 Aloha and welcome to Business in Hawaii with Reg Baker. We broadcast live every Thursday from 2 to 2.30 from the downtown studios of Think Tech Hawaii and the Pioneer Plaza. For those of you that are watching the weather, still kind of hazy and wet outside, but it's going to get better, I promise. So hopefully in a week or so we'll have the sunshine back and we'll be able to get outside and enjoy the sun again. This is a show that focuses on success stories in Hawaii, particularly of businesses and their owners. Every once in a while we have a guest on the show that helps support the successful business people and how their leadership skills are used to make the companies more successful and to be able to sell the product and basically have the lifestyle that they're looking for. Today we're going to have Rusty Komori, who is one of the most winningest coaches in the country and he'll explain more about what that means here shortly. But Rusty, I want to welcome you to the show. It's great to have you here today. Great to be here, Reg. Now there's a question that I've got and I've seen a lot of visibility. Your name and your picture has been out there so much and I've been hearing about Rusty this and Rusty that. I've got to ask this question, is Rusty your real name? Yes it is. Rusty is my real name. I have my driver's license that I can show you. I have my credit card that I can show you. Very good, I get it. When I was growing up people called me Reggie, but that wasn't my real name. And so I don't have the driver's license, but it's good. But Rusty is, and I've got a particular fondness for any first name that starts with R, because all of my children's are R's, all my brothers are R's, my father and my grandfather were all R's. So Rusty, you fit right into the family. I'm glad I'm an R too. Great. Tell me a little bit about yourself Rusty, you've been in Hawaii for a long time I think. Yeah, I'm born and raised in Hawaii, I actually played baseball and then soccer in my youth. And then I went to Damien High School and I started playing tennis in 9th grade, but tennis and soccer had conflicting seasons for varsity sports. So I actually chose soccer that freshman year while I continued practicing tennis. And then I was on varsity tennis for Damien High School, 10th, 11th and 12th grade. And then got a partial scholarship to Creighton University. And pardon me, where's Creighton? Omaha, Nebraska, the heart of America. Oh boy, it's a little chilly over there sometimes. I got to experience all the seasons, the change of seasons. And when I was at Creighton on a partial tennis scholarship, it was great just because I started tennis so late that I kept improving tremendously through college. And my intent was to go to law school after Creighton. I did take the LSATs and when I came back, I started teaching tennis at Wiley Country Club and Punahou School. And a lot of my adult tennis students were attorneys and they all had glasses and the glasses appeared like it was three inches thick. And I asked them what they did all day and they said, oh, we read all day. You're going to read all day. And I thought to myself, I don't want to read things that I have to read. I want to read things that I'd like to read. So that was the end of my pursuing law. And I just continued coaching and giving tennis lessons. Very good. And I would assume that that was a really good choice because you had an outstanding career as a tennis coach. Well, looking back, yes. Success, it's funny because you can never measure success going forward. Success can only be measured looking backward. And I was just in present focus at that time just trying to be the best tennis pro and tennis coach that I could be. And you've done very well at that, obviously. And tell me a little bit. Was it just a natural transition for you to just go from player to coaching? Or does it take a special personality or a person to do that? Well, I think we've all been on teams growing up, whether it's a sports team or a business team or a debate team or whatever. And you know that you learn from whoever the coach or the leader is, whether they're doing good things or they're doing bad things. And you kind of make mental notes along the way. And for me, I was really shy and introverted growing up. And when I was a sophomore on the Damien tennis team, I was number one on the tennis team and the captain. And it forced me to be in a leadership role where I would have to help my teammates along. And that started actually breaking me into that leadership situations. Did you find that by helping the younger players, the coaching and the teaching, if you will, actually made your game a little bit better too? Yes, it does. A lot of my former students and former players, when they start to do coaching themselves, some of them, they have a big appreciation of how it is on the other side and how stressful or how naughty they were at times when they were students or players. And now they're having to deal with the same situation, coaching some of the players that they are. And I think that's an interesting point. I forget who said it, but someone once said that if you really want to learn a topic, write on it or teach it. And you really have to know your stuff in order to be able to teach a certain subject, regardless of what that is. And it just makes those skills all the better because you're constantly practicing to get better at teaching. Oh, yes, I agree. And so that's one of the reasons why I used to teach and enjoyed it thoroughly. It's so nice to be able to see the light go on. And there's a certain satisfaction in taking a player and watching them progress and get better and better and better based on some of the tips and the thoughts that you're sharing with them. There is. I like it when the light stays on all the time. Yeah, absolutely. I think those power outages are no fun. It's very stressful. Very good. So now you've been doing the teaching thing for a while. You were out of Punahou for quite a while, weren't you? Yeah, I was a tennis pro at Punahou School for 25 years and head coach for the Punahou Boys Varsity Tennis Team for 22 years. And we were fortunate to win 22 consecutive state championships. That's amazing. And that's, from what I understand, one of the best in the country. Yeah, I didn't know anything about that until we were going for our 17th consecutive championship. And the media had told me that there's a swimming team in Colorado that has 16 consecutive state championships. So if you win, you and your team will be the national record, the longest streak in the United States in all sports. So I thought, whoa, this is, I don't want my team members to feel any unnecessary pressure there. But yeah, it's really great that we have that as an accomplishment. But it's great if we can have everyone try to lead in the way that we did and kind of achieve the things that we achieved. Sure. And not only did you hit the 17, but you went on to go all the way up to 22. Yes. So I guess it's going to be a while before anybody beats that. I would be happy if somebody reads my book and is inspired and motivated and then beats my record of 22 consecutive. That would make me happy. Well, and that would be a great testimonial for the book, which we're going to go into in the second half here. But it also, I think, would help propel book sales right through the ceiling. Now, you shared with me something unique about what you've done, 22 consecutive state championships. Now, what have you done with all of those trophies? Well, the state championship trophy is a huge, beautiful Koa trophy. And I've been presented it 22 times. And during my first year of coaching, I just made a decision that I would give it to a player that I felt really was instrumental in keeping, in helping our team achieve that state championship. Not necessarily the state champion or the doubles champion, but any player that really was a great team player that went above and beyond. And I had no idea that I would be giving out 22 state championship trophies. And to this day, I own zero. And it makes me proud because what would I do with all 22 trophies? It means so much more for me to have 22 players have it. Because when you look at a trophy like that, it's so beautiful. But there's a deep meaning behind how and why we won the championship. The sacrifice that you do as a player, that your parents make, that you do for your teammates. There's a really deep meaning when you look at what a trophy really means. Well, and sometimes it's the result of many, many years of practice. I agree. And so there's a tremendous commitment that's got to be made to get to that point. And for you to be willing to share that trophy with your players, I think that speaks very highly. I can't think of anything more rewarding for the players to be able to get one of those things. Oh, yeah. It's priceless when I present it to them. And it's just to this day, all of them, when I run into them, they'll talk about it. They said, hey, coach, we got the trophy in a really nice spot. You'd be proud. And I'm like, OK, keep dusting it. One of these days, you should ask for them to send you a picture of where they've gone. And then you can put it in your book. Here's some of the trophies. And here's where they're currently sitting with some of my former, you know, can I call them students or athletes? Yeah, students, players, team members, yeah. And that's excellent. So now you're no longer Punahou. You're doing something else. Yeah, I left Punahou in 2015. I just thought if, you know, I love Punahou and I love coaching the team. But every year, there's only 12 boys on the team that would have that experience. And so many people through the years were always asking, you know, you should write a book. Or what do you guys really do? You know, what do you guys do in practice? How do you achieve and sustain success? And so I thought, you know, if I stayed at Punahou, I probably wouldn't write a book because I would be distracted or just do some other things. But if I left, I would focus on writing the book. And that's what I did. And by writing the book, I felt that I could help all sports teams or businesses or organizations just in terms of the leadership to really help them maximize their potential and put them in better positions for success. Right. Now, the book is currently out there. You're marketing it. And we actually have a picture of the book that we're going to show on the screen here. But we're going to probably go into more detail in that book. When we come back from the break, there's an awful lot in there, a lot of leadership skills. You got some piece to success that we can talk about. And I want to save that for the second half of the show because there's a lot to talk about there. But in addition to writing the book, you're also out doing a lot of presentations and you're talking to a lot of different people and groups. Yeah. I'm doing a lot of motivational speaking. And it just seems that so many CEOs or presidents of companies or head coaches of sports teams, they're just thirsty for something new and fresh with leadership. And many of them have read the book. They love it. And they'll ask me to come and be a guest speaker. And it's funny because one of the things that I actually share with them is in tennis, there's no timeouts and there's no substitutions. When things get chaotic in a football game, you often see the coach call a timeout. In tennis, we have no timeouts. And in basketball, if you have a player playing and it's just not their day and they're struggling, well, you substitute them, you put a better player in. In tennis, I can't do that. There's no timeouts and there's no substitutions. So I really have to coach my players to coach themselves a lot when they're on the tennis court. And that's a very interesting distinction because I'm not sure that there's very many sports, maybe like boxing, where you don't have a timeout for boxing. But the rounds are only three minutes each. And so it's unique. I mean, it takes a special type of coaching skill, I guess, to make that happen. And it really requires the players to keep their head in the game, too. Exactly. Can't have any mental lapses. Mental lapses lead to losses. Yeah. And that's true in almost anything. Exactly. In business as well. Lost opportunities. It is. It is. We're going to take a short break. And we're going to come back in about 60 seconds. And we're going to get into the book a little bit more. So that's where the focus of the second half is going to be. This is business in Hawaii with Reg Baker. We're here with Rusty Komori, who is going to be sharing with us some of his insights in the book that he just wrote that is actually turning out to be very popular. So we'll be right back in 60 seconds. Hello, everyone. I'm DeSoto Brown, the co-host of Human Humane Architecture, which is seen on Think Tech Hawaii every other Tuesday at 4 PM. And with the show's host, Martin Desbang, we discuss architecture here in the Hawaiian Islands and how it not only affects the way we live, but other aspects of our life not only here in Hawaii, but internationally as well. So join us for Human Humane Architecture every other Tuesday at 4 PM on Think Tech Hawaii. Hi, everyone. I'm Andrea Gabrieli, the host for Young Talent's Making Way here on Think Tech Hawaii. We talk every Tuesday at 11 AM about things that matter to tech, matter to science, to the people of Hawaii with some extraordinary guests, the students of our schools who are participating in science fair. So Young Talent's Making Way every Tuesday at 11 AM only on Think Tech Hawaii. Mahalo. Welcome back. This is Reg Baker, business in Hawaii. I'm here today with Rusty Komori. We're talking about his new book, Beyond the Lines, that has turned out to be very successful in some leadership circles here in Halaululu as well as on the mainland. It's a book about leadership and some of the skills and some of the insights that he has after having 22 consecutive state championships being a tennis coach here in Hawaii. It's gotten so popular that not only are the business leaders involved and business people, but even the CPAs have picked up on this. And in the recent newsletter that the Hawaii's ICPAs have, they even called it Hala, the April 2018 edition, they actually have a book review done by one of our former Hawaii's ICPA chairmans and talked very highly of the book and highly recommends it. So we're going to talk about this a little bit. Rusty, give me a general thought. What triggered you to write the book? What was the objective here? Well, being in sports teams in my youth, I was thinking there's some really great coaches that I've had and there's some not so great coaches that I've had. And I just thought, why are there so many bad coaches or bad leaders in the world? It's because nobody taught them how to be a good one. They could have the right intentions. They could have the right perspective in wanting to be a coach or wanting to be a leader, but they just might not know how to do it. And so I thought that if I could write a book to really share what we did in our put a whole tennis teams, it would not only help sports leaders, but it would help business leaders. It would help parents. I have a lot of parents that have read the book that's saying, telling me thank you because it's like serving as a guide for their leading their sons and daughters. Whether they're in athletics or not, some of the basic concepts are going to be valid, right? Exactly, exactly. When I became head coach for the put a whole boys varsity team, my first priority was to develop champion athletes of character first and then great tennis players second. So you have to have the right priorities set first. Success and winning is dependent on the values, the disciplines, the principles that the leader has, and then how that leader instills that with their team. Now this is a comment coming from me. We need to send a few cases of this over the state legislature so they can take a look at it. Maybe there'll be some changes. But those are the character is something that we can never lose sight of. We have to keep our eye on that ball particularly because without character, everything's going to crumble at some point. Take a look at some of the stories that are out there today. And I've written about this. I have a column that I do with Hawaii Business Magazine. And we've looked at Uber. You remember about six months or a year ago? Uber had a major problem because of some of the things that were going on within the inner circle there. There was a breakdown in the ethics and the character of the people that were running the company. Now they've addressed it, it's been fixed, and they're moving on, and that's great. But that's just an illustration or example of what happens when you lose sight of maintaining that ethical or character compass. Yes, having integrity and ethics is huge. I mean, you need to have integrity and ethics. And that's part of your character. You don't want to win at all costs. You want to win correctly. You want to win the right way. You want to succeed with having a great character with not just yourself, but with your whole team. Well, and that also motivates the entire team. I think, and correct me if I'm wrong, but any leader, any coach that has the high moral ground, their players, their employees are going to be more comfortable following that lead. If they ever question, I guess, the moral character of their leader, there's going to be issues. There's going to be problems with that. They're not going to stick around. Do you think that's a fair assessment? Oh, you're totally right. If the leader leads correctly and consistently with the right values, principles, and disciplines, then success and winning is a byproduct of what you do every day. And some of the problems that some of these leaders have is these leaders have values, great principles, great disciplines, but they don't know how to train that or teach that to their team members. There's a disconnect. And that's what this book is really helping them with, is to try to really connect with the team members to really help everyone individually, which will help the whole team collectively. See, what I'm hearing is that this is not only a book on leadership, but also corporate culture. I mean, because once you get the leaders to take a look and understand what you're trying to communicate, then it changes the whole corporate culture of that entity. And that's pretty much what we're talking about, I think. Yeah, it's a culture of excellence. And the leader sets the tone for the environment. If the team members feel safe, if it's fun, if it's somewhere that they love to be at, look forward to going, that's the leader's job to really create that environment. Now let's talk specifically about the book a little bit. Now I don't want to give away too much that's in there, because otherwise people won't buy the book. But give us a taste. What are some of the basic concepts that you're communicating? Maybe one or two of the really gotcha ones that catch people. Yeah, so the basic, the biggest parts of the book is the four P's of success and the eight keys in achieving and sustaining success. So the four P's, the first P is people. You know, are you good with your people? Do you have empathy for them? And you as the leader might have empathy for them, but your team members need to feel and they need to know that you do have empathy for them, that you actually care about their own improvement, their own values and what they want to do. And so, you know, focusing on people is the first P. The second P is purpose. What is our goal? What is our mission? What are we trying to accomplish together as a team? And can I give them a vision, a clear vision for this mission? The third P is process. Can I have a detailed process that I can share with my team members about how we're gonna achieve the goals that we want? Oftentimes the leader has the process, but they might not share it with the team members. So the team members might be wondering why the coach or the leaders making decisions or why is this lineup a certain way or whatever. I like to share everything that I'm doing with the team. And if you focus on people, purpose, process, that equals the performance. And that's the results, that's the productivity. And those four P's are the general framework and then the eight keys provide the details in how to really lead your organization. You know, what's really interesting, Rusty, is that I'm looking at it from a business angle or perspective. And what I hear are things that kind of remind me of having a mission statement and having a value statement and having the goals and objectives and having all of this that's communicated to everybody to make sure everybody's behind it, that they believe in it, that it gives it purpose and where they wanna go. You know, so I can see where there's an easy jump, you know, from the coaching athletic world into the business world, because a lot of these things people are already familiar with, but they don't maybe appreciate how important they are. No, I totally agree. And you're so right on that. One of the first things that I would tell my team when after tryouts are done is to welcome adversity, that we're gonna have major challenges, we're gonna have big time adversity this coming year. So I don't know when it's gonna happen, but we're gonna have to be prepared for it. And I would tell them we need to look forward to that adversity, to that challenge, because if we can get through it, we're gonna become better, stronger and tougher for going through that experience. And so a lot of that is just the mindset in looking forward to challenges rather than hoping that it won't happen, which inevitably it will. You know, and it's that perspective. I mean, instead of having some challenge present itself and you go, oh my God, oh no, we gotta deal with this, instead you're looking at this challenge and you're going, all right, now, how are we gonna get around this? How are we gonna address this challenge? It's just a different shift in perception. Yeah, totally. You know, it's the mindset. The brain controls the body. And if you can control your thoughts, your hands and your mouth that I would tell my guys, then we have a chance in controlling the tennis ball. And if we cannot control our thoughts or our hands or our mouth, then we're really shooting ourselves in the foot. In tennis, you know, a typical tennis match might last two hours, but the actual ball, when the ball is in play, is only in play for about 15 to 20 minutes. So what you're thinking during the other one hour and 40 or one hour and 45 minutes greatly impacts those 15 or 20 minutes that the ball is in play. I know that there's an analogy that I like to repeat. Different sport, but in golf. And they say the biggest distance on any golf course is what's between your ears. You just gotta keep your head in the game and don't let the distractions throw you off. That's the difference between winning and losing. It's the couple of inches between ear to ear. Now, the book, it's not really that thick. It's only, it looks like maybe 150 pages or so. So would you say it's an easy read, but it's powerful and a message that it's sending? Yeah, it's very easy reading. This is how easy it is, Reg. I have a fourth grader, a fourth grade student that's read the book, that absolutely loves it, is telling me all kinds of examples in the stories and how it relates to her. And I have CEOs and presidents of companies that have read the book that are calling me or emailing me saying how impactful and meaningful this leadership book is and everyone in between. And I just feel so thankful and grateful that the book is improving countless people's lives. Well, and I know I joked about this earlier, but this is in the middle of taxis and it's a very challenging time. But for the CPA community to pick up the book and to get into it and have a book review on it, right in the middle of tax season, that says a lot, at least in my book. We're gonna be wrapping up here. We've got about 30 seconds. Any final words that you'd like to say or any events coming up that you'd like to promote? Well, basically the book is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. And from what I understand, it got sold out a few times. It got sold out three times on Amazon today as well. But which is a great thing. And the book is also available on my website, RustyKomori.com. And yeah, I'm just so excited to be doing a lot of inspirational, motivational speaking for sports teams and businesses. It's great to have you in the community. It's great to have you here in Hawaii helping out the business community. I just can't thank you enough. We need more of this. This is a true success story. So it's great to have you on the show. Thank you, Wrench. This is Business in Hawaii with Wrench Baker. We broadcast live every Thursday from 2 to 2.30 from the Pioneer Plaza in downtown Hololulu. Want to thank Rusty Komori for being on the show today. He's got a very busy schedule. And I would recommend getting the book beyond the lines. There's a lot of good information inside there. Thank you for the ThinkTech staff for doing a super job today. Until next week, aloha.