinking to myself, was I there for her? You know, in hindsight, but we have to always look forward. We can learn from behind, but we always have to go forward. And I want to be there for another friend. What is the best way for people to be there for? Yes. A good question.

Lessons in Patience and Humility

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Um, you know, I have an amazing husband and he is a retired family practice doctor. So he is my friend, my counselor, my, uh, you know, my sidekick, my supporter. Personal chef. What's that? Personal chef. Yes. And then he's also the best cook ever. So he's been the cook in our family for a long time. And in fact, our kids, when they call to have help for a recipe, it's always, hey, dad, never me. But so anyway, people have... offered to, hey, can I bring a meal over? I said, no, no. You know, very nice of you to offer, but I've got the personal chef right here. So we're good. He cooks yummy, healthy foods. And it's his thing. It's his, if you want to borrow the term love language,

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you know,

SPEAKER_01 20:45

that's one of Kurt's love languages because Shelly knows he is an amazing cook. So when we have people over, he loves it because it's his thing. So anyway, people have, so back to your question, Cher, you know, people have offered that to me. And I've, like all of us, Shelley, you, I'm sure many, many times you give food and whatnot. But I think for me, it's just, I love when my friends or family text me and say, hey, just thinking about you. They don't need a response, but it just gives me a joy uptick. And some of them know, oh, isn't this number nine today? You know, I had number nine chemo. Yes. And oh, it touches me so much. It's just, you know, it just gives me a lift. And I'm not talking about facelift. We'll get to that later. It really just gives me such, I just love it.

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Yeah.

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because people are afraid. Oh, I don't want to bother you. Are you feeling sick? And no, you're kidding. That's what makes me well, you know? And the fact that you don't feel like you have to get back to anybody. I mean, that's, that's the one concern is I don't want to put anything on her that she might feel, but no, it just gives you that reminder that you are being thought about and loved. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, it, it, Yeah, Shelly's so sweet to check in on me frequently. And no, it just gives me a total boost. It's a booster shot. It's just like the booster shot. That's the kind of vaccine we like. Yes, exactly. Oh, my gosh. So you started to mention some life lessons. Oh, yes. And then I went back on my original notes, my... as I say, my PC, my pre-cancer notes. And then I just went by each section and I practically, every section I put, oh, BC, breast cancer, breast cancer, because all of these things are lessons you learn having this disease, plus they're wonderful pickleball lessons. First on the list was patience.

SPEAKER_00 23:13

You

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know, I think we talked about in the first session that, oh, my goodness, pickleball, you have to be patient. You start hitting the ball ahead of the time and it's in the net or you act too quickly and make the wrong shot selection. And then in this space, one of my old dear friends said that patience is a sacred space. Oh. And it's really true. Oh. Yeah. Oh, I love that. Excuse me. It's like patience and waiting both, but I take those as the same thing. Patience, waiting is a sacred space and you have to wait for the ball. And in this cancer, I can't, I like results. I'm just, oh, are you kidding? Control results oriented person. Is there a task list? Okay, I'm going to start checking it off. You kidding? And you can't do that here with cancer. And in pickleball, you have to be patient. And I want, like, can you tell me that the tumor's gone right now after eight chemos? No, I have to be patient. I have to trust. And you, that is so much pickleball. And, you know, again, like we mentioned, you just have to have patience and trust in this world of treatment, cancer treatment.

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Let's

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see. I think one of my favorite things to learn in life period is humility. And humility is the hallmark of a person that I feel like has evolved. And, and we all, I have not evolved. I'm hopefully I'm in the process, but when you look at someone who's truly humble, you think, I think that's the person that I want to be. And I, In my notes, I had talked about, oh, my gosh, someday you can just be playing terrible, terribly. And then you have to be humble about it, you know. It's just – and also in pickleball, someone can teach you anything. You know, a person off the street at the community pickleball court can say, oh, why don't you step back and why don't you – okay, I have to be humble and listen to that and learn from that. And I think that having any kind of diagnosis teaches you to be humble. You know, we just have to have that posture as we come to this sort of deal with this thing in life. I want to be a learner. I want to learn. What is this teaching me? I hadn't thought about... Yeah, go ahead, Cheryl. I was just

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thinking,

Journey to Open Hearts

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when she's talking about being the humble, too, it's also not ever thinking you're better than someone else.

SPEAKER_01 26:17

Totally. Totally. Very much. Very much. I think that goes hand in hand. One of my things was, here I'm looking, the golden rule, putting others first. And that's absolutely right. Absolutely right. And it occurs to me that getting that diagnosis also reminds us that we are not everything we thought we were, which was invincible and completely well and strong. And then we realize, oh, there's a whole other phase here. Yes, yes. It teaches you to be humble, you know, because, yeah, that and and and. never thinking you're better than someone else. And it kind of levels the playing field,

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which

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is good. I always said, even before this, I need to be leveled every day. I need to get down every day. It's good for me. Humility also reflects vulnerability. And I dare say that you felt some vulnerability when you were given your diagnosis and even now in your treatment. Definitely. Yes, for sure. And I think being vulnerable just draws you to other people. Yeah. They're drawn to you when you're vulnerable because you invite someone in and it – I think they feel closer to you when you can be a real person and be vulnerable. And then I like to tell my stories where I, oh, can you believe I did this stupid thing? Because it makes people feel good. I'm not the only one that does that. Isn't that funny? Yeah. You know, it's like, Oh, you got to hear what I did. And again, one of my bylines is anything for a good story later. Not recording a wonderful conversation. Yes. Yeah. It's actually good stories. No worries, you know, and we all do that. silly things and it just makes someone feel closer to you. True. It's so true. If we're self-contained, we don't need anybody. How can anybody feel close to us? No, and we're not perfect. And, you know, I have cancer now. And so that is something I feel I can be vulnerable with other people and draw them closer to me instead of pushing them away. Right. That's fascinating, Julie, because I don't think that's all that common. I think a lot of times when we are in that vulnerable situation, getting a diagnosis or what, we do shut down and we can't bear the idea of somebody coming close to us because we feel so unsure and insecure. And here you are saying, no, actually, it's opened you up to letting people in. Yes, yes. And that's... Oh, Cher, that was a perfect segue to one of my points. There we go. One of my points is you have to learn how to be a receiver now instead of a giver. Oh, wow. And we're all of us. I would say the majority of people would say, oh, I'm very comfortable giving, but I'm not comfortable receiving. And that was me. And no, I have to learn how to receive. Yes. Are you learning it? I... I am. I'm very humbled by receiving these gifts. Gifts, I mean just expressions. I don't mean a physical gift per se. Expressions of love and care for me. I have received those, and it's humbling and just very rich. It is, and

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you deserve them because you have been such a giver for

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so long. I don't know if I deserve anything, but... But it is humbling to be on the receiving side, but thank you, Shelley. Thank you. And when you were saying that you were so surprised at how loving and caring, how many loving and caring friends you have, it actually reflects the life that you lived BC before cancer, which was expressing your own love and caring for all the people who are now having this opportunity to to express it back to you. So, it's not in a vacuum and how lovely that you do have this amazing community of friends, including us, and that we are able to be there in ways that are meaningful to you in this journey that you're on. And there are all kinds of journeys. I mean, cancer is your journey and everyone is on some kind of journey typically, right? Everyone, everyone's on a journey. And so for you to demonstrate, okay, when we're We're on these journeys, opening our hearts, trusting, loving, understanding that there's learning in suffering. All those play a part in our being able to grow into a deeper, more meaningful human being. You said it beautifully. I think vulnerability takes a risk sometimes. And I think we all have to take a risk to, I said, first of all, I took a risk to put myself out there for pickleball. But

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in

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life, if we don't take a risk, we may have missed an opportunity. And so someone might take a risk with me reaching out to me, but I want to take a risk and err on the side of reaching out to someone else and saying, are you okay or what can I do for you? I have a friend from high school who has had Parkinson's disease for years now

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and

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she actually had breast cancer as well. She's now cured from that, but she's had many life challenges and she's the sweetest thing. And she asked me the other day, Julie, what can I do for you? Talk about that. You know, I was so humbled by that. Mm-hmm. Wow. So, but yeah, I think life, we have to take, that was one of my points, taking risks and on each side, you know, taking a risk to reach out to someone, but taking a risk to let someone come close to me.

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Wow.

UNKNOWN 33:12

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 33:13

Kind of got me right there. Yeah. Oh, that is really lovely. While you're doing that, I'll look at my list. Yeah, yeah, please. Please. But I think that being present is really a key one. Being present. Being present and feeling like not just what can I learn on this journey and this path, but what can I learn in this present moment? I think... presence and uh has been you know such a buzzword for a long time and it's a good buzzword but it's really i'm really learning it in this present moment what what can i learn

SPEAKER_00 33:57

and

SPEAKER_01 34:00

i think that goes with pickleball too yeah right here right here it's right in front of my face What can I learn from this? And if

SPEAKER_02 34:08

you're not present, the ball goes whizzing by you or

SPEAKER_01 34:12

you miss it. Exactly. And if you're not present, life can go whizzing by you. Oh, shoot, I just missed an opportunity to show some kindness to someone or something. Exactly right. Ooh, good analogy, beautiful analogy.

SPEAKER_00 34:29

So

SPEAKER_01 34:30

what encouraging words might you have for people who are, hmm, actually it's kind of a bigger question. We used to say, you know, what encouraging words do you have for people who haven't ever tried pickleball? But I would like to expand that to what encouraging words do you have for people who are wanting to open their hearts, wanting to be present, wanting to receive, but they're afraid. Right, right. Boy, that's a great question. I think you just have to take a risk because the benefits are so rewarding.

SPEAKER_00 35:07

You just

SPEAKER_01 35:07

have to step out there because if we don't step out, we don't draw ourselves into that community, whether it's pickleball, whether it's a community of friends. I think you just have to... if relationship is what you're seeking, which I think the majority of people are, I mean, the

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Surgeon

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General says loneliness is the epidemic. So everyone is searching for love. Everyone. Everyone's searching for love for, and however that manifests, maybe someone is a small group person or a one-on-one, whatever it is, everyone is looking for that. And we know that. that it extends your life and enriches the quality of your life. So I think one would just have to, you know, overcome some of those fears to realize that the rewards are so great. The rewards outweigh the anxiety. And the fear. And the fear. Yeah. Exactly. Well, Julie... Thank you so much. like cancer and but maybe take baby steps even now into a new way of being oh bless your heart oh well thank you very much your kindness your kindness humbles me and kind words and i i just think any way that i can help someone else i'm all in i'm all in and we're all in with you julie Oh, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Thank you, guys. All right. Thank you to our beautiful followers, people who are watching and listening to this episode. If you have been touched in your heart by this story, we hope that you are willing to reach out and just check in with anyone you love and maybe somebody who you think might need a little uptick in joy. Oh, I love that. Oh, thank you all. And we look forward to a new conversation next week. Bye-bye.

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SPEAKER_01 38:06

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