 Hi, I'm Rusty Komori 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're fortunate to win 22 consecutive state championships. My book Beyond the Lines is about leadership, creating a superior culture of excellence, and finding greatness, which is what this show is all about. My special guest today is my two-time state tennis singles champion and he's featured with unforgettable impactful stories in both of my books. He is Robbie Lim and today we are going Beyond Tennis Championships. Hey Robbs, welcome to the show. Hey, how's it going coach? Thanks for having me on. Well, I want to know Robbs. I know you went to Punahou from Kindergarten through 12, but tell me about your life growing up. Yeah, first of all, really appreciate you sharing my story with the world. It's been awesome to see so many folks from all over the country and the world buy the book and find some great learnings from it. I've certainly been using it myself in my day-to-day just to touch up on what I learned because tennis was a very formative part of my life and I'd say the varsity tennis team at Punahou was the most impactful part of that whole thing. In terms of growing up, I was unfortunately pretty average. I was a pretty average kid up until eighth grade. I was a B student. I didn't have the hugest friend network. In tennis in eighth grade, I had serious doubts about whether I would even make the varsity team in ninth grade and that was certainly my goal to make it. I worked really hard and eventually got it done, but you know, wasn't finishing in the top in the state and there were serious doubts from a lot of folks I knew who would tell me directly, hey you're not going to make the team in ninth grade. And so it was really quite, I'd say, average up until maybe ninth grade. Rob, what is it about tennis that you love so much? Yeah, I can't say that I actually loved it until I started playing on the varsity team. I think the main thing that changed for me was that we were able to turn an individual sport into a team sport. And tennis, it's tough feeling very alone on the court. I was a singles player. There's really no one else, you know, buy you out there and you're out there until all those points and all those sets are done. And you can't talk to anyone. It's a very lonely sport and somehow I think we really turned tennis into an amazing team sport where I felt like I was playing for something greater than myself. I was playing for the team, I was playing for the school, and you know, it's looking back. Everyone wanted to beat 1-0. They all brought their A-game. Even other schools that weren't playing us would come and cheer against against us. They all wanted someone to take down to take down the streak. And I felt confident knowing that even the number one singles player or the number one doubles team on the team as soon as they would finish their match would go and cheer on someone who's playing fourth singles. No one left. Everyone rallied behind everyone and supported each other. And that was a pretty unique experience for me in tennis. Yeah, Rob, you touched on something really important right there that tennis is you know, an individual sport and what I wanted to do as coach was to make everyone feel a part of a very special team. And you know, we were all a reflection of each other and I wanted the number 12 player to feel just as important as the number one player. So really creating that superior culture of excellence was what my goal was. What are your thoughts about that? I thought at the time that it just happened. And frankly, I did not give you that much credit for it. Having managed teams myself now and been a people manager, that's been the hardest thing I think I've ever had to do. And creating a culture of excellence, creating a culture that people are inspired by, that people want to be around, that has a positive interaction on a daily basis, and is set up for performance is incredibly hard. And there are a lot of things that we did big and small that really started at the top and the leaders and it resonated through the rest of the team. And that today was the best team I had ever been on. I hope that it's not the case for the rest of my life, but so far that's the model of success that I have. So you appreciate me even more now then? For better or worse, I do coach. So Rob, I like to admit that you were right most of the time. Only most of the time. I was doing 100 pushups for showing a minute late. Yeah. That I did not appreciate and frankly didn't think that was that was sometimes I thought that was a little strict, but it managed to get us all bought in. Yeah, you're totally right there. And Rob, I know you were at Punahou from kindergarten through 12th grade. Would you compare our boys varsity tennis team to your experience playing college tennis at Dartmouth? Yeah, it's quite different, I'd say. For one, I wasn't playing indoors and I wasn't snowing everywhere. Which was a different experience in and of itself. But I guess I had and that's a that's a Dartmouth team there. I think I had different priorities on the Dartmouth team as I did in high school. My goal was to play college tennis. And I'm glad I had the opportunity to do that for four years. I had a great time. It was a blast. Certainly a different team culture. A lot less process, a lot less. I think we were very close as a team. But I believe less committed and less bought into what we were trying to do. Rob, so you know your family, I absolutely love your family. I mean your parents, Richard and Karen, and then your younger brother and sister, Mikey and Kristen. And the reason I called you guys the limb dynasty is because you won two state singles championships. Your younger brother, Mikey, won two state singles championships. And your younger sister, Kristen, won four singles and doubles state championships. So that's why you guys are the limb dynasty. Now what is Mikey and Kristen doing now? Well, Mikey and Kristen, I have a great relationship with both of them. Mikey's my best friend. We did everything together growing up. We would always compete with each other, mainly in a healthy environment. I think there are a couple of times my parents might have been a little worried, but for the most part, very supportive of each other. And I think what he's doing is amazing now. He's working at Tradewind Capital and he is trying to help local business owners, you know, basically keep their businesses with local ownership. He's trying to keep businesses in Hawaii. He's trying to create jobs in the state of Hawaii, and he's moved back to go and pursue that dream. And it's something we've been talking about since 2015 and he was able to make that dream come his reality. And my sister is, she's in New York City working for Square, the payments company. Kristen, she kicked my butt and everything. She held me accountable. She's still holding me accountable. She calls me out and she's my best source of feedback. So she helps me get better. Rob, your wife, Wendy, is super, super sweet. I mean, how's everything with Wendy now? Yeah, another thing I mean, I learned from the tennis team, varsity tennis, it's not really about where we are going as much as who we are going with. And it's the people that really make the journey. Wendy means the world to me. She made me chase her for years before she finally gave in, but she's been a great partner. She's been a great coach and role model for me. And in many ways, I look up to her. She started an amazing company called Senrav and it's selling next generation handbags. And she's been a very successful entrepreneur. It's really been a privilege to support her. And she has really challenged me and pushed me to get better every day. Rob, let's talk about our boys varsity tennis team a bit more now. So what was so special for you about finally making the varsity team and then your experiences all four years on varsity? Yeah, as I said before, coach, I think the team was one of the best times I ever had. I look back on that team with very fond memories. It was the closest team I've been a part of, very formative for me. I think it was a metaphor for really life and leadership. A lot of the values that I learned on the team I'm carrying forward to today. And I think one thing that really stood out to me, and I think about often because I still have this, but when I was a senior, you gave me a trophy. You gave me the state championship trophy. And in fact, you gave away all of your trophies. And these are small little trophies. These are amazing, amazing. This is like the Lombardi trophy. I mean, these are huge wooden carb trophies and easily could have kept them all, but you gave them to the team. And I think that really meant a lot to a lot of us that received these things. And I think that's a big takeaway for me is that when things are going well on my team today, it's trying to give credit to the team and vice versa, taking the blame when things don't go well. And so that's just one example of I think a leadership trait that you exhibited that I've tried to take forward to today. Yeah, you know, I was presented 22 of those big beautiful co-estate championship trophies and today I own zero because I gave those 22 trophies away to a player on every team that I coached, not necessarily the singles champion or the doubles champion, but someone that I felt was just really instrumental in going above and beyond and keeping the team together and really enhancing our team bond. Now, Rob, what are some of the lessons you learned through tennis that helps you in life? Yep. I think it's really about the team that unlocked tennis for me. And I wasn't a top player in the state until I started on the varsity team and I felt I had something more to share and more to play for. And I've tried to replicate that in the rest of my life. And to me, it started with the people and I think you talked about this in your book, The Four Peas, but people I believe is probably the most important part of it. In my team today, it's about recruiting, it's about getting the right people in the right roles, finding ways to empower them and that's really what it comes down to. I spend a lot of time recruiting, a lot of time trying to find the areas that people can fit into or they can really bring out their best selves. And that's really the best way for me to get leveraged in my career. It's the best way to help companies scale and the right people make things easy. And vice versa. Robbs, I love hearing all about that and the most effective leaders create other great leaders. And for me, I'm so proud of you in everything that you're doing from back then and now and for your future, but we're going to take a quick break, Robbs. And when we come back, we're going to continue going beyond state championships, okay? Sounds good. You're watching Beyond the Lines on Think Tech Hawaii with my special guest, Robby Lim. We will be back in a quick minute. Hello, I'm Lillian Cumick, host of Lillian's Vegan World, the show where we talk about veganism and the plant-based diet located in Honolulu, Hawaii. I'm a vegan chef and cooking instructor and I have lots of information to share with you about how awesome this plant-based diet is. So do tune in every second Thursday from 1 p.m. Aloha. Welcome back to Beyond the Lines on Think Tech Hawaii. My special guest today is my two-time state singles tennis champion, and he's featured with unforgettable impactful stories in both of my books. He is Robby Lim, and today we are going beyond tennis championships. Robbs, in my book Beyond the Lines and my new book Beyond the Game that's coming out soon, you're featured in both of them. Now, in the first book, I talked about you and your experiences leading up through your junior year, and then the second book Beyond the Game, I talk about what happened during your senior year. But let's talk, I want to ask you about what are some of the principles that stood out to you in the book? Sure. Lots of principles in the book. The four Ps stand out to me probably the most because that's fundamental. But we talked about people right before the break, and I think that's just essential to get right. And purpose. Purpose is really important. It's the best way to inspire people. There's really a number of ways to get people to do things and to work together. I don't believe in a fear-based approach. And what we used in varsity tennis, and we talked about in the book, is about finding a purpose and finding a vision and mission that everyone's aligned around. And really in the varsity team, that was about achieving greatness and being the best team we could possibly be. And everyone really, really bought into that purpose on the team. Every shuttle ball run, every, even in the warm-up before practice started, we would run five laps. And people would try and would not mail that in. People would actually, on the team, would actually be giving it their best effort because we thought that that made us better. And when we saw someone, anyone on the team really pushing themselves, that inspired the rest of us to get behind that person, to rally behind them. And you provided a lot of positive reinforcement to those who really did showcase that they're giving it their all. Rob, my top priority for you guys was to really create champion athletes of character first and then great tennis players second. So my focus was really about character and then having you guys be very self-disciplined and team-disciplined, which would lead to us having strong solid habits, which would lead to winning. And what are your thoughts about that? Yeah, that comes down to process. Another P in the book, but extremely important and in many ways ties a lot of the people and purpose together. And we had great, great process. We had amazing process on the team. And some of that was small and some of that was big. But we knew how to prepare for every match. We knew how to prepare for the state championships. We knew how to be in a position where we are in the best shape of our lives. And it started off with little things like showing up on time. Like it's really hard to actually start a practice when someone's come in half an hour late or 45 minutes late, not taking it seriously. And what was impactful for me is that even when the top player, the number one player in the team came one minute late, that set the entire team back. And everyone actually believed that. And so we would all try and show up on time, make sure we sprinted from class to get there. And that we were all in together. We had a great process around that. If you swore, that's 100 push ups. And swearing brings down the morale of the team. It's a negative thing and negativity breeds itself, right? And so we try to stay positive and try to encourage each other through positivity. And that's part of process. Rob's, and another thing that I was really wanting you guys to do was, like you said, little things was a big difference. Little things lead to little victories and little victories lead to big victories. And one of the big things that I would say at the beginning of the season is, hey guys, we're going to have some major adversity this year. I don't know when it's going to happen, but it's going to happen. And the reason I would say that was to really have you guys look forward to adversity, look forward to challenges rather than hoping and praying it doesn't happen. You know, when inevitably it's going to happen. And so it was a mindset, it was a focus. And you guys would always come up to me before we'd placed certain matches and be like, Hey, coach, is today the day we're going to have adversity? I'm like, guys, not today. And then the next match, you guys would be like, coach is today the day. And I'm like, guys, today is the day. And you guys, it was like releasing a pack of hungry wolves because you guys are just so excited looking forward towards these matches. You remember that? Absolutely. And adversity is not only on the court, right? It's elsewhere too. I mean, people who are dealing with injuries, people are dealing with family situations, with schoolwork, with breakups. That would seem to be a big theme sometimes. And I think we were all in it together. And we felt that we would support each other as a team through that adversity. And I did feel like we were prepared for that adversity because we knew it was coming. And we believed you. And especially the folks as we got more senior on the team, by the time you're a senior, every year there is adversity. And it might not be the whole team. It might be one player that really goes through something really, really difficult. But it did come. That was, that was a pretty consistent theme throughout the time that adversity did come and challenges did come. And luckily we were able to bond together to get through it. And you know, Rob, every three or four years in my experience, I mean, we could have easily lost because there's times where we're playing Kamehameha schools or mid-Pacific or Eolani. And three of our doubles teams are playing against three of their doubles teams from that one school in the quarterfinals at the state championship. And you know, if our guys don't bring it and we lose, then we lose. So, but we never did just because of that mindset where we're looking forward to it. And oftentimes our opponents would be the ones that would have fear and that would, you know, crack under that pressured situation. Now you mentioned something earlier about you being an average player. And I like to say that you were a blue collar player because, you know, you weren't, you didn't have gifted talent like some of these other athletes. But what made you great, Rob, was your work ethic, I mean, your mindset, your focus. You had mental toughness. But one of the biggest things I feel, you had heart. And it's something that you can't measure. It's something that's deep within. What do you think about that? I honestly, I don't know if I can take credit for that. I have to give credit to the team on that one. I mean, the moment, the big moment of where I was in the most difficult situation was in my junior year state championship. I had been to the hospital with, I think, four bags of IV solution for crapping after the quarterfinals. And I had barely pulled out that match. I think my next match was at 8am the next day against an opponent that was better than me, frankly. And I found myself, I woke up, felt terrible, could barely move, was super sluggish. I found myself in a massive pole. I was down 6052. And I remember being 30 all, and my opponent was serving. And I am pretty sure that almost everyone there thought, including myself, thought the match was over. But I distinctly remember one moment from that match. And that's, there was a guy on the team named Shazi. And he was the last person to make the team that year. And I remember Shazi was literally hanging on the fence, cheering for me nonstop after every point. In just this incredible belief that I would pull through and we would pull through and we would somehow get through this match. And somehow we did, somehow we were able to win that match. And I didn't feel like I was alone there. I felt like I had a whole team behind me that just really believed that we could pull through. And that was a, that was just a magical moment for me where Shazi really inspired me. And I think I owe him a lot and respect him a lot for that. Yeah, I'm glad you brought up Shazi because, you know, for me as a coach, I wanted to make sure that everyone on the team played a role. Everyone contributed. And everyone felt a part of that special team championship. I mean, when we look back at what we accomplished, I mean, every player on the team through those 22 years, I mean, played an integral role in that. And that's, as a coach, that's what I wanted to make sure that. And, you know, for you as a leader now, I'm sure that that's what you're doing with your teams. I hope. That's what I aspire to do. And I think what I've learned is that it's just, it's much harder. It's hard to create that type of culture. I think we had a very special culture. We had a very special purpose. We had a very robust process. And we had amazing people. And when we, those, those kind of stars aligned on that team. And that is really hard to create. And it's really hard to replicate. And it's hard to maintain. And so that's, that's what makes the streak so impressive is that that happened for so long. And we were able to continue that going for, for 22 years. And I remember, I remember being in sixth, seventh grade, just looking forward to that and hearing stories about the team and how close folks were. And, and even, even after I graduated, just coming back and visiting and once in a while, we dropping back to practices, right? And, and that culture was still going. Yeah. I mean, it, it was a lot of stress for me, Rob. But, but you know, those three P's led to the fourth P, which is performance. And that's what going beyond the lines is all about. And that's why I wrote about that in the book. Because, you know, I want people can be wanting to win, you know, and they focus too much on winning rather than doing all the things that you should be doing. And then winning becomes a byproduct of all the things that you've done. Now, there were a lot of other people that were jealous of our success, jealous of you, jealous of me, jealous of our team. But I would always tell you guys, it's, it's probably because they actually admire what we were doing, you know, our character and striving for excellence. What are your thoughts? Yeah, I think I, you know, I, I faced that a lot. And it wasn't always easy, easy going through, you know, growing up in the tennis world when I had so parsed, you know, below average strokes, I'd say, probably below average talent. And a lot of people would talk, would talk and say, Hey, how, how is this guy winning? How is this guy, you know, I think last year, you know, he won state championship, the state championship, that was a fluke. It happened again, that was another fluke. And there was a lot of that going on. And, and I think having the team to support and cheer me on through these moments was really important. But that's also, that's also character building that teaches, you know, it taught me a lot about self belief and, and believing in myself and believing in my teammates that had my back. And at the end of the day, that we'd all do the right thing for each other. Rob's, you know, it was all about controlling everything that we had control of and not really worrying about things beyond our control. And Rob's, I got to thank you for taking time in your schedule to be on the show today and sharing your insights. Absolutely. Thanks for having me on. It's been an honor to work with you and learn from you in these past, it's been a long time now, 20 years or so. And, and I'm looking forward to going beyond the game. That one's, that one's hard to get, to get a hold of right now. Well, it's, it's on pre-order on Amazon. Yeah. I have, I have it. It's, I'm waiting for it. It's coming, Rob's. It's coming. All right. Thanks, Rob's. I'll talk to you soon. Okay. All right. Thanks a lot, coach. Take care. And thank you for watching, Beyond the Lines on Think Tech Hawaii and a special thank you to my clothing sponsor Eolani Incorporated. For more information, please visit RustyKamori.com and my books are available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. I hope that Robby and I will inspire you to create your own superior culture of excellence and to find your greatness and help others find theirs. Aloha.