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The Story Of The Youngest Pro Pickleball Player Jack Munro
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Podcast interview with Jack Munro, pro player, content creator, and student at University of Texas. Jack started playing pickleball at the age of 10 and was the youngest pro at age 12. Jack shares his insights into the industry, college pickleball, paddle technology, content creation, and his career.
Jack's social links:
Jack's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thejackmunro/
Jack's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@Jackmunropickleball
Jack's journal: https://jacksjournal.beehiiv.com/
**please excuse the technical difficulty. To all the viewers, I apologize for this mishap.**
Chapters
00:00 Intro
04:32 Beginning
06:16 Why PB over the other sports
07:36 Diff between pb then and now
11:35 PPA qualifiers
13:50 Juggling college
16:31 The pickleball bubble
17:54 Paddle technology plateauing
19:52 Proxr sponsorship, mergers
22:13 University of Texas Longhorn pickleball
27:43 College pickleball
36:01 Win over Ben and Collin Johns
43:12 Staying composed during trashtalking
49:19 Prepping for tournaments
54:55 Sportsmanship
58:15 What Jack hasn't told anyone
01:04:39 Jack's parents
01:09:11 Learning from idols
01:10:39 Content creation
01:27:55 What impact do you want to have on pickleball
01:30:16 Closing
01:30:55 Ways to improve
#pickleball #podcast
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Transcript
Tech Plateau and Playing Field Leveling
00:00:02
Speaker
I'm gonna call Mike tonight I'm gonna call Mike tonight
00:00:34
Speaker
because I was 12, you know, hitting with people that were way
Paddle Companies and Strategy Insights
00:00:38
Speaker
older. But I kind of think it will be good if technology plateaus, because then it will, basically everybody will be on an even playing field. And I think that that's what these paddle companies will tend to strive for. And that's such an untapped niche. I think most top players watch that match over and over because there's so much nuance out of that match that Roscoe and I brought to the table. I'll just say the percentage. I got my highest performing video, finally over a million.
00:01:11
Speaker
Is this commenting on your content?
Public Perception and High Performers
00:01:12
Speaker
I know, it's like. Is this a hater? Yeah, I mean, I think we talked about it before, but it's like, it's finding the perfect amount of tennis players to comment on your stuff in order to push it further. But in order for them to not truly just like hate on you or follow you just to hate on you. That makes sense. No, that makes sense. Yeah, it's always like the same argument. Like it's not a real sway, like,
00:01:40
Speaker
Yo, who cares? Like people, people enjoy doing it. I was like, what even makes like a real sport? There's like, people play tag and like ultimate frisbee. Yeah. And honestly, like tag, like I consider tag a real sport.
Timmy's Potential and Comparisons
00:01:52
Speaker
That means like, bro, that's, that's kind of fun. What even, what even makes a real sport? I mean, pick up balls in college now, right? Yeah. All right. We had an event last night. You what? We had an event last night. Oh, did you? What was the event?
00:02:10
Speaker
It was we we had it at the ranch and it was just it was everything but a paddle night But not many people pulled up with anything but a paddle. So we just we just had a good night Timmy talked about that. He mentioned that though Tim is the best He's like, do you know Ryan to watch it? He's like a mini Ryan to watch it Dude people have been saying that
00:02:30
Speaker
No way, really. I think Timmy, maybe you said that to Timmy and then Timmy told me. And I think he takes a lot of pride in that. And I don't know if many people would. People don't know who were talking about pickleballed and Timmy. Timmy, man, I met him at Sarc. I always thought he was like a good player. And then once I like
00:02:55
Speaker
He was kind of quiet and then he started opening up and I was like, Jesus Christ, this kid is like off the hinge.
00:03:05
Speaker
Um, but he's like your, did you meet him through the college team? Yep. Not yet. Not even through soccer or Pan Am. Like we both went to a college event and then just kind
Diversity and Skills in Pickleball
00:03:18
Speaker
of hit it off from there. Well, right now he's the second best player at, at her school. So he's going to like travel and compete and do a lot. Damn. That's dope. Is that thing okay? Yeah. As long as the smoke, will the smoke show up?
00:03:32
Speaker
I hope so. It'll make it, like, look nice. Oh yeah, and I met that chick Zoya. But Zoya's...
00:03:38
Speaker
Is it, is it just me or is she like a good player? She's very good. Okay. Yeah. Great strokes. Um, and she's getting better at thinking like she's got like, you know, the easiest part for the easiest way for a tennis player to learn how to dink is she should hit a bunch of like aggressive rolls cross court. Cause they can still like, you know, kind of swing away with their strokes and she's like getting that down. So she's like understanding how to dink, which is going to be huge.
00:04:05
Speaker
That's awesome. Yeah.
Introduction to Jack Monroe
00:04:07
Speaker
I played with her randomly. Let me make sure this doesn't turn off. I planned her whether they were randomly at SARC and then I met her at the merch shoot for ranchers. Super funny. Um, cause we were both like, we're like the only ethnic ones here. And she's like, she's like, I think we're just here to meet the diversity quota.
00:04:28
Speaker
It's cool though, man. Um, welcome to another episode of building pickleball.
Jack's Journey to Pickleball
00:04:34
Speaker
Um, my guest today is Jack Monroe. Shout out to my sponsor. Welcome to building pickleball, man. Thanks for having me. Yeah, dude. Um, for any of the people that don't know who you are, which shame on you if you don't, but for the people that don't know who you are, can you give like a quick intro?
00:04:51
Speaker
rising pro star i'd say that's a pretty overused term but uh been playing for the past eight nine years now took a kind of hiatus in the middle of it so now i'm back playing turns out there's a bunch of different stuff now like the ppa and app and all that stuff which wasn't around back then so i'm trying to uh go pro obviously i you know i'm trying to break in there right now as well as make content i think content's as big of an avenue if not a bigger avenue than the pro avenue so
00:05:21
Speaker
That's obviously a super big part of my brand. Yeah. Um, damn, there's a lot in that. I want to pick a part in that, but I think like, if we're going to take this in like chronological order, there's like a lot of information out there or enough information about like how you start and all that. So I won't get into that, but you did start playing
Social Aspects and Community
00:05:41
Speaker
at the age of 10. And then, uh, for some people that don't know, you know, like you were like the youngest five Oh pro player that was at age 12.
00:05:48
Speaker
Yeah. But then you've played other sports. Like I remembered one of the videos he's talked about how your fracture, you know, like a experienced a fractured growth plate during baseball. And that introduced you to pickleball from your dad. Given you've played like various sports. Did you play tennis? No, I didn't. I didn't at all. Yeah. So you played baseball. What else? Pickleball, baseball, and then basketball, basketball. Okay. Yeah. What draws you to pickleball over those two other sports?
00:06:18
Speaker
Honestly, now it's a social aspect. I mean, I was drawn to it originally with the injury. So it was just easy to go around and hit a ball, which is why some people complain that it isn't a sport because it's so easy, like the barrier to entry is so low. But that allowed me to get in and still be social. It allowed me to mature a bit faster as well because I was 12, hitting with people that were way older.
Technological Evolution in Pickleball
00:06:44
Speaker
That was one of the cool things about it.
00:06:48
Speaker
One of the things that stood out with Pickleball as well was there was a huge community behind it. Like high school basketball, there's a community behind it. Baseball, you know, you're traveling with your baseball team. But with Pickleball, I felt it was a different feeling that I got from it. I mean, it truly felt more so like family. And no matter where you came from, you could honestly go there and just have a blast.
00:07:14
Speaker
A lot of people, like I feel like a lot of people don't really know what myself included, don't really know what the game was like back then compared to like, probably in the past like few years when it really started to explode, which is like 2020. What's been like different from when you played back then to once you got back into
Past Playing Styles and Pickleball Growth
00:07:31
Speaker
it.
00:07:31
Speaker
There's a lot of things to unpack in terms of the difference between now and then, but some of the biggest ones were the difference in technology. I mean, back then you had like zero grid on the paddle. Like people were just experimenting with different cores and stuff like that. You don't have the tech like the carbon fiber or the Kevlar or anything like that that people are starting to implement today.
00:07:54
Speaker
you had there was no such thing as a true pro so all the divisions were 5.0 or like 19 plus or something like that there was no true pro meaning that also nobody like you travel but it was mostly out of pocket like it was tough to find a sponsor that paid you
00:08:08
Speaker
to travel because Pickleball was so young. Tournaments, you know, you'd play in a tournament and then you'd get like three, four hundred bucks for getting first place or something like that. I mean, it was way different back then. Everybody had a job. You know, everybody that was like pro or the best back then, it was just a thing to do on the weekend.
00:08:28
Speaker
In terms of how the sport has changed obviously Due to the technology now you can do a lot more with spin a lot more a lot more with power So shots were a lot flatter back then you couldn't really speed up from your knees the way you can now So if you go back and watch a lot of film you'll see that people have like hip-high balls But they'd like think it back and think it back. So that's where the that's kind of where the
00:08:55
Speaker
You know where people say like it's such a slow sport because they they watch back then and they see that people just dinked and dinked and dinked for 40 balls every single rally because nobody was able to be aggressive because of that. So that was a big difference. People love to lob. People love to just hit like.
00:09:14
Speaker
just super high balls that landed in the kitchen and nobody sped up off of it. Just there was no such thing as truly being aggressive. Yeah. I mean, you can go back and watch the film. It is. It's so funny because people will have like literally chest high balls and they're just like push it back. They'll just like dank and keep thinking and keep thinking until somebody misses. And that's where, you know, that's where the bad rep kind of comes from.
00:09:37
Speaker
I guess it's definitely changing now. I think they said there's going to be like 382 new paddle brands or paddles introduced in 2024. Which is a quarter of all the paddles out there, right? I mean, right now, how many paddle brands are there?
00:09:52
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. It's crazy getting hit up by paddle brands and then pushing their product and you're like, is this really different?
Player Challenges and Travel Logistics
00:10:03
Speaker
Is this like the same thing? You can see even Teemu now is promoting like their pickleball paddles.
00:10:11
Speaker
And it's literally it has the YOLA logo on it. It just doesn't have the Benj on stamp. It doesn't have anything like that. They're promoting it. I mean, I've seen it on Instagram all the time through the targeted ads and it's literally the Perseus. But and it has the YOLA the YOLA little triangle on it. But they're just branding it as their own. Is it like half the price?
00:10:32
Speaker
I mean, I, I never checked, but I would 100% say so. Damn. That's crazy. Yeah. I remember when I was looking up, you're doing like some research on you. This is crazy. There's like a game with you, William Sobek, Annaly, and then like, is it Robert Elliott's daughter? Yep. Yep. Rachel Elliott.
00:10:52
Speaker
Rachel Elliott what happened? Do you know what happened to her? Honestly, I don't think she ever had any desires to go pro and pickleball So she's just I think she's working for engage on the back end still So yeah, like like we still talk and keep in touch and Josh Elliott, which is the brother of Rachel Elliott You know plays and travels. He's a high level player like he qualifies and stuff like that but it's obviously tough to travel when qualifiers are on Tuesday or Wednesday and
00:11:20
Speaker
And then it's also a
College Pickleball Organization
00:11:22
Speaker
plane ticket. Housing registration is like a grant. So it's tough for some of the people that don't know, like I didn't really know that it's like you're the second person in the past week that's told me that the qualifiers are on Tuesday or Wednesday. So how does that work?
00:11:36
Speaker
Some people like it and some people don't. No doubt it's better for television, just like, you know, tennis. But the qualifiers on Tuesday or Wednesday is basically in order to have the start time earlier or less of a burden for most of the pros that want to get there on Friday or Saturday. So, for example, they'll just put everybody on qualifiers on Wednesday and if you make it and you'll play on Friday or Saturday, it depends on Mixture Men's or whatever.
00:12:02
Speaker
So then like typically what they did before was they did qualifiers starting at like 7 a.m. So you'd have to get there like six to warm up and And if you were lucky enough to qualify then you'd start at like 9 or 10 But in order to basically free some time up They just put qualifiers a few days before
00:12:21
Speaker
Which is certainly tough for for most people I mean, you know, the people in qualifiers are more likely to have a full-time job And so it's tough for them to take one day off on a Friday more or less three to get there out on a Wednesday So it's it's certainly tough. I mean you really have to commit or find some sort of sponsor or flexibility with your job.
00:12:41
Speaker
Yeah. It's a good thing. The remote working like whole like thing happened there.
Sponsorships and College Balance
00:12:50
Speaker
That whole room, that whole movement. I think that kind of helps. Cause I think Thomas Wilson still has like a full time job, right? Yeah. Yeah. I don't know how. I mean, yeah, like we try to play sometimes and he's like, you can't do this time. Can't do this time. Cause he's got a call. We're call meeting and stuff like that. So he, he, he actually manages his time pretty well in order to make, make both happen.
00:13:09
Speaker
Yeah, that's crazy. He's like a top five player, probably six. So as a full-time job, he's probably gonna have to keep it now that he has that baby.
00:13:34
Speaker
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00:13:51
Speaker
man, I couldn't imagine being like a, I guess like a full-time athlete during the time when I was in college, granted maybe times have changed or I was just not a great kid at around that time. Like how's that for you? Because not only are you, you know, like a full-time athlete, but you're also someone who is planning on using your degree once you get out of college, which isn't always the case. Like for me, I made sure in like nutrition dietetics,
00:14:19
Speaker
I didn't follow the path where I used my degree and you hear that's a pretty common story. So how's that been for
Online Classes and Athlete Schedules
00:14:25
Speaker
you?
00:14:25
Speaker
Mm-hmm. It's certainly been a nuisance in terms of time consumption for sure especially when you have homework as well as tests to study for and then you also have to practice and train and travel to tournaments a Cool part is now like compared to whatever even say 10 years ago online classes are more easy easier to access so I have a couple online classes, but there are a few core classes that you need to be in person for and
00:14:51
Speaker
So, I mean, it certainly is tough, I would say.
00:14:58
Speaker
Honestly, the people that do it mostly do it online. So for example, if you, I mean, you could look at a few of the pro players that were able to graduate, they do it for the most part online, which is super helpful. But going to UT, it goes to show how easy the goalposts can shift. Because I moved to Austin in order to go to UT to go to the School of McCombs, which is a business school, and then be a banker.
00:15:25
Speaker
And then whatever, three years, MBA, and then work at a hedge fund or VC until I was 35 or whatever. And then Pickleball just fell into my lap and so decided to pursue it. And then now instead of going to the School of McCombs, I'm pursuing an economics degree rather than finance.
Pickleball Growth and Accessibility
00:15:46
Speaker
So I still think I can use that, which is cool. Balancing it has obviously been tough, but it just goes to show. I mean, two years ago, I was like set on finance on being a banker. And now it's like, well, look at this. Pickleball is like you can actually make a living off of it or, you know, just stuff like that.
00:16:02
Speaker
where another cool part is it's so like the growth is already has and will be exponential is that it's like, for example, right now, like we're still I mean, we're we have a pretty decent amount of following, but imagine us in like five years where we were like more so like the pioneers or something like that. I mean, I think there's so much growth to be had in this. And that's why I think investing in it is worth it and putting a bunch of time into it.
00:16:29
Speaker
Do you see like, is your vision for like the sport and like your prediction? Obviously no one knows for certain, but like, do you see that this is going to be like a very like long-term thing and that it's not necessarily like a bubble. That's going to be, that's going to burst anytime soon.
00:16:45
Speaker
In terms of the sports, regardless of the leagues, because we've seen leagues in the past fail, we've seen what's going on right now. Also, progress has been hindered lately. In terms of where it's headed, I think that progress may slow, but it's certainly not stopping or reversing.
Future of Paddle Technology
00:17:03
Speaker
If you think about pickleball in general, like what we talked about before, it's so easy to play.
00:17:08
Speaker
That it'll certainly garner more attention than tennis or and just saying on a local level not not on a pro level yet Or anything like that because the court's so small it's easy to get involved It's relatively cheap for the most part if you just want to get a pack of two at Costco, you know and I mean the adoption has been pretty rapid and even if it slows down we're still at the beginning of the s-curve and
00:17:33
Speaker
How do you think like paddles and paddle technology in that development? Like I feel like there's a lot of excitement in the equipment. You can kind of see like in the reviewers, you see it at like the courts. Everyone's got like a different, mostly a different like paddle for the most part. How do you think like paddles once they kind of like, once they plateau in technology, how do you think like that'll affect the game?
00:17:55
Speaker
Honestly, I think I think it'll be this kind of a sub topic but I kind of think it will be good if Technology plateaus because then it will basically everybody will be on an even playing field, but I don't think that will ever happen I think there will always be innovation take for example like f1 and
00:18:12
Speaker
I mean granted they have the cost cap now but every year they're improving and even if it's the most even if even if it's the most minute of a change it will have a 0.5% or you know 1% increase and I think that that's what these paddle companies will tend to strive for and then even if it's not a big increase say for example like The aerodynamics of the little circle on the bottom of the paddle or something like that
00:18:37
Speaker
It's like you can also just market it and push it like that and even though it's a super small change I think they'll always be pushing for anything like that. Even if it's like carbon fiber now or a foam core is big now two years from now assuming USAPA like doesn't do anything to you know ruin paddle technology advancements There will be another one like that, you know, I mean, yeah
00:19:01
Speaker
You've seen it in every sport, Grenada, like tennis, I think is a good example of technology slowing down.
Marketing Strategies in Pickleball
00:19:10
Speaker
Which I think, well, we could eventually get there, but it's like what we said since it's such a young sport, we still have so much. Like people just discovered a foam core, I'm pretty sure. I don't think anybody in two years ago was
00:19:24
Speaker
Knew that was a thing. Yeah. It's like that. And like Kevlar is like a kind of a buzzword, if you will. Now, as Chris Olsen would say, there we go. His name got dropped in another episode. I honestly, I honestly tried not to say his name, but I had to give credit cause I just see picture that thumbnail. Um, speaking of like USAP and paddles and like paddle technology, you're sponsored by Pro XR and they were like at,
00:19:53
Speaker
They were in like the headlines, I guess, I suppose for like one of the testing testing results, but I don't think like anything actually happened. But do you have any insider information on this product start releasing anything new for 2024?
00:20:08
Speaker
They have a bunch of cool stuff in the works. I like really like, especially with their acquisition of PaddleTech in specific. Oh, they aren't PaddleTech? Yeah. Yeah. So now they have PaddleTech Pro XR and Boundless Pickleball, which each will tap into a different niche per se. So I think
00:20:29
Speaker
I think the acquisition was good, but in specific, Boundless Pickleball is, college pickleball is so ripe for a brand to, for a paddle company to just come in there and take up a majority of the market. I mean, if you think about it, not many big paddle brands are investing in college pickleball and that's such an untapped niche that I think Boundless will tap into. So for example, what they're doing is they're licensing
00:20:53
Speaker
college logos and then just putting them on paddles and then selling them at a relatively cheap markup. And so it tailors towards the typical college kid that just wants some patriotism towards his college. You can see, I don't know if you've seen some of the UT boundless paddles as well.
00:21:12
Speaker
But yeah, so they have them for Iowa, Arkansas, whatever, Michigan, UT. And I think it's perfect. I think that's where, I think Boundless is honestly perfectly positioned for college pickleball. And then take, for example, Proxar. They're the more high-end, more technologically advanced with their paddle face, with their paddle technology.
00:21:34
Speaker
And then selling it for obviously, you know on the higher end of prices So I really like all the different avenues that Pro XR is going to take or that is taking and that they're going to expand into in the future So Pro XR is gonna be manufacturing those boundless battles. We're like, okay, damn, that's sweet
Jack's College Pickleball Experience
00:21:55
Speaker
Yeah. I don't know anything about that college side. I was, I came from like a very small school that was in like Southwest Virginia. It's like the coolest thing was like a Walmart. So I don't know anything about like college sports. Like we didn't come up on that. We didn't even have like a D three football team. Like the biggest thing we had was actually like a rugby team. They had one like nationals, but, um, how was that going as far as being on like the UT, the, like the Longhorns pick wall team. And like, I don't ever see you at SARC. I don't want to throw you under the bus.
00:22:24
Speaker
I don't see you with Zoya. I don't see you with Timmy and, and Alec, but, um, I'm assuming like you guys all go to tournaments together. You guys play in events. Like, how does that look? What is, what can you kind of like share about like what the college pickleball experience is like?
00:22:39
Speaker
Yeah. So there's, I mean, there's a bunch of different paths to unpack just from that statement. But I mean, for the most part, all of, we have a competitive team as well as a, a social club and then like a competitive team broken off of it. Um, which was
College Tournament Logistics
00:22:53
Speaker
a nuisance at first, cause it's like.
00:22:56
Speaker
In order to use the UT trademarks, such as the Longhorn logo, such as the Longhorn name, we had to apply and become a sponsored student org through the school, which means that we couldn't take profits if we went to a tournament or won anything like that.
00:23:16
Speaker
So we basically divided it into two, a social club and then a competitive club. That competitive club is, like the people there, like what we said, Zoya, Timmy, Alec, a few of the guys on the UT Pickle team are truly grinding because there's actually a lot of money getting thrown into College Pickle right now. For example, APP had their tournament last year, or no, yeah, yeah, at the end of last year. And I think it had like 40 grand in prize money. Duper had 50 grand in prize money.
00:23:46
Speaker
So it's a lot like you can go there and for example, APP actually comped your housing there. So yeah, so they're investing a lot of money into it. So there's a reason why we're grinding and there's a reason why hopefully we're going to be the best team in college pickleball.
00:24:02
Speaker
But yeah, we have team practices and stuff like that. We're talking to a bunch of places. So for example, the lab in the east side, east side paddle club, Austin Pickle Ranch, a bunch of these places. I'm trying to collaborate with them in order to have our team play there and just have set up practices for our competitive team. But it's certainly fun. I mean, it's just kind of like a club, kind of like club travel team. So it's fun. And then hopefully we're able to
00:24:29
Speaker
make some money as well rather than just throwing you know throwing five grand or ten grand into a money or into a money fire you know so I also think getting sponsors is going to be big so in order to help pay for that fundraising there's different ways to fundraise like whatever just revenue split or you know simply grab a sponsor stuff like that but there's a lot that nobody's ever done because college pickle is relatively new
00:24:58
Speaker
Yeah. Are you spearheading like some of that? Like the management and the organization and like just the way you've kind of talked about that. Like it just sounds like
Managing College Responsibilities
00:25:07
Speaker
you're the one kind of behind the scenes on that. Yeah. Well, we have a whole team of like 15 people behind. We have a media team, like a social media team. We have a team for the social side as well as the competitive side. So like I help run the competitive sign, the competitive side. And then we have,
00:25:23
Speaker
A co-founder of mine who runs like the the more social side of things for example Ali Timmy or Alec Timmy and Zoya they they also are as important as me and Putting together practice times and helping to find sponsors and reach out to sponsors. I just simply provide a bigger name Yeah, so they're working as hard as I am for this stuff and
00:25:47
Speaker
Yeah. Um, Timmy does a great job on that rec scene and you can tell he's like trying to put in the work for someone who doesn't have like a racket sports background. Um, yeah, it looks, looks great. He's always like, it actually is like very positive out there. Yeah. Yeah. There's a good like image.
00:26:03
Speaker
And so this year we have a bunch of tournaments lined up. Duper is trying to put together regional tournaments and they're actually trying to incentivize colleges to host tournaments on their courts. So for example, Baylor is hosting a tournament, A&M is going to host a tournament, we're hoping to also host a tournament, and then Duper will help.
00:26:22
Speaker
Hopefully help comp some housing as well as offer up some prize money and stuff like that just to get local colleges near the area competing and You know, it'll go in a duper and stuff like that, which is annoying
00:26:38
Speaker
Yeah, so it'll be fun. I'm hoping to play a bunch of college tournaments. Unfortunately, like at the end, at the later half of last year, it was annoying just because the college tournaments were the same weekend as other tournaments, which I already committed to. So I wasn't able to show up to the college tournaments, but this year I'm definitely committed to playing a bunch of the college tournaments.
00:27:02
Speaker
I was wondering about that. I was like, how come we don't see like Jack more on like that side? And I just didn't think it was like, I was like, um, I just didn't assume that it was a scheduling, but that makes sense. I didn't know if it was maybe like a contract thing or yeah, just assumed, or in some ways like a skill level thing. Like, like, how do you stand against other collegiate players?
00:27:26
Speaker
What's, I mean, a typical, like a good rule of thumb on the college level is if you have one good player, you'll win, you'll win at least 50% of your matches. So all you need is one other decent player to win another match and you're good. So, um, so for example, like Colin chick, he'll win both of his matches and then in a, in a dream breaker, he will run through the other guy.
00:27:48
Speaker
So all he needs is another woman's dub, another mixed dub, and then that'll give it the 3-1. Assuming you're playing like the MLP format where it's two mixed men's and then women's. So for example, but if you have two good girls, so for example, TCU has two really good girls, then you have the opportunity to win three matches because you have each girl playing a mixed match and then you have the women's match.
00:28:16
Speaker
If you have one good guy, then you're likely to win both your matches, but then it could go into a dream breaker. So for example, like Timmy or Zoya, um, if imagine like, if we have an entire team of four or five fivos, like we're gonna, we're gonna run through everybody. Um, so I think, I mean, that's a pretty good rule of thumb.
00:28:38
Speaker
How do college kids perceive pickleball?
Pickleball as a Social Alternative
00:28:40
Speaker
Like you're around a lot of college kids and then they probably, it probably comes up in conversation, right? They're like, Oh, like, what do you do besides like majoring in Econ and doing business stuff? You're probably like, I'm a professional pickleball player. They're like, what the is that?
00:28:55
Speaker
Yeah, they're so bamboozled by it. It's nuts. I mean, originally, I tell people I just travel and play competitively, but then a few of them just follow me on Instagram and they're like, yo, you're actually a pro. But in terms of how Pickleball is viewed, the kids love it.
00:29:15
Speaker
Like, it's so huge. I mean, you can tell by the turnout in East Side Paddle. I mean, you have college kids showing up there. You have college kids showing up at the ranch. These kids love it. And so when we host our events, our first event, we did a decent job marketing it. But keep in mind, it was a free event. And we had 100 people show up at Austin Pickle Ranch, which was nine courts or eight courts, which is absurd because that means it's eight times four. What, 32?
00:29:42
Speaker
Yeah, there's 32 people in courts and then 60 people waiting Yeah, so it's it's absurd and people just go out have a good time We had we had like 30 novices go out and some of them I mean honestly most of those novices came alone which is ballsy in the first place and so
00:30:03
Speaker
I mean, they just had a blast. They met new friends. They, you know, I tried my best to run a little clinic just to teach them the rules and stuff like that. And they just, they love it because it's, once again, it's an easy sport to get the hold of other than the scoring. The scoring's fricking difficult.
00:30:20
Speaker
But yeah, they love it. I mean truly they'll go out and play for fun and you can see more college kids picking it up I mean at our courts we have On campus we have like basketball courts with pickleball courts lined and you can book basketball or pickleball And if you look at the website for bookings, it's all pickleball. It's like I mean every single court is just pickled out after 6 p.m
00:30:44
Speaker
Is this outdoor basketball courts?
Pickleball's Social and Competitive Engagement
00:30:47
Speaker
Which I feel bad because I mean, you know, like a basketball court could hold arguably more people than two pickleball courts on a basketball court. But I mean, you could just show like there's just such a wave of students that just love it. I mean, like they'll put together the net, they'll just play music and it's just a good activity. Keep in mind I said activity, not sport. But yeah, it's a great way.
00:31:09
Speaker
It's a great way for everybody to just, you know, go out and also burn some calories, the active stuff like that. That's so true. Like I feel like, so I don't want to try it. I don't want to age myself here, but back when I was in college, like drinking was a very, like, uh, it's just very like embedded into the college experience. But now like from what I've noticed is like college kids now have kind of like,
00:31:36
Speaker
gone or moved away from that direction and they're just finding other ways to like have fun. There's the way you're talking about like, okay, like you have kids like setting up a pickleball net, then they like blast music and they just like have a good time, not to say that they aren't drinking, but yeah, it's a great way to just like socialize and have fun without the use of like alcohol, um,
Well-being Through Pickleball
00:31:56
Speaker
which can sometimes just inherently like bring along with it, like some trouble and stuff. So you just like steer clear of all of that and then just find a way to have fun, but also,
00:32:08
Speaker
Being a D one or like on track to be a professional athlete in tennis, baseball, basketball, or any of those traditional sports, like incredibly difficult, not to say that pickleball isn't difficult, but I feel like it's an opportunity for some of those kids who may have been like high school athletes and then got burned out. And then they like find their way and like, Oh man, like this pickleball thing is so fun. And they're still like athletic. They still have like that mental sharpness too. So that's super cool.
00:32:35
Speaker
Yeah, and literally just going outside for two hours with your friends blasting music and breathing fresh air is like I mean, I mean I'm not saying like this is what happens, but if you're a parent You're so happy that they found pickleball
00:32:53
Speaker
You know, I mean, it's like one of the best things. I mean, I've seen it change you and I as well as likely most of the viewers have seen it change someone's life. You've seen them either get out of a dark hole that they were in. You've seen them lose weight and become a bit more active. I mean, there's so many different ways it can change your life. And whether you're a college student or a bit older, I mean, it's certainly a benefit.
00:33:14
Speaker
And less screen time, which I think is, everyone can kind of agree that the whole screen thing in social media apps has been very like dangerous to, uh, especially like young and developing like individuals. But you, when you talked about like, it could be so beneficial to like, for people who might be experiencing something tough.
00:33:34
Speaker
that
Intergenerational Play and Misconceptions
00:33:35
Speaker
kind of reminded me. I don't know if you're friends with her, but she's in the APP side. Someone had mentioned her name before. His name is like Riley Bonhart Bonhart. Yeah. I remember she, her story is kind of like she had battled with like suicide and she, uh, found pickleball and it just like speaking of something that saved her life. Like pickleball did that for her.
00:33:54
Speaker
And it's not even just applies to young people. Like there's old people too. Like, you know, a lot of people just kind of give up on life. Like after a certain age, they just become like, they just kind of think that, okay, like I've like had my kids, I've like had my career. Now I can just like coast and like, they don't find something new to like reinvigorate their life. And I think that pickle ball has done a great job of that. Yeah.
00:34:18
Speaker
Yeah, which is why the adoption has been so rapid because it's not really held down by a specific age group. You could play it when you're 15, which is what I see pretty often, like even at least back in Cali.
00:34:33
Speaker
you could see a bunch of high school kids just go out and play there and you know like, whether it's girls or guys or they're mixing and then you could also go to the next court over and then there's like literally 60 years old, 60 years old people just playing, still having the time of their life, still having like good games and what's gnarly is at points like they can intermingle which is
00:34:53
Speaker
Just mind-boggling because if you think about in terms of basketball or if you're gonna play Baseball or softball if you're a bit older or any anything like that it's it's so tough to intermingle different age groups and Pickleball is one of the rest sports that can
00:35:10
Speaker
Yeah. You can't write people off based on their age, their weight, their gender, or like their size in pickleball. Like you just can't make that assumption. They could easily just mop the floor with you. Like they could just crush you. That's yeah. That's so interesting. We we've both been spanked by Sally before. Like, I mean, you walk on the court and you think it's a fricking like walk in the park and then, you know, you just get absolutely whooped.
00:35:35
Speaker
It's why I don't go to make masters anymore in Georgetown last year.
Jack's National Match and Strategies
00:35:40
Speaker
I don't know how many people like knew about you, but I like, I think you were like pretty low key. And then you had that game at the match at the nationals, which like that helped like propel, like bring your stock up. And then you also, you also had like clips of, uh, you like practicing with Ben, but.
00:35:57
Speaker
Basically what I'm getting at is like that match, the Roscoe John's match, um, turned out to be 11, four, 11, zero, 11, 13. And then, uh, I think like 11, six on the fourth game. What was going through your mind after game two? So, I mean that, that game in specific or that match in specific was honestly, I believe a pretty good.
00:36:26
Speaker
I think most top players watch that match over and over because there's so much nuance out of that match that Roscoe and I brought to the table that I mean you even see Dane Gingrich at points like he posts that match over and over about like What happened in this specific point or stuff like that? So it's honestly a pretty good outline for a different approach to beat obviously the goats and
00:36:50
Speaker
In terms of what was going on in my mind after match two, it was just certainly getting the nerves out. Because, you know, being on a stage like that obviously takes a little bit of time. Getting the nerves out, being confident in hitting your shots, because there's points where we held back.
00:37:06
Speaker
And, you know, like you have a strategy, but then you have an opportunity to, um, to actually do that strategy. And then it's like, Oh, maybe, but I'm a little tight. So I'm just hit a dink back or something like that. Um, so it was like, we were fully loose after that match. We were like, we literally lost 11 zero. We couldn't be anything worse. Like, you know,
00:37:28
Speaker
Um, so yeah, it was, it was basically just looking at each other and being like, like literally just play your game, just play your game and being confident in that. And it's tough to, it's tough to have confidence after getting spanked for sure. But it also gives you, um, it gives you, it makes you a little bit more loose because you have nothing to lose.
00:37:49
Speaker
Going into that match. We also had nothing to lose because they're the number one team. They've been the number one team for years on end But that's I'd say that's what changed after game three we used a pretty a pretty nuanced strategy compared to most matchups against the Johns brothers and It seemed to pay off assuming that we made our balls I think that one of the things
00:38:17
Speaker
Honestly, without going too deep into it, I do think that what we did really well was applying pressure through being aggressive, as well as having a lefty is huge, and then a lefty with a twoy.
Technical Insights and Communication
00:38:30
Speaker
Because name one other top pro who's a lefty who has a twoy.
00:38:34
Speaker
He got Pablo Teas. He got Rafa Hewitt. Like there's not many looks that the Johns Brothers have that where they have an aggressive right side lefty. So that was a matchup that we wanted for sure. And then Roscoe being long. Roscoe being strong as well. Honestly, Roscoe did...
00:38:59
Speaker
Roscoe did his job extremely well, and that's why we won that game because obviously you could rewatch that game and see he was hitting amazing serves, amazing drives, which allowed me to come in there and basically just create chaos at the net by poaching or speeding up a high dink or anything like that. And we changed the pace, created chaos, controlled chaos, which is what you should want to do rather than chaos. You can still win with chaos. But yeah, that was that was what allowed us to win that game. Sorry.
00:39:28
Speaker
oh yeah no worries yeah like an 11-4 11-0 which the score really doesn't say much i i feel like you may have you guys may have just like scored on the wrong points but also like there's like i could see the johns had to have like come even with an 11-0 they had to have come away from that game being like okay we picked up this we picked up that like they had have like gotten so much out of even just like an 11-0 game
00:39:50
Speaker
but yeah when I saw y'all in the 11 13 game you definitely seemed more loose like you were poaching more attacking more it's crazy to see like you guys attacking two-handed backhands from the outside in um that was that was working a lot um the exchanges just seemed like some
00:40:12
Speaker
it seemed like you guys were just losing some of those like exchanges too just by like unforced errors but then you guys like also started to read like oh if he like if Ben's going through the exchange and it's like the third or like fifth ball in the exchange just move out of the way and the balls is gonna sail which doesn't happen often but you guys read it something I noticed was like
00:40:32
Speaker
They kept attacking Roscoe's right, which was also like your left hand when you were on the right Roscoe was on the left How come with that opening was there like they kept attacking is like right hip? It's certainly tough because in that spot like what created it was likely a high dink so it was likely my fault in which I hit a high dink and
00:40:52
Speaker
cross-court, and then I'm supposed to slide and cover everything from probably half a foot out to his right hip extended to the right, if that makes sense. So he covers line, body, and then his right hip, and then I cover middle. With that, it just took a little bit of time in order to figure that out. Just like with everything, you know your job, but it's different when you're applying it.
00:41:20
Speaker
I mean just a little miscommunications there and obviously playing Ben and Colin it's like there's no room to miscommunicate. There's zero room to kind of be like is this your ball or is this my ball or anything like that. So we struggled a bit for a second there committing or not committing. But now obviously with reps it's it's a pretty defined role on which which ball is ours which ball or which balls his which balls mine stuff like that.
00:41:46
Speaker
And it's also one of the perks why you have a lefty because then someone can sit body and the other person can cover middle. Whether it's me covering line and body and then Roscoe sitting middle with his forehand or Roscoe covering line and body and then I'm sitting with middle with my forehand. So it's one of the biggest advantages you could have in pickleball.
00:42:05
Speaker
Yeah, that was going to be one of my next question was like, what are the advantages? But you already went over that. Um, and then speaking of you, this wasn't like the first time you and Roscoe had played together on.
00:42:18
Speaker
I guess in a way that was published on YouTube in like a, in somewhat like a big way, which is like the other match was like the Kappa. That one, that one was super cool to watch. I think. Yeah. Um, those, that one was super cool. It was, I don't know who the other two guys are. That's like Jericho and Dave Jericho and his name was Hugo.
00:42:44
Speaker
Hugo, the final, what was the final score of that one? It's like 59, 59 like that. So anyone watching this, like definitely check that one out. That one's like, awesome. It was like, there's so much attacking.
00:42:59
Speaker
There's so much that you're like, there's gotta be something happening here. Um, there's like so much attacking in that one, which was, it was just super exciting. But then there was also like a, someone called it out in the comments. It was at like minute 21 or 22. There was like some beef that I'd started over like a bad call and multiple people were on y'all side as far as the call, but.
Handling Conflict in Matches
00:43:21
Speaker
Someone called it out in the comics was just, comments was just like how you pulled back from your, like, I guess, like nowadays, we'll call it your bark or you're like your snapback on that person. And where did, where does that come from? Like, because you initially got in like a reward altercation and then you were like, you know what, I'm just going to stay out of it. And you just like, you actually, I believe you apologized.
00:43:46
Speaker
Mm-hmm. Yeah, so with that Honestly, I've like we could have an entire different podcast talking about this but um one of the things in terms of dealing with Trash truck or altercations in general is that the people that do it likely thrive off of it So you're just gonna put oil in the fire if you talk back, so it's simply shutting it down brushing it off being a bit more stoic with it and
00:44:11
Speaker
um back where we left off we're talking about the stoicism in that like moment man that doesn't uh even like as an adult now i'm like 35 years old like back when i was your age how old are you by the way i'm 15 15 okay i'm 19
00:44:38
Speaker
Oh man, I was like dude this kid he's like Benjamin Button he like reversed Yeah, I mean man at like that age. I I would have just like lost my cool I would have just played along with it and just like snapped back
00:44:52
Speaker
It's one of the perks of something that basketball taught me because you know in basketball there's just a bunch of bunch of smack talking back and forth and The people who smack talk if you add fuel to the fire keep smack talking back It likely pushes them to play better
00:45:09
Speaker
So one of the best things to do is without like putting your head down and conceding just basically they're firing shots at you and you're just like deflecting them like it doesn't matter to you.
Focus and Composure Techniques
00:45:19
Speaker
You could do that through many ways for example one way being stoicism like just simply not letting it get to you just understand like hey breathe focus breathing which is a big part as well. Take deep breaths. Djokovic actually has
00:45:32
Speaker
he does that and he's who taught me that where it's like it doesn't matter it's the ball and I'm just gonna stare at the ground and breathe and breathe and breathe so something like that really helps or something which I love to do in basketball just because I found it funny but it genuinely works is sarcasm I found that sarcasm is like a win-win if you use it because it's like you're terrible at the game and then you're just like maybe like you're right and it's like
00:45:59
Speaker
But then, how are they supposed to react? They're like, oh shit, he's right. I just found that sarcasm works really well in terms of diffusing conversations. It kind of like dazes and confuses the other person.
00:46:16
Speaker
So yeah, they speed a ball up and you put it away and then they're like, oh my God, he's not there. And you're like, yeah, do it again. Like, yeah, no, you're right. You're right. It's not like you're backing down. It's just like using sarcasm. And they're just so confused on what to do next because it's like you're not shit talking back. But you're also not, you're not really letting it affect you. You're just basically saying something.
00:46:43
Speaker
It's like an eight mile when Eminem like made fun of himself And then the guy couldn't say anything because he just took all the words right out of his mouth. Yes. Yes It's interesting because you didn't let it affect your performance which like doesn't matter what age you are like if anyone does like tosses like something like that at you it can very easily just like throw you off and you didn't let it affect your performance at all you and Roscoe just
00:47:07
Speaker
Continue to do exactly what you're doing and you know, like close that out with that gold medal match and that's sweet Mm-hmm. Yeah for sure. It's it's definitely I've taken many different approaches to it over time and I found that that both at least the
Tournament Preparation
00:47:24
Speaker
Partially stoic and partially sarcastic and then also depending when to use them but um are the two best ways to Not let anybody get under your skin
00:47:38
Speaker
Damn, that's interesting. Like there's definitely something like so many people could take away from that. Cause even if like people watch your content too, like your content is so loose and fun and it almost like bleeds into the way you play too. You're like incredibly loose, especially for someone who doesn't have a racket sports background. Like you're making stuff up on the fly and you're also like having a really good time. You're very like light out there. Um, yeah, it's interesting. Yeah.
00:48:07
Speaker
And it's also one of the better ways to respond to, to respond to hate hit on social media as well. Cause like, for example, like if you're posting pickleball stuff, eventually, if you get big enough tennis players, you're going to start commenting. And most of the tennis players are negative for the most part. And so it's like, you know, they're like, Oh my God, pickleball is so easier. Oh my God. Like it's only for grandmas. They're like, Oh my God, I could play this. I could play this and be the top pro. And I'm like,
00:48:32
Speaker
shit. He has a point. Like, Hey, guys, he's right. Like, you know, like, that's, that's just how I come back. And it's like, like, not now. How are they supposed to respond? You know, because, because they know you're being sarcastic. So they're like, ha got him. Like, no, they're not going to do that. So it's, it's, it applies virtually as well.
00:48:50
Speaker
They almost don't even know what to say. They're like, well, I can't be more. I can't be angrier at him because now he's being funny. It's like you almost start laughing and you're like, oh, now I like now this could actually turn out to be kind of cool. OK.
00:49:06
Speaker
Speaking of like mentality. So that's like your during game mentality. That's like facing adversity during a game. Not that that's like the most intense adversity anyone could experience, but that does come into play when you're doing your professional career. But like, how do you prep for tournaments? Do you go through like a routine, a ritual? Do you like do visualization? What is, you know, like your week look like lit leading up to a tournament?
00:49:33
Speaker
So one of the big things that I took away, which is a, it's not even anything big. It's just something that you should do is drink as much water as you can, like two to three days before. Cause I mean, I've struggled with like dehydration at points or cramping or something like that. And if you basically, if you drink ahead of time, it will really help with that. So I try my best to like actually drink a bit more than I typically do.
00:49:58
Speaker
Those days coming up obviously I carbo load the night before or something like that just for energy In terms of true like mental mechanics I watch as much film as possible Typically like there's not there's not enough film on like everybody that you're gonna play first round second round and you don't know until the night before so
00:50:19
Speaker
It's just watching film of myself in the past or just watching Ben Johns and Colin play or something like that just to get, just to understand, just to understand the patterns, kind of get used to even the crowd, even if you're literally a spectator watching it on YouTube or something like that, just being immersive one way or the other, just watching Pickleball.
00:50:46
Speaker
Music's big. I think music's one of the most important things in life in general. Spotify recaps how to listen to music like 17% of my life for the year. So like music's big, music can alter your mood as well. So I highly recommend that music is like a very beneficial way to boost or to do whatever you're going to do better, assuming that you use it right. So
00:51:13
Speaker
I'd highly recommend a good pair of headphones and a Spotify subscription or something like that in order to play, whether it's chill music, hype music, or just simply background music when you're studying or something like that. What was, what was on your like Spotify re re your rap for like the top five artists?
00:51:29
Speaker
It's, it's all over the place. Like there's some Tiesto or like loud luxury. And then there's like Jack Harlow. Um, and then a few more like niche, uh, niche, uh, kind of like house people. Yeah. Yeah. So no Taylor Swift. No T Swift. Yeah. Have you heard Jack song Denver?
Diet and Rituals Before Tournaments
00:51:52
Speaker
No, but I've heard of the name. It's on it's like a newer album. That's what the main song is. Like they don't, they don't love it. That's almost also. Yeah. Yeah. He's cool. He's a cool dude. I wasn't always like into him, but I like slowly got into him. I was like, damn, this cool. Yeah. Any other rituals. Well, actually, what do you eat before leading up to a tournament? That's actually really important.
00:52:14
Speaker
Honestly typically just I'm fine having like a bunch of carbs just because like that's just honestly like what I talked about in the newsletter maybe a little bit of a placebo where it's like I think I'm I'm eating right so therefore my mind is gonna think I'm eating right
00:52:33
Speaker
But I have like just pasta and chicken or something like that enough enough carbs where I'm not absolutely drained But yeah, that's big it's just once again all these rituals habits superstitions whatever whatever you think it is I Just highly recommend getting like two or three in order for your mind To then start getting used to them and then your mind will just subconsciously get in the right place before every tournament Yeah
00:53:00
Speaker
That's great, man. Like it allows your mind to like come back to a familiar state. Yeah. Um, it's funny when you talk about these like rituals, I had a, like a training partner. He was like a guy who took me under his wing when I was fighting. He was like.
00:53:16
Speaker
very successful pro fighter and like one of his rituals was like leading up to a fight like two weeks before your fight you have your weight cut you're pretty much done doing like any hard sparring right now you're just focused on like cutting weight and he for the last week leading up to the fight would not take a shower
00:53:34
Speaker
So you're talking about this guy would go into a sauna sweat, like 10 to 12 pounds out leading up to the fight and would not take a shower from that. And like he would wear the same shorts and the same like boxers that he wore in the last day of the sauna. So, and he just said, like, when opponents would like go up to him and stuff, he just had this like stench and he's just like, it just messes with people. And yeah, some people just have like those interesting things.
Ethics and Strategy in Matches
00:54:03
Speaker
Um,
00:54:03
Speaker
yeah getting getting in the way of your opponent's mindset it's kind of like a gray area because it's like are you allowed to do certain things that aren't even like they're kind of morally wrong in a way so say for example like like what medvedev does in tennis where he like uses the bathroom even though he doesn't need to use his bathroom as like evidence don't break point or something like that for example you could take
00:54:26
Speaker
even some people in pickleball who just want a change in rhythm so like though there's honestly people that have done this they the ref like needs to see blood in order to call a medical timeout so they scrape their skin on the ground in order to show them blood or just something like that in order to change the rhythm
00:54:43
Speaker
or anything like that. It's a gray area because it's like you should just play. You should just play and the better man wins or there's mind games and you can try to tap into the other person by untying your shoe and then trying to tie your shoe just so now they're kind of out of their typical rhythm or something like that.
00:55:00
Speaker
She ain't cheating. You're not trying. It's like when you play and you're in like a gold medal match, you're like, you just, you're playing singles or something and you, this guy is in a rhythm hitting like four or five passing shots. And assuming you don't have any timeouts left, would you pull some changes? Absolutely do anything to ice the kicker. Like they've done, they've done the studies on that stuff, right? Like I put out a video on like choking underperformance and like, that was one of the things that you could do.
00:55:30
Speaker
you could also just like I don't know how often this one works and especially if you're at like a high caliber high tier like level but you could if the guy's performing great like dude that's like such an amazing forehand like how did you hit that yeah can you show me later and then he's just like getting in his own head about it but there's also people probably like Ben who's just like a it's like a steel vault like those guys
00:55:52
Speaker
They they aren't there just because of their technical like prowess or skills like their ability to just stay cool under pressure It's like no real emotion shown externally and if it's not shown externally then you know that pretty internally They're probably keeping it pretty dialed
00:56:09
Speaker
Ben is one of the people that I kind of aspired to be when I started playing out in terms of how he handled himself. Whether he won or not, assuming that there wasn't a bunch of energy behind the point, he would typically have the same stoicism when he walked back to the baseline.
00:56:27
Speaker
which is big because for example if someone's trying to play mind games with you and they're like oh my god that's such a great server like oh my god don't miss this serve or like don't miss it long or like do you breathe in or out when you serve or something like that it's like it just it just deflects it literally just deflects because they're staring at the ground they're like I'm gonna hit this ball like they're focused on the ball rather than the outside conditions and Ben was one of the original ones that taught me how to just basically lock into a game like what you said a steel vault
00:56:57
Speaker
Yeah. And it's interesting because like, if you can lock that in during game, that can easily bleed over into your life, which is also like really important. Like you don't want to take criticism or praise seriously. It's like what most people who, I guess that's maybe it's like a like thought leaders will say, right? Like just treat them both fairly. Like you don't want to get into your to get into your head too much or like get into your ego about it. Um, yeah. I remember talking with Colin, was that the Yolo media launch day?
00:57:26
Speaker
I recorded it. It was supposed to be like released on YouTube, but for some reason, all I had was a shotgun mic so you couldn't hear either of us. But I remember asking about that. I was like, when we, when people watch you play, you guys just have this like super calm demeanor. And you just, that's exactly what he talked about, right? He's like, he doesn't only treat the game like that. He treats his opponents like that. Maybe with the exception of Julian Arnold, but
00:57:49
Speaker
Um, yeah, he, they just treat, try to treat everyone with like sportsmanship. That's pretty much what Colin said. He's like sportsmanship is the most important thing. That's how we were raised. And like, I, you've probably met Hannah and you've probably like hung out with her. Like she's, she's actually like what somewhat different cause she's like very high energy. But then when I'm sure like in a competitive saying Barry sportsman ship minded sportsman, like minded, but like, yeah, it's just very like even baseline.
00:58:19
Speaker
I'm gonna drop a bomb show, are you ready for this?
Financial Lessons from Day Trading
00:58:23
Speaker
So one of the things that kind of carved me out to be the person that I am today is, which I haven't told anyone this yet, at least in the pickle space, only a few people know this, that really helped me handle my emotions outside of, or just in life in general, is I got hooked on to day trading in high school.
00:58:45
Speaker
And I was playing, not I was playing, I got hooked on to the trend. It was kind of a bad trend because you know day trading was a big thing. And I did virtual tours so on Zillow and stuff you see the virtual tours you can click through the house and stuff like that.
00:59:02
Speaker
I started one of those with my friend and so then we charged whatever like 15 cents a square foot or 25 cents a square foot or something like that and then went to a bunch of these and then I used that money to help finance my day trading and I thought it was super cool. I wanted to do it and obviously that's what sparked my interest in finance in general.
00:59:18
Speaker
but one of the most important takeaways with that is learning human psychology and how to handle and compose your emotions because in that case whether you're swinging or just truly day trading you can wake up or you can blink and you're down 15% and you're like oh shit like I need to sell I need to sell like I need to get out of this it's gonna it's only gonna get worse and you can you could see your mind in the gears
00:59:43
Speaker
shift towards that negative Kind of psychology and then same when you're up when in reality you should have a set plan a set way to handle yourself and so I did that for three four years through high school and it truly taught me how to Compose myself not only for day trading but also for everything outside of high school for everything outside of that so for life for basketball for stuff like that for stuff like this is like I
01:00:08
Speaker
Literally whether it's like sleep on it or whether it's just like take a few deep breaths and then compose yourself it teaches you a lot about human psychology and handling your emotions Damn were you in the game stop?
01:00:27
Speaker
I was not. I was not. I was into my big hit was Nvidia. Nvidia. Oh, damn. The GPU chips. Yeah. If you're still holding, that's still good. Yeah. That was a big one. But then, you know, like there's there was a bunch of flops because it's so hit or miss. I mean, back then, like since it was day trading, it was I mean, I tried I tried to use my profits to like invest long term. But, you know, day trading, you would you would touch anything, even if it was like pennies.
01:00:53
Speaker
Damn, that's crazy. Yeah. Yeah. I never got into that. Yeah. So, I mean, I don't recommend it. It's a, like, it's a bad thing to kind of get hooked on. So I'm glad that I stopped and just started investing long-term. But in terms of, in terms of learning how to handle yourself, it doesn't get much more difficult than that in terms of waking up and teen like,
01:01:13
Speaker
Oh, my options down to grand today or literally something like that. I mean overnight you could see you just put 500 bucks into something and now it's worth 30 because at the end I was dealing with options. So that was huge for me. It kind of made me mature, I would say way faster and it streamlined my maturity by even four years or so.
01:01:37
Speaker
Absolutely, man. Like you're dealing with money. I think there's only like so many, so many things that are like just foundational to life. I think it's like money, love. Like that's why I think like bad breakups are really good, but also like being in good relationships will teach you a lot about emotional regulation, but also like, yeah, money. I mean, damn, that's crazy. Yeah. So I've, I've never told anybody in the pickle realm that I don't think anyone knows that other than the people who were in high school with me as well as my parents. So yeah. Yeah.
01:02:08
Speaker
In the end, did you come out net positive?
01:02:11
Speaker
I have, I still have the account to this day because I like just let everything go and just open a new account because they didn't want to see that account. So I started investing long term, but I looked at the account, no joke, like three weeks ago after not looking for like two years. And I was up 3% all time, which is, you know, technically in the negatives due to inflation or whatever. But I, I was at one point, I'll just say the percentage.
01:02:47
Speaker
I was at one point down 42% yeah but then I was also at one point up like 30% which is which is absurd I mean like if you look at the graph it's just dude if you just look at the graph
01:03:05
Speaker
Yeah. So I mean, I, thankfully I made it up the mud positive and now I'm just fully investing long-term. Um, so yeah, that's cool. Man aside from just like the emotional regulation, like lesson there, it's like also in finances, how many people are well versed in their own finances? Let alone like at my age, older, let alone at the age of 19. Like that's crazy.
01:03:31
Speaker
Yeah, and I owe it all to my dad for sure and specific. I mean originally when I got interested in stocks, he'd work from whatever, eight to six and then he'd come home and the one thing he wants to do is shower and go watch a movie and then I come there and I'm like,
01:03:52
Speaker
Oh my God, what is this? Like what's a 52 week high? What's a beta? What's like all this stuff? And then he'd like sit down and teach me until like 11 at night and you know, like, you know, deep down, he just wants to go to bed. But I mean, I owe it to him for teaching me all the basics. And then every day I'd go on Investopedia, learn about different things and then always shoot them texts throughout the day or stuff like that. And then he'd be like, let's talk about it tonight. So he facilitated that for sure. So the end goal, one of my whys, if you wanted to get into it was
01:04:20
Speaker
My dad's favorite car is a 4GT. So the end goal is to buy him 4GT. How much are those? Uh, they were 500 grand starting out, but now they're like 2 million.
Parental Influence and Support
01:04:33
Speaker
Oh, they went up. That must have been limited production. Yeah. Yeah. They are. And, uh, I mean, more realistically, you could probably get one with a few miles on it for like 1.3. Yeah. Or something like that. But yeah. What's your dad like?
01:04:47
Speaker
Um, he was actually not the, um, what do you call it? One parent is I'm blanking on the word. Um, one of them's like the harsher, like lay the, put the, put the hand down. Then the other one's like more I'm blanking, bro. I'm blanking too, but I know what you mean. There's like, I guess you could say like good cop backup. There's one like, it was like an enforcer and the other one was like more low, a little more passive.
01:05:16
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. So dad was more passive and easygoing and definitely not a shot against my mom because my mom taught me a lot about compassion in general or just when to put up with stuff and when to not. But in specific, in this scenario, my dad was easygoing and he helped me get through a bunch of stuff and, you know, being the more easygoing parent, it's like, I'm more likely to go to you for stuff or stuff like that that's going on in my life. And, you know, him having a bunch of
01:05:46
Speaker
Interest in investing in his kid granted. That's like pretty obvious But you know like some some parents still you know like they want the kid to see to succeed But only in the realm of what they want them to do he truly had No, no aspect in that he just wanted me to learn more about what I was interested about so that's why I
01:06:07
Speaker
dude that's like like what more could you ask for an apparent like a parent that just like guides you and helps you in what you want to pursue but doesn't try to like force you in the direction that of things they may have failed or they may have missed but they just support you and whatever you want to do it could be anything well hopefully not drugs but
01:06:29
Speaker
Like not you, but it's in general and they'll just support you. Like that's awesome. Like they're just by you instead of like being someone like in front of you. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, we're, we're both huge fans of Alex from Ozi. One of the things that he said on one of his podcasts was one of the biggest things, um, that helped him succeed in life was just pure luck. As in like, he grew up with a pretty good family. He grew up with his parents. He grew up with.
01:06:55
Speaker
a bunch of stuff that obviously you should be grateful for and some people just off the bat are starting with a disadvantage. So I'm definitely lucky to be put in, you know, there's a household roof under the roof over our head and parents that are willing to invest in their kit. So definitely, definitely lucky off the bat.
01:07:16
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. I think, I think I think about that all the time. Like we're one born in like a first world country, like two, like not born into poverty either. Like not bad and like, and not born in like bad circumstances either. But yeah, his, uh, his story is pretty interesting with like his dad. It was talks about how he like the, the best thing he could have ever done was like actually rebelling against what his dad wanted.
01:07:43
Speaker
Which was like, actually goes back to what we were just talking about is like, your dad just supported you. Like Hormozi, the way he talks about his dad, his dad only wanted him to go in like the direction that he wanted. And then Hormozi just decided to kind of sever that relationship by doing his own thing. But I guess like he got to kind of like get back around with his dad, right?
01:08:04
Speaker
Yeah, and I've seen that firsthand with my best friend. He's my best friend. You know, parents wanted him to do something else and he kind of similar broke off some ties and now he's like, you know, hyper successful for his age. And it's, you know, just like what happened with Alex comes full circle. They're all cool now. And I mean, it goes to show. I mean, I mean, Alex kind of paved the way for even his name's Adrian for Adrian in a way.
01:08:34
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. It's tough because you miss all that time out all that time that like, it's somewhat like arguably like very crucial time for like the development of that child. And then you kind of miss out on it because you're not willing to let your kid just take the direction that they know, even though usually parents do like know what's best, but it's all contextual, right?
Influential Figures and Innovation
01:08:54
Speaker
Like they're growing up in a different time, different circumstances to a degree.
01:08:59
Speaker
Um, yeah, that's very interesting. Speaking of like your Twitter, which shows some of like hormones, these quotes and phrases, but also like Elon, you've definitely posted about like Patrick bet David. What have you learned from someone like Elon?
01:09:16
Speaker
there's honestly it's it's it's similar in every aspect of life in which you know a bunch of these people and you kind of want to take away like just their strengths from everybody so for example in alex's case as we just talked about
01:09:31
Speaker
the ability to literally move across the country with nothing, sleep on the gym floor, and just know that there's only one way to succeed, and it's not failing. But in terms of Elon, it's gotta be something towards innovation. I mean, especially in pickleball. There is so, we could talk about it, we could have like a think tank, but there are so many untapped niches in pickleball.
01:10:00
Speaker
in which people will, as soon as you start it, they'll initially hate, and then they'll get more and more on board, and then once you succeed, then they're like, oh, I was there since day one. There are so many different ways that people can start companies in pickleball, even if you think it's saturated in terms of paddles, even if you think it's saturated in terms of courts or anything like that. There are so many different ways to innovate pickleball right now.
01:10:26
Speaker
And I mean, I, I'm hoping to do something like that as well in the future, not just, you know, put up the next, uh, the next third shot drop video or something like that, even though it'll perform really well. Um, but yeah, doing reaching a bit more for the stars and there's so many different avenues for that. Do you have any announcements you want to make or do you just want to keep that under wraps for now?
01:10:49
Speaker
Right now, it's just an idea. I don't even have a true performer yet or anything like that. Yeah, that's a good point, man. You can look at the videos that perform really well, and we're both in the content side, so we couldn't relate to this, but you see the videos that perform really well, and you're like, why don't I just do that? But not only will you maybe not even get the same views, but you might.
01:11:11
Speaker
But you're also like spending that time to copy something instead of doing something original on to you that's like authentic to you and then like it's so hard because you just see the views but then It's like if you just pursue your own thing and you do it long enough, then the views will accumulate Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's perfect. Oh, look at dude. Perfect. Oh, really? You know, yeah, like I mean who wanted to watch backyard trick shots and now look at them in Dallas with this huge warehouse and
01:11:40
Speaker
Yeah. Um, but yeah, I was going to say even, uh, like something that you did. Well, well one, you remember you told me how you posted every single day in all of 2023, right?
Building a Pickleball Brand
01:11:53
Speaker
What was like your initial goal going into that? And like, what did you pick? Get out of it afterwards.
01:11:59
Speaker
Honestly, the initial goal, some of it being ambition for money or some sort of recognition in the social media space, but honestly, it was just the fact that there are not so many yet, but there are a bunch of pros in Pickleball and less than 30% of them have a true brand, which is honestly really sad to think about because
01:12:27
Speaker
I mean, you have like you're a pro, you have a platform and you're not utilizing it at all. That's like one of the things is there's so much like what we just talked about with niches, there's so many untapped niches in social media and in the pickleball realm and specific. I mean, I have made a few videos, I think I've garnered like
01:12:48
Speaker
I mean just just this month like 1.5 million views I like I got my highest performing video finally over a million this a few days ago I think right now it's at 1.2 and then I've got the the other one was like I created a new shot that one has like 800,000 and there's there's it's actually if you think about it
01:13:12
Speaker
There's no way there's 800,000 people that are pickleball players watching that video. So it's kind of getting pushed around in a different niche is not only is it trapped to the pickleball niche, but in regarding pros and what they can do with their brands. I mean, if you think about it only, I'd say less than 10% of pros have a true brand in which they are able to stand out with and eventually monetize. So for example, Tyson is a really good example.
01:13:43
Speaker
Ben, Ben just because he's the best, I'm kidding, Ben has done a great job with his brand. Even like Callie Jo Smith, a great job with her instructional stuff that garners a decent amount of views for a simple one take.
01:13:59
Speaker
But yeah, you really need to establish that brand and one piece of advice that I would say for people is just don't be cliche. You can't be cliche. As in like truly, if you want to do something and you have a personality, which everybody has a personality that stands out some way or the other.
01:14:16
Speaker
then lean on it. Don't be so monotone, don't be so forced into making another third shot drop video with no sort of nuance behind it or no sort of kind of personal spin behind it with your content.
01:14:35
Speaker
Also playing to your strengths if you're really good at talking in front of the camera then talk in front of a camera and every single one of your videos if you're really good at editing then edit then learn how to edit and edit and be the best editor in pickleball or Anything like that. I think playing the strengths is big especially in terms of content if you think about it it kind of differs than being a pro pickleball player because People can hit to your weaknesses in pro pickleball but in terms of content you could only show them your strengths if you really wanted and
01:15:05
Speaker
So I would say those are a few tidbits If you want to get more technical like trending audios have a good hook Make sure you have sound cues stuff like that. Do you edit all your videos?
01:15:22
Speaker
It's a nuisance. What do you use? Cap cut. Oh, okay. She's annoying. Yeah. Damn. It is annoying. It's just, uh, uh, it's just time consuming editing. Yeah. A hundred percent. At what point are you going to grow your team? This is actually another thing in which it's kind of like, uh,
01:15:44
Speaker
It helps me in two ways, editing my own content and the fact that, first of all, I'm a pro, which helps your brand in specific, but being able to film all of my videos or film all of your rec play and then go back and literally spend two hours watching yourself play,
01:16:03
Speaker
Subconsciously shows you the patterns that you perform well in shows you when you tend to miss shots It shows you your strength and weaknesses and you can go watch and you know Just scroll and go like let me replay that like I should have done this there I should have done that there and it teaches you a lot about the strategy So if you're trying to improve then just make content because you're forced to watch yourself over In terms of my editing right now, I don't think I'll get an editor until
01:16:32
Speaker
I don't know I'm just kind of stubborn.
Sponsorship Decisions and Authenticity
01:16:34
Speaker
I should probably like just hire a VA or something like that and teach him like my editing style rather than you know because I know an editor would be a pretty hefty amount for somebody who hasn't fully monetized his Instagram yet and doesn't have a big presence on YouTube like some people in this room.
01:16:55
Speaker
But yeah, so right now it's just I'm just trying to crank out content and truly have a pretty high bar for sponsors Because I don't want to truly dilute my stuff I know that viewers will get a little pissy and so will I I won't want to either if I'm just promoting stuff that I don't truly believe in or I I don't I haven't tried out and
01:17:14
Speaker
On myself so I mean that's why I haven't fully monetized yet cuz I know I you know Just just like what happens with you whether it's YouTube or Instagram, you know companies will reach out and they'll offer you money or some sort of affiliate But if you don't even if you don't even believe in the product and are you really gonna chase that money? 100% yeah, and I think it's a good time to say shout out the Ori yeah
01:17:39
Speaker
Yeah, no, I agree. Like it just, it shows you seem like the type of person where you're not just going to take money. Like, uh, and there's nothing wrong with that two degree. I think we've talked about, I've talked about this before on other pod, like on other episodes. It's like, if money is your goal. And if money is something that is important for you at that moment, then yeah, like you can do that. But like, if you have the opportunity to like say notice or an opportunities, because
01:18:05
Speaker
You personally deep down inside don't feel comfortable with it Then that makes the most sense like because at the end of the day what people want is authenticity That's especially now like you see Sam Soolick that guy who grew what like? to five million followers and like YouTube subscribers in like a less than a year and it's just like incredibly often authentic hormones, he's pretty authentic and
01:18:31
Speaker
Uh, yeah, I think like authenticity is really just like the, the key foundational element. Um, and you probably not use specifically, but people don't want to stray away from that. Like, yeah, Kelly Joe Smith. It's awesome. Her content is just like, boom, it's like that. And the replayability is like off the charts with that stuff. That's true.
01:18:51
Speaker
Once again, another untapped niche. Callie found it. Yeah. I mean, there were probably some, some other creators, but she's truly mastered it. Yeah. It's so simple. She can do it in two minutes and film one video and the replayability will be like five times. Like it's absurd.
01:19:09
Speaker
It's awesome because she'll film like 20 of those at the same event, at the same location. You're like, damn, she figured out her thing. It seems like the lowest hanging fruit, but then she like, like you said, like you take it, but then you like make it yours. And that's what she was able to do. Yeah. And honestly, one of the things that reaching out for reaching out to other accounts, whether it's inside or outside of pickleball for inspiration,
01:19:36
Speaker
has really helped with his, for example, I don't know if you've watched any of MrBeast's videos. He ties in his ads to his videos very well where it doesn't fully seem like an ad. Like he's selling ad space, but he's selling it while still overlaying his video on top of it.
01:19:52
Speaker
So it's not like people are allowed to like skip through the ad because if you think about it whether it's Spotify whether it's YouTube You can just skip the ads but since he truly ingrains it into his video You're forced to still watch his video in order to you know Kind of figure out where the video is going as well as you know get the ads here and there But he lays it into his video extremely well
01:20:14
Speaker
And that's what I'm thinking of doing with my sponsors which none, I haven't seen a pickleball account do that yet in which it's like here's a cool point or maybe like I'm teaching an instructional video and then the ball machine's there and then maybe I just like shout out the ball machine a few times but it's an instructional video. So it's still a sponsored post. The only problem with that is that sponsors would likely pay less because they want to hear you talk about how good this ball machine is for 30 or a minute or something like that.
01:20:44
Speaker
The post would likely be discounted in terms of what sponsors would want to pay, but I think that the viewers would like it a lot more. Viewers will still consume the content and they'll still learn something out of it while it being a sponsored post in the background. Just to throw out a bone, for anybody, for example, if you want a cold punch to sponsor you or something like that,
01:21:05
Speaker
You can, instead of basically getting zero views or engagement by just doing a sponsored post about a cold plunge, you can get 10 times the views and engagement by doing a quick like speed round of questions where you're in the cold plunge and you shout out the cold plunge at the beginning, you shout out it in the middle or you shouted it at the end, but you're doing a speed round of questions and people see you using the product rather than you truly just like shoving it down your viewer's throat.
01:21:31
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. I think someone said that clip about like Mr. Beast was like, it was, he was in a coffin and then he was like, I'm going to write all my notes. And then he was like using this notepad or like some organizer that was a sponsor. And I was like, but yeah, exactly what you're saying is like very, very true. Um, hopefully you don't make a video about ball machines.
01:21:54
Speaker
Yeah, but I feel about those. Yeah. Yeah. I know. It's, it's tough because like the commission, the commission on ball machines are out of this world. I'm sure they're great. And that's another thing. It comes, goes back to the, like the integrity of art and I won't call out any specific people, but.
01:22:11
Speaker
There's some people that I know who have taken that offer and yeah, it's interesting. And so it's like, like I'll do a ball machine video, but I'm definitely, I'm doing it in like kind of on my standards and in a way in which I will be happy with the post. I think people will get something out of the post while also promoting this rather than it's rather, I mean, this is really gonna ruin my chances with sponsors. I'll get it. Um, but yeah, I just want to do it in a more nuanced way, put simply.
01:22:43
Speaker
If anyone's watching this, they're gonna wanna sponsor you even more because you're being very intentional about it. And there's a lot of people who just start off being like, this is a sponsored post, or sponsored ad, and this is the product, and it sounds like they're reading off the script, and you're just being very intentional about it. And not in a way that's just intentional for the sponsor, but also the audience. You're looking out for both parties, which is great.
01:23:10
Speaker
So
Content Creation and Audience Engagement
01:23:11
Speaker
like 2023, you had some pretty memorable matches and then you also had your content goal. You're starting to build up your brand. You like, you know, you have your, uh, sponsorship with products are less police, less, less think of the letters L and S LS. Um, what does a future look like for Jack Monroe?
01:23:34
Speaker
Honestly, as we talked about with LS or a few of my other sponsors, I like not blending in and kind of being a pioneer. Whether it's through content or whether it's through the brands that sponsor me, it's just, or however I present myself, I like being that pioneer and discovering new niches, creating new shots, doing stuff like that. And that's how, that's one of the ways that I'd like to be recognized rather than, you know, just another rising pro or,
01:23:58
Speaker
anything like that. In terms of what the future holds, I would love to obviously keep building a brand. I mean, at this point, I was at like, you know, 2023 was like get my foot in the door with the tours, as well as with content.
01:24:16
Speaker
And I think I did a pretty good job with that whereas in like now instead of qualifying I'm in the main draw or now instead of just cranking out content and it kind of happens just just naturally or I have just so many clips in which I'm like three weeks ahead instead or something like that.
01:24:35
Speaker
So I think I do have to shift the goal post a little bit and to wear it out. It's like instead of qualifying a main draw it's consistently find a way to medal or consistently find a way to Maybe get two or three wins in a PPA or in terms of content Keep trying to go viral is a pretty cliche one which I mean I
01:24:56
Speaker
Whatever, that's a fine goal. But in terms of content, I would keep keep up with consistency. I would keep trying to develop a new niche in Pickleball, which there's so many. I mean, even I posted this on my threads, but a great example of finding a new niche in Pickleball, it's relatively that wasn't really tapped into is Friday Pickleball.
01:25:21
Speaker
I mean, they've been doing this for like a year, but they've been in pickleball for a long time, but they've grown so rapidly. Granted, they have a really good background in social media, but they're a great example of tapping into a new niche. What's their niche? What did they do?
01:25:36
Speaker
like even if it's like stereotypes or just like relatability with a good camera and it feels and it feels like personal it doesn't feel like it's not shot like truly professional so they're a great example but finding a new niche creating new shots keep finding a way to keep pickleball interesting I would also say one of the things is tapping into a
01:26:03
Speaker
the younger audience, nothing against the older audience, but getting involved in college pickle, being the pioneer in college pickle, there's a lot of kids who are still on the fence with pickleball because they've never truly tried it yet. Getting them to maybe follow my account and see that pickleball is cool, like pickleball is fun. You can get out there with friends, you can hit trick shots, or you can just have a blast out there.
01:26:29
Speaker
I
Advancing Pickleball and Inspiring Youth
01:26:30
Speaker
think that would be one of the things that I would love to hear as feedback from people when I go to tournaments is, you know, you got my kid in the pickleball or, oh, you know, college pickleball is a thing now because of you.
01:26:43
Speaker
That's awesome, dude. I remember earlier in this conversation, that's like kind of what I thought is like, you're a great ambassador. Like, I don't know what makes a great ambassador, but like just you and your context is just like someone with a good attitude, someone who's like willing to help others out, someone who's also willing to take part in like uplifting multiple different things like the college side, the content side.
01:27:10
Speaker
you're also at a very young age too so it doesn't there's not that whole obstacle people being like oh he's been doing this like his entire life like if someone was in their like 30s or 40s like you're like you're 19 and you're able to show that like hey like age doesn't matter you could do it at this age you can start now and you're kind of saying like you actually don't wait just like start now and um
01:27:32
Speaker
You've now you're, you've also like something that I think is very compelling to certain people is like the fact that you practice with Ben Johns and you just show like a lot of things that are possible, which is super cool. And then you also are very humble, which I think, I think that's probably like a good trade for an ambassador, someone who's very humble. Um, but yeah, that's all really great things. Um, this might tie into that question already, but like, what impact do you want to leave on pickleball?
01:28:02
Speaker
Getting pickleball into the NCAA. Getting colleges around every single state to compete on a local, regional, and national level. Having a collegiate nationals in which colleges are giving out scholarships because the money for nationals is actually a substantial amount.
01:28:25
Speaker
finding a way to maybe televise it or add some publicity around it as well as inspiring an even younger generation not even college kids but younger kids because I was one of the pioneers of the true first wave of pickleball kids because I mean as I told you I started when I was 10
01:28:47
Speaker
And it's tough when you're that young to feel overwhelmed with, you know, a bunch of the older people that, you know, you find at the local courts and being able to kind of be, I don't want to say a symbol, but, you know, somebody who's been through it.
01:29:05
Speaker
To show that you can and even even honestly nothing beats playing playing wreck like after a tournament just playing with the kids after and just like having a blast nothing beats that because I mean first of all it's fun and It leaves such a big imprint on them because that's what happened to me when I was 11 or 12 is These guys would finish playing a tournament and then they'd play with me and I was like, oh my gosh Like I just got to hit with Ben Johns. They're like, oh my god I just got to hit with these these top pros and they like gave me the light of day and
01:29:34
Speaker
And so that's one way I want to give back as well. I still feel like that.
01:29:44
Speaker
In terms of my sponsors, obviously I want to see my sponsors truly evolve. So, for example, Proxr really succeed with Boundless and tap into that niche in terms of LS. LS is Italian founded based out of the UK, but now they're trying to get into the US, the younger demographic of the States, and try to be like that trendier, even hippier brand. Not hippier, but more hit brand.
01:30:07
Speaker
And I would love to see them do that. That's obviously why I'd be a pretty good ambassador for them. I'd love to see them Love to see them kind of evolve as well. So and
Improving Skills and Feedback
01:30:18
Speaker
then obviously grab a few medals along the way. That would be big
01:30:22
Speaker
I don't think there's a better way to end this. I have like a ton of questions still on here, but maybe we could just save that for like the second one. Uh, cause it would obviously be awesome to get you back on. Like there's a lot of areas that we have overlap in, but you're just a awesome guy to talk to. You just made this very easy. So I appreciate it. Um, do you have actually like, yeah, where could people find out more information about you? And if you have anything that I haven't asked you about that you want to talk about, you know, the floor is yours.
01:30:49
Speaker
Honestly, in terms of like if people truly want to get better, I would say film is one of the biggest things, as we talked about before. Like watching yourself play, even if it's like recording rec matches, some people are weird with it, but if you're in a decent enough group, just like set up the tripod, set up your phone, if you're really looking to improve, and film it, and then instead of watching TV at night, just watch it on your phone, hook it up to your TV or something like that in order to watch it.
01:31:15
Speaker
As well as asking for feedback in your group if you're truly looking to improve and you're not just doing this recreationally and You're in a good group of people ask every single one of them in a one-on-one type basis You could do it in a group, but I recommend one-on-one like hey, what do you see as my strengths and weaknesses? How do you think I can improve if you were to play me in a tournament? How would you try to break me down?
01:31:40
Speaker
and stuff like that. And then you'll get a bunch of new ones from them like, oh well, mentally you get in your own head, maybe you get a bit timid when you have a forehand speed up that you should speed up or not, or I simply find it so easy to speed up down your line because you have a chicken wing, or all of this stuff that you can start maybe even drilling if you want to. But ask people around you for feedback. Don't be scared to ask people for feedback.
01:32:06
Speaker
In terms of where you can find me, Instagram or TikTok at the Jack Monroe. Super easy. I'm trying to build a YouTube as well under Jack Monroe Pickleball. Right now it's just shorts, but hopefully some videos coming soon. I also have a newsletter that I just started called Jack's Journal. It's a basically a public diary into the mind of a young pro and content creator. And it just spreads a bunch of nuance and hopefully you get a few tidbits out of it if you subscribe.
01:32:33
Speaker
Yeah, no,
Where to Find Jack Monroe Online
01:32:34
Speaker
I've got some useful stuff out of your newsletter. You mentioned two things, the importance of a circle and always batch your content. So yeah, you can find the link to his newsletter in his Instagram profile. And as far as the YouTube channel, absolutely. I'll link it in the description and give it a subscribe. So that way YouTube knows to notify you when he posts anything new. Obviously the content he posts is
01:33:01
Speaker
very holds value because on Instagram, very similar stuff I imagine, right? Yeah. And Instagram has a blast with it. I've seen your account grow tremendously over a past year that most people don't get, especially when you don't buy followers. That seems to be a real problem.
01:33:23
Speaker
So yeah, it's great, man. I appreciate you just being someone with a lot of integrity that cares about the sport. I mean, there's no better combination than those two things for anyone to be in an industry. So appreciate it, man. Yeah, for sure. I appreciate you having me on. I mean, you're way too kind. And I'm really looking forward to seeing both of us grow together. For sure, man. Dope. All right. Oh, shit.