"If all the puzzle pieces fit, you go all in"
Today's guest is AJ Pareja, a beach volleyball player from the Philippines who is also a practising medical doctor!! In this episode, AJ talks about:-
- His transition from being the national indoor Philippines team captain to beach volleyball player
- How he kept “failing” to retire from volleyball
- His 3 main inspirations on this journey (*hint* includes Mark Burik from Better at Beach and Sam Pedlow from Canada ?)
- How he manages to balance life as an athlete AND a practising medical doctor!
- How the Philippines had their national team tryouts for the very first time (king of the court format), and AJ feels good about it!
- How AJ calms himself down during tight situations in games
- His current training routine while Philippines is in a lockdown
- How AJ learned to develop the skill to say “no” (and how this REALLY helped him)
- His big dream that he wants to achieve in beach volleyball even though he is officially starting at 33!
- The advice he would give to his younger self (this one is really funny and controversial)
- Bonus: Doctor AJ is a Haikyuu fanatic! ? (he posts his Haikyuu reaction videos on Youtube!) #itsamortalsinifyouareavolleyballplayeranddontwatchhaikyuu
- and sooo much more! You definitely won't want to miss this one out! This was a really fun and interesting chat with Doctor AJ, and I really hope that it will impact you some way or another too.
*Please note that this is not an actual podcast with fancy equipment, so please forgive the mediocre audio quality and excessive laughing :')
NONETHELESS, I hope that you enjoy this casual chat with AJ, and learn a lot from him!
Follow AJ on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ajmpareja/
Subscribe to his Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCG_GIPtzYA-zrVcNdoqJezw