J: Welcome to compete like a champion. You're here with dr Larry Lauer, mental skill specialist, and coach Johnny Parkes with USTA player development. Today, Dr. Larry and I are going to be talking about respecting all and fearing none.

L: That's right. That's our motto, baby.

J: I mean we're getting strong here.

L: Respect all, fear none. That's how we do things around here.

J: Well I think that's an interesting quote. So you want to educate me a little bit as to what that means to you?

L: Well, I think to me it means that we should respect others and one thing that drives me nuts is I think adults sometimes expect respect from kids, especially teenagers, and look for the slightest sign of disrespect and then disrespect the kids before they ever get a chance to show them what a good person they are as an adult. Right? So we're, we're looking for young people to be disrespectful when in fact I think we as the adults, we need to be the role models for respect. Set the stage. Hey, I'm going to respect you as a young person, as a student, as a player, as a learner. I'm going to treat you well and then you're going to reciprocate hopefully. And if not, we're going to have a discussion. But I mean I think that's the first part is we're going to respect everybody because everybody contributes to the game of tennis. Okay? And then secondly, the second part of that is, we are going to play anyone anywhere, anytime. Doesn't matter. Let's go. Cause that's what competitors do, right? We're not going to back down from anybody. Don't back down from the kid in a neighboring town because you heard they're really good or because your UTR is not high enough. Forget that. Competitors compete. And we've talked about this before. So the messaging here with that, and we certainly can get into depth with this, is that we respect everyone. And at the same time, we're not afraid to play anyone, anywhere, anytime.

J: Do you think a lot of the respect is, is driven from cultural, societal issues? I'll give you an example. So growing up in the UK, we have a deep ingrained culture of hierarchy, right, with the queen and the Royal family and then subjects...

L: It's taken this many episodes to talk about the queen. Let's talk about the queen.

J: Okay, so I almost consider myself maybe one of the last generations that was taught that you give respect to people. So if you go on a tennis court with your coach, you give automatic respect, you listen to what they say and you apply what they're being asked to view, you know, same at school, same with your parents, same with your grandparents. Respect your elders, things like that. There is automatic respect that you were taught to give and it seems now it's moved a little bit away, well it's moved not just a little bit, but a lot away from that. Do you think that now the respect like you just mentioned their needs to be given first to then earn the respect?

L: I believe so by everyone and if everybody takes that mentality, then everyone's going to be respectful of everyone else. You know, I'm, I'm unsure about this in terms of societal trends and I do think what happens in England versus America, they don't, they're not necessarily the same. They're probably on some level is, you know, is a matter of where maybe parents aren't talking about this as much anymore and we're probably reinforced more for individualism and speaking out and being ourselves and challenging authority and there's a, there's a really healthy part to that. Um, but I think where we miss the boat is you can challenge authority with respect. You can assert your opinion with respect, but that takes timing and tone and place and understanding these things. And look, I'm not sure our schools are, are teaching these things. So where are the kids getting, I know I got it, yes, from my parents, but also from my family, from my teachers. I learned great lessons from my teachers around these things. I'm not so sure that kids get that. And then most of our tennis playing kids who are on the pathway looking to play DI, play pro, they're not in schools anyway, the majority of them. So they're not put in situations often where they can practice respect as it, as it relates to being a part of a group. When you're in school, you have to, in some ways put yourself in with the group. You can't stand out all the time because you're going to get set back down, right? There's 20, 30 other people and it's not about you. It's about the whole classroom. And I think, you know, we miss opportunities with tennis players for where they can exhibit respect. And so when we as adults are, I think we make the mistake again of coming out and, and looking to be disrespected by young people when in fact they haven't necessarily either been taught or hasn't been emphasized to them how to do these things too. And we'll get into the different ways. But to shake hands, make eye contact, say their name, say thank you, these kinds of things.

J: So, so getting back to the, you know, a lot of the players that we talked to don't, don't go to school and be able to maybe practice those elements with teachers. So that brings on to examples that we need to then bring examples to them from the sporting environment. They're in a sports environment. So let's talk about some, some respectful acts that we've seen in sport.

L: Well, yeah, and when they happen they get lauded, right? Like they're, they're on sports center. They're, the big ones, the ones that are, they go above and beyond, you know, they become viral. I remember the one that really sticks with me, uh, the softball player who at the end of the game, I believe, hit the home run and, but was injured and the, and the players carried her around the bases so that she could score the winning run and the other team didn't put up a stink about it. I mean, I remember that was one of my favorite examples of respect. That, you know what, we're going to respect the fact that this player, even though she's injured, came with this, this great play, and we're going to allow her to finish this game off.

J: So I'll, I'll take your American example and give you an English one.

L: I love it. Is it about the queen again?

J: No, this isn't about the queen. This is a, of course I've got to bring up proper football, soccer. So I know this example because...

L: Proper football...

J: Yeah, the proper football, you know foot-ball, hand...

L: What, you don't use your hands?

J: Yeah.

L: No wonder they can't play from the waist up.

J: True. Throwing a football was really tough for me when I first came over here.

L: It used to be?

J: It was going sideways. Talk about spiral, yeah good luck with that. Okay. So guy called Paolo Di Canio, quite a um, eccentric character. He played for West Ham United at this time. And I only know this example cause they played against my team, Everton. And Paolo Di Canio was in a position to score. The goalkeeper was down, I think he got hurt or he got hit in the head by another defender or a defender or attacker and he was down on the floor and the play was continuing on and one of his teammates passed him the ball and he was in a scoring position and he just picked up the ball, picked up the ball, threw it out out of play, allowed the medical staff to come on and take care of the Everton goalkeeper.

L: Wow.

J: Now you can watch soccer and there's many examples where the opposition's team will keep going when a player is down on the field. Now there's protocols in place now about if it's a head injury, it's automatic stoppage. But back then there wasn't. So this guy was down on the floor rolling around holding his head. There's probably a lot of people in that position that may have just slotted the ball in the goal, but they probably decided to, you know, and it was I believe at that time too, that they were both in a, in a, in a battle for position in the tables cause they were both at the bottom of the table. So it was a game that actually really mattered and for him to have done that showed a lot of respect and character, respect for obviously a guy that's injured on the floor but a lot of respect for the game in the, you know, you play it straight up. It's 50-50, you play it, you know, mano a mano. So you know, in that situation. And so that showed a lot of respect for the, for the opposition, for that person, for himself and for the sport. I thought that was pretty cool.

L: And you know, he didn't assume that he was faking like happens so much in soccer when they roll around.

J: Well he could have been, but that was not the point. The point was, is that, okay, if I book, you know, if the guy even has a 1% chance of being hurt here, we have to, you know, respect the game and play straight up. So, uh, and again, a lot of people may take that as, Oh, he's just faking it, whatever we're going to keep playing. He was like, well, you know, could have, could not have. If it was serious and we kept playing, how bad would you have felt, you know.

L: For a game. Well, that definitely goes in conflict with the mentality of you do whatever it takes. If you're, you're not cheating, you're not trying. These kinds of quotes that you hear that some people still reinforce, which kills me when I hear that from adults. You know there's a reason why in [inaudible] they made fun of these things because they're ridiculous, especially in youth sports. And so pros are willing to do the right thing. Why are we not in the younger ages? It should be a given. This is the level where character trumps everything, right? I mean shouldn't it? When you're talking about under 18 and we're trying to develop good young people, but that smacks in the face in some societal attitudes about competing to win.

J: If you ain't first, you're last, right? Ricky Bobby.

L: Ricky Bobby.

J: Ricky Bobby.

L: Yeah, and you get that Bobcat in the car. That's one of my favorite movies by the way.

J: Outrageous.

L: I will, you know, again, if I could get the Bobcat here, we would do it, but no way that legal will allow me to have a Bobcat and then...

J: And then we put it in Mick or Amy's car. On the way out on the way out, leaving work.

L: You know what Mick would do? He'd turn into Chuck Norris and bite it in the jugular. Just take care of it.

M: I've seen every one of those movies at 2:00 AM.

L: There you go, Chuck Norris biting the rat with a bag over his head. We're way off topic now.

J: I'd be the more, I'm more the guy at 2:00 AM that was trying to steal the Tiger from Mike Tyson's house, like in, in the hangover. That would be me. Stupid enough to try that.

L: Yeah. Well.

J: Let's, let's move on some tennis examples.

L: Yeah, yeah. I think so. One of our American players, this was widely publicized and that's when Tim Smyczek, my good friend, was in the fifth set with Nadal at the Australian Open and late in the match Nadal was serving and someone yelled out during a serve and he missed a serve and it was in a crucial point. And Tim put his hand up and gave Rafa a first serve and Rafa ended up winning that, that game and going on to win the match. And you know, that was just an amazing example, you know, by, by Tim to put doing the right thing over the result. And I would like to think in that situation that I would do the same thing, but that would be challenging. Let's be honest. When you have a chance to beat Nadal and you're giving him a first serve back when the chair umpire was not going to do that, that's, to me, that's impressive.

J: 100% and we've seen a few examples out there too where players have given the serve back to their opponents. Where they believe, uh, the, the lines have made a wrong call. That was an ace. Okay. But the, they called it out, second serve, you know, I think, okay, Hopman Cup that happened, I believe, when Jack sock did that. Gosh, I can't remember who he was playing. Jack sock did it at Hopman cup a couple of years ago where he told his opponent to question, to challenge, you know, use the challenge system. And he used the challenge system and sure enough, ball was in, gave him the point. So, but we've seen many examples of where like Djokovic has done this a few times I've seen where he, uh, he walked to the other side of the court, he was like, no, that was an ace even though it was called out, your point, you know. You've seen that many times from him, you know, examples like that. I think other examples too. It's not just in the heat of battle but post battle. So you see, you know, we've seen it with Roger and Rafa and you know, like at the US open with Sloane and Madison in the final there, they would console each other. You know, they, you know, like you're saying, they're respecting each other, respecting all but not fearing each other in the heat of battle. But afterwards they can put an arm around each other and respect each other's, you know, effort and how, how much that they wanted it. And even though they weren't, may not have been the one that was, that came out on top, the champion put the hand over them and said, you know, keep plugging away. Keep, keep working.

L: This makes me think of something that we make the mistake of and that is labeling people as respectful or disrespectful. Because if you look at the Serena, Osaka final, okay, there was some things that were done that were respectful and Serena was very respectful to Naomi when she won. And there was some things that weren't as respectful, maybe the interaction between Serena and the chair umpire, and we're not going to get into who's right, who's wrong, whatever. But the point is that nobody's perfect. Nobody's perfect. And so we live in these degrees of respect. I gotta tell you, I haven't opened the door and held the door for every single person in my life. Now that's an extreme, but I like to think that I almost have. But you know, sometimes you're rushing and you just don't think about it. And I really talked to my kids all the time about being considerate of others, you know, holding the door, waiting for people in the elevator, that kind of stuff. But nobody's perfect. And, and so you see within the same person, even sometimes in the same match, things that you might consider respectful and things that you're like, eh, that's, that may not be as respectful.

J: That's a great point. And at the juniors level, we see this a lot where there'd be a kid on court that one minute is, is getting aced or their opponent hits a winner and they get frustrated with themselves as opposed to, you know, maybe one route to take is to go, okay, nice shot. But on the other flip side there are times where they may hold up their racket in their hands and clapping them with with a good play that they played. So you know, it all then comes down to a little bit of the perception of the situation from that. Like you said, there are things there that are being rushed through the, they're not able to then have that clarity of thought to think it through a little bit deeper. So, so in that case, you know there were some times in a match where they are thinking a little clearer. Yes, that was a great play, great job, clap the racket. And then there are times where, you know, I probably felt like I could have done more there and I'm frustrated with myself. It's not that I'm showing a lack of disrespect to to you as my opponent. I think where it then gets cloudy was when the opponent is always complaining about themselves, I guess, when their opponent is just playing, is too good on that day for them and, and sometimes, and that's not to say that you can't, you give up because your opponent's playing really well. What you've got to come back to is what we've consistently talked about is how we compete. So if you go out there and lose 0 and 0, the thing that you can control this competing, you can, you know, at that point it comes down to respecting it, your opponent's playing well. However, to respect yourself, you need to be aware of that. But also be aware of if that doesn't change the controllable of competing your, and trying your best at that level no matter what. And that goes across all levels, whether you're, you know, six year old kid just trying tennis for the first time or you're a 14 year old kid in the final of a gold ball event or you're playing in a grand slam.

L: Or you're 75 and you're playing with your friends because that affects relationships. You know, I think as a young competitor, I was very bad at this because I believe that I should beat everybody every single time. And, and so I would complain at myself and certainly people probably took that in a wrong way. I wouldn't obviously ask. I think you point out something really important JP and that is that young people have not fully developed their brains yet. So they don't have the capacity all the time to manage those emotions to self-regulate. So when we look at a kid and we say, wow, that kid's disrespectful because they're constantly complaining. What we should be thinking is, okay, that might be a disrespectful behavior, but remembering where that's coming from, they probably don't have the self-regulation skills or the emotional management skills to actually be able to think like, Hmm, okay, when I do this, I look like an idiot and I disrespect my opponent, so therefore I'm not going to do it out loud. They, that person has not learned that yet, haven't learned how to cope with that yet those strong emotions and those thoughts that are in their brains. So we again, as coaches, teachers, parents, mental coaches, we have to look at young people and instead of thinking, wow, this person is, is so disrespectful, our first thought needs to be what's going on with them that's not allowing them to manage themselves right now. And then what can we do to help them? Again, behaviors can be disrespectful, but we do not want to categorize young people as disrespectful, if that, if that makes sense. And you know, so you bring up, you're bringing up those great points and that is why you're going to see kids do things that are very respectful, like shaking hands after the match and, and do other things during the match where they're not. And you know, that's, that's going to be probably pretty normal.

J: So respectful or respect is one of your, one of our...

L: Yes, it is ours.

J: You introduced it. One of our seven qualities of competing like a champion. So how do you define respect? For those that haven't seen it it's confidence, determination, engaged, professionalism, resilience, respect, and tough. How do you define respect? When we're around the country educating, and maybe the theme of one of our camps is respect. How do you define it first as you tee it all up?

L: Well, I really look at it as sort of this appreciation, this consideration of others in what they're contributing and the role that they play and valuing that. And I think if you're valuing others in what they have to contribute and who they are, then respect gets pretty easy. Right? So when I go to a tournament and the officials are there and I realize that there would not be junior tennis tournaments without these officials, my perspective has changed on some of the things that I see, right? And maybe I have a little bit more of a threshold until I get frustrated with the officials and maybe my tone changes when I talk to the officials, right? And I have a greater maybe empathic understanding of what they're going through and how difficult their job is. So that when I start to think about complaining about them, I'm like wait a second, they got a really tough job, let me just quiet down here. Right? But young people, it's not like they're just going to naturally do that. That has to be taught over time as we're talking about. But this idea of respect is to show appreciation for others, to value them, to know what they're contributing and and to demonstrate that, to exhibit that.

J: And how do you think that makes somebody feel when they start doing these things off court, on court, in life.

L: I mean the person who's showing respect?

J: Yeah.

L: I believe you start feeling better about yourself. I know as a young person, you know, my parents really, I believe, instilled this in me and and doing things like shaking hands, looking people in the eye, holding, holding the door for people, saying hello. When you do those things, you start to feel better about yourself, you know. When you, when you walk around campus here and wherever you are and you run into people and you smile and you say hello, it just changes the whole tone of the day. Right? And when other people start doing that back it, it really makes it feel like a warm, inviting place. But when the norm becomes head down, look away, you start to feel differently, right? So these, these ways of respecting, they make us feel better about ourselves and it also, you know, and we're going to get into how this impacts performance because obviously most people want to know how, okay, that's great, but does it make me a better tennis player? When you start doing these things, it becomes about more than just winning a tennis match. The fact that I have to go and shake your hand across the net at the end of the match is an awesome thing because I got to look you in the eye, shake your hand and say, you know what? Good match. Even though inside I'm just torn up because I lost or inside, I'm like, yeah, I got you sucker, but I'm going to look you in the eyes and say, you know what, that was a good match. And you mentioned, you know, tapping the racket, uh, things of these nature, uh, of this nature, when you do these things, it allows you to better accept what's going on and to show those respectful responses. So when someone hits a winner and you tap your racket, you don't have to do that every time because that then starts to look like sarcasm. But when you do that, what you're saying is, you know what, that's a good shot. I can accept that. I can't win every single point. It's okay, it's, it's time to move on. I'm good with it.

J: See I had a strategy with a couple of, you know, I've had players that were the ones that would complain a lot after every point, after every, every winner. And I didn't mind if they got frustrated with themselves after maybe some unforced errors and maybe the odd forced error here and there, but after their opponent hit winners, especially after, you know, decently competed out points, that was something of a concern to me as a coach. So one thing I did do was say, okay, you know, one thing is if you play a point that's over four shots, five shots, and your opponent's up coming out with a winner, I do want you to say either good shot or you know, clap. Now, you don't have to physically clap, but you can just say good shot and move on. And to begin with, that was a fight for the players to do that because they, you know, weren't wholly sold and didn't have that deep meaning to saying like good shot and actually mean it. So it just turned into a like just practicing a response regardless of whether they were connected to it. But over time, you know, and I, I wanted to see if this led to that, led to a deeper meaning and over time what I started to see was they almost felt like they were lifting pressure off their shoulder and as they were lifting pressure off their shoulder, they felt more relaxed. And so that was where I as a coach would ask them, you know, how do you feel when you do that now? When I started to see, they looked a bit more relaxed and they said, yeah, it, I think it helps me for the next point, just accept it and be able to move on. But it took a lot of time to get to that point. It took, took some teething efforts of A. Holding them accountable to doing it and doing it consistently over time. And then they got to a point where they recognized that it was more of a helpful behavioral rather than one that obviously isn't helpful and so, but it does. Those things take time like anything else. But it was a strategy and I'm not saying it that will work for everyone, but it was a strategy that worked for the couple players in particular that I worked when I got into coaching. So.

L: But it probably worked because you were committed to it and you held them accountable for it in practice and matches and you know that's a powerful strategy because one of the, one of the ways to deal with pressure, anxiety, stress is to show gratitude and appreciation. And this is a way of showing appreciation of someone else's winner there. Good shot. Like you know what? That, that's a good shot when you do that, what you're doing is you're going away from all this self-criticism. I'm so bad. I should have got to it, blah blah blah blah blah. That judgemental nature keeps you from being present and allowing you to perform.

J: Well, I think it comes down to self esteem and self worth. I think they start recognizing that they're not destroying their self esteem, but they're actually respecting their own self worth. But it takes time for them to open their eyes to that. And, and some of these strategies are no different. I know Dr. Bob Neff, who's, who's on the mental performance team that you brought on a couple of years ago, he talks about the pop out step and the pop out step is almost like a, you know, I wouldn't, I don't think it always looks a hundred percent positive, but it's a physical, what I would consider as a physical positive response, even to a point that you've lost.

L: Can you describe it to the listeners?

J: Yeah, so, so you may, you may lose a point and then the, the immediate thing after that point happens, you may be moving off to your left. It's a winner. You then turn around to the back fence and you do a little hop step, a little pop, you know, so you hop, you hop from your right leg to your left leg and then you move on. It's that little sort of that positive action of just kind of being a bit peppy I guess. Right? Like you know, keeping yourself a bit, you know, bouncy and keeping yourself, I guess mentally engaged by being able to do these little pop steps, which isn't a, it's not a natural movement. The natural movement after you lose a point is to walk, you know, whether slowly or fast, depending on your, I guess what you like to do and whether how frustrated you are. But the little pop step is something that actively you have to think about doing because you know, because it's not a completely natural movement. It's a little hop step, right? You have to think about hopping. Whereas now at a point we're walking, you don't think about walking, right? So you know, that gets you thinking. And to me that's, it's a, it's a step that gets you active in terms of keeps up a rhythm and a speed. So that, as I said, derives more of a physical positive response from something that could be taken as a negative from losing a point.

L: Yeah. And thinking about, you know, all the things that you're doing there, you're, you're maintaining good body language and posture usually when you do this and you're moving on from a miss quickly and starting your routine. So the pop out has a lot of great ways that it benefits us. It keeps us moving on, allows us to get started in our between points routine. It's showing respect for the game instead of standing there. You know, a lot of times when players are stuck in the past, they stand there and stare at a spot at which they missed and then that's when they start to verbalize things. This is when they start to act out. And so the pop out is a great way to really help players move on from mistakes.

J: So is there other cases out there where showing too much respect actually hurts performance? Sorry, I'm asking you that right as you're taking a chug of water.

L: Yeah, still coming back from Colorado Springs and I'm a little dry so, but I think there, you know, this is a question that coach will bring up and you know.

J: It's something that gets asked quite often is, okay, a player's showing respect, if they show too much respect, they lose their competitive edge. That's something that comes up a lot.

L: I think it depends on how you're, you're thinking about respect. If you're thinking about respect as showing appreciation for others, that you know what, this person's a good player. I'll respect them when they make a great shot. But that doesn't take away from the fact that you're trying to win every point that you're competing your best. And so I'm not sure that you can show too much respect. I think the way coaches are thinking about that is I'm putting that person up on a pedestal and that's different that, Oh, they're so good. They're so great. No, when you're respecting what you're saying is I realize that they can play good tennis too, now I'm going to win this next point, but I'm going to win it by the way I do things, the way I compete, how I construct the point, how I go about things, focus on the process. So to me that would be the way I answer that, I'm sure people have different viewpoints on that, but that gets to the second part and that's why we have respect all fear, none tagged together is because we don't want people to think like, Oh, we're so respectful to everybody. We think everybody's great and we're not. That's not it at all. We respect everyone, but we will play anyone and we believe that we can beat them and we're going to bring it to them. And this is really the mentality I think that is embodied by Rafael Nadal and there's a story that was in the papers. It was quoted that you know when, when Rafa was younger, uncle Tony said to him, you know that you need to respect Roger who's going to be your greatest rival. You also need to respect the field. And when you do that, you're avoiding this issue of not preparing for an opponent. And that's why I don't think you see Rafa ever surprised. He very rarely gets upset. He's probably the most consistent player we've ever had. And the reason being is he, he respects everybody. He knows, you hear him say that, well that person, yeah, they might be ranked 220 but they've been winning, they're playing well, they have a great backhand, whatever, whatever. He'll find a way to prop them up. He creates that little 1% of fear in his mind that, you know what, if I don't prepare, this person could get me. And so then he prepares as he always would. And then he's never surprised. But in his mind, I think, not that I've ever spoken to him, but I think he believes that, you know, anyone can win on any given day. But he believes that if he executes and he brings it because he's prepared, that he'll find a way.

J: That's a great point. And I'm gonna, I'm gonna pull up a fantastic quote that he said recently at the O2 finals. He was asked from a journalist talking about particular game, is this a game that could be easily shown to young academies like yours or any other in the world and pass the message to young guys that they should never quit. They should fight until the last point. Is it one of those games? And Rafa put no, examples are not for one day. Examples are every day and now in my opinion, the example is not the comeback because the comeback is of course you need to be there and you need to keep fighting. But the example in my opinion is not to break a racket when you're at 5-1 in the third or not be out of self control when the things are not going the right way. Stay positive, stay on the court, accept that the opponent's playing a little bit better than you and accept that you are not that good. That's the only example now because sometimes the frustration comes when you believe and you consider yourself too good and you don't accept the mistakes that you are doing.

L: Brilliant. He gets it, he understands it and he embodies it. And you can hear that in his quotes every day when he talks, and sorry, I can say that in Rafa's voice, could you, but one of the things, one of the psychological phenomenon you're dealing with there is self-handicapping and this phenomenon that we as human beings, we try to anticipate the result, we do the match up before we ever play the match. Like, well I'm going to win, I'm going to lose. I'm not quite sure. And that then affects preparation because if I think, well, I'm going to beat this person, they're a bum. Well, I'm not going to prepare the same way, there's no chance. And if I look at a person that, wow, they're so good, I don't think I can beat this person, then it's going to affect my confidence and my belief going through my preparation. But like Rafa, If I can respect everyone and say, look, that person has earned their way here. They have strengths. There's things that I need to be aware of. But I do believe that if I play my game, I will find a way. And he embodies that. And I think that's, that's the message we're trying to get here is respect all, fear none. And this is how it enhances performance because it enhances preparation. You don't cut corners when their UTR is a seven and I'm a whatever. And so yeah, I'm going to blow them off the court. And now guess what, first thing is take pride in the way you do things. Cause that consistency in preparation is going to make you a great player. Secondly, as Rafa said, you're not as good as you think you are. You can be caught.

J: So we're running short on time here, but one thing I really wanted to ask you, and maybe this can be, this can be our sort of top tip for the listeners, is what is the importance of appreciation and gratitude and how do we make it a part of our day to day life?

L: Yeah, thanks for that question Johnny. That's so important. And I believe that gratitude is really the opposite of disrespect and belittling people. And so when we show appreciation, we show gratitude. What we're saying is that this person is a value. This is important. They deserve to be respected. And so when we do things like thinking about what we're getting from tennis and how we enjoy tennis and how we can give back, we're respecting the game and we're going to be a better person, but we're going to better people that we are around because of our attitude about it. Right? And what we can do every morning is just a morning routine that many successful people do is to get up and you might do some kind of mindfulness, maybe you exercise, visualize, yoga. There's some kind of physical, mental exercise that's done to create, is really to create presence in the moment. And there's an understanding of your purpose for the day. But also there is this gratitude. You know what, I have the opportunity today to get better. I have the opportunity today to help others be better, to do whatever, you know. So I think taking time each morning to write in a couple of gratitude statements. And one of the things that we probably don't do this enough now because our kids are in so many activities and evenings but my wife and I like to ask the kids at dinner when we're sitting together like what's something that your you're really grateful for and what's something that you appreciate about someone else, you know. And so I think those kinds of things go a long ways to make, not only make other people feel respected, but you feel good about yourself and you start to respect yourself because I could say, you know what, I see good in you JP and there is good there, even though sometimes it's hard to find there is good in you but that's not taking away from me. And so many times we look at it as if I respect you, I'm somehow taking away from me. I'm not. If you hit a winner when we're playing, good on you. Now I've got to just make the effort to not allow you to do that again but you deserve to play well also. You work hard and why wouldn't I respect that?

J: Thanks Larry. That meant a lot.

L: There is good in here.

J: I'm tearing up over here.

L: Amy's laughing because I'm not sure she agrees.

J: Cheers, Amy. Alrighty. Well, Larry that that was fantastic. I think that there's some great information in there and thank you for providing those insights and I think a lot of the listeners on here can relate to a lot of what we talked about and I would say, you know, for the coaches out there that are looking to, you know, add some are more respectful components to your program. Pull up those sporting examples. You know, it doesn't just have to come from tennis, it can come from other sports out there. It can come from, you know, triathlon. There was an example I maybe wanted to give about the Brownlee twins, world champion triathletes and how one started cramping, the other one went back in the race to, to help him through before he passed out. And, and you know, just little examples like this that show our athletes that and connect them to a deeper meaning of why they play the game. They play the game for hopefully a much more bigger reasons than just being forced to play or just playing, you know, itself. You know there's, there's lots of reasons why we play. So you know, for the parents out there do the same show examples of respect. You know, respect is, you know, like we talk about a lot on the podcast is a habit, so maintain standards of, of what respect looks like and.

L: And should be a parent's primary purpose in tennis. Let the coaches focus on the technique, the tactics or performance. Parents focus on the character side. That's what we do as parents, right? We're not supposed to be expert tennis coaches unless that's what our given field is. Focus on that, then you can ensure that your child is not only doing things in a good way and becoming a better person and feeling good about themselves and making the others feel good about themselves, they're going to perform better because of it. I truly believe that. Sorry I had to...

J: No. Absolutely. And one last point for the players. Players, go practice a couple of these things out on the court. See how it makes you feel. You know, if it doesn't feel comfortable, it's not gonna feel comfortable right away because you just started something for the first time. But give it a go, give it a go over time, see how it makes you feel and give us some feedback. Let us know how, how it goes.

L: Pop out. Clap the strings.

J: Absolutely. Dr. Lauer, that was fantastic.

L: Thanks JP.

J: Much appreciated. So that wraps it up for today's episode of compete like a champion. That was respect all, fear none. As we wrap up here, we want to encourage you to scroll down to the bottom of the podcast page, go to their customer reviews part and give us a rating, you know, rate how you like the podcast and then also leave some comments and in the comments we'd love to hear what you'd like to talk about or us to talk about. We love receiving those comments and then maybe we get a few comments on there. We'll do a podcast that answers some of the questions that you are, you're proposing. So as always, go to our website playerdevelopment.usta.com for more resources. And Dr. Larry. Until next time. We're checking out.

L: Checking out.