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Ben Johns: The Path To Greatness And Keys To Pickleball Success | E84 · In Search Of Excellence

• 0:00
  Ben Johns: I'd say preparation is definitely one of the keys. I mean, I feel like there's been a number of quotes, like, the more prepared I am the luckier I seem to be something like that. But preparation is definitely almost everything to me. Sometimes you are really amazing and you should think something of yourself, but I think other people naturally think good of you. If you are, you know, more humble about it. I'm not about false humbleness. You know, you can acknowledge things, but you don't need to talk yourself out.
• 0:26
  Ben Johns: You don't need to, you know, push yourself up and have other people admire you for that will admire you for the accomplishments and the things.
• 0:42
  Randall Kaplan: You're listening to part two of my incredible conversation with Ben Jon's the number one pickleball player in the world and the greatest player of all time. If you haven't yet listened to part one, be sure to check that one out first. Without further ado, here's part two of my incredible conversation with Ben Jonze.
• 0:56
  Randall Kaplan: When you see all these tennis players when major tournaments invariably what they do is they get down on the ground. They look up in the stands, I think some players even go on their back. They're overwhelmed with emotion. What was your emotion when you won your first tournament? And when you won your first Grand Slam?
• 1:18
  Ben Johns: That's a good question. 2017 US Open. I wouldn't even say that I didn't have big expectations. Going into the tournament, I was just there to play and have fun, of course, do as best as I could. I was kind of a complete Dark Horse. Nobody really knew me. I didn't. Like I said, I wasn't expecting to win by any means. I was expecting to have, you know, a decent show at basically. And I remember winning that. And I was like, it wasn't because I had always dreamed of winning a pickleball tournament like that I obviously hadn't because I only found pickleball a year before. But it was just so incredible, like the day and how I played and just all the series of events that led up to me winning and I was like, This feels like a dream. This is crazy. Like, whoa, like I couldn't stop smiling. I remember that. And really, no matter what sport you're playing, or what your goals are kind of the elation of winning for the first time, you can't, you can't ever get that feeling the same again, it's it was really just incredible. Even though you know, it was just pickleball on its first year.
• 2:20
  Ben Johns: And you know, there were some videos on iPhones and live streams, and there was no real TV coverage. And there was one championship cord they could hold, you know, a couple 100 people but that even that was really cool to make as pickleball was the biggest city had ever been up to that point.
• 2:35
  Ben Johns: And as small as that is compared to other sports for pickleball.
• 2:38
  Ben Johns: It was it was really crazy. So yeah, I definitely remember being like, this just feels like not reality.
• 2:48
  Randall Kaplan: Have you ever been overcome by emotion and crying from either winning or losing a tournament? And what's your professional high and your career? And what's your professional life and your career?
• 2:58
  Ben Johns: Yeah, no, I've never cried over the ball either. On a high or low. I guess I'm just not that emotional of a person.
• 3:08
  Ben Johns: But yeah, hi, I would have to say there's there's a lot of great moments in pickleball especially winning with partners. Winning my first US Open with a good friend of mine that I kind of learned a ton from in pickleball, Kiley eights that was huge. Winning my first title with my brother, when he came over from Tennessee, we go Oh, that was really huge. But stop to go with that first US Open win the singles title being kind of the highest high. lowest low, I think was probably maybe coming back the following year.
• 3:35
  Ben Johns: And it was after it was my freshman year of college, I wasn't able to play, I probably had a freshman 10 on, I didn't feel like a great player I didn't, I probably didn't look like a great player. And my results suffered as part of that. And I felt like it's hard.
• 3:52
  Ben Johns: It's just hard to give yourself, you know, all to a sport when you're diffused by and distracted by spending a ton of time on school, which was very important to me as well.
• 4:01
  Randall Kaplan: When we invest in a company, we look for a lot of different things. I think what we look at most is the founder or founding team. One of the things that we look for is a competitive advantage. Do they have a moat? Is there a patent as some intellectual property protection, but another one is first mover advantage? That means a company is out there before anybody else, and already has a big lead. And we wonder, are other companies going to catch up? In your case, you had an early mover advantage of being the best pickleball player at a much smaller pool of players. He talked to us about being the lead today and being the lead from the beginning. And is there a lot more pressure from you right now where you have a lot more people coming into the sport, especially pro tennis players who think they're going to take over and who have been playing for a very long period of time and winning lots of tournaments on the pro tennis tour.
• 4:57
  Ben Johns: Yeah, I mean, there's definitely a lot of cons to that. But I'd say the part maybe I enjoy most professional basketball is how experimental it is meaning that because it's not a solo sport, because it's a new sport, everyone kinda has to figure out how to become a better player gradually, there's nobody telling you how to do it.
• 5:12
  Ben Johns: And one of the things I excel at most is learning new things.
• 5:15
  Ben Johns: That's really what Pickleball is, it's learning new skills and learning from the players around you, rather than, you know, being told how to do something and then just kind of repetition doing it, like how most sports are. So that's one of the biggest things is for new players coming in. I mean, I welcome that, because I'm never better than when I'm being pushed. And that is what's happening. You know, there's more players coming in and more better, highly skilled players coming in, when you have more depth and more of that than one when I'm being pushed, I'm just much more engaged in that makes me my best self, which I enjoy the most. So even when this there's this, you know, split happening with majorly pickleball on the PGA Tour, I was like, one on one players all together, because it's best for all of them. But to I was like this, this would suck for me too. Like I want to compete against everybody, I don't want to I don't want things easier, I want things harder. So that makes me better. Because that's really what I enjoy most is being the best player I can be.
• 6:09
  Ben Johns: That's that's what I want and pickable. And whether that's being the best meaning number one or not. That's, you know, that's an ultimate goal, always, of course, but really, I just want to be the best player that I can personally be. And the drive of new players coming in and being good. That's that's one, that's the best thing I can have is that that's dragging me.
• 6:29
  Ben Johns: And besides that, you know, I think that just kind of anything else that you can have driving you is a great thing. So yeah, that's what I enjoy. And that's what I want. Pressures privilege, I think it's the same that comes to mind, I'll take all the pressure, and I'll turn it into something that I enjoy
• 6:51
  Randall Kaplan: some point 108 matches in a row over three years you didn't lose, what are you thinking every time you're going out? Is the pressure just building and building? Because every single person is talking about is Ben gonna win 200 games in a row? And when's the guy gonna go down on his first game?
• 7:07
  Randall Kaplan: That is dominant? Is anyone ever gonna break? Is anyone ever gonna break that record?
• 7:12
  Ben Johns: I really didn't think about it that much. Until the number had gotten quite high. I don't think anyone was even actively counting like, there weren't that many stats and pickleball. Like people had to go back and count. They're like, Oh, he lost. It's been like years since he lost, let's count up and see how many it was. So nobody was even keeping an active count until I did lose.
• 7:26
  Ben Johns: So no, to me, it felt like, it's always more like the pressures on other people, right? Like they have to adapt to me, like I'm the favorite. And sure I have pressure to win, because I'm expected to win. But if we both just play our games, I know I'm going to win because I'm better. So they have to change, they have to be better in order to beat me. So that's kind of how I always viewed it. And I wouldn't really put any pressure on numbers. Because to me, at the end of the day, it's always like the only pressure you have is to win the tournament that you're in. It doesn't really build it's more just like I'm out there to win every time. And that's always going to be the same. It's the pressure on myself, basically,
• 8:04
  Randall Kaplan: most great pickleball players and even a lot of good pickleball players, people I play with have some kind of tennis background. Can you be a great pickleball player? If you haven't played tennis? Is more tennis players come into the sport, are they eventually going to dominate the sport?
• 9:15
  Ben Johns: Yeah, what I'd say is you can certainly be very good.
• 9:18
  Ben Johns: And you can even be great without a tennis background, or at least without a significant tennis background. But what I would say is tennis makes it much easier to be good quickly.
• 9:28
  Ben Johns: And by that I just mean that this skill transfer, I'm not going to say at the highest level, you have to have it. But it is without a doubt and doubt going to be the quickest transfer into a very high level.
• 9:37
  Ben Johns: But another thing to consider is all the players that we see are, you know, former tennis players, because we don't really have a great sample size of other backgrounds. Like there's very few high level table tennis players, there's very few high level badminton players where I can give you hundreds of high level tennis players that tried and some more succeeded and some failed. So we have a bigger number trying something of course, the ones that are going to come out ahead are usually those people. So there's that but at the same time, I'd say yeah, tennis definitely lends a ton of advantages as to whether they'll come in and dominate the sport, so to speak, the only way you dominate this sport is via numbers, which I mean, if you don't you take 1000 pro tennis players tomorrow and say, let's all kind of pick a ball. Who do you think the best player is going to be? Of course, it's going to be a tennis player because he just put 1000 of them in there. Does it automatically kind of have like a takeover effect? Not really. I mean, I've seen a lot of high level tennis players come in and do well very quickly and I've seen a lot horribly fail and just quit the sport immediately because they hate it. It just doesn't transfer perfectly for everybody. And I keep practicing with if there's going to be somebody that's extremely good at it should be at pro tennis player, but it's just it's far less automatic. Then you might think
• 10:53
  Randall Kaplan: you, okay, the other pro sports, especially football, baseball, even golf, where eventually there's a senior tour and you're not as good as younger players. You're very young today, 24 years old, 25 years old? How long? Can you be this good? You know?
• 11:12
  Ben Johns: I don't really know, I guess I would like to find out the answer to that, you know, people always be pushing me in at some point, I'll probably be dethroned, so to speak. And I welcome that I'll defend as long as I can. And I'll enjoy the time that I do have, as far as what that number may be. I don't really know. It depends on a lot of things. But honestly, you know, I love pickleball. And I love playing it, but I wouldn't say I would necessarily, necessarily will be in pickleball until I'm, you know, say 35, or whatever. Still trying to defend my, my, my title, so to speak, of course, I don't think it will be that long. But you know, if I'm 2829 years old, and I'm number four in the world, you know, that'd be an okay, retirement for me, like, really what I care about as being number one, you know, if I'm not, then I don't know, if I would enjoy it as much, I think I'd still enjoy trying to be the best player that I am.
• 12:03
  Ben Johns: But you know, I really enjoy trying to pursue the top as well. So there's really no no concrete plan as to how long we'll be in pickleball, or how long I want to, you know, try to defend my my position. Because I do like doing a variety of things. And this is certainly Pickleball is, you know, you're training like a real sport. So you're playing pickleball every day you're training for you're covering for it, you're eating for it, you're traveling for it, like it's your whole life, right? So wouldn't even necessarily say that I will get to see how long I can defend my position, I might just be like, Alright, I've had my time with pickleball. And, and you know, I'm done now, so you guys can have at it.
• 12:41
  Randall Kaplan: We've talked about a little before that Pickleball is a lot easier to play than tennis, it's, you can get good getting very quickly, you can get good very quickly, what's the ideal age to play?
• 12:52
  Randall Kaplan: And can you start when you're 30 years old and become the number one player in the world?
• 12:58
  Ben Johns: You know, I don't think we actually know the answer to that yet. But of course, just like any sport, I'd say the earlier you start is probably the better just because you have more time to pursue excellence, basically. So there's something for you. Your Podcast In Search of Excellence, pursue excellence, be I think younger is always is always better, but not necessarily essential. And I'd say the more time it goes on, the more kind of depth Pickleball has, the more important it's going to be to spend more time in pickleball. Right now, it's easy to transfer in a year or two from tennis because there's not that many good players. But when there's hundreds of good players of top pro players, it's gonna be harder to break in. Right, so you're gonna need more time naturally.
• 13:39
  Randall Kaplan: Let's talk about prize money and pickleball and we'll start at the beginning.
• 13:42
  Randall Kaplan: The first national pickleball Championship took place in 2009 and a 55 and over community nearly 50 miles northwest of Phoenix, and drew 400 players and offered a whopping $7,000 in prizes. Today, professional players in the pro singles and doubles divisions going up to 25,000 as the top prize. The average pro pickleball player makes around $50,000 a year if they're lucky. And in addition to tournament winnings, players also make money from sponsorships and appearances.
• 14:12
  Randall Kaplan: Your number one in all time earnings reportedly won $500,000 in tournaments and in 2019. You signed a three year sponsorship deal with Franklin sports and a whopping $70,000 per year. When we look at tennis. Novak Djokovic has made $165 million in tournaments, Roger Federer$130 million, Raphael and Adel$125 million, Serena Williams$93 million. Andy Murray $63 million. Will we ever see pickleball tournament purses of$10 million or more? Or pickleball players flying around in private jets making 510 or$20 million a year?
• 14:55
  Ben Johns: Will they ever be getting 10s of millions in prize money? I don't really know the answer to that. It certainly could be but I think it would definitely take a while and a lot of good things would have to happen for pickleball such as it being a spectator sport similar to tennis, you know, as much viewership as tennis or even above that. And I'm not sure that is there. It could be but I'm not I'm not sure about that.
• 15:19
  Ben Johns: As for kind of the the money. I think there's definitely potential for a lot of players to be making at least seven figures that they currently already are at least a few of them. So yeah, just because of how the growth in pickleball is there. I think the pay for pro players isn't there. And if anything I'd say a for pro players is as inflated because the development of pro players naturally lags behind all the other growth growth aspects of pickleball. So pro players get to reap the benefits of hey, you know, I've only been playing a sport a year or two, and I'm already one of the best players.
• 15:59
  Ben Johns: Because, you know, there's not that many other good players, you know, compared to other sports and they're getting paid according to the growth in pickleball, which like I keep saying is ahead of the growth of pro players. So naturally, you're going to get paid according to that to that, which is was quite a bit you know, compared to the work you're putting in, or the time you're putting in rather. So yeah, I think pickleball players can certainly get paid a good amount and very solid amount for how quickly you can be good. Do I ever think it'll be along the lines of how they tennis is?
• 16:31
  Ben Johns: That's a large number to pursue, but you can certainly see them making 510 $20 million a year, some sometime down the road.
• 16:40
  Randall Kaplan: This episode of In Search of Excellence is brought to you by sandy.com. s a n d e.com. We're a Yelp for beaches and have created the world's most comprehensive beach resource by catalog the more than 100 categories of information for every beach in the world, more than 100,000 beaches and 212 countries.
• 16:58
  Randall Kaplan: sandy.com provides beach goers around the world with detailed comprehensive and easy to use information to help them plan their perfect beach getaway at home and abroad. And to make sure you're never disappointed by a beach visit again, plan the perfect beach trip today by visiting sandy.com. That's www.sand.com. The link is in our show notes. Stay Sandy my friends. I had Jimmy potaro, CEO of ESPN on my podcast a few months ago and I asked him about pickleball. And are we going to see big deals on ESPN. And he said that he didn't know today about big deals, but it's something certainly on their radar screen. And obviously you need the big TV contracts for the purses and for people to make money also in tennis and these other sports they have 20,000 seat stadiums and football sometimes 80,000. So it is a bit of a different game economically. Different revenue sources driving those big purchases. Yeah, for sure.
• 18:04
  Ben Johns: Pickleball definitely has a lot going for outside of the typical model of of generating revenue. I think big TV contracts are definitely huge. But I also think you know, sponsors have a huge role in tournaments because you have such an engaged fan base. That certainly helps you get higher numbers from higher dollar figures from smaller numbers of people just because they're so engaged. So your engagement is off the charts, which obviously drives up the dollars and both TV and sponsors.
• 18:32
  Randall Kaplan: Let's talk about your incredible mixed doubles partner Emily waters, she is a phenomenon. She is a phenomenon.
• 18:41
  Randall Kaplan: Tell us how you guys met and give us a little bit of insight about her?
• 18:46
  Ben Johns: Yes, I think um, let's see eight years older than Annalise. So when I met her I think she was 11. And I was night team. Kind of in I think we met in a faction of which she was kind of trying to get better. And I wouldn't say I really gave her lessons, but I gave her some instruction in the beginning. And then after she was 11 I think she won her first nationals Just a year later at 12. So she was you know, getting to be one of the best players like 12 years old and onwards.
• 19:13
  Ben Johns: At the time, I was playing with Simoni Jardine, who was the best player at that time. And she was extremely dominant. She She kind of won everything for years. And sadly, we had to end our partnership when she got injured and was out for a while. So you know, I've been playing with her for a couple of years and winning with her. So I was very used to that. But she was like, Hey, I'm going to be out for a while you need to go find somebody else. So I was like, Oh, this is this is new to me.
• 19:38
  Ben Johns: Like I gotta go find a new partner, which I haven't had to do for a while because I've only been playing with somoni. But Anna Lee had I played her that year and I'd struggled playing against her a little bit usually kind of how I gauge whether players and partnerships is you know, how much of a struggle is it to play against them. And she was actually very, very tough and extremely good and a multitude of ways. So obviously, I was a little bit intrigued to be like playing with a 15 year old I was like that that'll be new. I went from playing with somebody who was I think 42 At the time that we were playing together and obviously Italy at 15 was crazy different. But you know, I respected her game. I liked her as a person. She was mentally very sound on the court, and obviously extremely skilled. So I felt like our partnership could definitely be good. And eventually asked her to and she was all in on it. And from there on out. She's been absolutely incredible to play with. She was extremely talented and has developed into a remarkable player that is extremely dominant.
• 20:37
  Randall Kaplan: I think a lot of people out there don't realize the impact and difficulty of travel every week on the pro Golf Tour. players play on Thursday to Sunday. They get to a tournament on Wednesday where they have Play Pro and they do it every single week living in hotel rooms isn't like that in pickleball as well.
• 20:58
  Ben Johns: Yeah, it's definitely like that. We're traveling probably tournaments alone, like 25 weeks a year, and there's events outside that the travel for so I'm probably traveling in total at least 35 weeks out of the year, which obviously is pretty crazy for for any lifestyle.
• 21:14
  Randall Kaplan: Tell us about your diet in training, and if those are both important to be successful, pickleball player?
• 21:21
  Ben Johns: Yeah, you know, I'm not gonna say that diet and training are more important than being a good player, right being, you know, talented and skilled and all that. But just like any sport, you can be really talented. And you can make yourself even a little bit better get that extra edge with, with your recovery and your diet and your training and all that.
• 21:40
  Ben Johns: So yeah, I do think training is definitely important, you know, kind of how you train. So, you know, I'm putting in two to three hours every day on court and stuff. And then I'm working out of course, for at least like five days a week you know, our in the gym, then there's every time and then what you're really eating at any time, your diet is definitely going to be important as well. For me, you know, that's the Encore training, the workout is a variety of stuff, a lot of weightlifting, Plyometrics, recoveries a ton of stretching, foam, Rolling Massage, full punch therapy, there's there's lots of stuff you do. And then diet wise, I'd say pretty typical kind of, you know, general healthy stuff, you know, your proteins, your healthy carbs, try to stay away from sugar, fried foods and all that. So it's pretty self explanatory on the diet part.
• 22:31
  Randall Kaplan: Do you have a trainer?
• 22:34
  Ben Johns: Yeah, so I have I'm a physical trainer, physical therapist, I do not have a nutritionist, I kind of just figured out what my body needs.
• 22:41
  Randall Kaplan: You've talked about happiness and something called flow state. And you've said, what keeps you going? And that is part of the pursuit.
• 22:46
  Randall Kaplan: Whew, tell us the impact and significance has had on your career.
• 22:52
  Ben Johns: Yeah, so flow state is a common term talked about in sports, it's essentially where your your body is kind of in a state where it knows what to do, and you don't have to be thinking about it anymore. And it's the most remarkable feeling like the ultimate flow state is where everything is just seeming to happening in slow motion, and everything is going correctly.
• 23:10
  Ben Johns: And you just, you feel like your body's doing what it's supposed to do before you even have to think about or anything like that. It's kind of thing, but all athletes naturally pursue and, and want that feeling. And it's like, it's just the perfect feeling. You're always pursuing that because it's so perfect. So that's the ultimate flow state.
• 23:26
  Ben Johns: And you're always trying to get there, right. But yeah, the the basic premise of it is, you know, try to be functioning like your body knows what to do without your mind having to think about it. And if you can approach any state resembling that, then you're probably doing pretty well. How important is it isn't, you can certainly play and do well without it. But I'd say you should probably be pursuing it and trying to get it.
• 23:51
  Randall Kaplan: One of the elements of my success is something that I call extreme preparation, which means if someone prepares one hour for meeting, I'm 10, sometimes 20. I want to be the most prepared person who's ever stepped into a room. has extreme preparation been a part of your success? And if so, can you give a couple of examples?
• 24:10
  Ben Johns: Yeah, I'd say preparation is definitely one of the keys. I mean, I feel like there's been a number of quotes, like, the more prepared I am the luckier I seem to be something like that. But preparation is definitely almost everything. To me. The biggest example is just you know, practice. If you're practicing, if you if you know you're going to be doing everything, well, the amount of confidence you can go into any match or any tournament with is just so much larger, like the preparation you put in on the court is going to be the number one thing, indicator to how well you're actually going to do.
• 24:42
  Ben Johns: It's confidence. And it's really preparation on that front is everything. Next, I mean your body, really how you're recovering. Like even I can tell after traveling, how much stretching I do and how much of that kind of recovery work I do after that. And before I play a tournament directly impacts how well I perform and how good I feel. So that's another preparation thing. And then kind of diet like what you're eating the night before. The icon that and that on the preparation, how you warm up that's preparation at really almost everything you do before a tournament should be in mind of how am I preparing to be my best self Come Come game day. And if you do that, well, I usually think you're going to perform pretty well. And if you don't do it, well, you're not going to perform well. It's very hard to overcome bad preparation. So good.
• 25:29
  Ben Johns: Preparation is almost everything to me. Honestly.
• 25:31
  Randall Kaplan: You're known to be an extremely humble guy. How important is humility to our success?
• 25:38
  Ben Johns: Yeah, you know, I feel like that was just emphasized by my parents always so I really just get that from them. I do think it's definitely important to not get too much of an ego in something. egos are bound to trip you up there.
• 25:52
  Ben Johns: gonna cause you to fail, and nobody wants that. So don't let that get in the way. And also I don't I don't think people like, you know, huge egos you know, sometimes it's warranted sometimes you are really amazing. And you should think something of yourself, but I think other people will naturally think good of you, if you are, you know, more humble about it. I'm not about false humbleness. You know, you can acknowledge things. But you don't need to talk yourself up.
• 26:15
  Ben Johns: You don't need to, you know, push yourself up and have other people admire you for that.
• 26:20
  Ben Johns: They'll they'll admire you for the accomplishments and the things you do, you don't need to put it out there. So that's kind of always been my attitude on it. And I definitely think it is a good thing for success. But no, I'm not going to tell anybody else how to live if you do better with with talking yourself up. And that's how you perform well, then you go ahead and do that. But yeah, I'm not going to do that.
• 26:41
  Randall Kaplan: People are recognizing you more when you're in airports. What's that like?
• 26:46
  Ben Johns: Yeah, I think yesterday traveling here to Atlanta, it was it was three people, which doesn't seem like a crazy number. But it's always funny to me, just because, you know, let's say random stuff, like good luck this weekend, or, Hey, I'm a fan. I watch your stuff. And it's been kind of gradual, but it's still definitely a weird feeling to be like, This person knows me. And I don't know them at all. I mean, it's cool. But it's also strange, though.
• 27:11
  Randall Kaplan: What's the most outrageous thing someone has come up to and said, and is it like to the point now where you're good looking guy, you're single? Are you getting proposition? A lot? Are women waiting for you to come off the court and introducing themselves?
• 27:28
  Ben Johns: Heck, no, no, no, no, it's not that big yet. No, no propositions, nothing too crazy and pickleball. Certainly, there's always an attitude of some admiration for excellence.
• 27:41
  Ben Johns: I guess if you're if you're good at a sport, then usually you're going to have more people admiring you in whatever fashion that may be. But yeah, I wouldn't say it's like a normal sport and that type of craziness. It's, it's pretty normal. Still.
• 27:55
  Randall Kaplan: There are 10s of millions of fans and every professional sport, there are tons of fans who would pay an incredible amount of money to spend any amount of time with their idol or the best players in their game. And pickleball.
• 28:07
  Randall Kaplan: You've made it possible to play with you tell us about your trips. And also, what would you charge a fan or somebody who wants to spend an entire day with you and type pickleball with you for that day?
• 28:20
  Ben Johns: Yeah, pickleball getaways was something myself and deco bar started another pro player, we started in 2018. And basically, the whole premise of it is all inclusive, pickleball vacations with with instruction.
• 28:31
  Ben Johns: So you go on vacation, it's one price you get to play pickleball every day with instruction from pros. Sometimes I'm there I was there on every trip in the first couple years now I'm probably on 20% of them or so. But yeah, it's all inclusive vacation pickleball every day play every day, instruct every day. And really what we realized is people because they're so addicted to pickleball, they don't want to go on a vacation without it. So we basically just bundled those two things together, and we provided high quality, professional instruction with it. And people seem to like those things bundle. These days, I'm having less and less time to do special events, exhibitions, teaching any of that stuff just because I'm so busy playing. But you can still find out a few pickleball getaways chip trips every year.
• 29:19
  Randall Kaplan: How much do these trips cost? And what would you charge for one day to spend a day with you of someone who wanted to pay whatever it costs?
• 29:28
  Ben Johns: Yeah, so the trips usually are between 60 and 80 people, some are as low as 32.
• 29:33
  Ben Johns: And typically for the entire vacation, they'll cost somewhere between 20 504 or 5000 per person, depending on if we're going to Europe or not. That's usually the high cost and the low costs like Mexico for 2500 for like a week. How much would I charge like an individual person for a day now? Between 40 and 50,000 Now, generally,
• 30:02
  Randall Kaplan: and how would they go about contacting you if someone wanted to do that? Yeah, that's a big shout out to Reagan pennwell. Who made this happen?
• 30:11
  Randall Kaplan: Yeah, I love Reagan. She's a good friend. She's an amazing woman. Her husband, Candace, amazing guy. Appreciate you guys for being fans on my show and for hooking me up like that, and I'm, I'm really grateful to you.
• 30:25
  Randall Kaplan: So thanks for that.
• 30:26
  Ben Johns: I am hard to reach.
• 30:26
  Ben Johns: But yeah, you can generally what people do is they just instant message me on Instagram and send a request and my manager usually looks those over and we'll we'll send it to me if it's if it's worth me looking into. Or you got to know somebody like you knew somebody, Randy and that got you in the door. So if he knows somebody that knows me, that's usually the best way to do it, but Instagram works.
• 30:51
  Randall Kaplan: Okay. People can reach me if they can't reach band and I'm happy to forward on to you, Ben. We may get some requests afternoon
• 30:59
  Ben Johns: another avenue right here.
• 31:00
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• 31:36
  Randall Kaplan: And who else had big influences in your career in terms of watching people or reading about people? You don't know?
• 31:43
  Ben Johns: Yeah, honestly, I was even growing up not really a fan of that many people like I like to admired certain people. But I didn't really have any idols, I didn't really have role models.
• 31:53
  Ben Johns: As far as like celebrities or athletes go I just didn't look up to anyone that much. My biggest role models has have always been my parents and my older brother, I think, my older brother in sports because he played them at a higher level than I did. And I learned a lot from him and my parents, and basically every principle and example and all of that they they impacted me more than anybody else. And I admire them more than anybody else. But, Elon, yes, I do actually like him a lot. And he's probably the only person I mentioned, where I'd be like, I'd really like to meet him and really admire him and other other people or celebrities or athletes. I'd be like, Yeah, I mean, I'd be it'd be cool to meet so and so. But do I actually, particularly care really want to meet that person?
• 32:39
  Ben Johns: That would be like, Yeah, that's what I need to read today.
• 32:41
  Ben Johns: Probably not, I just enjoy if I did, because I always like meeting new people that are interesting and cool people. But Elon, because I think he's doing, you know, amazing things for the world. Certainly altruistically to some extent.
• 32:55
  Ben Johns: And I think, you know, human evolution, civilization, society, all those things, progress by great minds that, you know, think way ahead and think in the future. And he's probably the one that's doing that the most right now. So if there's anything that's going to advance humanity as a whole, it could be any number of people that you don't have, you haven't heard of the ones that you have heard of Elon is probably up among the top.
• 33:17
  Randall Kaplan: Do you know if he plays pickleball?
• 33:20
  Ben Johns: I don't actually know that. I think he's played maybe, at least once. Because I think he sent out a tweet about it once that I saw. But yeah, I don't actually know if he plays,
• 33:29
  Randall Kaplan: I'm gonna try to track that down and see if possible introduction can be made. And if so all I asked them would invite myself if you guys are playing. And even if I'm not playing with you guys, I love to watch someone someone said to me the other day, if you can have three people on your show, who are your dreams, it would be Elon, Oprah. And I'm not sure who the third person would be.
• 33:51
  Randall Kaplan: But those would be my top two right now. So that's why I would love to have him. So what are you doing these days to give back? I think there's responsibility for athletes and high profile people to set examples for different people.
• 34:06
  Randall Kaplan: Can you tell us what you're doing and how important is giving back to our community to our success?
• 34:15
  Ben Johns: Yeah, I'd say number one thing I can do is, you know, to play pickleball at a high level with with good integrity, and being a good athlete, a good sport, being a professional. And I think that you know, sets a good example for for anybody watching. So I always try to do that. And that's how I think I can personally get back the most because being a bad example, at a, at a high level with lots of viewers is the wrong thing to do clearly. So you want to be the best example you can, which is what I strive to do. I'm sure I never do a perfect job of it, but I always try and do on that I just various kind of, you know, solo events, generally the thing that I can I can do most easily where it's like, you know, this is for a good cause.
• 34:58
  Ben Johns: If you could show up and say a few words or you know, hit or do an exhibition or anything like that, then I'm always interested in any kind of event that's good for a good cause that I can contribute to.
• 35:11
  Randall Kaplan: Before we finish today, I want to go ahead and ask some more open ended questions. I call this part of my podcast fill in the blank to excellence. Are you ready to play? Ready? The biggest lesson I've learned in my life is
• 35:26
  Ben Johns: biggest lesson I've learned in my life is that you are most fulfilled by working hard.
• 35:33
  Randall Kaplan: My number one professional goal is
• 35:38
  Ben Johns: my number one professional goal is to be number one as long
• 35:40
  Randall Kaplan: as I can. My number one personal goal is
• 35:44
  Ben Johns: my number one personal goal is to learn new things frequently. My biggest regret is my My biggest regret is that I was not able to dedicate myself to sports from a younger age.
• 36:01
  Randall Kaplan: The one thing I've dreamed about doing for a long time but haven't done is
• 36:07
  Ben Johns: the one thing I've dreamed about for doing a long time and haven't done yet is going to Japan, which I think I will next year.
• 36:14
  Randall Kaplan: If you could go back in time, one of the one piece of advice you'd give yourself when you were 15 years old, and when you were 21 years old
• 36:23
  Ben Johns: piece of advice at 15, I would just tell myself to enjoy that time as much as possible, because you're never a kid again. At 21, I'd say I'm essentially the same person I am now but I would say make better choices with the people you're around.
• 36:41
  Randall Kaplan: If you could play pickleball with any three people in the world, who would they be?
• 36:46
  Ben Johns: Elon obviously. Other people, probably Kevin Hart.
• 36:55
  Ben Johns: Number two, I think it'd be really funny. And number three, I will go with galgut
• 37:06
  Randall Kaplan: Who's the third
• 37:08
  Ben Johns: galgut dot. She's really actress Wonder Woman.
• 37:13
  Randall Kaplan: So I can help with the Kevin Hart thing. I have a charity event called The Imagine ball this year, which is on November 4 at the peppermint club. My friend John Terzian, and I started this event nine years ago now and Kevin Hart is the emcee and honoree this year if you're in town, I'd love to have you as my guests. You could spend some time with Kevin.
• 37:35
  Ben Johns: Wow. Excellent.
• 37:35
  Ben Johns: That's amazing. Thank you.
• 37:38
  Randall Kaplan: The one question you wish I had asked you is
• 37:45
  Ben Johns: I don't have one for that. I think you did a really thorough job. This is the most thorough podcasts I've done.
• 37:51
  Randall Kaplan: I love that.
• 37:51
  Randall Kaplan: Ben, you're incredible. You've had an incredible career. I'm excited to meet you. Hopefully, you'll come up to Gaza next summer. I'm sorry, I missed you this summer. But I'm so happy for you for your career, your success all the incredible things you're doing for pickleball I love the sport. All my friends love the sport. And I really appreciate your time for being here today. Thanks for sharing your incredible story with us.
• 38:15
  Ben Johns: Thanks so much for having me ready. Yet. Now this has definitely been the most prepared. I've seen somebody for a podcast, I think, you know, I got sent a microphone and a video camera beforehand. We had a whole pre test meeting we had a whole team kind of try to set up the camera and the audio appropriately. Obviously, you had a ton of really great questions that I think led us in some some interesting paths and you did research beforehand. So I think prepared is definitely the word that comes to mind when thinking of you in this podcast.