 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 were fortunate to win 22 consecutive state championships. This show is based on my books Beyond the Lines and Beyond the Game, which is about leadership, character, and creating a superior culture of excellence. My special guest today is a very successful holistic life coach who has trained over 500 students here in Hawaii and around the world to help them achieve their goals personally, professionally, and spiritually. She is Brandy Keana-Jo, and today, we are going beyond adversities. Hey, Brandy, welcome back to the show. Hi, thank you so much, Rusty, for having me. I'm very happy to be back. Thank you. Now, Brandy, you have been making such a huge positive impact with so many people, and I know that a lot of our viewers will want me to ask you what exactly is a holistic life coach? Well, thank you. I try my best. A holistic life coach in general is basically a coach who considers the whole being of a person, the physical, the mental, the spiritual well-being to help that person achieve their life goals. I go a step further, but that's the general description of a holistic life coach. Now, Brandy, when people meet you and they know that you're a holistic life coach, what's a common reaction you tend to get? Yeah, so a common reaction that I get is people automatically assume that it's all about guided meditations, essential oils, and yoga, but that's not... That's a piece of what I do, but it's definitely not the whole enchilada. There's so much more. We go a lot deeper. There's a lot of very deep personal matters that I help my students with, and it's a very wide spectrum. Yeah, no, I can see that. And I know that people think that you look really young. I'm sure you still get carted. Is that an issue sometimes? I think it's not so much an issue for me. I think it's actually a very wonderful blessing because it surprises people, but I think it can be for others if they are judging a book by its cover and that's stopping them from getting the help that they truly need. For me, I have been through a lot at a very young age and I understand things on a very deep perspective that allows me to help people of all ages. I mean, from 13 years old to 70 years old, that's what I've helped so far. I understand it on a level where I'm not using their age as something that will hold them back from achieving more. I just see everybody as a soul. So I think that is a huge stepping stone that allows people to really reveal themselves because there's not so much judgment that goes into play just by looking at the way that someone looks like. No, I like that how you said, you look at everybody, you look at their soul. And Brandy, can you share with me some of the major adversities you experienced growing up? Oh my goodness, so much. Such a big range. Well, suicide is a big one. That's something that I had faced several times starting from the age five years old. The next time was 15 years old and then several times after that, I had dealt with emotional, physical and sexual abuse. And unfortunately, I was sexually assaulted many times. I had also been addicted to drugs and alcohol. And because I didn't know how to manage money, I became homeless and I was homeless for years. It wasn't something where I was just hopping on people's couches. Unfortunately, I didn't sleep I didn't sleep on the streets in cardboard boxes. For me, I was very lucky to not have gone that far. But I have definitely slept in a lot of dangerous places and I've hung out with a lot of different people that weren't definitely isn't the lane that I'm in right now for sure. But it's because of all of those different experience that I've been able to understand how strong I am. I've been able to understand how to be more compassionate, understanding and help other people overcome or prevent themselves from going through the things that I've been through. And people don't have to go through anything that I've been through for me to help them. It just, I mean, for me to be a holistic life coach I have real life experience. And it's not only about the experience. I mean, I do a lot of studying, I do a lot of work. I've spent a lot of money on perfecting my coaching practice. So there's a little bit of both. There's a lot of experience and then there's a lot of textbook education as well. But it's my adversities that have really, I think, bring some light to the table when it comes to helping people grow. I'm grateful for it. That's totally for sure because, I mean, your real life experiences from such a young age to really experience such a wide spectrum of adversities really truly, I mean, that's why you're a holistic life coach. And Brandy, you've done countless coaching workshops and you also did a workshop to empower teachers to empower students. What's one of the key things you focused on in that workshop? Yeah, that, okay, so the thing about educators is that I think it is very well known that they're often not paid as much for what they're doing. I mean, essentially they're not only educating our students but they're also babysitting them. And I think a lot of people are starting to understand that through the COVID lockdowns. Having to homeschool their students or have them just sit in front of a computer for however many hours to get that education. Teachers are often underpaid. They often don't have the resources that they need or that they want to do the work that they are called to do. And a lot of them come in to the workspace so inspired, so excited to help students. And then throughout their journey, oftentimes they're told no so many times that they start to feel bogged down and they start to feel like they just can't do enough. And so this workshop was about empowering them to not give up. It's about looking outside of the box, look outside of what's beyond your control and start looking at what are the things that you can do. Let's stop looking at the no and let's start looking at what can we do? What resources do we have to play with? Let's use our imagination. Let's work with the community. And let's just have fun with all the ideas that we come up with together. And yeah, and that's pretty much what it was about. No, and Brandy, I like hearing that and you also did many events, girlfriend's events that you, that I felt very fortunate to have been a speaker of in one of them, but you really helped inspire so many people during your girlfriend's events. How did you enjoy that for yourself? Oh my goodness. Well, we were so happy to have you. You were a wonderful panel guest and we had two wonderful gentlemen there as well. I am so grateful. I'm so honored to have done those events because I was able to understand more of what I was capable of. And it was only because people took a leap of faith and they said, you know what? This sounds like a great fit for me. Let me just give it a shot. And there are people who'd come for their first time. There are people who would come repeatedly and the most beautiful thing that I got to witness was how much I inspired people to make movements and businesses of their own to make a positive impact. That is the greatest gift that my coaching gives to me because it becomes a ripple effect. And it's just, you know, that's what we need in this world. We need more positivity. We need more, I can do this. I can inspire others. This is my gift. This is how I can share it. And there are so many wonderful stories that have come from that. And I'm just so proud of them. And I'm so grateful that I took a leap of my faith to do something I'd never done before. No, and Brandy, I know that there's so much planning and preparation and time involved in doing those events. And I noticed that some of the attendees were business leaders and some of them were aspiring leaders. Can you share with me an example of someone that you helped to become an aspiring leader? Yes, yes. I'd love to. Thank you. So I've got to tell you about Halona. I actually met her when I was guest speaking at a business networking event. And she came straight up to me. She was the first person that came to talk to me and she said, I would love for you to work with my daughter. And her daughter just got out of the hospital. So for me to hear a mother, let me know that she loved for me to work with her daughter. I was like, oh my gosh, this is serious. I'm so honored. And I worked with her daughter for a few months. And I ended up cutting it short because I felt like she was good. She was ready to soar. She was ready to go. And I didn't feel like we needed to push her anymore. I felt like she's at that point where she's just ready to blossom. And her mom or Halona, she kept saying, I want you to work with her. And I said, you know what? I think why don't we just use the rest of this time? And how about we work together? And she said, yeah, that's what I wanted to do. And so we made her end up working together. And she wasn't 100% an entrepreneur quite yet, but she was dabbling in it. And so I worked with her. And then I started girlfriends and I said, hey, you know, you've got something special with love for you to partner with me. Come on board. And so she, I helped her and she blossomed incredibly. I mean, talking about aspiring leader, she has gone far. And I'm so amazed and so inspired and so proud of her. I've got to tell you, so she was a part of girlfriends. She spoke, she inspired people, she empowered women. And then she started her own girls event. It was for helping at risk girls on the west side of Oahu. And I was able to go and speak there. And then she started a business where she started to help other businesses start their own. And then if that's not enough, and then she started, she has a retreat center now and it's to also hold functions for companies. So she's gone so far and talking about aspiring leader, I mean, that's from when we met a couple of years, a few years ago and now she's doing amazing work. And it's called Holomua Farms. If anybody wants to check that out, I highly recommend it, it's a beautiful place. Well, I love hearing that story, Brandy. And I wanna thank you for being a big supporter of my books and promoting my books. You were there at my first book signing at Barnes & Noble. I mean, that was so exciting for me. And I wanna ask you, what's something that stood out to you in the books? Oh, I'm so glad you remember I was there. You had like forever a long line of people. I remember that your book signing, it had to go beyond the time because you made such a great impact on people. And I have both of your books, I've shared your books. Here it is. And there are so many things that I love about your book. I mean, pretty much the whole thing on both of them. I have to highlight the part where you talk about coaching. That's a big one for me, cause I'm a coach. And it's specifically the part of how you differentiate who's a coach and who's not a coach, a coach and a teacher, a coach and a parent. And how you talk about a coach is not gonna be someone who's always gonna tell you what you wanna hear. Because I always tell my students like, I'm not always gonna tell you what you wanna hear because I wouldn't be doing my due diligence if I did that. I would be playing into your ego. And that's actually one of the things that I train them on is to understand when your ego's inflating, when it's deflating, how to be in harmony with it. So that way you're always pono, you're always moving forward with the highest integrity. And I call it tough love. When I have to let them know like, whoa, your ego's inflated. We gotta bring it down some before you get in trouble. And yeah, I let them know tough love but that's a big one that resonates with me. No, that's great to hear. I mean, because there is a big difference. We want everybody to become coaches, right? And a lot of people, Brandy, they don't realize like when I do a tennis lesson or a leadership lesson or you do a coaching session for like one hour or two hours a lot of people don't realize all the time in preparation that we do prior to that session or doing the follow-ups to that. It's not just that one hour or two hours. It's multiple hours that we actually put into that for our preparation, right? Absolutely. I mean, that's exactly true because I care so much about my students' experience. I always come with too much. I come with too much because I wanna make sure that I meet them halfway because oftentimes I will give my students what I call opportunities to integrate which are not assignments. They always have the power to choose whether they do it or not. And the opportunities to integrate that I offer them to do is always to help them excel. It's always to help them move further whatever it is in their life, whether it's relationships, it's in their business or it's having confidence to do something new. And I never know what they're gonna accomplish in that one week or in that few days since we last talked. I mean, some people surprised me like incredibly where I'm like, oh my gosh, who is this person coming back to the session? Like I have to be caught up. And so I take like anywhere from three to four hours to prepare ahead of time. Sometimes it takes me five, sometimes it takes me longer. It depends on the person. It's not a cookie cutter situation, but it really does depend on what is gonna be the best for that person. How can I help that person go a little bit out of their comfort zone so they can achieve something more than what they would on their own? Oh yeah, that's so true. And Brandi, so many people have hobbies, so many people have passions, but they don't know how to turn that hobby or that passion into a business. Do you have an example of someone that you helped turn their hobby or their passion into a business? Yes, yes, absolutely. Oh my gosh, one of my students, Ian, he is, we met a few years ago. And first when he had reached out to me, he thought that he just wanted to work on his health. But then within a month of us working together, we realized that money was a factor. Money was an issue. So we dove right into that right away. And within a month, we turned his hobby into a business. And within three to four months, we got him to the point where he was making a livable, a decent livable wage for him. And then within two years, he was making enough to support his entire family. And that includes two moms, two dogs and himself. And then on top of that, we were able to help him pay off more than 60 grand of debt in less time than what we expected, what our goal was. And it was less than a year. I think we beat it by three months. And he is, one of the reasons why we were able to do that is because his hobby is one of his greatest passions and he's good at it. He's great. And so he details cars. That's what he does. That's what he did as a hobby and he does that professionally. And he's one of the up and coming detailers on Oahu. And because of the money issue that he had in the past and by the way, he was second generation in Trinay and welfare. So there was a lot of financial issues, a lot of financial cycles we had to break because he understands that. He doesn't charge an arm and a leg. He doesn't charge an arm and a leg for a luxury package that auto detailing a lot of people considered as a luxury but it's very affordable. It's like crazy and he's good at it and he cares about his customers and he's amazing. I'm so proud of him. It's called Big Essential Detail. If anybody wants to check it out, I highly recommend it. Oh, I might have to check that out for sure. And Brandy, I wanna ask you about this. It's so hard for businesses to actually find employees and oftentimes the employees that they do have it's a challenge to retain the employees. Do you have an example of someone that you helped where they were able to improve employee retention? Yes, yes, that's a, you know, especially with what's happening with the COVID pandemic, I mean, it is a very big problem. A lot of people are making more money on welfare and they don't wanna go to work and they're finding ways to live a comfortable life with that type of paycheck. So especially during this time, it's very, very difficult. Fortunately, one of my students, that's actually an issue that we worked on right away. It's called EI Electrical. I've gotta tell you about them because they're amazing with their customer service before I worked with him, before I worked with EI Electrical, which is the best electrical company in the state of Hawaii, they had already over 500 reviews, five star reviews online, number one on Google, number one on Yelp. So I didn't actually have to work with him in that department. He had that on his own and he's amazing. What I actually helped him with was to supply the demand to help him keep up with all of his business. And so employee retention was the number one thing that we had to concentrate on. And we've been working together for two years, less than two years, and he has since then grown his business 300%. He's doubled his staff. And the longest that his employee has stayed on since we've worked together has been over a year. So that's a perfect example right there. And the way that we do that is we focus on how can we understand what the employee wants? How can we provide a happier work environment for them? How can we exercise their strengths? How can we utilize the education, the wisdom, the genius mind of the owner operator, the managers and how can we better train our staff? Because employees will stay on if they understand that they're appreciated, that they're valued, that there's movement to grow within the company because if they can grow within the company, they have those skill sets forever. So it doesn't matter. I mean, as long as they keep moving up, and they're building so much of their talent, but in addition to that, we also wanna build morale. And we want to recognize our employees. And so those are some of the key things that we worked on. And he's done wonderful. Well, Brandy, I don't know how you do everything that you do, but you also became a citizens police academy volunteer. Can you tell me about that? Yeah, so that, you know, I initially started that because I wanted to spread the word about date rate drugs and I wanted to help people become educated and be a little bit more, what's the word I'm looking for? More cautious and greatly aware about drinking alcohol and how alcohol side effects is very similar to date rate drugs. I mean, they're like almost the same. And when I went to the Citizens Police Academy, I was very interested in working with them. I wanted to support them. And I wanted to see how can I help spread the word with the date rate drug awareness? But it was, I'm always doing something. I don't have like too many open spots on my schedule. So I'm always learning. Joining the Citizens Police Academy was a gateway for me to learn more about the community, to help me understand how can I support our police? And what are they doing? What kind of information can I learn from them? So it was a beautiful experience. I highly recommend everybody trying that out. No, that's so good to hear that you did that, Brandy. And I wanna ask you about how do you have people maintain a positive mindset and to really have balance and harmony in their lives? Well, that is a loaded question, isn't it? Because it's different for every single person. So one person can say, my business is doing great, but my relationship is on the edge. I don't know if I can save it. And so I'd have to direct that person to understand, what are the details that's crumbling in their eyes? And how can we position them to understand what they're missing and how they can improve? I think the bottom line for me is to help people understand that there's more outside of their realm. And learning is a big catalyst to improving our life in all areas. So being open to learn. And this is a big thing that a lot of adults have a problem with. And there's different phases of people's life where they have a real difficult time in learning because they think they know it all because they've already experienced many times. And so it's always gonna be the same experience. That's not always the case. And that's why oftentimes people come to me is because I just crack a mob and I'm like, hey, I'm your blind spot. I'm gonna tell you what you're missing here. And we're not gonna use that against you. We're gonna say, okay, now we're gonna use this as a map, as a compass to say, okay, now we're gonna move in this direction to help you grow. So learning is a big one. Another, the second one is having compassion. Compassion is a key component. It's one of the pillars in my practice. Having compassion for yourself through the uncomfortable experience that you're having. Having compassion for other people because of maybe the lack of awareness, the lack of skill to better connect with each other, the lack of experience and so forth. And then I think the third one is to be authentic. Actually, I'm gonna give four, authenticity because we need to understand that we're all different people. We all have different minds. And we should honor that because it's a very beautiful thing. It's a fantastic thing when we truly honor who we are, who that person is. And we allow each other to be, allow each other to have some level of acceptance. And then the fourth one, which is another pillar is gratitude. Find gratitude in everything that you experience. I have gratitude for the terrible things that I've experienced, the sexual assault, the suicide, all of these different things were catalyst to help me understand how to become stronger, how to be a better person, how to improve my life, how to help other people. I mean, it's a beautiful thing to me. I don't see it as being a weakness. So finding gratitude in every single scenario. Well, I like that, Brandy, because you're so positive. You have so much positive energy. And I know that you believe that life doesn't happen to you, life happens for you. And that's why you're able to take those really bad situations, those tough, big adversities and turn it into a big positive. And Brandy, I really want to thank you for taking time to be on the show today and sharing those really great insights. Oh, thank you so much, Rusty. It's been wonderful. I'm so grateful for you. And I'm grateful for the work that you do. I'm grateful for all the positive impacts that you're sharing. And you're bringing wonderful people to the show and you're being a part of that ripple effect. And then they get to share it with others and they're giving people a platform to share a little bit about themselves that maybe other people don't get to hear. And I think that's a beautiful thing. You just keep going. Thanks, Brandy. Thank you. And thank you for watching Beyond the Lines on Think Tech, Hawaii. For more information, please visit RustyKomori.com and my books are available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. I hope that Brandy and I will inspire you to create your own superior culture of excellence and to find your greatness and help others find theirs. Aloha.