 This is Think Tech Hawaii. Community Matters here. Aloha. I'm Roger Jelonek, host of Think Tech's book world's program. And this afternoon I have with me Rusty Kamori, who is the author of a book called Beyond the Lines, Creating a Leadership Culture with Extraordinary Results. And believe me, they are quite extraordinary. Rusty is a celebrated tennis coach. He coached 22 consecutive state championship teams at Funahou. And then before we decided to stop, think about it all, what it meant, and write this book. But before we get into the book, tell us about yourself. Are you from Hawaii? Yes. I went to Damien High School, and then to Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska, and was thinking about going into law school, but then started teaching tennis at Waili Country Club to some attorneys. And they had some glasses that were three inches thick. They said, they read all day. I said, I don't want to read things that I have to read all day. I want to read things that I want to read. And so I just continued doing tennis, and here I am. But first of all, from Hawaii to Omaha, Nebraska is a bit of a thought. How did that happen? Our family doctor, Dr. Bysa, was on the Creighton Board of Regents, and he kept encouraging me to go. And our next-door neighbor, Marianne Sealander, was a big Creighton fan, and I just kept hearing all these things about Creighton, and it's a Division I school, private school. I wanted to go there for academics and play Division I college tennis. And so it was awesome. And so they had a particularly good tennis program there. It was the beginnings of it. It was the first year that they actually offered partial tennis scholarships. And I went, and now they're actually doing really good, but we were there for the beginnings. Oh, OK. Well, everything has to begin. No. Talking about beginnings, how did you go from Waili Country Club to, you did say Waili, right? Yes. Yes. To Punahou. 23? 21. Right after college. Yeah. Wow. OK. Well, they were shorter people or what? So I... Well, they saw you play. I was actually working at three places right after college. I was at Waili Country Club as a tennis pro there at Punahou School as a tennis pro and on my own at a private facility in Mililani, doing all three places just to learn and get more experience. And then after a year, I stopped Waili and continued Punahou and my private thing in Mililani. And then, yeah, just developing a lot of these top-ranked players really, really helped. Oh. So what was your... You have quite a methodology in the book, but presumably you didn't have it when you went there. So what was it like to coach these highly motivated kids who had a lot of ego? Yeah. So what was the first year like? Well, I became head coach for the Punahou Boys Varsity Tennis Team in 1994. I was asked by our athletic director and tennis director to do that just because they thought, you know, I'm privately training over half the boys varsity team anyway. To have Rusty be the head coach. So when that officially happened, I thought, this is a huge responsibility because I'm going to have an effect on a lot of these impressionable teenagers. So I felt that I needed to create a general framework to at least help me develop the goals that I wanted to achieve in helping the team. And that's when I came up with the four P's. I'm going to ask you about the four P's. From my reading of the book, I mean, what's remarkable is that that program focuses much on character as it did on winning. And you make the argument that you can't have one without the other really. At least not for 22 consecutive championships. But tell us about the four P's. Well, the first P that I wanted to focus on is people. I wanted to make sure that I had empathy for every player on my team. And that every player on my team knew that I had empathy for them. So the first P is really taking care of your people. The second P is a purpose. And why are we there? What is our goal? What is our mission? And I wanted to make sure that everyone there knew the vision for the mission. The third P is process. So we wanted to develop a process in achieving the goals that we had set and how we would do it. And I wanted to share with the team how we were going to go about achieving our goals with the process. And when you have people, purpose, process, that equals performance. And that helps you get the results that you want. It helps put you in the best position to be successful. And on people, did you actually have a choice as to who would be in the program? Obviously, you had to consider one amount of choice and who was to be on the team. But did you really have any choice or did you invite people to come on to the program or do they just apply? Well, we have tried on you. We have tryouts and we would have anywhere from 25 to 30 boys trying out for our boys varsity team every year. I always say that I've never cut one player. They end up cutting themselves because we have a certain standard. And tennis is relatively easy in terms of going through a tryout process because I can have them play singles matches or doubles matches and have certain results. And we always have 12 players that make the team. And when it comes down to the 12 or 13th player, I never want to make a judgment decision on who makes a team. So we would always have a sudden death playoff singles match, which sounds brutal. But it's the most fair thing to do because I put myself in their shoes. If I was in their situation, I wouldn't want a coach to make a judgment decision. I would want to control my destiny on the court. And that 13th player who didn't make the team, they always came back more motivated and inspired the following year and they would make the team with no doubt. But the people who made the team were simply the best players or were there other criteria? It was singles and doubles matches, character and team play. So character was a big issue. Exactly. I've had a player before that transferred from the mainland and moved to Hawaii that would have made the team with no problem, but he ended up cheating a lot of the players. And when I started to see that with my own eyes, I thought, wow, this is not good. And it's just one player just poisons the rest of the group. And yeah, so he didn't make the team. He would have if he didn't cheat because he was good enough to make it. Well, with those four principles, philosophical principles, you then have what you call eight keys. Yes. So let's go through them one by one. And what's the first key? Well, probably the most important key is character. So I talk about the character of a champion in the book. My first priority when I had my team was to develop champion athletes of character first and then great tennis players second. I wanted to make sure that they knew how to act, think and behave correctly. If we could control everything that we can control, our thoughts, our hands, our mouth, then we have a chance of controlling the tennis ball rather than the other way around. I wouldn't be proud of someone who would win a state singles championship that had bad character. I would be proud of somebody who would lose in the state singles championship that had great character. Did you ever have people who didn't have great character who would absolutely win us? I've had students and there's a bunch of stories in the book that had bad attitudes, bad character. I wouldn't say it's their fault. It's just they weren't taught properly or they didn't have the right discipline or the right guidance and character is such a huge thing. I saw so much potential in some of these young players and I knew that it would be a process to take them from one end of the spectrum to the other and I would be really frank and honest with them. I had a player that went to Il Lani school that I privately coached, Jason Chang, that had a really bad attitude. He would do ball abuse, racket abuse, verbal abuse, all the things that is opposite of what I teach and train and he had asked me that he wanted to train with me and I told him about my rules and he said that he was willing to try and when he said that he was willing to try I thought let's go, let's give it and through that three years he became ranked number one in the state of Hawaii when he was in the eight teens. Now he's a doctor, now he's the youngest chief medical director for the rehabilitation hospital of the Pacific. That's a great story. Yeah. Good example. In terms of character these kids watch a lot of professional tennis on television which is not famous for displaying character in the terms that you describe it. How do they relate to that, how do you relate to that, must be a factor in how you teach. Yes. When you watch players on TV such as Roger Federer or Rafael Nadal they're such great role models for anyone. Not just in tennis but in any sport or any person in business. I always tell the players that you might not be able to play like Federer and Nadal but you can have the same great attitude and you can give the same great effort and have the same type of enthusiasm as they do. They also have the greatest fan love of the circuit. Yes. The character of them, it's amazing. I've watched Nadal on TV lose at the US Open and you know he's disappointed but he's not really showing it and when he's leaving the court he stops and he signs autographs for five or ten minutes with the fans after he loses. I think he really wanted to win. Exactly. And that kind of example is huge for little kids to see in terms of their character development as well as high school players or college players. Were your kids affected by players like that? Oh totally. I would always highlight good things in great players and have our players try to emulate those great things and if they did they would become great players themselves. We'll just take a short break and then we'll come back to seven more keys. This is Think Tech Hawaii, raising public awareness. I just walked by and I said, what's happening guys? They told me they were making music. They said I could play so I had no chance to play at all. That's my life. I love music. Well here we are again, we've got eight of these keys that we've only just threw up through one. So I'm going to ask Rusty to name them and then we'll talk about a couple of them. So in addition to the character of a champion the key number two is discipline drives performance. Key number three always in control, controlling everything that you have control over. Key number four is courage and conviction. Key number five you create the environment. Key number six find your passion. Key number seven welcome adversity and number eight real winning occurs within. Okay, let's go to control because you have really interesting ideas on what that means and just elaborate on what you mean by control. Well in physical tennis terms we have control over our serve, we have control over our attitude, we could be positive or negative, we have control over our effort, we can give a hundred percent or we're not, we can choose to move our feet fast, we could choose to move our feet slow. These are choices, choices, choices. You have choices and I identify the choices in the book. We have some we can control when we're in traffic and we're stuck in bumper to bumper traffic because there was an accident, it's out of our control. Well what do we have control over? We have control over how we react to that situation. We can get flustered and mad about being stuck there or we can just realize that there's nothing we can do about it and really not add to your stress unnecessarily. One of the things I notice in watching professional tennis is the psychology, is the change in momentum and how players get suddenly depressed or suddenly elated or accelerate or decelerate, can they really control that? They can, yeah and it's something we work on all the time and it becomes a habit and I like to train players to understand that they're going to be in three situations when they're playing a tennis match, they're either winning, losing or they're tied. Their effort and attitude should always be the same. From the first point of the match to match point they should be having the best effort to trying to help them win and do only the things that will help them win. So many players do things to help them lose and having a discipline to have them help them win is really, really important and that always puts you in a position to win. Go to the final one about win, within. Real winning occurs within. Tell me what does that mean? Yeah so I have the Brandon Lee story in this book and Brandon Lee has a great story. When he was a senior, he was number one on our team, he was seeded number one at the state championships. He was playing the number two seeded player from Kamehameha who he previously beat twice in the regular season and they made it to the state singles championship final. Brandon won the first set, lost the second set and then had an epic third set battle and Brandon lost but he went up to the net to shake hands and congratulate his opponent and he handled himself with ultimate class. He had the best attitude. I was the most proud of him when he won. He went off to the side after shaking hands and started crying. The rest of our team goes on the court, congratulates his opponent. I walk out there, I congratulate his opponent, I go to where Brandon and our team are, Brandon is crying. The rest of the team, they're in shock, they don't know what to do because Brandon is the leader of the team. I see Brandon and I start crying because I've been working with him for four years on his journey and Brandon tells me, Coach, I'm so sorry for letting you down and I said, Brandon, you did not let me down in any way. In fact, I'm the most proud of you at this moment because you represented yourself, your team, your school, your family with the highest standards and the highest level of excellence and I'm so proud. It's interesting because he always wanted to be one of those stories that I talked about and I have so many of them that I would share with the players over the years but once he lost that match, he thought, well, maybe there's not going to be a Brandon Lee story. When he realized that I used his story in the book for real winning occurs within, he was just flattered. That's wonderful. What you're claiming with the book is that all of this tennis stuff has real application to leadership outside of tennis. Definitely. So what kind of reception have you been getting from real world CEOs and executives and leaders in the real world? It's been phenomenal. I've been having many CEOs, presidents and vice presidents of companies reading the book and then calling me afterwards saying how phenomenal they feel the book is that it exceeded their expectations and that it's really inspirational, really relatable to them and they just love the new fresh angle in leadership. I also have six grade students that are reading the book that tell me every little detail about it and it's impacting them in a positive way and I have so many parents that are loving the book because a parent is a leader and a parent wants the best results for their sons and daughters but they might not know how to do it. They might be doing it in a wrong way where they're getting counterproductive results. You see any patterns in each of those categories, whether they're business leaders or parents or the kids themselves, as to what appeals to them particularly about the book? I do. It's just having a higher standard that's within reach. It's bettering themselves and then helping others better themselves. So it's just creating a culture of excellence and really finding your own greatness and then helping others find theirs. That's fascinating and one of the qualities that I caught my eye was the idea of listening. Yes. How does that get done in a tennis situation? What are you listening for and how do you do that? I mean what's the effect of that? Well I have two rules. I have a listening rule and I have a lateness rule. Just keeping things really simple but very effective in life and we would have the players do 100 push-ups if they violated the listening rule and it's amazing how violating a listening rule cures that listening rule situation by doing 100 push-ups. But beyond that I like to really listen to the players, listen to the vibe of what's going on with the team, how they're doing. It gives me a pulse to see where they are, what they're thinking, what they're feeling, what their thoughts are. So I would constantly talk with them individually and as a team in the group just hearing their thoughts before I would speak on my own. Did you develop the idea of these four principles and eight keys while you were there or did they emerge as you wrote the book? The four P's I developed before the first practice day that I had in 1994. The eight keys developed through the years. It's the eight keys I learned through the experiences of coaching the team for 22 years. But did they get expressed systematically in the writing or in the practice? Yeah, both for sure, yeah. I have just one big question for you. You can't as a CEO make your guys do 100 push-ups. They could. So I mean how can they apply that particular rule, the listening rule? When I was saying listening I think it's incredibly important for executives to listen to their employees to listen to the situation. But to get them to listen that's much tougher. Yes, I think it all comes back to having a culture of excellence. It's having a higher standard. It's about expecting others to do better and they're going to be expecting you to do better as the leader as well. So you have to talk the talk but walk the walk and that's something that needs to be done every single day. You need to better yourself every single day and you need to help encourage members on your team to better themselves every day. And just by listening to them you can learn a lot about what they really want and value in their lives. Have you gotten any great stories from the CEOs that have applied your principles? Yes, I have. They're telling me how simple the leading can be. They've read books in leadership that are really thick. It's a huge category. Huge and the CEOs and presidents of companies, they're reading these thick books and they said that when they read my book it's 112 pages. It's the most meaningful, it's the most impactful book on leadership they've ever read. And they're telling me that they just love that new fresh angle in leadership and they might themselves be doing four of the eight keys. They might not be doing all eight but even the four that they're doing, maybe they could be doing those four a little bit better as well. So it highlights them to be thinking what they're currently doing and how they can be improving themselves. Do you hear when you listen any particular keys that appeal most generally across the board? Yeah, I think having discipline is really important. You can't have success without discipline. And discipline drives performance. When you have habits, disciplined habits, that puts you in positions to be successful. Another thing is environment. It's the leader that creates the environment. You can have one person be in a bad environment and put that same person in a good environment and they're going to have much better results and better productivity. And on the discipline side, that's a big problem, isn't it? Yes. I mean every employer complains about the quality of the people that work for them. I can see how the keys and the four P's can work on an executive team, but it's much harder to see how they can transfer that except by example to people who are not that highly motivated or just surviving or just need a job. I can see how it works especially well in a group that's highly motivated, highly skilled already and needs coaching. But what about those that are not necessarily good at tennis or not good at the work that they're doing, but they just need a job? They need to read my book. No, I say that having promotional opportunities and advancement opportunities in sports or business is a great thing only if you're prepared to lead in that new role. There's so many assistant managers that when they become general managers, they fail because they're not prepared to lead in that new role. There's assistant coaches in football that become head coaches that don't succeed as a head coach because they're not prepared to lead in that new role. Preparation is so important and knowledge is power. I think a classic example was this, and if you watch football, this game between the Patriots and Tennessee Titans, the head coach there is famous for training, assistants are losing them to other teams regularly. Something like 17 of them have become assistants or actual managers. But what I impressed me about that game was how the team work on the New England side that every player knew exactly where to be at the right time, made it look easy. Exactly. But the training that went into that and the practice, practice, practice, it was a remarkable show. But there are other aspects of football that don't conform very well to you. All the showboating and so on. Anyway, you're having great success with this right now. It's only just been published. You're thinking you're considering going to California or to the West Coast to promote it there. That's quite a big adventure. It's not easy to transfer a book that has local references to the mainland. Yeah. And I think you're going to have a lot of fun with it. I hope so. Well, thank you very much and good luck with the book. Thank you, Roger. Here it is. It's been. And impactful. Thank you. Aloha.