Latest / In Search Of Excellence / Anna Leigh Waters: Mental Toughness, Financial Wisdom, and the Future of Pickleball | E145

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Anna Leigh Waters: Mental Toughness, Financial Wisdom, and the Future of Pickleball | E145 · In Search Of Excellence

• 0:00
  Anna Leigh Waters: Are you so much better than everybody else?
• 0:01
  Anna Leigh Waters: Many people have asked me if I'd play pickleball in another life.
• 0:04
  Anna Leigh Waters: So that might be the answer the question. But I've been playing for a while. I've been playing since I was younger. Like I said, a lot of the people I'm playing against played college tennis. Also. My mom was number one in the world before I was so it might be in my genes. A little bit might be a genetic thing. Most people say what makes me really good at Pickleball is my IQ. That was also what made me really good in soccer, was my IQ. I was just very smart. I was a good passer, very good sister. My best thing wasn't my speed or how hard I could shoot the ball. It was always just, you know, I was very smart. And I think on the pickleball court, it's kind of the same thing. Just my decision making is my best thing.
• 0:42
  Randall Kaplan: You're listening to part two of my incredible interview with Anna Lee waters, the number one pickleball player in the world who became number one in singles, doubles and mixed doubles at 14 years old.
• 0:51
  Randall Kaplan: She's the go to pickleball. If you haven't yet listened to part one of my awesome interview, please check that one out first.
• 0:57
  Randall Kaplan: Now without further ado, here's part two of my incredible interview with Anna Lee. Are men players inherently better than female players?
• 1:07
  Anna Leigh Waters: It depends who you ask, most male players are better than female players, but there are a couple female players who might be better than some of the male players. But it's this big. It was this big thing this year because we had the MLP draft, and there was this thing like, Should you draft? Is it more important to draft a really good female, or is it really important to draft a really good
• 1:27
  Randall Kaplan: male? Like, and you were number one pick in the overall draft. That was two years
• 1:31
  Anna Leigh Waters: ago. Number one pick this year. Ben beat me.
• 1:32
  Anna Leigh Waters: Unfortunately, she's number one pick. Wait a
• 1:35
  Randall Kaplan: minute, so you need so it's not a permanent team. You it is
• 1:39
  Anna Leigh Waters: now it wasn't then, when I was pick number one, every year they did a draft and you were on the New Jersey, I was on the New Jersey fives.
• 1:46
  Anna Leigh Waters: Then they redrafted this year I was the number two pick still on the New Jersey fives, just because they wanted me, and they got lucky with their draft position. It's a lottery like the NBA. It was this year for the first time this year, it was they. They were given a certain amount of dollars they could spend on the entire draft. Okay, so let's just use a million dollars as an example. If they spent 900,000 on their first pick, they only had 100,000 to spend on their next three or if they spent $50,000 in their first pick. You know, they had$950,000 spending the next three people. So that was also kind of a strategy. Is like, How much is it worth to spend up, up, up, to get Ben or whoever, versus if you just get, like, four players who around the same price type thing? But the New Jersey fives got the second pick, and they chose me, and then with the rest of our money, we were able to pick the other three players, okay?
• 2:45
  Randall Kaplan: So to be perfectly clear what what you're saying is, let's say the teams each get a million dollars to spend on players. They're paying you, not
• 2:54
  Anna Leigh Waters: me. They're paying the league, they're paying the league, they're paying the league. All the money that was spent was paid towards the
• 2:59
  Randall Kaplan: league, okay?
• 2:59
  Randall Kaplan: And then what do the teams pay you? So the
• 3:03
  Anna Leigh Waters: teams don't individually pay me. I have a contract with the PPA tour, which pays me. And in my contract with the tour, I have to play these MLP events. I have to play play X amount of MLP
• 3:15
  Randall Kaplan: events. Do you get paid more the number one player than the number 10 player? Yeah.
• 3:19
  Anna Leigh Waters: So the contracts. So back a year ago, when MLP was trying to take over PPA, and they tried to get all these players to come from PPA and go to MLP, all these contracts started going up before then we had no contracts.
• 3:32
  Anna Leigh Waters: We'd just play the tournaments we wanted to. But then when the split happened, both sides were kind of freaking out and just kind of throwing all this money at people and like, sign this contract for three years, we'll pay X amount of money, etc, etc.
• 3:45
  Anna Leigh Waters: So they that's when all the contracts kind of happened. And in the contracts it would say, like, you had to play X amount of days. Or in another person's contract, it would say you had to play this many PPA events, but then you had to play this many team events. So all the contracts are kind of different.
• 4:04
  Anna Leigh Waters: They're not really the same because of that. So it's just this crazy thing where some players may have gotten more money than somebody who's better than them because they signed at the right time. Like it was just this crazy thing, like some players who aren't even in the top 20 are getting more money than somebody in the top 20,
• 4:22
  Randall Kaplan: which is nuts being paid from the PPA or
• 4:26
  Anna Leigh Waters: and MLP, because MLP still has some of their contracts as well, but now the MLP is merged with the PPA, so they are owned by the same entity. Okay, so here's PPA, MLP owned by the same people.
• 4:36
  Anna Leigh Waters: Interesting. Okay, this merger, though, did make it in the future and now easier for people to understand, because they're kind of two different things.
• 4:48
  Anna Leigh Waters: Now one's not trying to take over the other one. So next year, we're going to have a season of MLP, and then we're going to have PPA tour events.
• 4:55
  Anna Leigh Waters: So it's going to make a lot more sense next year than it. Has the past couple years. Yeah,
• 5:01
  Randall Kaplan: my friend Herb Simon bought the Indiana Pacers for $6 million I don't know, 40 or 50 years ago, and the team now is worth three and a half billion dollars. Good investment, good investment.
• 5:10
  Randall Kaplan: Mark Cuban bought the Dallas Mavericks for $400 million I think he just sold it for five, little over $5 billion professional pickleball teams, I think they were going for$100,000 or something like that.
• 5:25
  Randall Kaplan: When they, when they got going, we were
• 5:26
  Anna Leigh Waters: offered to buy one of the teams, I think, for 200,000 and we were like, I don't know, and now the teams are selling for like, $11 million or something like that.
• 5:34
  Anna Leigh Waters: We're
• 5:34
  Randall Kaplan: like, two years, two years later,
• 5:38
  Anna Leigh Waters: yeah, should have probably paid the 200,000 for that. But crazy gotta do you gotta make decisions based on what you know at the moment. And we do think
• 5:45
  Randall Kaplan: these $11 million purchase prices are good investment long term, given the growth and trajectory,
• 5:49
  Anna Leigh Waters: I think it just depends on how much are you banking on pickleball, like, if you think Pickleball is gonna explode and become like tennis or basketball, or Yeah, so I guess you're going back if it's gonna be as big as basketball or, yeah, as big as basketball or football, it's a great investment, because, like you said, these teams are now worth billions of dollars versus 11 million. But if you're like, I don't really want to, you know, gamble like, it's definitely a gamble, because pickleball right now is going up, and I think it's going to continue to go up, personally. But if you don't think so, then it's not a good investment. Like
• 6:21
  Randall Kaplan: all professional sports franchises, the value of the teams go up proportionally with the value of the TV contracts. And we're still in this infancy today, exactly where it's we'll see what happens. I think, I think the
• 6:34
  Anna Leigh Waters: next couple of years is probably going to determine kind of what happens with the sport. Like you said, if these TV companies are willing to pay for pickleball to be on TV, then I think you'll see it exponentially grow. But if in the next couple years, the people are like, Oh, well, people don't like watching it on TV, then it might not go up. It might say the same might go down. Nobody really knows. But personally, I feel like now people like watching it on TV more than they used to, because a lot more people are playing the sport. It's kind of like golf. Like, when I watch golf, I respect it because I've played golf. My dad played golf in college. Like, I know how tough that shot that guy just hit was, you know, but if you have never played golf in your life, you're like, the easiest sport, like, it's so boring, boring to watch.
• 7:15
  Anna Leigh Waters: But people love watching golf because they know how hard it is. So I think the same thing is kind of going to happen in pickleball, whereas the more people play it and understand how hard the shots are we're actually hitting on TV, the more they'll respect it and want to watch it on TV.
• 7:27
  Randall Kaplan: When you play a pro match, it's not like you're playing in a stadium, Arthur ash stadium, nothing like that for pickleball. They're basically grandstands that are brought in, and it reminds me of a high school gym. Okay, right? I mean, so are there 500 to 2000 people watching live, and do they all sell out? And are people scalping tickets at this point for the best matches? They
• 7:49
  Anna Leigh Waters: definitely all sell out, especially towards the weekend, like Wednesday and Thursday, isn't like a sold out day, but Friday, Saturday and Sunday is all sold out, depending on the tournament.
• 7:57
  Anna Leigh Waters: Like the majors, some of the majors had like, 2000 seats, 2500 maybe at Nationals, the one we just had, or worlds, I guess, the one we just had a couple weeks ago, that was like 2500 and it was completely sold out.
• 8:11
  Anna Leigh Waters: Some other tournaments, maybe it can only see, like, if you're going to a 500 points tournament, maybe it can only seat closer to 1000 maybe a little less, but that's always sold out, and there's people standing. So I think we're definitely outgrowing what we have now, but we're not to the point where, like you said, we want, like, this huge Arthur Ashe stadium, especially because the pickleball court is smaller than a tennis court. So there's a certain point where it might look super small if you're on like, Arthur Ashe. You know what? I mean? Like, people need to be close to the court. And
• 8:43
  Randall Kaplan: just give people a size on a pickleball court, or it's 20 feet by 44 feet. Yeah, it's a fourth of a tennis court.
• 8:49
  Randall Kaplan: But you need at least 10 to 12 feet, when we were building our court, behind what we call the baseline, you know, behind the baseline, because, if not, you just don't have
• 8:58
  Anna Leigh Waters: it's kind of dangerous, to be honest, because you're running from off the court into a fence or something, because there's ATPs, which is around the post, which you're moving to the side, there's huge serves. Now, you need room. If somebody lobs you, you need room. So I think, honestly, when people are building courts, they're doing a better job now, but when they were first starting building courts, they were making them super tight and not giving people room. And that also might have been creating some injuries because of that. I mean,
• 9:23
  Randall Kaplan: I think people are limited by the amount of space they have in their home as well. Yeah, you know, and you mentioned the room. So I am a weekend warrior, and I've pounded myself into crusty fences. I have a huge scar here on my arm, and I have one here because I went you're dedicated running, like an idiot into into fences, yeah,
• 9:44
  Anna Leigh Waters: but it was just at your house, so you were running?
• 9:46
  Randall Kaplan: No. I mean, we have very fortunate. We have plenty of room at the house. It was Santa Monica pickleball center. You know, I just ran into the fence. And then we have, did you on the point? No, I lost both points. So it wasn't where the running into the second one was in Coeur d'Alene place called, oh yeah, Gaza ranch. And it's a, it's basically a square metal front of, you know, the little squares. And it's, it's, I don't know, four feet high, so, you know, the ball won't go flying onto them.
• 10:18
  Anna Leigh Waters: It's nice, but at the same time, it's kind of dangerous, if it's not far enough away from
• 10:22
  Randall Kaplan: the I mean, it's far, plenty of room. You know, I'm trying to make the great shot, even though I'm not trying to show that I could do it.
• 10:27
  Randall Kaplan: Yeah, let's talk about being the goat. And I think for the goat, Oh, wow.
• 10:33
  Anna Leigh Waters: People call me the baby goat. I think this is the first time somebody's calling me the goat.
• 10:38
  Randall Kaplan: So, and I want to start with Roger Federer. So let's talk about his stats here.
• 10:41
  Randall Kaplan: So Roger Federer played in 1526 singles matches, and won nearly 80% of them. But interestingly, he only won 50% of the points within those matches. He won about 25% of tournaments. He played in his best years, he won a little over half. You've won 85% of your events, and the gap between you and the second best player is bigger than the gap between the number two player the number 10 player, you're only five foot six, and the thought and the tennis or the thought, you're only five foot six, and the thought in the pickable world is taller places, taller players do better. What are you doing differently? And why can't people come now and kick your butt
• 11:22
  Anna Leigh Waters: well. Roger Federer, I looked up to very much and I was a kid. He's my favorite pro tennis player of all time, so I love that used his stats as far as my height goes. I think there's kind of in pickleball this thing where you can be too tall, because you just become this big target and you can't get as low. So I think, honestly, in my opinion, this isn't guys. I'm talking about women right now. I would say the best women pickleball players right now are anywhere from five four to 510 but then the women who kind of are above that, maybe even 510 is too tall. But like, I think if you're above 510 as a woman, it's kind of a disadvantage. And maybe if you're below five four, also disadvantage. So somewhere in that range, I would say probably the best height for a pickleball player is like five eight. So I'm a couple inches shorter than that, but it seems to be working.
• 12:14
  Randall Kaplan: How are you so much better than everybody else?
• 12:16
  Randall Kaplan: I honestly don't
• 12:18
  Anna Leigh Waters: know. Many people have asked me if I play pickleball in another life? So that might be the answer the question, but I've been playing for a while. I've been playing since I was younger. Like I said, a lot of the people I'm playing against played college tennis. They didn't play pickleball growing up, so a lot of their strokes and stuff are very tennis like, whereas mine are tennis like, but they're also pickleball likes. That might be helping me also, my mom was number one in the world before I was so might be in my genes. A little bit might be a genetic thing, but I don't know.
• 12:45
  Anna Leigh Waters: Most people say what makes me really good at Pickleball is my IQ. That was also what made me really good in soccer was my IQ.
• 12:52
  Anna Leigh Waters: I was just very smart. I was a good passer, very good a sister.
• 12:56
  Anna Leigh Waters: My best thing wasn't my speed or how hard I could shoot the ball.
• 12:58
  Anna Leigh Waters: It was always just, you know, I was very smart. And I think on the pickleball court, it's kind of the same thing, just my decision making is my best. Is my best thing. So maybe it's that my mom says, My mom is always right. So my mom might be right on this. My mom says, right,
• 13:16
  Randall Kaplan: we've had people on the show, many of the most successful people in the world on the show said, Never listen to your parents, because only you know, only you know the best outcome for yourself. Well, my mom,
• 13:24
  Anna Leigh Waters: she's complimenting me in this, but she's saying, or she says, that my mental toughness is what makes me the best. Because there have been many matches where I've been down a game in seven one and come back and won, or I've been down 10 two and come back and won the game like I never give up, and I'm a fighter, and I think that's what she thinks is what makes me the best. So maybe it's combination of those two things
• 14:41
  Randall Kaplan: you're only Well, let's go back for a second. You said in the show maybe 30 minutes ago that you have all these other players now coming up wanting to play and getting in the sport, there are better athletes today. I mean, some people who would criticize you and Ben, being the number one players in the world. You were early. Was much easier to be number one, but you're still kicking everyone's ass today, and at some point. I mean, are the players getting better and better as a competition in the last five years, or two years, even one year been
• 15:15
  Anna Leigh Waters: I think so. I think it's a combination of many things I think you're seeing. I mean, there's still not even just Ben and I, but there are still players who are the best when Ben and I were the best, and they're still the best now, because those players are still getting better. But you also see players who were great a couple years ago and they haven't gotten any better. So you know, they're not at the top anymore.
• 15:34
  Anna Leigh Waters: So I think it's a combination of that. You've also got new players who are coming in, who are getting really good, and a couple of them have made it more on the men's side than the women's side. I've seen there are more guys, there are more newer guys right now who are doing well on the men's side than there are the women's there's a couple women. But also, I think the. Fact that the paddles have gotten hotter, more spinny have has given people the opportunity to get better at things. So that's why, maybe on TV, it looks a lot better as well, because we have better equipment, so we're able to do cooler things with ball etc, which also might be why players are getting better. So I don't know. I don't know. I think it's combination of a lot of things, but there's definitely more room for newer players to get into the sport. I'm personally excited for when it's not like the college tennis players coming into the sport, when it's like kids who have played their whole life coming into the sport, I think that's when you're gonna see some like, insane pickleball like, if you've played pickleball from seven years old to now you're turning pro at 20 or whatever, they're going to be amazing.
• 16:36
  Anna Leigh Waters: Whereas, if you played college tennis your life, and you've played Pickleball for two years, but you're pro, you're not going to be as good, you know. So I think it's going to be really cool. Hopefully I'll get to play against some of those people, because I am younger in the future, but that would be awesome. Throughout
• 16:50
  Randall Kaplan: our careers, we all have moments that we're not particularly proud of, and you're extremely mature for your age, and I think I'm sure it's because you come from a very mature, successful, educated family, and you're also worldly, right? Because you've been dealing with adults, and your honestly
• 17:10
  Anna Leigh Waters: get more nervous talking to kids my age than I do to adults,
• 17:14
  Randall Kaplan: but when you 16 years old, you had an incident on the court where you lost and you cheered the opponent who beat you, and you threw your racket and stormed off. Yes, what did you learn from that experience? And how do you
• 17:27
  Anna Leigh Waters: not proud of that at all? So a little backstory on that event. So that was my fourth tournament in a row, so that, like, a month, I had been playing a tournament every week. That month, it was last tournament, and leading up to the event, my trainers told me not to play. My mom told me not to play. They're like, it's too much. But I was going for this record, which was seven, gonna be seven triple crowns in a row, and it had never been broken, or, like, somebody had set like, six or something, but seven would be like, to break this record, and if I didn't play one event, it would reset.
• 18:01
  Anna Leigh Waters: So I was like, I felt like in my head that I needed to play this event. I had to play this event.
• 18:04
  Anna Leigh Waters: So I put a lot of pressure on myself. I was reading all these social media comments, and people were like, Oh, is she gonna break this record, like, this weekend? So I was getting this all in my head, all in my head, and the girl I lost, who I actually warmed up with that morning, which I never do. I always warm up with my mom, but I warmed up with this girl, Tyra this morning, who's actually a friend of mine. Now, looking back on it, it's funny, because she was new. She was like a new up and comer. So going into the match, I was feeling pressure.
• 18:31
  Anna Leigh Waters: Everybody was saying this girl was really good. You know, was she gonna be better than me? I was feeling a ton of pressure going to the match. Also, like, sitting in the crowd, was this guy on social media who had, like, hounded me on, like, said bad things about me on social media. So I was, like, paying attention to that. I was freaking out in the court. The court was kind of weird, like I was these are not excuses, by the way. I'm just telling you.
• 18:52
  Anna Leigh Waters: This could have not happened, but it's all going through my head when I'm playing the match.
• 18:55
  Anna Leigh Waters: So I'm literally, like, going crazy. Like, I'm going on the silence talking to my mom during the match. I'm rambling, I'm screaming. I'm like, I don't know what's going on. I don't want to be here. Like, I was basically, like, telling her that I want to lose like I was, which I never do. Like, I said, I'm a fighter. I always fight on the court, and this time, I was just completely giving up, and the girl I was playing was playing extremely well, and we get to the third game, I won the second game, we get to the third game, and I have a chance to win this match, and I really just have a total like mental breakdown, like on the court.
• 19:29
  Anna Leigh Waters: And this has never really happened to me before, but I think it was just all the pressure I was feeling from all these outside things that was kind of weighing on me. And this girl was playing really well, so I was like, you know, I was doubting myself, and then I ended up losing the match. And in my head, I was very psychotic at the moment. I was like, so happy. That's why I cheered. I wasn't like, cheering that she like, I wasn't cheering to her, like, congrats. You beat me. I was, like, cheering to myself, like, yay. Finally, I lost, which is so psychotic, like looking back on it, and I tapped her paddle. I tossed my paddle at my mom, looking back on it, terrible decision as well, run off the court to my dad, like, go into the bathroom, still freaking out. Like, that day was, like, one of the worst days of my pickleball career. Like, just everything that happened, I felt so bad. The next morning I texted Tyra. I was like, you played amazing, great job. I'm so sorry. Like, I was feeling so much pressure that I just kind of like exploded at the end. And she had, she had played professional tennis, so she kind of understood, and she like, text me this really nice text back, like, I get it, you're under a lot of pressure. Like, thank you for texting me back, whatever. And we're friends now, so it's okay. But looking back on it, it was, it was not great, but I did, like you said, learned a lot from it. Now, when I lose, I don't sprint off the court. I, you know, at least walk off sometimes, a lot of times, I don't bring my bag onto the court. I just bring, like, my paddle in my water. Yeah, so if I do lose, I just kind of like, take my water, my paddle, like, walk up the court. I always shake my opponent's hand.
• 20:56
  Anna Leigh Waters: I don't do anything crazy.
• 20:59
  Anna Leigh Waters: Sometimes, even if I'm about this one time I was getting ready to lose, I was down seven, one in the third I was in my mind, this was like, kind of right after I had just lost a tire. I was like, Emily, if you lose this match, I was like, going through what I was going to do. I met him. Like, you're going to shake this person's hand, you're gonna say, Good match. You're gonna walk to your bag, you're gonna, like, slowly walk off the court. I was going through everything, and then ended up winning the match, which is crazy. So I think now, like, just kind of saying, like, it's okay to lose, like you're gonna lose every now and then.
• 21:28
  Anna Leigh Waters: That's a big thing. My mom told me, because, like, in my head.
• 21:31
  Anna Leigh Waters: Like, at that period, I hadn't lost in months, like, a long time, and I was just like, I felt like everybody on social media was like, Pickleball is boring to watch Anna's winning everything. It's so dumb, like somebody needs to beat her. And I was letting everybody get to me, and I was thinking about stats, which is why I don't think about stats anymore, because they do get in my head.
• 21:52
  Anna Leigh Waters: So I just think looking back on it, it reminded me there are more things in life to pick a ball number one. Number two, you're gonna lose, and you can't act like an idiot when you lose.
• 22:02
  Anna Leigh Waters: Number three is, be respectful to your opponents, especially when they beat you. Because not only is it like a big moment in their career, but it's also a big moment in yours, because I'm not necessarily losing all the time, so people don't really get to see how I lose. So if every time I lose, I act like an idiot, people are going to say I'm a terrible loser, et cetera.
• 22:22
  Anna Leigh Waters: But Gary V actually, I was reading something about that he posted the other day, and it was like, you can't live your life worrying about what other people think about you. I saw that post. You did see that post? And I think that's something that, you know, I've been in the limelight. I'm so young, I'm still learning. I think my mom posted something like, I'm gonna make mistakes, but I'm also gonna learn from them. Like, after I did that, which I did, I learned from it. So I think just kind of focusing on myself and not what other people are saying about me on social media has been a big thing. Like, now if I ever lose a match, I delete Instagram for a couple days, and like, I don't want to see anything. So I've kind of learned a couple of things like after that, like, on what to do, to not let it get so big in your head. But of course, I'm sure I'm gonna make another mistake, and I'll hopefully learn from that one. Something
• 23:09
  Randall Kaplan: I've learned in my own career, in that I teach all my mentees and the people I coach, is we learned so much more from our failures than our successes. How much has losing contributed to your success?
• 23:20
  Anna Leigh Waters: 100% I think sometimes too, in the past, I've gotten complacent with, like, winning a lot of things, and then, you know, being like, oh, like pickleball, and then I lose. I'm like, Emily, what were thinking? Like, get back out there, you know, start training harder. And a couple weeks ago, I lost this women's doubles match. And it was, you know, in my head about it. I got super in my head about it. I was like, calling my mental coach. I was talking to my mom, like, I need to work on this. I'm so bad at this, like, Whatever, whatever.
• 23:47
  Anna Leigh Waters: And my mom was like, Anna Lee, you've lost three times in women's doubles this year. Like, you need to, like, like, take things, you know, like, don't just think about the last match you played, like you need to think about this whole year and what you've done, and stop doubting yourself and believe in yourself. So I'm still learning things to this day when I lose.
• 24:02
  Anna Leigh Waters: So I definitely think in the future, most of the things I learn in life will be from my losses.
• 24:08
  Randall Kaplan: You're a role model to a lot of young women, teenagers and adults, frankly, and you're a goddess in the prickle ball world, for lack of and you are the goat. Do you feel the daily pressure of losing? And how much? How do you deal with that pressure? And then, as a second part of that, what's your advice to all the other young women who look up to and feel the pressure need to win. How do you best cope with that? For
• 24:36
  Anna Leigh Waters: sure, I haven't 100% figured out, you know, the best way to deal with that. I still think I'm trying to figure that out. But something that always makes me feel better is sometimes or this last tournament I went and played in MLP, and this girl came up to me, I think she was probably early 20s. She gave me this card, and she was like, Here, read this. We took a photo. She's like, read this later tonight or whatever. And I was like, okay, so I took the card, and then I was in my hotel room, and I read the card, and it was like, You're so inspirational to so many girls and to myself, Keep being you.
• 25:04
  Anna Leigh Waters: You have so much more to do in the pickleball world. Like it was just this, like, amazing message. And it was so sweet, and it made me feel so good, because on Instagram, I feel like, even if somebody says 10 nice things about you, but somebody says one bad thing, you focus on the one bad thing, which is why I've tried to stay off social media and stay off like, I'll go on social media for like, my friends and stuff, but if it's a pickleball post, like, I don't read the comments stuff like that. So it's really nice when somebody like, gives you, like a letter, tells you something in person, and it's not just behind, like somebody typing something online. So it really means a lot to me when I talk, get to, like, talk to my fans, because I try to do that when I go to tournaments, like some, I know some pros don't like to, you know, they feel bothered by, you know, people asking them for autographs or talking to them. But I really like talking to my fans, especially when my mom and I used to play together. Their mother and daughters used to come up to us, like crying, like, oh my gosh, you've inspired our relationship so much like we've grown so much closer together by playing pickleball. So all those stories I have to remind myself of on the daily, because, like I said, you see one negative comment, or somebody says one negative thing to you, and you just think about that. So as far as like, dealing with the losses goes, I think I probably have a talk with my mom at least once a week about it, because I still haven't quite figured out how to deal with it, but I think I do a pretty good job with it. I also talk to my mental coach, and sometimes we'll talk for two hours, and it'll make me feel better. I don't know there's just little things. I think one thing too is just being around people who love you, like I travel with my parents and after, yes, some of my grandparents come half the time. They're getting older, so they don't come quite as much anymore, but just kind of like playing your match and then getting to reset and just talk with your family. Like, if I were to travel by myself after I played a match, I'd probably just be thinking about pickleball, like all night, but whereas we'll go to dinner and we'll have fun. And, you know, maybe we'll go sightsee before the tournament or after the tournament, or something like that, to kind of get my mind off of it. So I think it's just having a good balance of, like, pickleball and life stuff. My favorite is life stuff. So I'm looking forward to this break I'm about to have after this tournament, taking a couple days off pickleball, but then I'll get the bug and, like, want to play for six hours every day again. Let's talk about money.
• 27:13
  Randall Kaplan: Okay? And when pickleball first got going, you win $500 for a tournament. When you look at tennis, if you're lucky, right, you get free paddles and maybe some, some very small tokens like that. In men's tennis and women's tennis, if you win the US Open, you earn$3.6 million each is pickleball going there. I think
• 27:35
  Anna Leigh Waters: eventually, like I said right now, with all the contracts going on, a lot of the money is tied up in these contracts, and it's like guaranteed money. So the prize pool at these tournaments isn't as big as it would be if you didn't have these contracts. It honestly might be, if it's not$3.6 million if you want to major, but it'd probably be a lot of money, and kind of would shock the world at like, how much money pickleball players are actually making, like, overall. So I think once these contracts kind of run out, that's when they'll start putting that money towards prize money. And like, a major will be millions of dollars if you win down the road.
• 28:08
  Randall Kaplan: So Ben Johns is the highest paid men's pickleball player in the world, 2.5 million. Kelly Wolf, your awesome manager, came out publicly this year and said you're gonna make over $3 million which made you the highest paid athlete in the sport. You have sponsors like Carvana, yeah, that's crazy one, Selkirk and some of these other title tech companies. Or, sorry, okay, all right, well, we'll redo that. That, that whole one.
• 28:27
  Randall Kaplan: When you look at professional golf, you've got Scottie Scheffler, who, this year alone, and just prize money, not sponsors, made 66 point 4 million and the top golfer in the world, Nelly corda, makes$3.7 million a year. What do you think the top pickleball players will be making 510 years from now?
• 28:49
  Anna Leigh Waters: I really I can't answer that question, but I can make a comment on how much more money Scotty is making than how much money she's making, whereas in pickleball, it's much more even like to what Ben's saying I'm making more money than he is. So it's kind of cool, and it's kind of always been this way where men and women in pickleball get paid the exact same. So I think in the future, it's honestly going to be like that, because the women's match doubles matches are sometimes watched more than the men's doubles matches are just because we have more fast hands exchanges, so they consider it more fun to watch, yeah, which is kind of cool, especially because growing up as a female athlete, when I was playing pickleball, I was like, Oh, everybody gets paid the same. And then you look at all these other sports and you're like, that's not necessarily the
• 29:29
  Randall Kaplan: case. So let's talk about money for a minute.
• 29:31
  Randall Kaplan: And when I I started, I co founded a public company, a technology company, and at some point our valuations were $35 billion which at the time was more than the value of Chrysler Ford and GM combined. As a kid from Detroit that made that made new. Did you start the company?
• 29:47
  Randall Kaplan: I was a co founder, one of four co founders. So I was very wealthy on paper. And when I went to meet all these money management firms, they all quartered me. And I remember being with the president of Goldman, Sachs, okay, who, and I consider myself financially sophisticated, but he gave me this problem, and he said, if you have, if you have a 31 day month, and you have a penny on your first day, how much money do you and it doubles every day.
• 30:14
  Randall Kaplan: How much money do you have at the end of 31 days? And I just at some point, you can no longer do the math in my head. And it's we talk about the value of compounding to creating great wealth, saving and compounding.
• 30:24
  Randall Kaplan: And the answer to that question is $10.7 million and I've won a lot of dinners on that, on that question, just doing some simple math, if you make $3.6 million this year, and let's say 50% goes to taxes and coaches and travel and living, you're probably saving a million dollars, if you're being conservative. And let's say today at I think you'll be 18 years old next month, yeah, but let's say you put. Put a million dollars in the bank today, and let's say every year thereafter, you put away $750,000 per year, which you should do with all your sponsor money. Money is going to go up and up and up after 13 years, when you'll be 30 years old, you'll have $21 million and, and, and if you invest in the market, S p5 100, and just put it away. It's tax efficient. The S p5 100 when you're 30 years old, you'll have$21 million when you're 20 in 23 years from now, when you're 40 years old, you'll have 68 point 6,000,033 years from now, when you're 50 years old, you'll have$190 million and let's just go a little a little more than that, put away a million dollars in the $750,000 in 50 years. When you're 50 years old, you'll have 240 $5 million Wow. Are you getting good financial advice at this point? And are everyone coming after you to say, Hey, Anna Lee, let me manage your money for you.
• 31:54
  Anna Leigh Waters: Funny enough, I let me ask my mom one question, Mom, where's the with Marshall? What's Rockefeller?
• 32:01
  Anna Leigh Waters: Okay, so we live in a community in Florida, and there a lot of wealthy people live in this community. It's like their second and third homes. So a lot of them have, like offered to help me to invest my money. We ended up with Rockefeller, so they're managing a lot of my money. My grandfather also was a business owner. He in Allentown.
• 32:21
  Anna Leigh Waters: He owned cold storage businesses, and he just distributed all of Godiva chocolate for the entire country. So he sold, he just sold his company, like five years ago, and he's been investing it. And one thing he likes to do is real estate. So he'll like, buy a house, flip it and sell it. So he and I'm turning 18, like you said, so I'm wanting to move out of the house. So he suggested to me, obviously, I do have money with Rockefeller, but he suggested to me to buy this house in Delray and flip it and live in it for a couple years and then sell it, and I'd make some money on it, especially because South Florida real estate is booming right now. So currently I have a house that is completely gutted in Delray. My grandfather is helping, doing all the construction and renovating. So hopefully by March, I'll be in my first house. So that's very exciting.
• 33:17
  Randall Kaplan: So I you know, when you make money and you're financially sophisticated and you've done well, I've had a lot of people come to me for financial advice, and just as a disclaimer, I'm not giving financial advice on this show, okay, but nobody beats the S, p5, 100 over the long term, no one after 30 years. I think Warren Buffett is the only person. And if you had met Warren Buffett in 1965 in Nebraska, you know you were lucky, but no one is going to do that today. Your advantage to people coming into money later is that you're making money at such a young age, and the compounding, really, when I talk about the one penny a month doubling, you have a chance to create enormous wealth. So I would advise you, as a new friend, S and p5 100, put it away. No one's going to beat it over 30 years, nobody, and you're not going to be charged fees. And when we're done with the show, I can show you a spreadsheet that someone charging fees that you think is 1% is a great deal. Over 30 years, you're going to be paying 10s of millions of dollars of fees that you don't really yeah, I'll take all the advice I can get. I'm going to send you a spreadsheet that is going to blow your mind, by the way.
• 34:25
  Randall Kaplan: Okay, do you have a personal financial goal? Kind
• 34:30
  Anna Leigh Waters: of when I first started playing pickleball, I obviously knew I obviously knew I wasn't going to be number one in the world through my entire career because I was so young, and I was number one, and I probably won't be number one in 15 years from now.
• 34:39
  Anna Leigh Waters: I mean, I hope I am, but you know, that's a very tough goal to set for yourself, so I always thought, like you said, I'm making the money now, and I have for the past couple I wasn't making what I'm making now, but I was making a decent amount of money the past couple years. And like you said, I save money, so I've been saving it all. And I've always kind of wanted to be like a business woman in the future, like figure out, especially since Pickleball is so new, what I can do in the space that nobody's done before, or because I'm number one in the world, could help build or a specific company, like taking equity, instead of taking money right away and trying to build that company. So I have a couple things in the work works next year that I'm excited about, as far as products go and things like that. But hopefully in the future, like when I'm done with pickleball, I can figure out something in the pickleball space to, like, continue working and staying in it, but maybe not playing professionally. So
• 35:28
  Randall Kaplan: let's talk about what makes people successful.
• 35:30
  Randall Kaplan: And one of the things that's contributed to my success is something called extreme preparation. I'm writing a book by the same title, and that means, when someone's preparing for a podcast, maybe one hours, one hour researching a guest.
• 35:42
  Randall Kaplan: I've done 14 for this show, and that's my average. How much? How has extreme preparation contributed? To your success of being the goat of pickleball. I
• 35:55
  Anna Leigh Waters: just think a lot of people say this, but when you're practicing, like, practicing how you would play a match is, I think, a really big thing. Some people maybe practice. Maybe they're putting in six hours on the court, and I'm only putting in two and a half, but the two and a half hours I'm playing, I'm, like, working extremely hard, you know, I'm not hitting any shots that I wouldn't hit in a match.
• 36:13
  Anna Leigh Waters: So I think preparing on the court is something that's really helped me. But I also think preparing mentally. I think one of my biggest strengths on the court is strategy, and that's one reason because my mom, my mom's like, the best strategist in the game, and we have a really solid game plan before I go out on the court. Whereas I feel like some players just go out and they're like, All right, let's just play. But they didn't know that person's backhand sucks, and if you hit the ball three times their backhand, they're gonna eventually miss it or do something stupid there. So I think a big thing is not only like training really hard and practicing really hard, but also being smart when you're on the court about where to hit certain balls, and if something's not working, changing that and not continuing to do the same thing over again, but having those like you said, preparation, like in your head before you step on the match. So you have plan A, plan B, plan C, Plan D. If things aren't working,
• 37:01
  Randall Kaplan: they talk about Michael Jordan being the best professional player ever in the NBA, some people may say is LeBron. But what really made Michael Jordan great was his mental attitude of winning. He was so competitive. You said you have a mental coach? Yes, how much of your success has contributed to mental preparation? And having that coach
• 37:20
  Anna Leigh Waters: for sure? My mental coach is Jack Llewellyn.
• 37:22
  Anna Leigh Waters: He used to be the mental coach for the Braves. He also did a couple of NASCAR, famous NASCAR drivers. So he definitely knows what he's doing. I think the main thing with him is not focusing too much on like, oh, I have this mental problem or this mental block, but just kind of talking things through. Like we could be on the phone for two hours and I'll tell him my problem, and we'll go here, and then we'll finally get back to here. Like it's just this crazy thing where you don't really think you're talking about your problems, but by the end of the call, you're like, man, he just made me feel so much better. You know about whatever it is I was calling him about. But I also think something that a mental coach can kind of tell you to do, but you have to do yourself.
• 38:00
  Anna Leigh Waters: And even before I had this mental coach, I think I was pretty good at it. Was just being positive always, you know, even if you're down, like I said, tend to thinking you can come back and win, trusting yourself if you miss a shot.
• 38:11
  Anna Leigh Waters: Okay, it was the right idea.
• 38:14
  Anna Leigh Waters: Like, don't worry about it. Anna Lee, like, next point, like, you know, never being super negative on yourself, like smashing your paddle, like in the middle of a match, or, like yelling at yourself, telling yourself you're stupid, you need a stupid shot. Like, I try when I'm on the court, I actually talk to myself a lot, but it's always like, positive. It's like, fight or be you, or come on, anal. You got that like, you know what I mean? I'm never like, anal. You suck. You should stop playing pickleball on the court. So I think being positive is something really big that you can kind of prepare for before the match starts. But once you get in the match, you kind of have to keep reminding yourself of that.
• 38:48
  Randall Kaplan: You get to do some cool things and one cool thing, and it's been hugely positive for you. As you met Ben Johns at a tournament. You guys have played mixed doubles together. You're the best team in the world. You just crush everybody. Did Ben Johns really beat your mom and you 11 nothing in ping pong when he was playing with a phone, phone in the spoon. I
• 39:13
  Anna Leigh Waters: don't think he played us together, but he probably played us one v1 like when he played me one v1 that happened with a phone I but I don't feel too bad about it, because he's beating people way better than me and ping pong with the same thing. He played ping pong like he can hit with, like, professional ping pong players. It's like crazy, like he can be on a table. He's like, hitting these crazy ping pong shots like me and ping pong, I have, like, a two handed backhand. I just fooled around.
• 39:36
  Anna Leigh Waters: But he's like, I think he could be, like, a pro ping pong player if he really tried to. He's really good. A lot
• 39:43
  Randall Kaplan: of people don't realize this. I mean, you watch professional football, you watch professional basketball, and there's a lot of trash talking on the court. There's also trash talking on the pickleball court, isn't there?
• 39:52
  Anna Leigh Waters: There is a lot more on the men's side. The women don't really trash talk, but the men can get into it sometimes.
• 39:57
  Randall Kaplan: What are they saying, man, you can't get me.
• 39:59
  Randall Kaplan: Yeah,
• 40:00
  Anna Leigh Waters: like, if the guy's like, maybe like, a little shorter, he'll be, like, You're too small, or, like, too short to get that. Or maybe it'll be like, no hands, or that's a spot, or way out, or that's a bag, which is like, when you hit somebody, it's called a body bag. So be like, That's a bag. I don't know things like that, anything they get in their heads. Your women mainly yell when they win a point. They just scream really loud. That's kind of their trash talk. I guess
• 40:31
  Randall Kaplan: you're a very attractive 17 year old millionaire, very mature. Are you dating and how are you meeting guys these days? Or you're not doing it at all? Um,
• 40:42
  Anna Leigh Waters: I don't really have time for it at the moment. Not, not to say that I'm not looking for one. Like, if there's the right guy who comes up, like, I'd be interested, but I'm not, like, gonna go out of my. Way to like
• 40:53
  Randall Kaplan: comes up at a tournament, says, Hi, Emily, I'm a fan. I don't know that might be
• 40:56
  Anna Leigh Waters: a little weird. That might be a little weird if it's a fan, I tend to like, think I tend to find people who are very athletic, attractive, but that's not always the best. Because my mom likes to tell me that professional male athletes might not be the best marry I
• 41:12
  Randall Kaplan: agree with you, and you've heard all the stories, and I have too, and I have friends that are professional athletes, so yeah, or actors or musicians, okay, so, yeah, fame. Fame brings a lot of it's nice to be famous, I guess, because you're successful, but there is a huge downside to fame as well.
• 41:30
  Randall Kaplan: Personally,
• 41:32
  Anna Leigh Waters: I always said the best thing was, like, in life, like, if I could just restart life and, like, snap my fingers would be to be super wealthy, but nobody knew who I was.
• 41:41
  Randall Kaplan: Do you know how many times I said that exact words? I tell my team that, and it's just, when you're doing something public and you're winning, everyone knows exactly what you're making. They don't know on the sponsor side what you're getting, but they do know prize money as being a part of a public company? No, it's true, and it's
• 41:55
  Anna Leigh Waters: scary sometimes too, because some people don't like you. Some people really like you. So like, I've had a stalker at one event.
• 42:00
  Anna Leigh Waters: I had this one guy like, hug me and like, squeeze me and like, mess up. Like, my like, stir it up. Like, I've just had, like, weird things happen to me, but at the same time, it's kind of cool, because I feel like I might have an impact on some people's lives, like by what I'm doing in pickleball, like maybe giving somebody an outlet, or something like that. So that's awesome. But at the same time, I feel like I feel much safer if you know a lot of people didn't know who I was. But as far as dating goes, I guess we'll we'll see maybe you know somebody you can set me up with,
• 42:35
  Randall Kaplan: I mean, my son, my son would kill me for saying this, by the way, but, I mean, Charlie, he's a nice kid. He's 20 years old. He's very motivated, and I like to think he comes from a good family, and he's humble buddy. He's gonna crucify me for saying this.
• 42:59
  Anna Leigh Waters: That's funny.
• 42:59
  Anna Leigh Waters: But what Funny story, though, one of my MLP teammates, he's 26 and he tries to set me up with all of his friends every time we go to a tournament and his friends come. He's like, an elite this one, like, I'm like, will like, stop trying to set me up with all your friends. It's like, so funny. He's trying to set me up on like, the weekly basis. So
• 43:17
  Randall Kaplan: I think so 10 years from now, when you're still gonna be considered the goat of pickleball, what if you could go back and tell yourself something 10 years what would you say to yourself 10 years in the future, from today, probably people are going back watching this. Probably
• 43:35
  Anna Leigh Waters: I would tell myself to just enjoy it. I feel like, especially the last couple years, like, I haven't really, like, enjoyed it that much, like I've had fun and what I'm doing, but it's like, I never really, like, sit back and like, think about what I'm really doing. And like, Emily, this is really cool. Like, all the things you're getting to do and everything. Like, I feel like, right now, I'm just like, I need to get better. I need to work, which I also have to do that, but probably in 10 years, I'm gonna be like Annalie. You probably should have enjoyed it a little bit more, because right now, just it feels like my life's crazy and I'm always doing stuff, and sometimes I'm like, I just kind of want to be home, but I feel like in 10 years from now, I'll be like, it'll be like, Anna Lee, what you did was awesome, and you should enjoy it.
• 44:10
  Randall Kaplan: We're getting to the end of our show now. I always conclude the end of the show with a game I call fill in the blank to excellence. Are you ready to play? Yeah, let's play.
• 44:18
  Randall Kaplan: The number one goal in my life is to be the best. My number one personal goal is to be kind. The biggest lesson I've learned in my life is losing isn't the end of the world. My biggest regret is going crazy after some matches. Probably my biggest fear is not reaching my potential. The craziest thing that's happened in my career is a
• 44:44
  Anna Leigh Waters: college soccer coach asking me to come play soccer at their university.
• 44:48
  Randall Kaplan: How much money was the professional soccer team in Germany going to pay you, nothing,
• 44:54
  Anna Leigh Waters: nothing. I think we were actually gonna have to pay to go through the program. Also, when I first started playing pickleball, we weighed, like, how much money I could be making if I was, like, the best soccer player ever, like Alex Morgan. And then we made, weighed what I was gonna be making, like, the first year of my pickleball career. We were, like, people in professional women's soccer making like, 30,000 on average, like to play the soccer team and impeccable. I was going to be making that my first year. So we were like, that's better option.
• 45:19
  Randall Kaplan: Jessica Burma was on my show. She's the CEO, President of women's Major League Soccer. We're a team just sold by Willow Bay, leading the team for just sold for two, $50 million Wow. Professional women's team years ago would have been a few million dollars.
• 45:37
  Randall Kaplan: So again, it's commensurate with TV revenues that are coming to come into the sport and the explosion of popularity and women's female soccer.
• 45:48
  Anna Leigh Waters: Yeah, that's all. I love soccer. So I love singing do well, especially on the women's side. So it's.
• 45:52
  Anna Leigh Waters: Really cool to hear. The
• 45:53
  Randall Kaplan: funniest thing that's happened in my career is,
• 45:56
  Anna Leigh Waters: um, funniest thing that's happened in my career. I played in an exhibition once, and I played really bad. And I don't know I thought it was pretty funny, because I was like, missing like, really easy shots, and the people thought I was gonna be good, and I was like, terrible that day. I don't know what was going through my
• 46:10
  Randall Kaplan: mind. That was pretty funny. The best advice I've ever received is just be you. The best advice I could give to any 17 year old is just be you. 10 years from now, I'm going to be doing
• 46:22
  Anna Leigh Waters: something in pickleball or having a family, both one or the other. I don't know, I don't know that I could play professional pickleball and like, be a mother and, like, have a family. So I think probably the latter. I'll probably be retired by then. But that's kind of it's. I'd only be 27 so I don't know that's. I haven't figured it out yet.
• 46:42
  Randall Kaplan: 20 years from now, I'm going to be doing something business related and pickable. If you could pick one trait that's contributed to your success, it is my positivity.
• 46:53
  Randall Kaplan: The one thing I've dreamed about doing for a long time, but haven't, is playing
• 46:57
  Anna Leigh Waters: in the Olympics. Do you think Olympics is
• 46:59
  Randall Kaplan: coming to pickleball? I do. I don't pickleball probably
• 47:03
  Anna Leigh Waters: the next, like, eight years. I would say like maybe Australia.
• 47:06
  Randall Kaplan: The single greatest, the single greatest athlete of all time is, oh, this
• 47:10
  Anna Leigh Waters: is tough, because what I'm gonna pick might not be the single greatest athlete of all time, but I love Roger Federer, so I'm gonna have to say him. Have you
• 47:16
  Randall Kaplan: met Roger? I have not. Do you want to meet Roger? I do. So how are you gonna do that?
• 47:20
  Anna Leigh Waters: Well, my agent, Kelly wolf knows a lot of people in tennis, so maybe one day I've actually hit with Martina Hingis, who is number one in the world of women's tennis, because she knew her, but she doesn't know anybody close enough to Roger. So I don't know. I need somebody who knows Roger pretty well.
• 47:37
  Randall Kaplan: I actually don't think you do. I think you know, I made my career cold calling people doing outrageous things.
• 47:43
  Randall Kaplan: And I bet if Kelly calls Rogers agent, and she obviously can get the name and just say that you wanted to meet Roger. Roger is definitely going to meet with I would
• 47:51
  Anna Leigh Waters: even fly to Switzerland. We went to Switzerland last year for our vacation. It was like the best vacation ever. So I would go back to Switzerland to meet Roger.
• 48:00
  Randall Kaplan: The one question you wish I had asked you but didn't, is why I started
• 48:03
  Anna Leigh Waters: playing professional pickleball? Why did you start playing professional pickleball? Because I loved it.
• 48:09
  Randall Kaplan: How much is passion important to our success?
• 48:12
  Anna Leigh Waters: Passion is very important to our success, especially my success, because if I didn't love pickleball, I definitely wouldn't continue.
• 48:17
  Anna Leigh Waters: Wouldn't have continued to do it. I played tennis for four years and decided to stop because I didn't love it anymore. So that probably would have happened to pickleball, but I still love pickleball, so I keep playing
• 48:27
  Randall Kaplan: it. This has been a great interview. I'm so happy. Thank you so much. Been a fan for a while. Gonna continue to be a fan. Now that I know you, I hope I'm gonna be able to get good tickets to my first pickleball events, for sure, only if you bring your son, though. Okay, I'll bring my son, by the way. I'll say this. I'll say this as well on camera.
• 48:48
  Randall Kaplan: Charlie is a very good pickleball player for the amount of times that he played, and he loves to taunt me on this and he can pickle me, which is, which means you lose 11 nothing.
• 49:01
  Anna Leigh Waters: I've done that in a pro tournament. You actually super pickle someone, which is where you start serving, and you continue out the entire game serving like you didn't even side out. Love
• 49:10
  Randall Kaplan: it. Love it. I appreciate you coming. I know you're very busy. You're going down a tournament. Hope you crush it, hope you continue to follow your career. You.