PRODUCT TRAINING
“When Chuck passed away, I was really struggling,” Trixie says. “Thankfully, a friend of mine, Mary Hartman, who is a life coach, invited me to her home in Florida for a weeklong retreat to help me work through the grief.” Trixie and a few of her close friends attended this retreat. They thoroughly enjoyed Mary’s coaching sessions. But they were in for a surprise! After one of the sessions wrapped up, Mary’s husband, Jeff, walked into the room. “You girls need to take a break,” he said. “I’m going to take you out and teach you pickleball.” “I thought, ‘What?’” Trixie laughs. “It sounded like the dumbest sport ever. But I love racquetball. So once I got a pickleball paddle in my hand and walked out onto the court, I knew I was in trouble.” Sure enough, by the time Trixie boarded her plane back to Texas, she had a newfound passion—pickleball—as well as new business partners in the Hartmans, who she helped enroll with Melaleuca and begin building their business. Back home, Trixie dove into the sport. Playing pickleball proved to be great therapy, keeping her sharp and active and allowing her to meet many new friends. “For a long time, I just enjoyed playing,” she says. “But I eventually began to teach others how to play. That’s just my nature! My son, Cody, who is a children’s pastor in Minnesota, told me one day, ‘Mom, I know you pretty well. You’re teaching all of these people to play pickleball. I’ll bet you’re sharing your faith with them and sharing Melaleuca while you’re teaching them to play. You’ve started a ministry!’ “Well, that’s exactly what I did,” Trixie laughs. “I called it Praise & Pickle! It didn’t take long for Cody to start his own Praise & Pickle ministry up in Minnesota as well.” In January 2022, while she was visiting her kids in Florida, she went to play pickleball—
and the sport worked another miracle. “I met Charlie Mangold on the court,” Trixie says. “Pickleball did it again. It brought the most amazing man in the world into my life!” Trixie and Charlie married in August 2022. They now run the Cape Coral Praise & Pickle group where together they teach the sport, culture, and etiquette of the game. And they compete at a high level themselves. In fact, they won a gold medal at the recent Senior Olympics in Indiana— and Charlie also won gold in his three individual categories! Trixie estimates that she has helped more than 700 of her friends, family, and acquaintances enroll with Melaleuca over her decades as a Marketing Executive. At times, she has wondered where the next names on her contact list would come from. Pickleball solved that problem. “My passion for the sport has given me a new community full of individuals who want more health and wellness in their lives,” she says. “In talking with them, I can see a great need for our Melaleuca products. As I’ve shared those products, many of my pickleball friends have naturally become loyal Melaleuca customers. Several have become my business partners.” In fact, one of those loyal customers is Charlie! He enrolled with a Home Conversion Pack when he and Trixie began dating, and he started taking the Peak Performance Pack along with GC Control™ . Six months later, he had lost weight, found more energy, and was feeling better than he had in years. No wonder, then, that when the Mangolds talk about pickleball, they also talk about Melaleuca. To play at the level they do, Trixie and Charlie have to stay in good physical shape, eat healthy diets, and get the right nutrition daily. “We’ve both honed our own regimens of Melaleuca products to help our bodies function at their very best as we play,” Trixie says. JC
Pickleball is one of the fastest-growing sports in North America. Courts are popping up everywhere! It’s intense. It’s fast- paced. But it’s still so approachable that anyone can find the sport and fall in love with it. For Executive Director 9 Trixie Mangold, who lost her husband, Chuck, in December 2017, pickleball became an unexpected lifeline— and a catalyst for miracles.
CONTINUED
JANUARY 2024 | MELALEUCA.COM/LIA 29
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