High Performance Pioneering in Sports Science

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hi, I'm Shelly 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. Welcome, everyone, to Life Lessons from Pickleball. We're so happy to have you joining with us today. And we are so delighted to have with us Dr. Eric Corum, Ph.D. Eric is You are the founder and CEO of AIM7, an app that provides pickleball athletes with unparalleled resources, and you host the Blueprint podcast. And we definitely want to hear about both of those, of course. But even before pickleball, you were a high-performance pioneer in sports science.

SPEAKER_03 0:49

Yeah, yeah. Yes. First of all, thank you so much for having me today. It's a pleasure to be here. I love talking pickleball and making new friends. So this is a blast. Yeah, I spent about 16 years working in the NFL and in college sports. I started as a traditional strength and conditioning coach, training athletes of various sports. I've trained over 26 different sports. And it's kind of cool right now because the Olympics are going on. I also worked with professional track and field sprinters for about 14 years, several of them won gold medals. So this is always a fun time of year to kind of reminisce about all that. But about 2011, I started tracking athletes. in games using wearable devices. This is before the Apple Watch existed and it wasn't like Fitbit on a wrist. We literally were putting devices on our players in their pads. And I was doing this at Florida State and these devices, it was like the size of a deck of cards and they connected to GPS satellites and had all sorts of crazy telemetry, like accelerometers and gyroscopes, all this crazy stuff in there. And we were able to really understand what was happening on the football field for the first time, how much these players were moving, how fast they were sprinting. And it was interesting because at the time, the space program had just been cut. And I hired a former NASA propulsion engineer to help me kind of derive meaning from the information. And we were able to help our team perform better. And we helped lower their injury rate by 88% in one year. Oh, my gosh. I know it was crazy. And our team went on to win a championship. And after that season, the NFL flew in all these people were like, Hey, what the heck's going on here. And it opened a multi billion dollar market for sports wearables. So now every NFL game or college game, we're almost every single sport in the United States now is tracked using similar devices. And so my career kind of took off in that direction and was able to do a lot of fun things and learn a lot and be around some great folks and just trying to help players be healthy and perform better. So

SPEAKER_00 3:06

what did you do? You said 88% injury decrease. So what data was the most important and what did you change?

SPEAKER_03 3:16

Yeah. it was kind of, well, first of all, nobody had ever quantified what the game was. So it'd be like saying, let's go run a long race, but nobody knew that it was a marathon and it was what? 26.2 miles. Which one of you was a triathlete? I forgot. Shelly.

SPEAKER_01 3:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:32

Shelly. Yeah. Is marathon 26 too? Is that right? Or 26? Yeah. Yeah. So imagine just like, Oh, we're going to go run a long race, but you never knew how long it was. Well, We were finally able to show like, okay, a wide receiver would run like seven to 8,000 yards in a game. And they were sprinting several thousand high speed yards where alignment would only sprint like 60 to 80 yards, but they were enduring a lot of like very brutal, um, like impacts that were in a very small space. And so everybody was practicing and training the same, really training the same. So they needed to be trained differently for the demands of the sport. So we could kind of work ourselves backwards. Cause if you know, I got to run 26.2 and you got 16 weeks to get ready for it, you can start building a training program. So that was number one. It sounds very common sense, but like nobody had ever tracked at all. And so, um, That was number one. We were able to then start looking at our practices and be like, how were those preparing us for games? And then how are our training camps structured? So were we overdoing it? Were we underdoing it? And then we use some very novel methods to kind of get early warning indicators that somebody may pull a hamstring or a groin muscle. And so this real thought process of sports science and high performance. We were able to kind of bring together sports medicine and the strength coaches and the football coaches. So everybody was operating under the same lens. And so we would go, Hey, so-and-so looks like they may have a issue with their groin. Let's get them over to the athletic training room. They would do soft tissue work. And then we'd be like, Hey coach, so-and-so we need to dial back this person's practice reps today to make sure that they don't hurt themselves. And I was very fortunate to work for a head coach at the time that was very innovative. And he put it all on the line, and it paid off. Now, we also had unbelievable athletes, but the year before, we were really, really injured and weren't able to live up to our potential. And so... My viewpoint on sports really changed on like, hey, let's not just create programs towards a target that we can't define very well. And so, yeah, my job ended up moving into I ended up going to the University of Kentucky and running performance there. And I got a doctorate degree studying sleep and stress resilience. Well, looking at how we could actually measure this with unique devices and trying to create a more robust and adaptable athlete.

SPEAKER_01 6:07

Sleep and stress, resilience or resistance?

SPEAKER_03 6:12

Resilience. Like how can you be more resilient under stress, physical and mental? Something that's kind of helpful right now, don't you think?

SPEAKER_01 6:22

Oh, my gosh. Talk about timing. So what's the answer?

SPEAKER_03 6:26

Well, you got to build more capacity. So you hear a lot of people saying you need to manage stress. Well, that's kind of a fallacy. You can't manage stress. Like if you were to, for instance, on that show, your friend that got cancer, was that something they could have managed? No, it just happened to them. Sometimes you drive your car and you get rear-ended or the stock market does something crazy or we're in a political season. It's all haywire right now. I can't manage all that. What I can do is I can build the capacity for more stress and with less cost to me so that I'm not burning out and I am able to thrive, adapt, and get better.

SPEAKER_01 7:12

Hmm. Wow. And sleep apparently is a part of that.

SPEAKER_03 7:15

It's a big part. Definitely five pillars, sleep, exercise, mental fitness, nutrition. and living in community and healthy relationships. And the scientific literature is pretty clear that these five things when done appropriately into like certain benchmarks, improve our capacity to adapt to stress and to thrive.

SPEAKER_02 7:41

Hmm.

SPEAKER_00 7:41

Well, that's fascinating because as you're saying that, you know, pickleball meets a lot of those needs.

SPEAKER_03 7:47

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 7:48

How did you get into pickleball?

SPEAKER_03 7:51

It's a great question. Um, Okay, so I left my career in sports and I wanted to start a company where we could take wearable data from the average consumer with an Apple Watch or Fitbit, whatever, and create ultra personalized health and wellness solutions for exercise, recovery and mental health. And basically built on these five tenets of building adaptive capacity, as we called it, helping people be more resilient to stress. So we spent a couple of years building the tech, raised a little bit of capital. And we launched it in the market last September, and it was growing pretty good. But to be quite honest, it was really hard to break out in this noisy, crowded space without having tons of venture capital.

SPEAKER_02 8:37

And

SPEAKER_03 8:39

a friend of mine... who helped steve coon he was steve coon's uh chief of staff the guy that started majorly pickleball and duper um reached out to me we went through a program in 2019 called the presidential leadership scholars program and that really changed my life and um he called me he's like eric you need to focus on pickleball. I'm like pickleball. Like I'd heard a friend of talk about it. I'm like, I didn't even know what it was. I heard about it, but I'd never seen it. I was like, what are you talking about? He's like, just trust me. Look, Pickleball. There's nobody helping these people. There's a lot of injuries right now. There's a lot of opportunity to help folks. So I was like, okay, I'll take a look at it. So I started looking at the data and watching the sport. First of all, I started going out and I'm like, man, I kind of like this. This is fun. It's like softball in a sense compared to baseball. It's faster, more engaging. And then I noticed that like even I could step on the court and quickly pick up a paddle and be decently okay, right? I could... get the ball over and we could all have fun. Right.

SPEAKER_02 9:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 9:46

So, um, very, very, um, fortunate that my friend introduced me to Tito Machado with Duper, the CEO. And he looked at our tech and said, Hey, you, you guys should focus on pickleball. We'll partner with you guys. So I spent about me and my team spent about four months looking at all the problems in the sport and, um, um, What we noticed is this is an emerging sport. It's blowing up.

SPEAKER_02 10:15

And I think

SPEAKER_03 10:16

everybody that's listening to this would agree with me that this is a sport. People aren't treating it like a sport. Most people... if you kind of look at the demographics, like the recreational players, and they just kind of go step on the court, and then you wonder why we're having, you know, $250 to $500 million in injuries. You know, people blow out their Achilles. I was on a podcast recently, a guy blew out both biceps. You see a lot of soft tissue injuries. It's not because the game is inherently dangerous. It's because you need to basically do some fundamental things to help you stay healthy and on the court. Like if you wanted to run a marathon and, or do a triathlon, there's certain things you have to do to keep yourself healthy so you can actually enjoy the event.

SPEAKER_01 11:00

And

SPEAKER_03 11:02

so we basically took a bunch of things and put that on top of our existing technology. So we help people know exactly what they need to do before they go on the court, from warmups, even mental fitness tools to help them hone in on their focus, to cool downs when they're done, to daily mobility training. We have like, If your elbow hurts, we have like a 12-week program in there from Dr. Kyle Richman on pickleball elbow, your neck, your hip. We went through like all the things that would help a pickleball player survive and thrive, really. Customized resistance training. And because of that, a major university, which we'll be able to announce soon, like a very prominent university, just funded a study with us.

SPEAKER_02 11:45

Oh, my

SPEAKER_03 11:45

gosh. Yeah, because we were able to quantify the physical and mental weight wellness benefits of playing pickleball. So this is about to be announced. It's going to be huge.

SPEAKER_01 11:56

Congratulations. Wait a minute. Even though we don't know the university, we know it's going to be big. Thank you for sharing that. That's real exciting.

SPEAKER_03 12:04

I know. I'm pumped. It was funny because it was one of our AIM7 users. She's a neuroscientist. at a university and she's like, Eric, I'd really like to do research on the wellbeing benefits because to your point share, there's so many boxes that pickleball ticks off. Yeah. So I don't know if you've looked at the longevity research, but the two sports that, um, have the greatest impact on longevity are racket sports and running. And the reason we think these are recreational sports is because of the coordination involved, specifically racket sports. There's coordination. There's the hand-eye part of it. There's the balance, the stability, the high-intensity exercise, plus the low-intensity aerobic component. And the difference between tennis and pickleball, though, and I'm preaching to the choir here, is the community nature of the game.

SPEAKER_02 13:06

Yeah.

UNKNOWN 13:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 13:07

So now you combine a game that has all of these benefits. And when you play, you're typically out there for an hour. And if you play doubles, it's like low intensity zone to aerobic exercise, which is great for cardiovascular fitness. If you do singles, now you're getting some really high heart rates. You're doing things like sprinting and decelerating, but you do it with a community because you're so close. Like I think it was a kitchen line to kitchen line is what is it? 17 feet.

SPEAKER_01 13:35

Yeah. Not even maybe.

SPEAKER_03 13:36

Yeah. From no volleys on. Yeah. And so like, even like when you're bantering back and forth between each point and then people are hanging out, you know, it's, and so that's the thing that makes this such a special game and people are finding community and friendship and, and then they want to keep playing. And so it's just, I think, and I think a lot of people are starting to see like, that this is going to be the gateway for health and wellness for a lot of people.

SPEAKER_01 14:07

So happy to hear you say that as a professional doctor, PhD in this. That is certainly the way Shelly and I feel about

Pickleball Wellness Retreat Plans

SPEAKER_01 14:17

it. And one of the other qualities that I was thinking is, and maybe they do this in tennis, but in pickleball, typically the person that is your opponent in this game is now your partner in the next game. And so you change your role. That person isn't always your opponent. They become your partner. And so you can't just hold one feeling about anybody. It's really great to have that mix.

SPEAKER_03 14:45

Yeah. I mean, conflict resolution. There's so many like that was just the first thing that came to my mind. It's really interesting. We do a lot of social media content on Instagram and we've been growing really fast. What's interesting to me is every time you make a post on social media, it's like a human experiment. You see what people react to. And what's interesting is our best content has been, one was on warmup. It was a really funny opening. And then we really quickly explained how to do a neuromuscular warmup. But then the second one, or not second one, the next big cluster is all on mental performance skills. Focus, attention, regulation, all the things that help you. Think about like every time you go on the court, you get to exercise your ability to control your emotions, to go from high to low really quick, to process and move forward, to be a good teammate, to have compassion, You

SPEAKER_01 15:47

know, like the jokes around like yourself and each other. Stop, stop

SPEAKER_03 15:51

apologizing. You know, like there's always that

SPEAKER_01 15:54

person.

SPEAKER_03 15:54

Yeah. Stop saying you're sorry. Well, I mean, these are all things that like, when I sit down and try to make content, like we have a really cool team of psychologists and nutritionists all worked at the highest levels in sport. And I'm always like, Hey, how would we solve this problem for pickleball? So we have like this ongoing list of all these really cool things that we're trying to teach people. And I don't know. I think it's a, It's a blast. It's a lot of fun. It's really cool to be in the earliest of days. We haven't even hit the J curve yet, I think, with the growth. Because we don't have enough places for people to play yet. We can't. We can't fulfill the courts. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:31

Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, like you said, that mental stuff. I was listening to some of your podcasts. They're excellent. Yeah. The one that really caught me that was helpful that I even thought about today is when you make a mistake on the court. And you gave just three things. You said release, reset and refocus. And it gave me, you know, you gave me tips like release, like hit yourself with the paddle or just think of a quick release, you know, just do a quick reset. What am I going to focus on next point? And then, you know, just refocus and move on. I just love that. So, yeah, just all those like quick little mental tips and things that you guys are giving are great. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 17:16

He was the head of wellness and development for the Toronto Raptors, worked at the University of Arizona, University of North Texas. And we met, gosh, trying to remember how we even met now. I've known him for so long. And I brought him this pickleball thing. And he's like, dude, I want in. This is so cool. Let's do this. Yeah. And then I sent him a paddle recently from one of our new partners. And like, I don't know, now we're starting to do some really cool stuff. We're putting together a, this, I've never talked about this publicly, but this is kind of a side project I'm on. We're putting together a pickleball wellness retreat where I'm going to bring in all of these leading experts on all these different subjects. And we're going to have like world-class coaching for a weekend. Plus, you know, mental performance stuff. And we're trying to do it in such a way that you can use it on pickleball and then you can transfer things to use in your life.

SPEAKER_01 18:15

That's the perfect combo.

SPEAKER_03 18:19

I'm excited to get this out there. We're still working on finalizing it, but it'll be all the little things. But that's the great thing about pickleball. It brings all these components into something that you can exercise consistently.

SPEAKER_01 18:32

Indeed. So when do you think that wellness weekend or week might happen

SPEAKER_03 18:38

february of 2025

SPEAKER_01 18:40

okay next year early next year that's very exciting you have to let us know so we can get the word out too

SPEAKER_03 18:45

thank you i appreciate it

SPEAKER_01 18:47

oh my gosh that's very

Lifestyle Lessons From Pickleball

SPEAKER_01 18:48

cool so the app you're talking about is aim7 and your podcast is the blueprint

SPEAKER_03 18:54

yes ma'am um i started the blueprint four years ago that was kind of a It's a labor of love. You guys know it's, it takes a lot of time and effort. I've never made money on it. Um, I haven't tried to really monetize it, but we distill cutting edge science leadership and life skills until like 15 minute segments that the average person can have time. Nobody has three hours listening to a podcast, right? That's what I like about yours. It's short. It's like to the point you walk away feeling good. You've learned something. Um, And we do that around leadership, life skills, and health and wellness. Because I think those are kind of all the things you need if you want to live a healthy and fulfilling life.

SPEAKER_01 19:37

So true. So true. Wow. So you, in all of this experiences you've had before Pickleball, with Pickleball, now... helping us with your science and being really good pickleball players and having healthy lives. What are some of the life lessons that you've learned on the court that you've taken into your life or you've learned in life that you're taking onto the court?

SPEAKER_03 20:02

Yeah, I'll tell you what, like being an entrepreneur at this stage of my career with three young children,

SPEAKER_02 20:10

you

SPEAKER_03 20:11

know, I'm 43. I left a really successful career to do something that scares me constantly. And it's been a very hard... I've never been more excited and more frightened at the same time.

SPEAKER_01 20:25

Oh, that's interesting.

SPEAKER_03 20:26

I don't know how you hold those two things in your head. And so... I

SPEAKER_01 20:31

have an app for that.

SPEAKER_03 20:32

It's really crazy because I get to put all of the things that I'm trying to help people with in practice all the time. And I'll just tell you this. Not every day is going to be a great day. That's why I hate when people talk about optimization. There's all this stuff about biohacking and optimizing. Look, not every day is going to be a 10. That's impossible. Otherwise, you wouldn't have highs in life, right? But the goal is to slowly elevate your norm and then have minimal perturbations from that. Does that make sense? So you don't have these huge highs and huge lows. And then there's going to be mountaintop experiences in life. But Um, I would say one thing, it's kind of like, or two things you can kind of put together, hope and confidence. You know, you hope for a future that you can't see. You almost can call it faith, right? But then like, you actually have to go work and you have to work hard and, uh, and then you have to have confidence that what you're doing is going to pay off. And, um, this pickleball aim seven journey has really taught me like to just, um, you know, put your head down, listen to people. Cause that's the thing. Like we put the, we made the switch to pickleball totally new world. And so you just have to use both of those ears that you've been given and just listen. And so we listened and listened and listened. And so the version of our app that's out right now is, is crushing it. Like from a standpoint of like, we have like a 90% retention rate after 30 days. That's insane in the app world. Incredible. Part of it is we're the only solution in the market. And the other part is people really are getting great results. They're feeling better, moving better. But because of all that, we've been able to, we're launching a newer version in September. That's beautiful. That looks more like the game of pickleball. You'll, So when the branding comes out, you'd be like, Oh, I see. And we've been able to incorporate new things that people want and they've been asking for, but it's all about like, just believing in this future. Okay. We're helping people right now. We're going to really help bring this game forward. We believe we're going to impact people's lives. We're going to help bring communities together. I think you just got to go work hard and there's kind of like your game, like, right. Like

SPEAKER_00 22:53

I'm, I've

SPEAKER_03 22:56

been, I'll tell you something really humbling. Okay. Um, My family does jujitsu. My wife was an elite athlete in college. She was an All-American softball player. And she's actually going to get her black belt in jujitsu here in December. She's been doing it for like eight years. And all my kids do it. I had to stop because my shoulder was hurting too bad. Well, our professor, that's what they call him, like your instructor, amazing guy. And obviously, I've never... beat him at anything you know he's like world class right well now he's in the pickleball and so he's been talking smack on social media and texting me all the time well he gets to play more i've been drilling but i don't get to play as much i'm working on the business so finally we got to go play last friday i lost three games to one but we had a great time like am i ever gonna beat this guy um but it's so cool here's a former uh he's a vet who now has like, I think six or eight of jujitsu facilities. He does a lot for veterans and fundraising through the We Defy Association. And he loves pickleball. Wow. Like you find, I mean, like the whole world shows up on the pickleball court, right?

SPEAKER_01 24:15

They do. And people we would never cross paths with. but for being on the pickleball court.

SPEAKER_03 24:21

And then they're your best friends.

SPEAKER_01 24:22

And then you're your best friends. That's exactly right. In fact, Shelly and I met on the pickleball court very first day. We were each taking a lesson very first day of pickleball. And we met, it was just fantastic. Yeah. That's how we became friends. And now we have this whole community of amazing women and some men too, who are in the group who are just delightful. So you had, you were telling us a story right before we started recording, um, about a couple of two people. And I said, Oh, We'll be sure to share that with our

SPEAKER_03 24:50

audience. You meet so many cool people and you kind of get dropped into their lives, right? The first pickleball facility, when we were really hardcore, like, are we going to make this pivot or niche into pickleball? Was it February, January? I drove to a facility in North Houston. It was a good, I was actually, I was driving from Dallas back to Houston and And I stopped off at this place and this gentleman was kind enough to welcome me into their facility. And we start chatting and I'm like, Hey, how did you find pickleball? And he had lost his wife. She had died. I think cancer. And he was really kind of depressed, started playing pickleball, met another lady who had been widowed. They married, opened a pickleball facility. And you're like, And now they're making an impact. They, you know, it's kind of like you, you, you, and now that I'm in business in pickleball, I'm meeting a lot of other people that are in different parts of their journeys as, you know, as, as husbands and wives, as, um, business leaders that have left other careers and now come into this sport. And it's kind of cool because I've met a bunch of people that are going through the same thing with kind of this big vision to help folks in different ways. And, um, I don't know. I'll tell you one more. I actually wrote this down before we got on here. I texted these people today. Megan Fudge and Ryler DeHart. Do you know who they are?

SPEAKER_01 26:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 26:25

Okay. So they're two of the athletes that we work with. I got connected to Megan and Ryler because when I coached at Florida State, Ryler came along a little bit later and was a tennis coach there. I don't know if you know, but he was a national team tennis coach. He's elite. Oh, no. And so... We got connected. I took about six weeks and they're like, Eric, we want to work with you. I was like, okay. And so Megan says, Eric, you should come to the U S open and stay with us. I've never met them face to face.

SPEAKER_02 26:55

Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_03 26:57

Now, if you don't know Megan Riley, they live in a, like a, like a RV. Like, you know, they, they drive around the country and, or they're all over the world right now, but they drive around the country and they're mobile all the time. They got two wonderful kids

Pickleball Wellness App Benefits

SPEAKER_03 27:10

and, So this couple, Tim and Melanie, opened their home up to me in Naples. Never met them before. Megan and Ryle are in the back. They had like a cement slab just for the RV. Then they had this outdoor or an indoor court they had built called Pickle on Third. Tim and Melanie let me stay with them for a week. Oh my gosh. And out of that week is really where AIM7 launched. And I can point back to relationship after relationship after relationship. that were established during that week that have led to where we are currently. And it was because of the generosity of somebody I'd never met before.

SPEAKER_02 27:47

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 27:50

That's huge. That's so amazing. You wouldn't hear about that in bowling, would you? No.

SPEAKER_01 27:54

No. Maybe. I mean, I'm not in the bowling league, but I imagine there are some really good stories. I'm sure. But I do love that pickleball is the one that we certainly are aware of that just creates in a unique way Community. Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_00 28:14

So Eric, can you tell me, so I want to, I'm thinking about getting the aim seven app, right? And I play pickleball all the time. I don't want injury. Yeah. I want to prevent injury. I want to become a better pickleball player. What, what does it look like if I get that? What, how will I be using it?

SPEAKER_03 28:31

Yeah. So right now it's pretty simple. You download the app. We're on iOS only. So Apple only right now, you don't have to have a wearable, but if you have a wearable app, We plug in all your data. We do a couple of things. You know, we talked about this stress resilience thing. There's two cool parts to aim seven. The first part is the pickleball stuff. So we have a little tab on there. It says, um, before your match, um, After your match off court. So you click before your match and it's like dynamic warmup. You click the button and you can say, Hey, I have an entire court to warm up. I can just stand. I have a five, you know, five by five space, or I actually can like stand up or sit down and it takes you through a video warmup. And those exercises rotate constantly. It's very easy to follow. We take you through a very simple four part warmup. Um, and that's been demonstrated in the research to help prevent injuries and improve performance. Um, So that's number one. Pardon me. We also have a really cool breath work tool you can do in your car on the way to the court that actually helps increase your arousal, increase your focus. Because sometimes you get off work and you're going to the court and you're a little drained. So then when you're done when you're playing, you can click off court. or after your post-match, sorry, and has cool downs. So like four or five exercises you can do to stretch and help you cool down. Then there's another breath work tool you can use on your drive home that helps calm your nervous system down, helps return you back to normal. And then there's recovery recommendations from sleep to if you have a foam roller to all sorts of really cool stuff. And then there's a button that says off court. You can click that. And we built a system in there because one of the things that pickleball players need to do is resistance training. Resistance training will help strengthen your bones. It improves your balance. It's going to help prevent a lot of injuries. And so, um, The World Health Organization recommends everybody gets 150 to 300 minutes of what's called moderate to vigorous physical activity. If you play two and a half hours of pickleball each week, you check that box. They also recommend that you should do two total body strengthening sessions per week at the minimum. If you combine those two things, the literature shows it reduces your risk of all cause mortality by about 47%. Wow. Yeah. I know. So we created a system in there where AIM7 will make you a personalized resistance training program based off of your exercise history, your preferences, the equipment you have. If you've never done it, we can just start with your body weight, how much time you have. You can even adapt it daily. It's got videos. People love it. Then we also have mobility exercises. So you can come in there and be like, my shoulder hurts. Dr. Kyle Richman will take you through a really cool 12-week program where you watch videos. It's all done for you. We're really just getting to the tip of the iceberg. There's also mental fitness tools in there. So you can go to this section called Mind, and AIM7's got mental fitness recommendations. It could be a gratitude journal. There's mindfulness sessions in there. It's like – We basically tried to put the all-in-one tool together for you. And all of the really great researchers and performance psychologists, we have a whole library of videos that teach you how to do mindfulness. Dr. Peter Haberle, the former senior psychologist for the U.S. Olympics, teaching psychological flexibility. You can go in there and learn about nutrition. I mean, it's crazy what we put in this app. We're just trying to make it so a pickleball player could come in and be like, We hook them with pickleball

SPEAKER_02 32:16

and we

SPEAKER_03 32:17

can help you with your sleep,

SPEAKER_02 32:19

your

SPEAKER_03 32:19

nutrition, your mental fitness, all the things that are going to help you live a healthy and thriving life.

SPEAKER_01 32:26

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 32:27

And it's cheap.

SPEAKER_01 32:29

And it's cheap. Oh my gosh. So what would you

SPEAKER_03 32:32

think that would cost somebody per month?

SPEAKER_01 32:34

That's

SPEAKER_03 32:37

a great price anchor. $7.99 a month right now. I think we're going to bring it up to $9 a month here soon, but it's really inexpensive because our goal is to hit the masses, right? We want to make it equitable for everybody and not just make this for a certain specific group of people that could afford it. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_01 32:56

Yes. Under $10. That's all we need to know. Under $10. Wow. That's incredible. Thank you for asking. Oh, man. Very exciting. Eric, my gosh, you have really turned your passions and your education and your experience into helping this world be a better place. And you're helping us as pickleballers be healthy in the process that we're having fun. That's remarkable. And you don't even have to play pickleball to use that app, I'm sure. No, we have people doing all sorts of stuff. It sounds

SPEAKER_03 33:29

like it can apply

SPEAKER_01 33:30

to anybody. Yeah. Yeah.

UNKNOWN 33:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:31

Awesome. Awesome. Well, we want people to be able to find you and to find the app. So what's the best way for them to do that?

SPEAKER_03 33:38

Yeah. Aim7.com is where you can- AIM7 with the number seven. Yep. Aim isn't like you're aiming in a direction seven. You can download it from the app store. You can download it from our website. We have the Blueprint Podcast, which is on every major platform. And then Aim7 is on Instagram, on Facebook. But Instagram is where most of our followers and our community is at. You'll find a lot of fun and educational materials on there. We've been partnering with so many people. We have some huge partnership announcements coming soon, which has been really fun because I can't spoil it, but we got some really cool stuff coming out pretty soon. And so this has been a blast for me. And I really appreciate you letting me be on the show. And I love Pickleball. I love the community. If I can do anything, people can reach me on there or at Eric Corum on Instagram. They can also find me. I'm happy to help with whatever.

SPEAKER_01 34:36

Awesome. And I love your tagline, stay curious, stay consistent, and keep chasing excellence. Well, sir, you've been doing that your whole life, and we love that you've inspired us to do the same. And thank you so much for being on the show. Thank you so much,

SPEAKER_03 34:53

Sharon Shelley. I appreciate

SPEAKER_01 34:55

it. Awesome. Awesome. And thank you, everybody. Oh, my gosh. You have just had a wealth of information given to you for free. And you can have this app for less than $10. Oh, my gosh. And we love your podcast, too. So the blueprint. Hey, thanks, everybody. We'll see you next week for another wonderful conversation. Bye-bye.

SPEAKER_00 35:16

If you love our podcast, we'd be so grateful if you'd take a few seconds to follow or subscribe to Life Lessons from Pickleball. This ensures you'll never miss an episode and helps us continue these wonderful conversations.

SPEAKER_01 35:30

On Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen, go to the show page and tap the follow button in the top right corner. And on YouTube, click the subscribe button under any of the episodes. Thanks so much. Hope to see you on the court.

UNKNOWN 35:45

you