 Rusty Kamori, and this is Beyond the Lines on Think Tech, Hawaii. I was the head coach of the Punahou Boys Varsity Tennis Team for 22 years, and we were fortunate to win 22 consecutive state championships. My books Beyond the Lines and Beyond the Game are about leadership, character, and creating a superior culture of excellence, which is what this show is all about. My special guest today is the owner and principal broker for Century 21 iProperties Hawaii, and he runs the very popular Abe Lee seminars for pre-licensing and continuing education. He is the highly respected Abe Lee, and today we are going beyond real estate. Hi Abe, how's everything? Hey, how are you? Thank you so much for having me. I feel so honored. Oh, it's so, you know, we have so much to talk about Abe, and you have so much wisdom, but I want to start at the beginning if you can tell me a bit about your background growing up. Sure, thank you. I actually came from Korea in 1956 when I was eight years old. My father had already come to Hawaii to go to the University of Hawaii and studied accounting in 1947, so he got my mother pregnant with me because I had an older brother and sister, so he wanted her to have a baby to watch over while he was in Hawaii going to grad school. So the Korean War broke out. I never signed for eight years, and then in 1956 we finally came to Hawaii. So that's the first time I saw my father. So I'm an immigrant, and my father said, if you go to Luna Lilo Elementary School, which I did, and anybody asked you any question, just say, I don't know. So those are my first three English words I knew. I don't know. And then I went to University High School and then went to University of Hawaii, got a Bachelor's Degree in Asian Studies, which I call a good for nothing degree. And then I got a Master's Degree in Education from the University of Utah and have come back to Hawaii and started my businesses. So Abe, what was the first job that you ever had that you got paid money for? He was actually delivering newspapers, just like a lot of other kids. So I had a newspaper route and delivered the Sunday paper, weekday paper. But the other funny thing was I saw newspapers at the old stadium on Eisenberg because I lived just a block away. I sold the newspapers just to get free entrance to the football games. Well, that's a good connection there. So Abe, you and your wife, Sally, have been married for a very long time. What's the secret to your longevity of marriage? I actually had to look up the date and not really. We've been married since March 24, 1973. So that makes it 47 years. We have six children and we have 10 wonderful grandchildren. And the two words I can teach you or teach anybody is yes, dear, secret, yes, dear. But I think, you know, overall, my wife is from Hilo, a wonderful young lady, and she just loves kids. And she's a social worker. And so she's very easy to work with, just compassionate, loving, and just a wonderful lady. So we always try not to argue. And I think I can honestly say I've never yelled at her. I've never sworn at her. And so she attested that. So I think that's part of it is just be humble and be teachable. And she's correcting me all the time. Even last night she's correcting me. But you got to take it. You didn't say the other words. I don't know, right? Yeah. So how did how did your real estate career begin? Okay, I'm going to give you the short version because this is kind of interesting. I went to graduate school. I'm sorry. I went to University of Hawaii. And while I was, by the way, this is an interesting story. I was a bellboy at Royal Hawaiian Hotel. And, you know, I'm going to college, right? And there's a fellow named Cyrus Oda who is a bellboy with me. He's from Big Island. So Cyrus then became the CFO for Kyoya, which owns the Sheraton chain on Oahu. So I'm having lunch with Cyrus the other day. And I said, oh, I'm going to be interviewed by Rustic Komaramp. I'm so honored. He goes, hey, Nick Leong is my son-in-law. And Laurie is married to Nick. And then he says, Angela Oda and Ernie Shiraki has a son, who is Cyrus' grandson, taking lessons from you. Ernie Shiraki, the third, right? Then Tom Keabu, he's an agent with me, former UPS head for all of Hawaii. And he says, oh, Rusty, he taught my two boys. And they're on the team. He said, I know Rusty for seven years at the Punauti. So Rusty, your fame is all over. So anyway, yeah, I won't say that because, you know, you are so famous. As soon as I mentioned Rusty Komar, I go, oh, I know him. He taught me whatever. And Chris Ma is another one, you know? And Ika Kajou, I know his mother. So I'm going to talk about a small world. So anyway, what I used to do in college was I would go to Kahala because I live in Kamiki. I put a little flyer in each mailbox and said I'll pick up your car, wash, wax, and vacuum and drop it off for 25 bucks. So I was doing that. I got some customers from Kahala. So then I thought, okay, what else can I do in Kahala, right? So I buy fire extinguishers, wholesale. I go door to door retail. And this lady guy calls me up one day and says, hey, my wife says I should hire you. I go, who are you? Are you graduating from college? Yeah, I'm an agent studies major and good for nothing degree. I'm going into business, but I don't know where. She says, why don't you sell insurance for me? So I didn't work for him, but I worked for someone else in insurance. So that lady, I sold her three fire extinguishers and she actually propelled my insurance career. So then they had a draw back then. So you earn a thousand bucks to draw. As long as you sell enough, they keep you on the draw and they don't fire you. So in three months, I sold one year's worth of insurance. So I told my boss, hey, I'm going to go get a real estate license. He said, you can't do that. So I said, wait a minute, I'm an independent agent and I'm out nine months ahead of schedule. So he said you can't do that. So I resigned and I went to real estate and worked for a lady named Liz Baker. So it's fortuitous that I sold fire extinguishers. I got employed as an insurance agent, got a real estate license, and then as I said, the rest is fishery and I had my license in 1973. Wow, you're nine months ahead of schedule. I was very fortunate in sales. I wasn't afraid to talk to people. That's one thing, I'm okay. I don't mind knocking on doors and talking to strangers and just being friends with them. Yeah, that's interesting to see how it all began with you. And Abe, I want to ask you, why is your Century 21 IPH so successful? I think several things. One, most of the my agents are former students of mine. So they took my real estate class or some of them take my continuing education, even though they took the real estate class from someone else. So in my class, I was teach, be honest, be nice, have a good attitude, be serious about real estate, and embrace the ninja selling concepts. And I don't care if you're a top producer or low producer, but you have to be honest and treat people with courtesy and create value for them. So our whole culture is, like you do us, you give the biggest trophy I read to the kid that has the most best sportsmanship, not who is the best player. In our company, we don't show, but even announce who the top producers are and how much they made. Because if you do that, every company will have the top producer and everybody else will kill fight. Because that one person will win the awards all tonight. So why do that? So we recognize people for other things. And so we have, I think, a really good training program. And that's part of the ninja selling ably seminars. I teach things that other companies don't teach. I actually have an MIT program called Millionaires in Training. And I teach agents how to become millionaires in real estate by investing wisely. So I think that's what we get. We have about 151 agents right now with us. And so we're very fortunate that we're one of the largest independent, I mean, not independent, but real estate companies on Oahu. Well, I like hearing what you said there. And that's why you definitely go beyond the lines, Abe. And I know you have my books, and I want to ask you what stood out to you in my books. I tell you what, Russ. By the way, Russ is so good. He wrote a personal note in the books. I don't know too many authors that do that. And by the way, his handwriting is beautiful. I could never do this. My handwriting is terrible. But really, when I read beyond the lines, and you have the keys, number one through eight, and I mean, they're all great. But to me, it was a character or a champion. Because that's what we teach. You teach that. You have to be a good character before you become a good winner. And so to me, that just resonates. Yeah, great book. Yeah, no, that's all that, you know, teaching character was my top priority. I wanted to develop champion athletes of character first, and then great tennis players second. And I think that's exactly what you're doing with your business is you're trying to really build the character of your team first, and then real estate second. Is that correct? That's absolutely correct. So when I met Rusty, I said, Hey, I'm going to buy these two books. I'm going to use this as an incentive. So I have a program right now with the agents keep a scorecard. It's not about production. It's about what did you do to help your clients? So they have a week long score sheet. And if they give me four score sheets, I don't give it zero or 100, because hundreds of max. As long as they kept journal of four weeks, then they get the first book. Then when they get the second four weeks, they get the second book. And so that's my incentive to them to say, Hey, look, I've got these books, Rusty's autograph them. You want the book, just give us a scorecard. And I don't care about your production. All I care about is activity. Did you do the activity and activities will produce the results? So that's I'm a firm believer of that. Well, it's all about personal growth. And by the way, thank you for purchasing a lot of books, Abe. And and I like, you know, the greatest leaders always provide incentives. And they always they're they always care about the the well-being and personal growth of their people. Talk to me, Abe, about how you created your superior culture of excellence and the principles that are very important to you. Well, you know, I you're going to ask me about ninja selling anyway, but this is the book by Larry Kendall. Again, I know you have read a little about him. But what Larry Kendall teaches is don't worry about the sales and the commissions. Create the value. And he says, stop selling. So a lot of real estate or any kind of sales, you know, techniques, always be closing, always be closing, make them do what they don't want to do. That's not what it's ninjas about. It says, how can I help you to get to where you need to go? And what can I do to help you? So it's a client-centric business, not agent-centric business. And we're not talking about commissions here. We're talking about what do you need to do to accomplish your goals. So to me, that's what I teach all the time to my agents. I said, forget the commission. You'll come. But you got to create that trusted advisory that people, you know, look to. So I've had some clients, they'll say, hey, tell me what to do. I'll do whatever you want. I go, no, no, no, you can't be that blind. I'll walk you through the process. You make the decision to help you with that process. So if we have time later, I'll talk about this one guy, then, you know, I just said, let's accept the offer. I said, no, you're leaving $30,000 on table. And then he finally realized that he should listen to me. So I'll bring that up later. But yeah, I mean, we try to create value for our clients and for our agents. Because in a real sense, our agents are my clients. Because if I don't service them, they can go somewhere else. Just like if my agents don't serve their clients, the clients couldn't use another router. And by the way, there's 18,000 real estate agents active in and active in the state of Hawaii. And about two thirds of them live on Oahu. So there's tons of competition. So how do you stand out? And that's what you got to do. Excellent. Like what you do, you know, it's to be the best. Yeah, I like hearing that. And wow, that's so many real estate agents. And Abe, let's talk about your super popular ably seminars. I mean, you've impacted thousands of people by helping them with their, you know, pre licensing and continuing education. Tell me more about your seminars. We, I don't want to brag, but I guess I think he reached the baseball player said, you didn't bragging if you've done it. So just like you, you didn't bragging if you've done it because you got 22 national championships. And who else on earth has that record, right? So in that point of view, we actually have about 35% of the market. And there's about 20 schools. So if I take one 35%, then there's 65% to split up among 19 schools, which then is a really small percentage mathematically. So we've been very, very fortunate that our Yelp reviews, we've had hundreds of five-star Yelp reviews, and other schools haven't had those numbers. So they always say Abe cares about his students. And he gives us real life examples of what we should do in real estate. So I teach not just to pass a test, which is the main goal of the school, but there there is how do you prepare yourself to be a really good agent and to provide the services that other companies may not provide. Now we have some excellent realtors in town, and I teach a lot of them, but there are also some of them that you think, oh my goodness, they should not have a license. So you get the real spectrum, right? So anyway, but for us, we provide service. We provide value. Our school is one of the lowest priced schools for life tuition. And PJ Delanoza, who's my administrator, she came up with an idea one day. She goes, hey, boss, why don't we videotape the classes? I mean, kidding. You know how much it is to videotape? I had a really good friend, Abe Tasaka, who videotape for me, and I paid him an hourly rate. So we videotape all of our classes. No other school in the state, maybe in the country, videotapes all their classes. So all the pre licensing modules, we tape it in 15 minute modules so they can go back and forth and stuff. So we've had students go, I loved it because I can listen to it. I can rewind, and I can try and get what Abe was trying to say and follow in our textbook. So we provide services that I think most companies don't. And that's because we try to go beyond that line where we create that value service that no one else is doing. So I can say that I do not believe there's any other school that is videotape all of the continuing education classes and pre licensing courses. And the price is on the lower end. Well, all positives right there. And I know a lot. I have a lot of friends that took your classes and they all absolutely loved it. And they all speak very highly of you Abe. So I've known you before we met. I want to ask you about that big national organization, the Asian Real Estate Association of America. And there's the Hawaii chapter and you're part of it. Can you tell me more about that? I have to tell you first, Rusty has done his homework. I didn't even know that he knew about ARIA, the Asian Real Estate Association of America. I was a speaker at ARIA locally, like one actually twice for one or two of those events. Yeah. All right. Very good. But I joined because I felt that the Asian community and Pacific Islander community were not being well served. And so when I was introduced to ARIA, I said, okay, hit home to me because I'm Asian. I'm an immigrant. And I didn't know beans about how to buy a house. So I was very intrigued by the concept of ARIA. Now, the difficulty that ARIA has in Hawaii is that on the mainland, these Asian realtors are saying to the fellow Asians, hey, let's band together and be a political arm and a force because we're being discriminated against. But they come to Hawaii and they talk to the local Asian realtors and they go, what are you talking about? We're not minority. We're the majority. We rule. So it had a very old reception at the beginning. But as they saw what ARIA does for people, then our membership, I think grew to about 180. And we've gone down some because of COVID. But it's not a bad organization. And I just happened to be the president of ARIA for 2020 and for 2021. So they got stuck with me for two years. But yeah, it's a really good organization. And they have national and international reach. They work with developers from around the world. And they have junkets to Dubai, to China, to Korea, Mexico, Japan, looking at development projects and the network and internet, internet link. And also on the local chapter, our Meals on Wheels is part of ARIA service project. So before I met with you, I was driving around delivering meals to seniors in the Makali area. So fortunately, I finished on time and was able to come back, come on time to interview with you. So yeah, you know, ARIA is a wonderful organization. It's not just realtors. It's alone officers, CPAs, attorneys, anybody that wants to make an impact on the Asian community and Pacific Islanders, I think they should join. No, it's a fantastic organization and Abe, I want to ask you more about Larry Kendall and his ninja system. I know he's impacted you a whole lot and you teach the ninja system. What is it about Larry that impacted you so much? I gotta tell you, that picture, I don't know how Russi got it. He did some homework. I heard about Ninja through a student mind. And she tells me one day, you should come to this seminar all day at the Honolulu International Country Club, who's in Salt Lake here in Honolulu. And it's going to be the whole day. It's going to cost you 250 bucks. And you're here, this guy named Walt Frye talked about Ninja selling. He's kidding me. All day, 250 bucks, I went to so many seminars. And she says, I promise you, it'll be the best seminar you've been to. Okay, okay. So because I knew her and trusted her, I went. And Walt Frye is a disciple of Larry Kendall. And Walt's the one that did the heavy lifting that made Larry famous, actually. But Larry Kendall has a company called the Group Inc. out of Fort Collins, Colorado. Group Inc. is not a real original name here. I don't even know where Fort Collins was. All I knew was Denver. And that was it. So I fly up there to go to a four day session. It costs about 750 bucks back then. And playing for a hotel car the whole bit. And I'm sitting in there for four days. And I'm thinking, wow, this is amazing. What he's teaching us, we should be teaching to our fellow realtors. And that's when I walked up to Larry and I said, Hey, Larry, you don't know me, but I know Walt Frye took a classroom in Honolulu. And that's why I'm here. And I've been teaching for 40 years. Would you be willing to let me have your PowerPoint slides and kind of teach it to my agents? And what would you charge me? And Larry said, if you teach it to your agents at no cost, I'll give you my PowerPoint slides at no cost. 500 PowerPoint slides that nobody else has in Hawaii except me. And I'm thinking, Whoa, what a man. He didn't ask for any money. He just said, if you're going to help people, then be my guest. So I'm the one who certified Ninja instructor, Ninja selling instructor in Hawaii. And I'm blessed by Larry and also Walt Frye, because he created some continuing education classes on Ninja selling. And I got Walt's blessings to teach his classes and Larry's blessings to teach Larry's classes. So the system is not new. I mean, when you listen to it, you go, I know that. That's what I do. Well, what Larry did was in his book, he put the whole thing into a system and a process. And he has what he calls Ninja line. Okay, it's five daily activities at four weekly activities. And if you do those nine activities, Kendall says, I guarantee you, you'll succeed. That's his guarantee. Okay, just do the nine, just like your eight characters. Okay, with the eight, you know, steps. Same thing. Because if your tennis players and your business customers do the eight things, they'll succeed. Well, it's a Ninja nine now. Okay, so now if you add your eight to Ninja nine, what a wonderful system, right? So that's the reason I love Larry because he's not about the money. He's not out there to make a killing. And I've been to seminars where we pay seven hundred bucks for a two or three day seminar. And at the end, I don't know if you've been to those. See, they have people sitting in the back, and they're taking reservations for the next advanced class. And now they're going to ding you for 15, 20, 30 grand. Kendall has none of that. He says, once I teach you, the packet is complete. You don't need any more from me. So he doesn't upsell. And I've been upsold many times at different seminars across the country, but not Larry. That's why I love about him. He just straight up and says, this is what you do. And this will help you succeed. And that's why I tell my agents and students, and I teach this to all the students, not just my agents, because I believe the mission or the message is so powerful. So yeah, I love it. And I think he's a wonderful teacher, one of the best I've ever learned from. Well, I'm glad to hear all that. I'm glad that you're sharing all of that to so many people here in Hawaii. And Abe, I want to ask you about adversity. What's a big adversity that you face in your life that you have to overcome? Well, there's two. One is that my wife and I have six children, but we had two miscarriages. So she went three, four months on one of them. And I forgot how many months on the other. We lost two kids. And so that really hurt her physically as well as emotionally. But she's such a trooper. She just went ahead and had six kids. And I told her, four is enough for you, for me. And she just wanted eight or six, actually. And after we had the six, she said, okay, we're done. Our family's complete. I want to thank goodness. So that was one. But just a miscarriage. And, you know, how do you raise six kids in Hawaii? And all of them went to private schools. I don't know how on earth we did that. And when I look back, I go, it's a miracle. We just don't know how we're able to afford it. The other is in real estate, 1990 recession hit. And my business went under. And so we lost almost everything. So we had to start all over again. And that wasn't easy. But, you know, you got to persevere. And you got to just have faith that things will get better. So I'm very grateful to Sally for having stuck by it. Because she could have left me. She could have said, you lost everything. We're able to get it back. So we're very fortunate. Paul, thank you for sharing both of those adversities. And Abe, I want to ask you about you know, looking back, what's an important lesson you learned in life so far? You know what they say, your mother's advice is the best advice, right? My mother was a teacher in Korea. And she came to Hawaii, couldn't speak English. So she worked in a kitchen at Halakalane Hotel, shopping vegetables. And she had terrible arthritis. So she was in constant pain. But she always told me, be proud of what you have. And always help somebody. Even if they, if somebody helped you, but you can't pay them back, then pay it forward by doing it good to somebody else. Because you never know when that opportunity will arise. So I had a, my father was a CPA. And he kept books for people, Korean ladies. And a lady was a widow, and she almost lost her apartment building. My father helped her save it. So years later, the son calls me up and says, Hey, I'm the trustee for my mother's apartment buildings. Can you sell it for me? I go, but you're a broker. He goes, no, I'm a trustee, so I don't want conflict. Besides that, your father saved my mother from financial ruin. So you list the problem. It's a three and a half million dollar deal. So my father helped the widow. The son now asked me to help him. Just exactly what my mother said. You may not be able to help the person that helped you, but you didn't always help somebody else. So I go with that or gratitude to my father, for being so honest in his work as an accountant, as a PhD. And he was a professor of accounting at New Age, by the way, and half the students at accounting school of accounting took classes from him. Dr. Samuel Lee. Well, Abe, I got to say, you know, it was such a great time having you on the show today and really appreciate you sharing those insights and wisdom with me on the show today. Thank you so much, Rossi. You're my hero. I want you to know. And I've talked about meeting you and, you know, having breakfast with you and sharing ideas. I hope I can sell a ton of more books for you because everybody should read it. And by the way, one more last shameless plug. I just bought the rights to this book. Our principles and practices are my real estate. And you notice that my name is there in the front. So I got the rights to this book because I've been teaching off of this for decades. And the author said, Abe, I'm retiring. You want to buy it? I go, okay. And she made me a good offer. So I'm very honored that I'm not the owner and the author of the book. Yeah. Oh, I love hearing that. Thank you for joining me. Thank you. My pleasure. And thank you so much. And thank you for watching Beyond the Lines on Think Tech Hawaii. For more information, please visit RustyKamori.com. And my books are available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. I hope that Abe and I will inspire you to create your own superior culture of excellence and to find your greatness and help others find theirs. Aloha.