Speaker 1: 0:00

Hi, I'm Shelly Maurer and I'm Cher Emrick. Welcome to Life.

Speaker 2: 0:04

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 1: 0:16

Welcome everyone to Life. Lessons from Pickleball. We are so happy to be with all of you today, and especially happy, by the way, that Shelly is alive and well after a very serious mountain hiking accident. For those of you who are watching on YouTube, you can see she's wearing a very strong neck brace and we do hope that that neck brace will be coming off soon. But, shelly, we're so glad you're here. Thank you, me too and we're so honored to have as our guest today Dr Lee Baucom, the world's first Thrivologist and he knows he's the first because he made up the term.

Speaker 3: 0:56

Oh thanks, sherry. I'm so happy to be here and I'm taking the sage advice from our guests. Lee and I'm thriving, regardless of what life gives you. So I've really been working on that, Lee. You've spent over three decades studying what it means to truly thrive, writing several books, coaching and hosting the Thrivology podcast.

Speaker 1: 1:18

And in your own thriving. You look for ways to apply lessons from one part of your life into the other areas of your life, and then, as a coach, you're constantly looking for ways to apply lessons from one part of your life into the other areas of your life. And then, as a coach, you're constantly looking for ways to help people to thrive and grow.

Speaker 3: 1:31

Lee, Thrivologist is your word. Let's start with what does thriving look like to you?

Speaker 4: 1:38

That's the tricky question, right, because some variation is true for everyone. People have different levels of that. So for me, thriving is being invested in life and finding what is your meaning, your purpose. So for you, too, doing this podcast may be part of that thriving, because it brings you that meaning, that sense of purpose. Others are often trying to find some other piece to bring in there, like their job. Some people say you know, I do that, so I can do, for instance, hiking or playing pickleball like we do, and those other pieces bring in that thriving. I think solid relationships do that. But having a sense of meaning, purpose, a place of investment and enjoyment in life is what I put out there as kind of the core of thriving.

Speaker 1: 2:27

What's your professional background?

Speaker 4: 2:30

I was trained as a therapist and right as I was finishing my PhD, I read some of the early coaching stuff and I turned to my wife and said this is what I do. And she said, after all of this this is what I do. And she said, after all of this so I continue to do therapy, but more as a coaching side of that, and have in the past probably 15 years or so really transitioned fully into just coaching.

Speaker 1: 2:58

Brilliant, and that's. You're talking about coaching in life, life coaching as life and relationship coaching, not coaching pickleball. So are there times in your life that you can um identify when you felt like you were not thriving, and what did that look like?

Speaker 4: 3:18

Yeah, so it's. It's an interesting question because, um, I had been studying that resilience and thriving as part of my core of what I wanted to do as a therapist, of working with people, not with so much of what's wrong with you, but how do we get you to a place where you're what's right with you, what's going well with you? And I kind of neglected some of that in my own life and had a pretty serious medical situation in my mid-30s that made me realize that I had to be a little more serious about that, and so that was a transition. The doctors at one point were not sure what was going to happen. Possible outcome was not to survive it, and so I figured this is my bonus time. I didn't know how long that would last. No-transcript.

Speaker 4: 4:25

So, what are some habits that you can share with us that take people from surviving to thriving. So part of that is a mindset piece and we can talk some about that as we talk about whether these life lessons. But there's a mindset piece, but I also think that you know, I think about how are you thriving in your physical life. We all have limitations. I mean, our bodies are what they are and we have accidents and we have illness and we have these other things that come at us and it's not so much can we avoid all of that. But how do we take that in stride? How do we figure out how to maximize what we do have and how do we take care of nourishing our body, resting our body, relaxing our body in ways that allows our body to recuperate as best as possible? I think also building relationships. I mean there's a study we're going to drift a little bit, but maybe not because pickleball is so relational One of the studies that has come out that has been a longitudinal, like six decade study that has come out that has been a longitudinal, like six-decade study, showed there was one major thing that determined whether people were happy with their life, satisfied with their life, and how they did health-wise, and that was the strength of their relationships, and so a big piece of thriving is having strong relationships.

Speaker 4: 5:40

I do a lot of work with people who are struggling in marriages, and so that's one of my focuses of how do we get to the place where that's a nurturing piece, not a place that robs your life of thriving, and so that's a big piece. I think taking on challenges as a learning opportunity rather than the obstacles that they sometimes feel like that's another big piece. So those are some of the pieces. I actually have a book on the principles of thriving that goes through a number of different pieces, and there's just a few of them.

Speaker 1: 6:14

And Lee, you do have tons of books that you've written. I mean, you are a prolific writer, excellent writer, and we really appreciate it. And, as you say, so much of what you have learned and what you teach is related to pickleball. So when did you first discover pickleball?

Speaker 4: 6:34

So I was familiar with pickleball because my brother and my sister-in-law played for several years before we did. When we moved to town, we decided we had to find some place of being social, of finding new people, and so my wife is actually the one who said let's go check out this pickleball place and it's a gym that has pickleball courts in it and I was like I'll go along with you. I'm not so sure what I'm going to do, but I wanted to join her. So we both started about three years ago.

Speaker 1: 7:04

Had you been playing any racquet sports up to then?

Speaker 4: 7:08

When I was a teenager, I played racquetball with my dad. That was our thing, and so I stopped playing that sometime. Well, I played that in graduate school to some degree, but I hadn't played since then. So, no, my wife played some tennis, but, um, you know tennis is. We can talk about how that the difference is when we talk about why play pickleball, but tennis is just so hard to get into. Um, I didn't grow up with that, as opposed to pickleball, and so, um, it just became that place. I've, of course, I played um ping pong growing up, things like that, but nothing, nothing that would contribute to me being anything.

Speaker 3: 7:49

Tell our listeners about what you mean by a beginner's mindset.

Speaker 4: 7:53

So I think one of the things that well, let me say one of the things that always gets in our way when somebody is not having a good time doing something like pickleball, a lot of times it's an ego issue.

Speaker 4: 8:06

The ego has reared its head and said you should be better at this. And so the beginner's mind is first being able to say I am a beginner at this, this is where I am, I start here. So go back a few years, when I was around 50, I started jujitsu which is kind of late in life to jump into jujitsu and that required me to be beginner's mind at every step because it was just so outside of my comfort zone and everything else. And I remember at one point I was talking with the teacher and he said you know, what impresses me about you is how you're willing to not know what to do. And I'm like well, I don't, what else am I going to do? And he said yeah, but most people who are here as adults have already done something else in life. You know, they've been successful somewhere else and they think that they should be successful here because of that. I didn't have that illusion.

Speaker 4: 9:03

And I also try to recognize that a beginner mindset is a useful place to begin anything and in reality is to stay with that for some time. To recognize that. So in pickleball you start as a beginner but then as you get up you realize you're at a beginner again. You're at a beginner again.

Speaker 1: 9:28

You know whatever worked for me in those early days when I was competing with somebody about my level no longer worked at the next level up. Good point.

Speaker 4: 9:33

And the next level. You know you're, and so you can either keep doing what was working before or say, okay, I'm, I'm starting over. And that's the beginner mindset of being able to say here I am. What do I have to learn in order to get to this point, to the next point?

Speaker 1: 9:50

That is awesome.

Speaker 3: 9:51

That is so. What are some resets mind resets that we can do when we're playing and we don't realize what's a quick, 60-second reset if we've lost our beginner's mindset or in the middle of a match?

Speaker 4: 10:07

So one of the lessons I've talked about before with this is that every game is one point at a time. You win or lose one point at a time and for me that is a reset. Next point I've often said you know, there's that little goldfish, be a goldfish. You've got that eight second memory and and I've said to my partner sometimes when I see him get frustrated, and sometimes I play with the same people and I'll go goldfish and you know just that reset goldfish. Next point, and and I find that to be useful for me, when I'm serving I actually have the exact same serve I start with. Every time when I'm beside the server I have the exact same stance and I try to have that as my reset. So when I'm about to receive, I drop down, so I'm standing and I kind of let them get ready to serve, and then when I get set, that's my reset. Now I'm there, and so I have a lot of little places get ready to serve, and then when I get set, that's my reset. Now I'm there, and so I have a lot of little places for me to reset.

Speaker 4: 11:09

But the biggest one I have to remind myself is you know, next point whatever just happened, it's happened. Whether I scored or lost, it doesn't matter. Next point, we're on the next one, and one of the things that I think that's helpful is that I don't suddenly get into desperation mode. It's always the next point, that's all. You're playing, the next point that comes at you and whatever it comes your way, and I think along with that is the waiting to see what comes your way. I've watched people and I can see that they are trying to pre-predict where the ball is going to be. You know they're reacting to what they think is going to happen. They're not even predicting based on what the person is doing. They're pre-predicting it. They've got the shot they want to do. The shot's not there.

Speaker 3: 12:03

The signature shot.

Speaker 4: 12:05

Yeah, it's not there, you know, know. And so then you're forcing it and so I just kind of go with. You know, one point at a time, and you got to play what's there?

Speaker 1: 12:15

love it. And you mentioned saying to your partner goldfish, just to remember, remember to forget. And devil's pickleball is a lot about relationships, communications. So talk to us both in life and on the court how to enhance the communications. What's important?

Speaker 4: 12:38

So here I am. I work with marriages all day long and I think probably sometimes my clients get tired of hearing pickleball stories. So now I get to tell you know, relationship stories with pickleball people and full circle. But you know, I one of the things that I remember, um, as I I moved up and I was like, am I good enough to play it? You know, this next level up. And so I go to this next level up, which I actually determined probably could hang with them, but didn't enjoy it because they were no longer having fun. They were there to be competitive and I was up against a really good player. And then the three of us were about. His partner was probably a little better than the two of us on the other side and we beat them badly because they were such bad partners. Well, one of them was a really bad partner and he just started chastising this guy beside him and I could watch. I could just watch.

Speaker 4: 13:32

He just physically was sinking down, down and down.

Speaker 4: 13:35

So my thing is in pickleball, which is usually doubles for most normal people the relationship there, how you treat your partner and how you look at that relationship.

Speaker 4: 13:47

My goal is to you know, help them shuffle off a bad shot and feel good about you know their, their good shots and and so being able to support each other there. There've been times when I have said to couples I'm working with in marriage work you recognize you're on the same team. And there are times when I see the same thing on the pickleball court. I'm like you know you're on the same team, right, and you watch the struggle for people to recognize that they are a team and how it goes. They have to work together to do that. So in some ways it's a microcosm of what makes it for a good relationship. Can you support each other, win or lose? Can you support each other? And one of the things I've I really enjoy is doing kind of the you know the foursome, where you just rotate around who you're playing with, and what I like about that is whoever I'm playing against, they're going to be my partner pretty soon.

Speaker 1: 14:48

Yep.

Speaker 4: 14:48

And so you go about it differently. You know you think about what is that relationship, and so it's another little microcosm of how do you stay in connection with other people around you so that you bring your best out of your partner. I think a lot of times I get asked to play because I'm not upset when my partner makes a mistake, because I'll be next and that's just the way the game is, and so being together as a team is a central part of how I understand what I enjoy about the game overall.

Speaker 1: 15:22

You have a really great podcast, thriveologist podcast and the episode that I was listening to lately is about pickleball and the lessons you've learned and you tell a really touching story that one of the players said to you I want to play with you. And I think you say to him, well, I'm not the better player. And he said, oh, I'd rather lose with you than play with him. And I think that's something we really need to keep in mind is how I feel on the court is as important to me as it's way more important to me than winning or losing. So having a partner who supports and I can support as well that makes all the difference.

Speaker 3: 16:09

It gives me something to focus on instead of focusing on win or lose. Focus on being an amazing partner, yeah, and that that that takes, yeah, all the stress away and it brings the joy.

Speaker 4: 16:23

Yeah, yeah, and you know I mean that is the whole piece of that puzzle is, how can I be that supportive person? Because, truthfully, not long after I walk off the court I have a hard time recalling exactly what the score was or how you know. I'll come home and I'll tell my wife and she's like how'd you do? I'm like I I won this many times. I can usually say that, but sometimes I'll go I don't know what the score you know, I forget the score but, do you remember the times when you have a good partner or a bad partner?

Speaker 4: 16:51

Yes, you know, I know the people who are going to be fun to play with and I know the ones that I go. I'm not going to play in that group with that person or I'm not going to be their partner, and sometimes I have to be just because of the setup and you're like, okay, well, I'm going to be the best partner I can be and let them do what they're going to do. It's just all I can do is keep showing up to be that best partner. It's just all I can do is keep showing up to be that best partner and, hopefully, walking off, they at least aren't upset with how they were treated.

Speaker 1: 17:22

They might not like how I played, but how they were treated at least stands out, which is so important in our relationships too. I want to be the best partner. Am I being the best partner I can be? Instead of always finding fault in our significant other, it's like. Am I being the best partner? That?

Speaker 4: 17:40

I can be. How am I showing up? Yeah, how am.

Speaker 1: 17:42

I showing up. Yeah, there's the book Getting the Love you Want.

Speaker 4: 17:46

It's a kind of a bestseller and the author, the author's wife, said you know, I think maybe that's giving the love you want, and I think the same thing, you know, can you be the partner you would like to have beside you?

Speaker 1: 17:58

Yes.

Speaker 4: 17:59

At least gives you the standard to work for and gives you a place to go. I'm going to stay at that level. I'm not going to get pulled to whatever level they're acting at. I'm going to stay with what's important to me what my values are, which is interesting when we're playing a game.

Speaker 1: 18:17

Very, very interesting. Yes, exactly.

Speaker 3: 18:20

Something else that you mentioned that's important in thriving in life and on the pickleball court is having a plan.

Speaker 4: 18:29

You know. So there's a pro assigned to each of the open plays, and sometimes they're much more plays, and sometimes they're much more interactive and sometimes they're not, and I remember, I was standing beside him. He was talking to somebody else and he said so what's your strategy for playing? And I saw the blank look on the person's face and I'm sitting there going do I have?

Speaker 4: 18:51

that blank look. You know, do I have? Do I go in with a strategy? And as I was sitting there thinking about it, I'm like I do have a strategy and it can vary Sometimes. I'll go in and I'll go. I'm going to work on doing this. I'm going to work on doing this better, but I know what my game is.

Speaker 4: 19:10

I am not a blaster. I like to play a more controlled game and that's part of my challenge. When the score is against me, Am I going to suddenly start blasting it and pull me out of my game or do I stay with my game plan and sometimes having a chat with my partner? When I have a chance to play with someone, often I'm pretty clear about what is our strategy going to be. Are we going to do that X strategy? Because if you don't, if you don't have that plan, the other side is going to pick it apart. I'm playing one way, they're playing another, we're leaving holes, and so having a plan for me is true in life. You know and I am not the planner person my wife likes a list. I do a list because otherwise I'm in trouble. But I still realize that having a plan actually makes a difference in what gets done and what doesn't get done, and that's true on the court too. I can tell when somebody's just out doing their thing, and my plan is to take advantage of their lack of a plan.

Speaker 1: 20:19

That's good. And then to be flexible, because our plan doesn't always come out the way we think it's going to be. So, being flexible and quick on our feet to be able to create a new plan in a split second when the original doesn't work, how do yeah go ahead?

Speaker 4: 20:35

A plan can be big enough to even encompass that. You know, what am I going to do with this? How am I going to basically play? The game is kind of how I think about it, not a shot by shot, you know I've. I was listening to a pro, a true pro, talking about, and it was like they had mapped out, you know, and I'm like that's that is way advanced for me, but how am I going to pull people into a dink? You know, if they're bangers, how am I going to deal with that? If they're really good dinkers, how am I going to deal with that? That's part of an overall plan or strategy to know what am I good at and what am I not so good at, because that's going to play out in how we cover each other.

Speaker 3: 21:17

Something you said, instead of thinking of win-lose is think of learn-learn, and that's what kind of encompasses what you're talking about. When you have a plan and your plan doesn't go the way you thought it was going to, or you had to switch plans, you know what did I learn from that? Not why did we lose, but what did we learn. What did I learn? I love that.

Speaker 4: 21:34

I learn from that, not why did we lose, but what did we learn? What did I learn? I love that, yeah, yeah, that's. Nelson Mandela's quote is um, I don't lose, I win or I learn. And um, that's an often quoted one in around jujitsu too, especially in the training part. And one day I was like I mean in the end I learn or I learn. I mean if, even if I win, if I, if I, all I'm doing is winning, I'm still.

Speaker 4: 21:56

Why am I missing that learning edge? You know, whatever it is, because at the again, at the end of the day, listening to another person talking about pickleball, he said you know, if you are playing people at your level, you should lose half the time. Yep, that that's what the statistics should be. And if you're winning more often, then you sure you're not playing high enough, and if you're losing all the time, you're playing too high. So you should be in that 50, 50. And I was like that's a good reset. I should be losing 50% of the time. So that's 50% of the time I should be learning from what I'm where I'm losing and 50% of the time I should be learning from where I'm losing and 50% of the time I should be learning from what I did. Well, how?

Speaker 4: 22:38

I'm winning, but every game gives me an opportunity to learn, because the score is gone.

Speaker 1: 22:44

It's just the next game. I think that is so important and I think very few of us on the court think that way. But that's a really good reminder Because you know you lose a game Shouldn't have done. You know the whole beating each other up, beating ourselves up or whatever, and it's like, yeah, no, they get to win too. I don't have to win everything or I don't have to lose everything.

Speaker 4: 23:09

In some ways, when we think we should win every game. In some ways, that is a disrespect to who we're playing against. Totally we think we should be able to beat everybody, and that's not a fair one for ourselves. Right Nor is it fair to the other team who also equally wants to win that game?

Speaker 1: 23:28

Exactly, exactly. So you mentioned to us before we got started that you moved three years ago to your new place, and so for people who are new to a town or new to pickleball, they're just coming on the court. How do you create community in your new environment?

Speaker 4: 23:52

I think a big piece is letting pickleball be fun, one of the ways.

Speaker 4: 23:57

That's interesting because I've just as looking at what I know of the creation of pickleball, it was meant to be fun, not meant to be like tennis, right. So you make it a game that people can get into much more easily. You start off with the just the first person getting that's the serve on that side, right. And so they have half the service, basically so that it can't be lopsided. And so they have half the service, basically so that it can't be lopsided. And so all of these pieces have been put in there to make it a more enjoyable game that more people can be a part of. And I think we lose track of that when we make it our. We've got a crush. It's a social game, whether it's on the court or on the side. My wife really wanted to do open plays because she's on the court or on the side. My wife really wanted to do open plays because she's on the side. She's much more of wanting the social interaction than me. I still like it, but she really likes it and that gave us a place to go. And so over time, you know you have little short chats in between. They're low pressure because you're likely to be. You have little short chats in between. They're low pressure because you're likely to be interrupted and back in the game You're on the court, you get to see how each other's acting and being, and it's just a much more unifying thing than some much more competitive sports that people could do. It really is a very quiet solo. Even if you're playing with a partner it ends up being. You're so focused on performance and pickleball go have fun, and so I think keeping a mindset of this should be fun.

Speaker 4: 25:35

The other day I was talking to someone and we were going to lose this game. There's no doubt we were going to lose. I said you know the worst outcome of this? He said what I said. The worst outcome is we had a good time playing a game. How bad is that.

Speaker 4: 25:50

That's as bad as it gets.

Speaker 3: 25:51

I like it. How old is that?

Speaker 1: 25:57

So, in all of your adventures and you've kind of touched on some of them, but in your work with relationships and your playing on the pickleball courts, what are some life lessons that you've learned? Either that you've learned in life that you find yourself using on the court, or that, wow, while you were playing whoa, there's a life lesson that now you're using in life.

Speaker 4: 26:22

So I think one that stands out for me with pickleball, we've talked about some of these, but one that stands out for me is the fact that we are going to make errors. That is the nature of life, and pickleball points it out right.

Speaker 4: 26:35

I mean, I think the statistics are somewhere like 75 to 80% of points are scored by errors forced or enforced errors, not killer shots, and so I was talking to someone about it and they were like you know, it's you still, you want to have these killer shots. I said, okay, but how many of those killer shots were caused by an error right before? So if you include that, how many times is there just a really good shot that someone makes that there wasn't some slippage somewhere?

Speaker 4: 27:02

you know higher dink or bad lob or whatever, and so you know, you can be upset about that, you can be upset about the errors that come in life, or you can go that that's being human. That's, we're not automatons, we're not the robots on the floor. We are going to make errors and that's what makes the game the game, and so sure, I can work as hard as I want, to be as consistent as I can be, which I think is what we're trying to do.

Speaker 4: 27:28

Consistently good, I might say not consistently bad because, I've done that, but consistent at whatever it is the dink or serve or whatever, and I can work on consistency, but the game is still going to go down to errors, and so does life. Whatever happens in life, there are going to be errors that come our way. We're going to misspeak something, and so there are two pieces, and one is to recognize for ourselves that we're going to be the ones making the errors. The second one is others around us will be too, and how can we give grace to that, to ourselves and to the other person that errors are going to be made? That's just the nature of being human, whether it's on the pickleball court, in business, in families, in marriage, wherever.

Speaker 1: 28:17

Beautiful, beautiful. What else? You had a few more in your podcast. Can you remember them?

Speaker 4: 28:24

Yeah. So I think we've kind of covered that. There's every win or loss goes a point at a time. I think that's a really good one. We talked about winning or losing as a team, which is, I think, also critical, having a plan also, and about learning, you know, making sure that the process is a learning process. I mean, I really think that the only way that people improve is to do that. I don't drill as much as you know probably I should because I like to play, but I do recognize that when I'm playing I'm thinking you know, what am I trying to work on here, and how does that? You know, how do I bring that into the game? To me, that is a huge piece in life. No-transcript.

Speaker 1: 29:38

Amen, that's a good one so how can people find you, lee?

Speaker 4: 29:48

Because you have just piqued a lot of com. I have that podcast too, and if you want to find my books, thriveology dot com slash books will get you onto my page with Amazon. That will show you what the books I've written are there, and you can get them anywhere you want to, though.

Speaker 1: 30:19

And do you do life coaching and relationship coaching online or only in person?

Speaker 4: 30:25

No, I actually quit doing in person a number of years back because it kept my geography small and I work with people around the world and I have a team of coaches that work with me with people really around the world.

Speaker 1: 30:38

Good to know. Good to know. Oh gosh, lee, how lucky are we? Shelley, so lucky. Yeah, we get to talk with amazing people, that's right. And Lee About pickleball.

Speaker 4: 30:50

Yeah, about pickleball.

Speaker 1: 30:51

And life.

Speaker 3: 30:51

That's a way of talking about life.

Speaker 4: 30:53

Yeah, that's right.

Speaker 1: 30:57

Well, lee, thank you so much. Really, this is just. You're just a fount of information and insight, and we are just thrilled to have met you and we'll be reading all your books, no doubt about it.

Speaker 2: 31:10

Thanks for having me.

Speaker 1: 31:12

Thank you and thank you all. So great to have you with us today. Thank you for all the likes you guys have been so amazing and your comments and subscribing. Thank you very much and we look forward to a new conversation next week. Bye-bye.

Speaker 2: 31:27

Bye-bye. 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 1: 31:41

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.

Speaker 2: 31:54

Thanks so much. Hope to see you on the court.