The Facebook of Pickleball

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Sky. We're. I want to say we're back in the studio, but we're not in our own studio. [00:00:04] Speaker B: We're not. We're. It's a field trip. [00:00:06] Speaker A: Field trip to Noblesville, Indiana. We're in the sort of like a Pickler slash Everbowl Feeling as place, but we're in Ever Bowls headquarters. [00:00:16] Speaker C: Yes. [00:00:16] Speaker B: For Indiana. [00:00:17] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:00:18] Speaker A: In Everbowl's new studio right here in Noblesville, Indiana. You can even rent this place out. You can just to come over here and run our podcast, which is super cool. And we've got an awesome guest with us today that we met about a, what, week and a half ago in Kansas City. [00:00:31] Speaker B: Well, I also feel like we need to say thank you to our tech support today and with Quinn. Quinn is here. He's actually running the sound, and we're excited to have that. And that's something that you get when you rent this podcast studio. [00:00:45] Speaker A: Yeah, good point. [00:00:47] Speaker C: I'm ahead of the game. [00:00:55] Speaker A: Let's get this guest in here so we can get moving on the podcast. Why don't you take a moment to introduce her and then we will get her story and maybe pepper her with some questions. [00:01:05] Speaker B: Let's do it. All right. Well, first of all, I want to say thank you to our guest speaker today, who is Elena Sarris. She is an attorney by trade, but she also fell in love with pickleball, so I can't wait to hear her story. And she is the founder of the app for Recreational Pickleball Players association, and you can find that app in the App Store. And so, please, welco from our guest today, Elena. [00:01:34] Speaker C: Hi. [00:01:35] Speaker B: Hi. [00:01:36] Speaker C: I'm excited to be here. This is a pretty swank studio situation you got going on. I'm not used to that. [00:01:41] Speaker A: Yeah, well, we're not used to this one either, but it's fun and it's almost like any studio is any studio, I suppose. [00:01:48] Speaker B: This one's beautiful, though. [00:01:49] Speaker A: This is gorgeous. The lighting is ridiculous. You look fantastic. We might actually put this on the web as a video instead of just audio. We will be. If we do, we'll just cut to the sky screen since she looks much prettier than I do. [00:02:00] Speaker B: That's funny. [00:02:01] Speaker A: Elena, we want your story. So let's start with maybe a compound question. When did you get into pickleball and when did you decide it was time for, you know, your app? [00:02:13] Speaker C: So, yeah, I obviously, I, you know, got into pickleball the business through the traditional route of being a criminal defense lawyer first and then a standup comic, and then An E Commerce seller, and then pickleball. I mean, isn't that how we all, you know, got into the business? I got in. In 2020, like a lot of people during COVID and I, you know, was one of those people who was sitting at my desk working for 12 hours a day, and then decided, you know, to spend five hours a day, you know, playing right away without warming up. And eventually that caught up with me. So when I got an injury, I was kind of bored, and I. I thought, you know, I'm. I still want to be in the. In the space. And so I started a newsletter called the Fit Pickler, and it was about fitness and pickleball. Because for me, at my age, when I. And the life I have, if I miss out on pickleball, it's a bummer, but it's not my whole life. And I started seeing that the other. Some of the older people, especially some of the widowed men, when they miss out on pickleball, when they got hurt, it was their whole social life. And that during COVID when that happened, a bunch of women from our park would go to his house on Saturday, set up a little picnic table and have, you know, a social distance lunch for him just to keep him engaged. And I thought, what other sport does this? And I just wanted to sort of celebrate it and say, you know, that's. That would never happen in any other sport. And when I started the newsletter, it grew to 10,000 subscribers in four months. I mean, it just took off, and I couldn't get over it. I mean, I've been on digital marketing, I've been online, and I just emailed them, and I said, look, you know, I think I'm hysterical. I love the newsletter. Why are you guys here? And they said, you're the only one talking to rec players. And I thought, that can't be true. That cannot be true. And I did a deep dive research into all the apps and all the websites. And, you know, they mention rec players and they talk about them, not in the best of terms, but it's all about tournaments and all about finding a partner for a tournament and the pros and who scored this. And I think we had 100 people at our park, and if you'd come and offered them $1,000 to name four pros at that time, you would have won the bet every time. So I just. I wanted to have a space where people who play were still competitive. I've played five years. I've only played three tournaments. It just doesn't interest me that Much, but it doesn't mean I want to be ignored by, you know, the. The vendors and the brands and the news of what's going on in the community. So I was just sort of bringing that space together. And we have a lot of people at our park who do play tournaments. So I'd like to say that the RPPA is the social network of pickleball. It's the town square where rec players belong and tournament players come home to. [00:04:53] Speaker A: I definitely heard you say we're the Facebook of pickleball multiple times while we were in Kansas City. [00:04:59] Speaker C: I hated to say Facebook because they have all the creepy algorithms. I just mean in the sense that people know it's where you go to socialize. So, I mean, we have a little bit of Instagram because you create profiles and can DM each other. We have a little bit of Netflix because you can watch training videos. We have a little bit of Costco because we're leveraging our buying power as. As a big group to get deals from vendors. We have the only pickleball direct to consumer vendor directory online. So if you ever want to shop for anything pickleball, you pop in there and you can see everything from getting lights in your backyard court to a necklace to, you know, of course, gear and apparel and fun gifts. And that's pretty cool. So, yeah, that's why I say it. But. [00:05:39] Speaker A: Tell us about the growth of rppa. Are you finding that you're seeing the numbers that you want to see? Are you exceeding them? Like, give us an idea of what the growth looks like in terms of membership, and then maybe a quick hook for how do we get others to sign up? They're listening in right now. [00:05:57] Speaker C: Oh, rppa.org super simple, four letters. Rppa.org the social part of the app is all free. The growth. I mean, is it what you want? Obviously, everybody wants growth to be viral and immediate and overnight. So I would like a million people to sign up tomorrow, please, if that's. If that's my wish list. But we're getting very consistent growth. We're getting a lot of word of mouth, which I really like. A lot of people joined on the website and they're coming over to the app, and the app has. I think we're in finally our final iteration. I know people don't like multiple apps, and I know people don't like learning things. So I did try to make it look like all the other social networks. So literally, when you pop on, there's just boxes that say, this is where you meet other Players. This is where you see upcoming events. This is where you post upcoming events. This is where you create groups. And we made it so that all of the members can create multiple groups. Because what I was finding was most of us are tied into a 600 person WhatsApp group. And we are all more than just so someone wanted to have a drill partner and would say, is there anyone here that wants to drill at this park? And then someone else says, happy birthday. And then someone else says, this is my picture from Italy. I caught a fish. Happy birthday. And then who wants to drill is gone. Or you're on a cruise and you meet people and you're from all over the world and you want to keep in touch. And half the people aren't on Facebook and half the people don't trust WhatsApp. So you can create multiple groups. And the beauty of what we created, I think, is that it doesn't have to be on the court. I mean, Pickleball builds communities, it builds social interaction. So you can make a book club or a movie night, anything. So. So in terms of growth, yeah, we're. We had put so much money into development that we really haven't had a chance to advertise very much. And we're still. The app has been live for about two months and it's been down a couple of times for our, our upgrades. And we will be at 6,000 members by next week, probably. Wow. So I'm pretty excited about that. And then, you know, we haven't really even started to migrate the people from the Fit Pickler over, and that's pushing 15,000 subscribers now. So I think we're going to grow pretty fast. We just need to get, you know, the awareness out there and, you know, talk people into downloading another app. I know people don't like that, but you really need an app that are. There's so many apps that do great things for tournaments and finding partners and pick one of those and pick us. And you've got everything that you need socially, competitively, professionally, all of that. [00:08:28] Speaker A: Ah, that's cool. You know, we're tournament people because you're what business as, you know. [00:08:35] Speaker C: Right. [00:08:35] Speaker A: But I agree with you because we play way more rec than we ever play tournaments. And, you know, we're a team. Reach slash pickle play slash court reserve slash. [00:08:47] Speaker B: You know, I mean, I went, he got a new phone. And when the guy was converting everything over to his new phone, he's like, I didn't know there were so many Pickleball apps. So we all laughed at in the room as we're listening to him. But that's. [00:09:01] Speaker C: That was my reaction when I. When I was looking through the apps. I'm like, oh, great, I'm gonna find one for rec players. And I kept looking, and I kept looking and I kept looking, and everyone's like, oh, you can. You can do the one where it's like, where you do the team match. And I'm like, yeah, but what if you want a happy hour? What if you want to shop? Right? I mean, and then. And then I just thought, you know, one of the things I always talk about is not only strengthening our own communities, but connecting our communities. So I invested a lot of money in making a travel discount website for our members. And the travel discount website and the pro coaching, pro and amateur coaching videos that we have that go all the way from even before beginner. We have a. Just getting started, which is before beginner, you know, where do I stand? Why does the ball have holes? What are these lines called? All the way through to advance. So those two features are. Are behind a premium pay wall, which is only $25 a year. So the. The goal was not to, you know, nickel and dime or pickleball players, because I know they pay a lot for courts and. And rentals and gear, but to bring them to a place where the vendors know we're there and the vendors want to give us discounts just because they know they're. They're in front of people who play pickleball all the time. [00:10:13] Speaker A: For sure. When you, sky, were at picklecon, because that's where we met Elena was at picklecon. And. And actually, we got to not just meet her at her booth, and she had some great giveaways every day, but we also got to see her on panels. [00:10:25] Speaker C: Yep. [00:10:26] Speaker A: What was the thing that attracted you to having her on this podcast? [00:10:30] Speaker B: Well, first of all, your energy is contagious, and I was fascinated at your. Basically what you just said, that nobody was talking direct players. And when I got started, there was not a lot of information for me. We learned on a cruise ship, and so I watched Kevin just dig through and, like, reach out to all these different places to try to figure out where to play. And he got connected to pickle play that way. But also, you know, you'd have these monster, like you said, group texts that were going on, and because he wanted to gather friends and teach them how to play, at some point, I remember sitting next to him on the couch and thinking, you just turned something fun into a job. And you already have a job, so, you know, why are you doing this? And it was really just because he instantly became passionate about the game and he wanted others to learn. And so it did become very overwhelming to me as a spouse to a point where I didn't really want to play. For a while. I was doing martial arts, and I was like, I don't want to go somewhere else. I want to just focus on what I need to do to get to the next belt. Meanwhile, he's advancing very quickly, so not wanting to be left behind, I would try to go play with him once a month, maybe in a recreational setting. But even then, there was still a lot that he had to teach me. And that's one of the reasons why we started the podcast, is because I'm still learning from him, because he knows so much more than what I do, because while I was in the dojo, he was on a court somewhere. So I totally related to what you said. That hit home very quickly for me because so many people, especially spouses of pickleball addicts, get left behind. And so. And so your app is perfect for them because you're right, it'll teach them terminology. It gives them something else than, you know, to look at other than pickleball. Because even with our friends, once he got all of our friends playing pickleball dinners together end up just being a big pickleball discussion. And I remember leaving one dinner and saying, okay, I'm not going to dinner with you anymore with our friends, unless you. Unless we talk about something else. It can't always be pickleball all the time. [00:13:17] Speaker A: I mean, it can. [00:13:18] Speaker B: It was. It was pickleball all the time. [00:13:20] Speaker A: Elena, I've got your app up. I just logged in this morning. I'm on the home page. It's so easy. There's 11 big buttons that tell you, where do you want to go? And you click the button. Court Finder. Coach Finder. Yeah, the videos like you were talking about earlier. Upcoming events. Can I schedule an upcoming event and have people, like, register for it? I haven't played with your app yet. [00:13:42] Speaker C: Sure. I also want to say one thing about the Court Finder. There's a lot of apps that have Court Finder, and Pickle Play is great, too, but in our app, you could type in a zip code if you're traveling, and you could find a park, which you can do on thousands of apps. Quite frankly, we all use the same, pretty much, API. But on our app, then you could go to the player directory, and you could type in that zip code and you could find people in the area and you could reach out to them. I just did that in Vegas last month. And I just said, hey, I'm testing this theory. I'm coming for this week. I'm a 3, you know, maybe 2, 5 player at this point. I used to be a 3 5, but it's been a minute, you know, is there a game that I can play with? And she literally said to me, I mean, not knowing me, I rented a pickle court, you know, indoor court in Vegas, which is huge because it's always 111 degrees in Vegas. She says, join us. So literally here I am, you know, on my own. I mean, I'm very familiar with Vegas. I go all the time. But now I'm invited into a community and I. And it's not awkward. I don't have to, you know, like, when you go and you put in the zip code and it'll say, you know, this, this park is open and it has lights, but it doesn't tell you if you can show up alone. If you need to be with somebody. It doesn't really give you that comfort level. And I think there's, you know, certainly the older generation has a little more trepidation about going to some of these parks where, you know, everyone's 30 and just banging the heck out of the ball. And so we need, we get some intel. So for events, yeah, you can create an on court or an off court event. And we have three options. So you can just make it a straight event and you just have a URL and you share it with three people, say, this is where we're meeting. Or you've already created a group and you could create an event and it's published just to your group, or you can create an event and then it's published to the national calendar. And so when you go on the app on the home screen and you're on event calendar, you're going to see what's published to the national calendar. And we try and put, we let people obviously put their own, but we also have an employee that does nothing but search for, like, charity events so that we make sure they get some, you know, publicity in their local area. And you can, and you can search the calendar for events by city, state, all that. [00:15:49] Speaker B: Love that our next tournament is a fundraising tournament to feed the hungry. So I love to do that. [00:15:56] Speaker C: I have a good friend in Palm Springs who's a USA pickleball ambassador and she hosts these wonderful round Robbins all the time for a Very, very vibrant community. I think, short of maybe Naples, Florida. Palm Springs is one of the biggies. And she has to pay an app just to get people organized on it, and they're not allowed to make money as ambassadors. I'm like, what is going on here? This is crazy. So, you know, there is the. There is the sort of learning curve of bringing your people onto our app, but once they're onto our app, you can publicize anything to them. If you go to. I mean, I don't know if you guys have ever done this. We have a kid that takes photographs of people at tournaments, and he posts them on Facebook, and half the people aren't on Facebook, so they don't get to see these great photos. So you can. You can put photos on your. On your, you know, bio page. You can put videos, and you can make those open to the public. You can share those with your friends through the URL. We even have it. So you can go to a park and there's a QR code. You could scan and invite people to connect with you on the. On the app. [00:16:54] Speaker A: I love. [00:16:55] Speaker B: That would be amazing. [00:16:57] Speaker A: Yeah, okay. [00:16:59] Speaker C: And I also wanted. There's one other thing that you said that really hit me was like, you know, that you're. You're doing these tournaments and Kevin's not doing the tournaments. And I think that. I think still, though, you're like, I want to get better. I can hear it in what you're saying, right? You're. You're. What, you're wanting to get the next belt. You're a competitive person. And I think if I could, like, stand on a. On a soapbox and talk to everybody in the pickleball community, I would say, can we play? Please stop making the distinction between competitive and recreational and make the distinction between recreational and tournament focused, because we are very competitive at our. At our park. And I know people say, well, I'm not going to slam to this person, you know, who has mobility issues, so it must be a rec game. It's like, if you're slamming to a person who has mobility issues, that just makes you a jerk. Right? It doesn't make you, you know, more competitive. The competitive is, hey, let's have a baseline game and see if this guy's going to kick your ass at 90 years old, you know, So I just. It really rubs me the wrong way because the number one thing, I'm a data junkie. I surveyed the heck out of our, you know, now close to. With all my, you know, properties. 20,000, 25,000 57% play three to four times a week. And of those over 55% have never played a tournament. [00:18:17] Speaker B: Let's dive into the data thing. I didn't mean to. [00:18:20] Speaker C: Yeah. The number one thing they want is to improve. [00:18:23] Speaker B: That's so true. [00:18:25] Speaker C: Right. And so it's not, you know, I don't like people, you know, sort of thinking like, we're just going out there and flailing at the ball and laughing and giggling and, you know, we keep score. And the number two thing they want is to stay injury free. [00:18:36] Speaker B: Of course. Stay injury free. Yeah. I love that you brought up the data thing because one of the other things that you did or have done is you're an author. You wrote AI for pickleball, Right? [00:18:51] Speaker C: Businesses. Yeah. AI for pickleball businesses. [00:18:53] Speaker B: Yeah, Pickleball businesses. And so you signed a copy for me and you were so cute. You're like, this is the first time anyone's asked me to sign my book. [00:19:02] Speaker C: Most people don't want to have a business book signed, but I loved it. [00:19:06] Speaker B: Oh. As Kevin's an author as well. And so, yeah, we've had. It's such an honoring thing. And that goes back to the martial arts. The show respect always. But I promise I'm going to read the book, and I haven't yet. But we are also AI fanatics, and I would love to have you plug the book and tell us more about what you mean by AI for pickleball businesses. [00:19:35] Speaker C: Yeah. So a lot of people know about ChatGPT and some of the basic AI, and I pretty much made that book as basic as possible. So what I noticed when I got into the business is that most of the business owners in pickleball. And, and just to be clear, the AI is not going to teach you how to play pickleball. You don't want to. This is really for businesses, teaching them how to differentiate, how to reach the right audience, where they stand in the marketplace, how. How to craft their emails, how to get their message across. And so it's called AI Mastery for the pickleball business owners, and it's on Amazon, and I try and break it down to super simple concepts. I think that was one of the things I did really well as a lawyer, and I'm bringing that to here. There's. There's a. You can download all of the prompts that I give, so all you have to do is copy and paste them. I've also written a second book which is more advanced, called beyond GPT, and it's about the power of the New agentic tools like Manus, which are actually autonomous and can actually help you as a coworker rather than just someone who answers your questions. And I think that's, that's going to be a big, big deal. It's a big deal for the super users right now, but it's going to be in about six months, almost everything that you see in AI is going to be agentic. [00:20:47] Speaker B: Wow. I know. It is moving so fast. I'm going to be in an AI class to learn how to be an AI instructor over the next three weeks. So that's great. Yeah, thank you. I would love to stay in touch with you in that regard, not just for our ppa, but also to continue to collaborate and to learn from each other on the AI front too. [00:21:11] Speaker C: And I'll tell you, I was an E commerce seller after I was an attorney and I really am making a point. I really want the RPPA to be a real like old time town square. Like I want you to, you know, knock on the barber's door and say hi, even if you don't have a haircut that day, you know, and so I go out of my way with the vendors that are on our directory to make sure that I help them with collaborative partnerships, that I help them with marketing, that I promote them. There's, I mean, Kevin, you were just on the app. There's one button that just says deals and discounts. So it's like having, you know, the sale table right at the front of the store you walk into. So. And that'll change every day. So you can just pop on, you know, I don't know, some of you, if you're big shoppers like me online, you're like, what's on sale? So that was part of my sort of personal goal, was to make this easier for the vendors too. [00:21:59] Speaker B: That's so cool. [00:22:00] Speaker A: Smart. So let's go back to picklecon for just a second. We've got about six or seven minutes left here. I want to know what other vendor did you meet with where you were like, I gotta, I gotta get to know these guys better. I gotta buy their product, whatever. Wow. Like what, what was of interest to you? [00:22:18] Speaker C: Wow, you sort of put me on the spot. And I'll tell you, I'll just plug these folks because I just, I ran into them again at Racket X and the truth is I didn't have a chance to talk to them too much, but I knew about them and it saved my play. [00:22:33] Speaker B: Yes. [00:22:36] Speaker C: I always see these videos on social media where People have a good shot and then they run outside and push something. Well, save my play. You can either yell at it or throw your arms up. And we had a long conversation and here's a perfect example. I said to him, I said, you're losing a lot of revenue and you're just missing out on bringing a lot of joy to a lot of people. If you're only selling this to clubs, because I think that it's certainly, it's very affordable. I know personal coaches would like it. Rec players and content creators. I mean, how many of you have been to Disneyland or some amusement park and you paid someone 30 bucks for a picture of you screaming your head off going down Us, Right? Or. Or somebody in your family, you know, got on one of those websites back in the day that seemed like magic where you could take your pictures from vacation and turn it into a book. [00:23:26] Speaker B: Yes. [00:23:27] Speaker C: No. And so here, I mean, this opportunity with these player games, which are great, right, because they're also going to help you improve. You can take a picture and show it to your video, show it to your coach, and your coach can annotate and tell you what you did wrong. But it's also like a way to show your grandkids, hey, Grandma still rocks. Check this out. Did you see that? ATP? [00:23:49] Speaker A: Yeah, we were enthralled by them. We intend to get enough systems to be up and running at the Pickler in Noblesville and shooting a lot of video for people at our next tournament in November. We were. [00:23:59] Speaker C: And live streaming. You can live stream it too. I mean, it's just there's so many opportunities. [00:24:03] Speaker A: Yep, absolutely. Okay, different question. [00:24:06] Speaker C: Okay. [00:24:07] Speaker A: If you're getting ready to go out to be competitive, I'll use your word on a pickleball court. Non tournament competitive. What's your walk on song? [00:24:18] Speaker C: Oh, man, that's a tough one. It would have to be, probably. And I'm not, and I don't remember the name, but it's the Flash dance song before she did the dance. I'm dating myself. What a feeling. Not what a feeling, the other one where she does the dance. See, you didn't prep me on this. I would have had it. [00:24:38] Speaker B: Yes, well, she's in the studio and she's just dancing. Yeah, right, right. He probably wasn't allowed to. [00:24:44] Speaker C: It might be Maniac. It might be Maniac. [00:24:47] Speaker A: It's a family friendly podcast. But we're talking about when she rips her shirt off, dances in the studio. [00:24:54] Speaker C: By herself with the water. [00:24:56] Speaker B: Yeah, that was the water scene. But there is another where she's dancing in the studio anyway, that I. I feel you. I can hear the song. I just. It might be. [00:25:07] Speaker C: Well, no, the theme song is more like. It's what a Feeling, and it's a little bit too slow. But this one is like, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. I think it's. [00:25:13] Speaker B: He's totally looking it up right now. [00:25:14] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, totally. I'm Flash dance. [00:25:16] Speaker B: He is all about the music trivia. I just rock out when he is so. [00:25:23] Speaker A: Sure. [00:25:23] Speaker C: Let's see. Yeah, it's probably. Probably Maniac. [00:25:29] Speaker B: Maniac. Yeah, you're a maniac. [00:25:32] Speaker C: Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep. Yeah, yeah. Which does, I guess, occasionally speak to how I play. And I don't. You know, I feel really weird saying this because I really don't want disrespect of tournament players. I think that it's great to have competition. Here's what I link it to. The more wealthier kids at the school that I was the scholarship kid at, their parents went to the country club, and that was. They were. You know, my dad used to refer to them as ladies who lunch. And he said, you know, oh, it's just a way for them to justify day drinking. And I thought to myself, even then, like, you know, dad, they're grownups, right? If they want to day drink, they'll go to a bar. They went to play because there's an adrenaline rush. There's a sense of accomplishment in competing, in keeping score, in having this friendly rivalry. And that's what I mean. I think sometimes tournament players are like, oh, these rec players don't care about that and they don't want it. And that's such an important part of the pickleball experience. I mean, for everyone, no matter what age you are, no matter what your ability, the idea that you can be competitive again. [00:26:40] Speaker B: So true. Like, one of the panels at picklecon talked about how I think it was Cass said that one of the people that came to her trainings mentioned that they were never athletes in high school or college, but now they're an athlete. And so I sometimes see tournament players. It's their first taste of that level of competition. And it's almost a bucket list or a wish list item that they've. They've put as a goal for themselves, or it is their way of gauging their ability. Like, they use it as a gauge. So in martial arts, we would use the belt system to gauge our aptitude and knowledge of the sport, where we do see that with tournaments. But then you've got those who they will play down so they can get a medal and. [00:27:42] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, is that competitive? That's where I'm going with that. [00:27:45] Speaker B: Yeah, it is competitive, but it's not the kind of competition that we want to encourage as tournament directors. So that's one of the things that makes us different is we put in. [00:27:56] Speaker C: Some systems and I got lucky. I mean, we have opportunities to play here without tournaments. I totally see if that's where you have to play, you get to play, do that. And, and again, I think they're amazing. I don't, I'm not, I'm not dissing them at all. But I think one thing people don't understand and now the sport is, is getting younger. But, you know, I'm of the generation where maybe four years before I got into high school, all right, the women weren't, they didn't get time in the gym. You know, they were allowed to pee. But there weren't a lot of women's teams before title nine. We didn't have any money going into women athletics. Basketball was six people, and three of them weren't allowed to go past the half court line. So, I mean, when you're talking to someone now who's in their late 60s and 70s, as a woman especially, we were not encouraged to play sports. That was considered unladylike. And so to be able to claim that, that, you know, the power to stand and cast and that she's talking about Cassandra Gerke and empower her pickleball, I mean, that's one of the things her people say all the time is just like, I feel like it's just you have, you're standing in your strength. You're standing in your power in a way that you weren't allowed to when everybody else, like, I'm sure, Kevin, you were playing sports since you were. Oh, yeah, you know, four years old. [00:29:04] Speaker A: Yep, absolutely. [00:29:05] Speaker C: And you were encouraged to be competitive and you were encouraged to take pride in those accomplishments. And, and that's something that a lot of people didn't have. And I think that that is lost on a lot of folks. [00:29:15] Speaker A: Yeah, that's probably true. Thankfully, and I don't mean any disrespect, but thankfully, that generation, if you will, is the last generation that can talk in that way. Like my, my generation, I'm a Gen Xer. My sisters, both younger than me, had every opportunity to play sports. [00:29:29] Speaker C: Good for them. Yeah. I was five years old before women could have a credit card. [00:29:33] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:29:33] Speaker C: And I'm not even 60 yet. Think about that. [00:29:35] Speaker A: I'm my oldest sister's 54 and she was able to do, you know, she's able to play tennis and basketball and run track and all the things and. [00:29:44] Speaker C: And I went to an all girls high school, but my friends who went to the co ed schools, they, they. Their practice time for the same teams that I was on was 6:30 in the morning so the boys could have the gym in the afternoon. [00:29:55] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:29:56] Speaker A: Well, I'm gonna wrap us up here. Lana, you've been a wonderful guest. I think what we need to say sky here is we'll give some credit back to the studio we're in and everything like that, but I think we need to say that she's definitely something that's ahead of the game. [00:30:08] Speaker B: Absolutely. [00:30:08] Speaker A: I love what she's doing with our bpa. I love the, in her terms, the social media of pickleball. See how I already abandoned social network? [00:30:16] Speaker C: Social network. [00:30:20] Speaker B: Already talked about AI for pickleball businesses. [00:30:22] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:30:23] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:30:23] Speaker A: All right, well, this episode brought to you by PB Time. It's pickleball time, yo. And Ever Bowl. I should read something about Everbowl. Like, let's make this sound really awesome. [00:30:35] Speaker B: First of all, I. I'm. My tummy is growling. Because we're gonna eat after this. [00:30:40] Speaker A: Believes the key to life is motion. And the key to motion is superfood, found in nature, crafted by hand, Ever Bowls are loaded with stuff straight from the earth that energizes the body and grounds the mind. And we're going to go find out. [00:30:52] Speaker B: In a few minutes if that's really true. [00:30:54] Speaker A: We've had it before. [00:30:54] Speaker C: Now I'm jealous. [00:30:55] Speaker B: It's like dessert. Yeah. [00:30:57] Speaker A: And thank you so much to the podcast studio here at Everbowl's headquarters in Noblesville for letting us get into this amazing room and record this podcast right from here. Just so you know, it's rentable. It's 200 bucks and there's a two hour minimum. [00:31:13] Speaker B: Thank you so much, Elena, for being on our podcast and for the. We'll add your website link into our social media. But if you're listening to this on Spotify, her website is rppa.org and we. [00:31:29] Speaker A: Gotta thank Quinn the sound man. Quinn, thank you for doing the AV work today. We appreciate you very much and thank you. Tell all your friends that we're ahead. [00:31:37] Speaker B: Of the game and so are you. [00:31:47] Speaker C: The singer, the melody, the vibe I'm a prodigy Logically I'm impossibly wanted Then they'll remember my name they'll remember my name.