What If Your Mind Is The Real Warm-Up? | Tim Keller

You can tell a lot about how a match will go before the first ball is even struck. If you’ve ever walked onto the court feeling tight, rushed, or a step slow, this conversation gives you a simple fix that also happens to be one of the best tools for tennis injury prevention.

I’m joined by Palmetto Bluff tennis professional Tim Keller, a longtime coach with a master’s degree in exercise kinesiology, to unpack what “preparation” really means for recreational tennis players and competitive athletes. We get specific about a 5–8 minute dynamic warm-up for tennis: light jogging, arm circles, side-to-side movement, grapevine steps for hip mobility, lunges and lateral lunges, balance-based stretches, rotation for the spine and shoulders, plus the small joints people forget like wrists and even the neck. Tim also explains why music and momentum matter more than most players think when it comes to getting your mind and body ready to perform.

From there, we shift into recovery and longevity. We talk static stretching after tennis, flexibility, and why older athletes should be smarter about volume and intensity so they can keep playing without paying for it the next day. Then we go deep on the mental game: The Inner Game of Tennis, breath control, relaxing your grip, simple attention cues, and visualization that helps you handle pressure and find your own version of flow state.

If you want better tennis performance, fewer nagging aches, and a warm-up routine you’ll actually do, press play. Subscribe, share this with a tennis friend who “warms up” by guessing, and leave a review with your favorite pre-match ritual.

Transcript

Why Warm-Up Matters

SPEAKER_00 0:14

Are you ready to live an active lifestyle? Welcome to Behind the Bluff, where we believe every moment of your life is an opportunity to pursue wellness on your terms. Quick question, listeners, are you warming up or just hitting a few balls and hoping your body keeps up? I'm your host, Jeff Ford, and today on the podcast, I'm joined by Palmetto Bluff's longtime tennis professional, Tim Keller. He's a coach with a master's degree in exercise kinesiology who believes preparation isn't optional, it's performance. From dynamic movement to recovery methods, Tim has helped players of all ages stay strong, competitive, and on the court for decades. He's been with us here at Palmetto Bluff for just at seven years. If you want to move better, avoid injury, and actually understand what your body needs before match play, this is the episode for you. Tim, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_01 1:16

Yes, thank you, Jeff. I'm excited to be here. Um I've always been excited about what you've been doing with the wellness program here at Palmetto Bluff. It kind of jives with what I what I believe in as far as uh getting the most out of your body. So um yeah, excited to to join you today.

SPEAKER_00 1:34

Yeah, I'm glad we can discuss it because you and I are are very aligned that your ability to participate in tennis and all activities comes down to taking care of your body and plugging the right tenants into a weekly routine. So I've always appreciated your support and uh interest in what we do as part of the wellness program here at Pull Metal Bluff.

SPEAKER_01 1:56

Right, great.

SPEAKER_00 1:58

Tim, so let's start with having you take us back for a minute. Could you please share with listeners your background, how you got into the inn industry as a tennis professional?

Hip Pain To Labrum Surgery Lesson

SPEAKER_01 2:09

Uh yeah. Uh I started t playing tennis when I was seven years old, and so I've just uh been playing competitively almost um since ten years old. So um I've always been interested in uh pushing myself to the limits and in training and trying to get the best out of my body, and then um that led me to um scholarship, tennis scholarship at uh Miami of Ohio, um where I played Division I tennis. And um and since then I got a business degree there at um Miami. And then from there, you know, I tried some things in the business sector and and then uh I kept coming back to teaching tennis because I just loved the way I could uh help people um with their games and it was a passion for you, it was close to your heart. Yeah, it just kept it just kept naturally coming back to getting me on the court and helping people. So uh from there uh I was teaching tennis in Columbus for about three years and uh it got to the point though, as every ball I fed my hip was um just in a lot of pain. It felt like I was dragging an anchor. So then I was you know trying to figure out, you know, can I continue to do this as a career? And I decided to go back to get my master's degree in kinesiology at Toledo University, where that was my hometown, so I was able to get a graduate assist assistantship there, and um went back there to try and figure out maybe how I could heal my hip. And um it was a very good program. Um, it was basically uh rehabilitation through strength and exercise. And I was in a lot of clinical settings and um actually helped people with their training programs in the gym and did some high performance stuff and training athletes and um that just kind of started my like coaching and and teaching with fitness, and so from from there um I was still having the hip issue, and an orthopedic surgeon kind of sent me to Ann Arbor to get um a test, another MRI, but with contrast, and finally they just kind of said you have a torn labrum. And I got kind of lucky though. I I looked online and uh put in torn labrum and it came up to Greg Norman, the professional golfer, and he had had the same thing, and I looked at all the symptoms, and uh that was me, so I actually called up his surgeon and you had the same surgeon as Greg Greg Norman? Yes, and so I couldn't believe it. I just on a whim called him up and he was doing a fellowship at the University of Pittsburgh, so my dad and I um went down there and he did a uh di uh examination and said, you know, I do about 30 of these surgeries a month. It was kind of a new thing, people didn't usually do the uh surgery on the hip and the labrum, but he said I can give you about 95% chance that you're gonna be um all good after this. So I'm like, I'll take that.

SPEAKER_00 5:14

Nice. You were an earlier adopter, and so from Miami University, getting your business degree, then going back to get your master's in exercise kinesiology, yeah, and then healing yourself, but not this figuring out hey, got I got a tour in labrum here, probably painted a different picture of how you looked at at movement at that time.

unknown 5:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:37

So take us into your career. Where did you go from from there?

SPEAKER_01 5:41

Uh after getting my uh my master's from University of Toledo, uh took a little detour, I tried medical sales and and things like that. And uh, but after a while I just uh was still teaching a little tennis on the side and decided uh I'm just gonna get out of Toledo and go full-time into tennis. Uh went out to the Hamptons and taught for a summer there. And uh somebody needed somebody to teach in Greenwich after that summer. And then uh fast forward I ended up taking a job in Tennify, New Jersey with a um uh program core called QuartSense. Um and I was going there to do some high-level video analysis, and they were on the cutting edge of things. That's kind of why I wanted to go there. You know, it was interesting. Their program there, their two goals were to um create great tennis players, maybe some of the best in the world. Wow.

SPEAKER_00 6:38

Very so very performance-based, a higher skill level of player you y'all were working with.

SPEAKER_01 6:43

Yeah, that was the goal, but also the goal was for to play safely and smoothly through good technique and good fitness um for the rest of your life. So uh those were two pretty good goals.

SPEAKER_00 6:56

Wow, yeah. Who doesn't want that? And what a great starting point for you to build your philosophy from there.

SPEAKER_01 7:04

Yeah. And it was kind of interesting. Uh the owner um had some pretty high-level connections, and he ended up uh Djokovic would come and uh stay there during the US Open because it was just outside of New York City, and so I was kind of exposed to um some of his training methods. And you if you all know Novak Djokovic, hits I mean, he stretches, he does it all from from nutrition to stretching hours a day, and just he's on the cutting edge of really everything to keep his body still going at 38.

SPEAKER_00 7:38

Yeah, he treats it as a profession and is always looking for different ways to stay healthy.

SPEAKER_01 7:45

Yeah, and that's really when the I really started um doing the dynamic warm-up all the time because the owner would make uh even the highest adult clinics or even beginner clinics do the dynamic warm-up and it it stuck with me. Um I've just seen how it helps people prevent injury, but also get their mind and body right for performance. And I won't really, if I'm going out to play a pro league match or any match that I actually want to be my best, there's gonna be a dynamic warm-up there.

Why Recreational Players Skip Warm-Ups

SPEAKER_00 8:22

It's it's a non-negotiable, and it sounds like working at court sense really instilled that this has to be a part of the process when you go to a match or when you're participating in a clinic. And so I look forward to digging into how individuals can best set up their warmups, you know, the difference between static and dynamic stretching. Before we get there, Tim, you've been running clinics and private sessions for years. I I think it's a big mistake that we see all the time that the warm-up is missed. So what makes you think that that happens and why why does it happen? Why are recreational players just excluding the warm-up from their routines?

SPEAKER_01 9:10

Uh it's kind of like all of us sometimes. Like it's hard to get there on time or make a little extra time for the warm-up, you know, there's always um fix it guy that you're waiting for him to get there, and you know, we get it all the time. We all happens to all of us, but um yeah, sometimes you're just you're hurried and and you just jump on the court and start going at it. And um if you really want to play your best, it's you gotta kind of take the make the effort to carve out carve out that time if possible. Um that's kind of why at my clinics, you know, it is an extra eight to ten minutes before you start hitting balls. Um, but I it's so valuable, at least, at least for me, to I know how good it makes me feel as far as being loose as opposed to not doing it.

SPEAKER_00 10:06

Yeah. And you as the expert, what's the two biggest reasons that you are so adamant about the dynamic warm-up?

SPEAKER_01 10:15

Uh just it it gets your mind uh mind going as well as your body, uh, the others in injury prevention, uh and really just getting that that mindset um is is huge. And I uh I also put um music that makes you move um right away. And I can just feel the vibes, vibes going. I know how music makes me feel, and I can see the people's just joy, you know. That's part of my uh thing with the clinics I do is to try and try and bring the joy, and you'll play better, you'll bring the joy if you're if you're happy, if you're smiling, and just just letting it go. And it all starts with uh like movement is magic or the movement is motion, I've heard, you know. So it if you're moving you, you're gonna be feeling better. Get those endorphins going.

A Simple Five-Minute Warm-Up Plan

SPEAKER_00 11:13

Yeah, get us moving right away, pair that with music, and it it changes the experience that someone's gonna have on the court. Yeah. So go ahead. Let's let's have you share the blueprint. If someone's walking onto the court and only has five to eight minutes, what should a proper tennis warm-up actually include?

SPEAKER_01 11:32

Um, I like to do just uh a light jog or some arm circles uh going forward, make sure you get the same thing backward movement, get some side-to-side movement, um, do a little um grape vine move, get the hips swiveling, um, trying to hit just get the the blood flowing with with this first part of the warm-up, and then uh then moving into some lunges, um some lateral, lateral lunges, um, get get some quads, standing quad with movement, and you're getting some balance components in there.

SPEAKER_00 12:12

Kind of like uh a quad and reach, pull the back of the leg, reach with the opposite arm and moving across the court.

SPEAKER_01 12:18

Yeah, exactly. Um also got like um a glute stretch, again, uh creating some balance movement, feeling that. Um do a like knee to the chest, and that come down and uh sweep the floor, I call it, and that activates the hamstring and the calf and uh move into some uh just um rotation, um arm swings, get the spine going, uh moving from there, get a little bit of the wrist. Um even Stan Smith came for one of our clinics and uh he he was rotating his neck um and I never uh really considered that too much. But to be part of the dynamic warm-up. To be part of the dynamic warm-up.

SPEAKER_00 13:06

Forgive me, who's Stan Smith? Is he a member here?

SPEAKER_01 13:09

Uh Stan Smith, he's a he's a tennis legend. He's he's got a book out called More Than a Shoe. Um but you've yes you've probably seen the Stan Smith shoe. It's the leather shoe with green stripes, it's kind of like an iconic shoe, but anyway, um he was a former number one player in the U.S., won the U.S. Open in probably 72. But he does some corporate clinics here at Palmetto Bluff for us. Oh, that's incredible. And I'm like, Stan Smith does basically a very similar warm-up to what I was doing. I'm like, if it's good enough for Stan Smith, then it's good enough for every every player out there.

SPEAKER_00 13:46

Right. And I love this connection between whether you're a professional or a recreational player, you know, we're trying to get the mind right and we're trying to prepare the body for the different movements that are part of the sport. Right. It's it's fun to hear that even the neck gets involved in the way you've been describing it as all of the joints and muscle groups that need to be prepared before you start hitting balls and participating in a match.

SPEAKER_01 14:11

Exactly. Yeah.

Aging Athletes And Smarter Recovery

SPEAKER_00 14:12

Yeah. Well, sounds very doable. I like that you gave some different examples to include in that five to eight minutes. For players who are aging, you know, 50s, 60s, and beyond, any changes or any any additions that you would share related to our older athletes ensuring that they do prioritize the warm-up, and then even potentially any recovery strategies for that type of individual after playing tennis?

SPEAKER_01 14:46

Yeah. Um in getting into that age sector myself, I'm I'm 56 here now, and uh as you get older, you're sometimes after you play a competitive match, you're just happy to come off the court um without an injury. Like if I'm playing a match, I I don't fool around. I try and get over as fast as possible because I don't I'm not sure how long the bad body's gonna last. Are you regularly playing matches still? Um no, not as much. Uh there's a pro league here in in town that I've done for years where you play on Friday nights against the other pros. But it's uh it gets harder and harder as even when you're young, it's hard because you're on court all week and then you go um from 50% trying to jack it up to 100% like when you're playing in college, and you're not able to train like you used to. Um so you you know, you do the best with what you got, but as far as um as you get a little bit older, um, you're not gonna be doing quite as much uh as maybe like a younger, yeah younger 13, you know, 12 to 18 year old or college player, not as much um like pliometrics type stuff. You'd love to still do that. You can do it on a lighter level, but the body, you know, really isn't gonna tolerate that as well.

SPEAKER_00 16:07

So a few things for our older athletes here. Win your matches as quickly as possible.

SPEAKER_01 16:12

Don't fool around.

SPEAKER_00 16:13

Don't fool around, get them over with. Second, just being smart about your exercise selection, pliometrics, very intense, you know. Uh as an as someone who maybe has a little bit more changes in range of motion or in their joints, just being intelligent about the volume you do and and how you plug those in. What else would you suggest? Recovery methods, other other options?

SPEAKER_01 16:38

Yeah, I think recovery is is huge. Um if you can immediately um after you play a match, uh that's where you might get into a little more static stretching. Um I feel if I can the temptation always just to sit down and and hang out and not do anything, but maybe instead of while you're while you're talking to your friends afterwards, if you can just stand there and you know do a quad stretch against while you hang out against the wall or um you know do a little hamstring stretch, you know, while you put your put your foot on the on the step or something and just try and try and get that in. Even better is if you can get away and just do 10 minutes. You might do something on the ground like like we've done with you before, where you're on the yoga mats and you know you got a band and pulling your hamstring and static stretching is a little little more where you might hold it for 30 seconds. Um for this podcast, I kind of looked up a little bit on stretching and came across Andrew Huberman. If anybody wants a in-depth two-hour uh history of stretching and some um like clinical studies, he goes deep, a little bit deeper than you may want. But um, he really talked about there's great evidence for the static stretching um as far as increasing your flexibility. Um but as far as recovery, I think it's it's like super important to do that right after your matches, and then you'll feel a heck of a lot better the next day.

Static Stretching And Flexibility Evidence

SPEAKER_00 18:19

Yeah. Static stretching post exercise is where all the evidence is. Taking time to hold these different positions, whether it is just that classic hamstring stretch or a calf stretch when it comes to tennis, and being very regimented with making it that a part of what you do after you get off the court. And um, I'm aligned right there with you. Huberman Podcast, great resource, uh, getting very detailed behind uh the importance of static stretching in this case. So, Tim, one thing I've always noticed about you is you're you're a calm guy, and uh you you seem like someone who's very mindful on the court. There, there's a lot of um planning that I can tell goes into your clinics, not just on you know the actual drills that we're gonna be doing, but how to approach them from a mindset perspective. Where does that come from? And how does the mindset influence the way that you coach?

SPEAKER_01 19:22

Uh one of the biggest influences I had when I was in college, I read a book by Timothy Galloway. He went to Harvard and was a uh kind of first tennis coach to look into the mental side of the game. Um he had a game uh book called The Inner Game of Tennis, and it really talked about um the ego side of of the game where you're uh sometimes your ego is so wrapped up in I've gotta look good or you know who's watching or what's going on here. And kind of he was talking about finding your identity off the court. Um that was it's pretty interesting. He also had a different way of teaching instead of um uh talking so much about technique and your elbow's gotta be here and your foot's gotta be here. Um, for example, I've used this a lot over the years. You know, if a player has just hit buried three balls in the net and is starting to freak out, um, I'll say just aim it six feet over the net like a rainbow arc. And and it's amazing. A lot of times the body knows what to do, and the next one, you know, makes a perfect stroke. It doesn't always work, but you kind of try and break that pattern. And uh I I I think there's got to be a mix, you gotta have some technique in there, but it's a very interesting concept. He also um talked about saying bounce hit whenever you or your partner hits the ball, and that kind of takes the focus on all the interference that might be in your brain instead of just executing what your body already knows how to do.

SPEAKER_00 21:14

That type of cueing simplifies it for the player in their brain, and then that visualization of six feet over the net after three not so great shots just changes the perception. Yeah. What a what a way to look at the game. I'm I just never heard it in that context.

SPEAKER_01 21:34

Yeah, and it's interesting. Uh some of my Tai Chi background comes into this as well. Um learning to let your body relax and move the breath, you know, let the breath move move the movement. And uh it's funny story. Uh one of my first instructors in Tai Chi was a guy by the name of Dr. Wu in uh Columbus, Ohio. And uh he was an authentic uh Chinese instructor, and uh sometimes he would leave me outside to practice one or two simple moves, and he'd go in and eat his soup or something like that.

SPEAKER_00 22:12

No way, he would just leave you behind and go have lunch.

SPEAKER_01 22:15

Yeah, he'd he'd he'd leave me behind. I'm like, I'm paying for this. Yeah. And so I'm out there practicing my moves, and then he'll come out and he's like, uh, you're so stiff, it's like you're choking a chicken. And I'm like, come on, man. Yeah. But then, you know, I notice this in my tennis players sometimes, sometimes I'll do this with new players. I'll watch them hit a few balls and then I'll go over and say, you know, show me the contact point. And what I'm a lot of times checking for is their grip pressure. You know, are they choking the racket? You know, if you're that tight, then not good things are are not gonna happen. So sometimes just by telling someone to soften their grip, their their racket's gonna drop below the ball into the right place, and you know, me immediately you can make a change without making a huge change.

SPEAKER_00 23:02

Yeah, yeah, it's sometimes those smallest things and will allow us in a sport to adapt and hit that next great shot.

SPEAKER_01 23:11

Yeah. And another thing is is the breathing. Um that's one thing you do talk a lot about the breathing and the breath. And um, you know, again, I'll I'll have someone hit the ball and say tell them to say yes. And all of a sudden they're accelerating and they're seeming they're happier, you know, they're saying yes, except sometimes they miss and they say, Oh no. Um but you know, the the breath is is is so important um in in your performance and also calming yourself in between points. Um if you watch Djokovic has talked a lot about that in um in his play, and they're like, How did how'd you get so mentally tough? And you are do you born with it? He's like, No. He's like, I've worked on it. He trained it. I've trained it. I've I've worked on it, I meditate, um, I do you know journaling and uh it you said it it's it's not by accident.

SPEAKER_00 24:17

Yeah, not by accident. I love that because breath, if we're intentional with it, can change our state, it can change our positivity versus negativity, and hearing you pair it with the yes and the breath, uh that that makes a lot of sense to me. Well, Tim, I think we could go on and on about mindset. I can I can feel the passion coming, coming, fuming out of out of the uh the headphones, and I I love that. And um our our time's getting close to the end, but real quick selfishly, are you a practicing Tai Chi instructor? Is that like what you do? I'm I'm looking for one right now.

SPEAKER_01 24:57

Oh uh I actually don't uh I should should have well I don't. I'm just don't don't have a lot of time, but I've thought about teaching it before. But it uh takes I know it takes a student that really wants to um to do that.

The Zone Story And Visualization

SPEAKER_00 25:14

Um well we've had Tai Chi classes here as part of our program schedule in the past, and they've been extremely well received. And uh hey, you know, if Martine can spare you for an hour once a week, you know, let's let's talk about it. Yeah, I think uh that'd be fun. Yeah, yeah. Um well Tim, let's get into some of the stories you might have. You've you've been on a court for a lot of years at this point. What's one of the most memorable stories you have from your time as a pro?

SPEAKER_01 25:45

Uh it's funny. My I was having my wife be in your shoes last night. So I I paused for a second and I was like, I couldn't really think of anything. And then I hadn't really thought about this recently, but in college, in one of my biggest matches ever, we were um I played for Miami, Ohio, and we were playing our arch rival Ball State away indoors in Muncie, Indiana. And um they they've won it for years, and we're we always competitive, but they're they're the top dog. But anyway, uh we played the doubles point, and my brother and I we lost a doubles match, but our other two teams won. So we went into the singles uh pretty good position up 2-1. And uh you play six singles, and then I was playing uh my singles match against a guy named uh Mitch Turnbull, and I'd lost to him before. Um, but I had a good mindset. Um, and it all started, it really ties well into what we're talking about today, as far as you know, we went through our team warm-up, we did kind of like a dynamic warm-up, and then I took uh about five, six minutes by myself in the locker room, and uh I did some shadow strokes, uh some lunges, and practicing my seeing my volleys in my mind and kind of picturing how the match was gonna go. And then I got out in the match and I got in what they call the zone. Um and it has it's only happened like two or three times in my life, but I I'm a I'm a chip and charger, serving volley, aggressive player. It's kind of funny because um generally like my wife's like you walk so slow. Um and then but like on the tennis court, you turn into this lion or something, and so you know, I was coming to the net on everything, just hitting volleys everywhere I wanted to do, just taking it to the guy, and the bit the ball was like, you know, they say it's as big as a watermelon, you know, everything went right, and I kind of attribute that to the pre-match, getting my body ready, my mind ready, and you know, just kick some butt. We won 5-4.

SPEAKER_00 28:11

And um that's you were you were in an absolute flow state, yes, in the zone, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:17

And what I'm saying, it all started, you know, with the pre-match, getting your body and mind right. And I if I whenever I go out to play a match in the pro league or something, I try and get there in enough time to try and simulate what I did in that moment. So um just uh all that experience carries over.

SPEAKER_00 28:39

But um Yeah, there's a lot of evidence there, yeah, and uh just ties together the strategies that we shared today of being intentional with the warm-up, the breath, keeping a positive mindset when you're out there and these these little subtle changes, and even like you did in that match, take a second, pause, regroup, get some visualization in there, and even for our recreational athletes, how much more fun is that experience gonna turn out that day just because you slowed down?

SPEAKER_01 29:10

Yeah, yeah, definitely.

Wellness Habits Purpose And Relationships

SPEAKER_00 29:12

All right, Tim. Well, we are at that time. Final question for you What does wellness mean to you?

SPEAKER_01 29:21

Oh, wellness to me is just overall uh from the physical standpoint, try and get the habits in each day, getting up early, hydrating. Uh I personally I take some spiritual time, um, pour some of Jesus is my higher power, so I spend time right there in kind of meditative state, and it sets a tone for the day. So you got your body physically, spirit, uh, emotions, uh trying to get your body in the right state by moving, getting some exercise in, whatever, whatever works for you. I've got a little rebounder sometimes at home, and I rebound on that, and that that gets you happy. Um and the other thing is just relationships. Um, you got to get everything like with my wife, you know, um keep that in line and and try and spend time there. So it's a balance. Um again, I listen to the top people in the world, like Djokovic on a podcast. You know, he said he learned from Feder that you're off court, what you do uh with in your relationships, your family life is very important to keep the stability. And he's tried that along with all the other the physical, the mental, and just keeping your relationships strong. And I'd say, you know, also wellness is finding uh purpose. Um, my higher power, you know, trying to live the golden rule. I try and teach the kids here um the golden rule, and they all know it. Uh treat others you like to be treated.

SPEAKER_00 31:06

Yeah, so much alignment there, taking care of our relationships, having a spiritual connection, all keys to how we perform in the physical and how we uh feel emotionally, mentally. So really appreciate that perspective, Tim. And uh just want to thank you for the positive energy, the teaching, the clinics that you do day after day, private sessions over at Wilson Lawn and Racket. I I know Martin and the team are thrilled that you are helping our members in the way that you do.

SPEAKER_01 31:39

Yeah, Carlos, and I you know, I always tell them we're just trying to change lives one ball at a time. That's all we can do.

SPEAKER_00 31:47

All right, listeners, that is a wrap on our main convers conversation. Tim, thanks again for coming over today.

SPEAKER_01 31:55

Great.

Train Your Mind Before Pressure Hits

Closing Thoughts And Sign-Off

SPEAKER_00 31:56

And uh you can hang out with me for a few more minutes and get some healthy momentum for the rest of your week. One thing Tim Keller said today struck me. It was this idea that we spend so much time preparing our bodies, but we forget to prepare our minds. And in a sport like tennis, or honestly, in life, that's the difference. You can be physically ready, trained, conditioned, but if your mind isn't there, your body doesn't show up when it matters most. It's this mind-body connection that allows us to be in that flow state, to achieve and not only just check the box off, but to feel like nothing can stop us. Like we're the lion. Tim talked about that match in college, beating their rival ball state, and what stood out wasn't just the win to him, it was the feeling he described being in the zone, being in a place where nothing else matters. And whether that's on a tennis court, whether that's with your significant other, or whether it's just going outside a walk all by yourself, this feeling seems to only be glimpses for each of us. Where things slow down, when we're not thinking, we're just executing. Anything happens, you're able to respond. You're locked in and you're present. But that doesn't just happen by accident. It's built through mental preparation, systems, how you talk to yourself, how you visualize, how you handle pressure before it ever shows up. The better mental prep that we have, the better we can handle responding in the ways that we want to. So here's the quick takeaway for this week: don't just train your body, train your mind. Before your next workout meeting or big life moment, take two minutes, visualize it going well. See yourself executing, control your breathing, get your mind aligned before you ever start. And if you're playing tennis, do the dynamic warm-up. It's as much to prepare your body as it is for your mind. And in Tim's powerful words, put the music on, get the vibes going, enjoy it. Performance isn't just physical. When your mind and body are in sync, that's when you give yourself the best chance to step into your own version of the zone. That healthy momentum message brings us to the end of this week's episode. I want to thank you so much for taking the time to join the conversation this week and remember to actively participate in life on your terms.