 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. My books Beyond the Lines and Beyond the Game are about leadership, character, and creating a superior culture of excellence which is what this show is all about. My special guest today is one of the most sought after highly respected interior designers in the state of Hawaii. She is Kathy Lee and today we are going beyond style. Hey Kathy, welcome to Beyond the Lines. Hi Rusty, thanks for having me. That was quite an introduction. I appreciate that. Well you know Kathy, I speak the truth and that is completely what I hear from everyone. I mean people that you've worked with already and I know people that really want to work with you in the future as well so it's correct. Thank you, that's sweet of you. Now Kathy, I know that you grew up in Pearl City. Can you tell me about your background growing up there? Sure, absolutely. I did grow up in Pearl City. My father was in the military, met my mom in in Korea but is actually a local boy from Farrington and you know they bought a home, a nice comfortable home. It wasn't a fancy home you know just provided us a place to sleep in. We had a lot of love at home but not a lot of money. There was always more month at the end of the money, not money at the end of the month you know what I mean and so there were you know some some tough times but my dad was such a positive person. He became a police officer. He was always working double shifts, two shifts. My mom was a babysitter. She babysat six kids at a time to make ends meet and she even sold kimchi. My dad always wanted to better himself so they saved up all their money, bought a carpet cleaning business, service master franchise and so that became the family business and so we had to you know whenever we weren't doing whatever sports or school you know on weekdays we'd have to help out and then on weekends we'd have to go clean carpets. I still remember that do you remember the racquetball club that was downtown that was a big thing in the 80s? My brothers would handle the machines. I have two brothers, an older and a younger brother and they would do the big fun work what I thought was fun. Well I had to do the grunty work so I would be on the staircase and with a little blade and solvent and I'd have to clean the stairs and get all the gum and gunk off of the stairs step by step so that kind of gives you a little idea about my upbringing. I went to Highlands Elementary and Intermediate one year at Pearl City High and then in my sophomore year transferred over to Sacred Hearts Academy. Oh very good. Now Kathy what was the first job that you ever had that you got paid money for? So my first job I mean outside of babysitting but my very first job I saw an ad in the paper and it looked so interesting. They were looking for a highly motivated this data and I don't even remember so I made an appointment and I think I was like this is my first real big big job but I went over to the agency and I was like 18 years old. I didn't realize I was interviewing at a temp agency and they were going to place me in the job and the person interviewing me was so impressed with how I handled myself that they ended up hiring me as an employment counselor. It was just crazy. That was my my first big big job you know so I was so proud of myself. I came home and told my parents wow I'm an employment counselor. That was a pretty big deal and I was the youngest one they had ever hired. Well that's very interesting to hear and and Kathy you and your husband Daryl have been married for 26 years now and and you have a daughter Nikki together and she is amazing. What's what's the updates with Daryl and Nikki? Well so Daryl is you know busy as ever. He's a he's an entrepreneur like me. He's a he's a physician a gastroenterologist and when we met you know he had his own private practice already and after that I was always telling him you know gosh you're so busy your book two three months out you know why why don't you you know have more physicians working with you and he says you know honey I am a I'm a doctor. I'm not a business person. I'm like what are you talking about you know and so a little later on in life and you know I was thankfully involved in talking to him about that too but ended up starting Pacific Endoscopy Center and the largest physician owned center here in the state and he's doing amazingly well and just such a great guy and I'm happy to say 26 happy years happily married so I'm very proud of that and we have one and only daughter Nikki and she's just a joy. She's 21 years old already. She's at Duke University. She had trials and tribulations you know in school but she just studied really really hard and her goal was to get into a top 10 school and and she did that and I'm just so very proud of her. Oh that's so great to hear and and my connection with Daryl is is we both graduated from Creighton University and Daryl is on the Creighton University Board of Directors and we were I know we were both cheering for the Creighton basketball team these last few weeks right. Yes he is the crazy fanatic yes definitely he was kind of bummed yesterday but oh me too me too and and Kathy you have something else in common by the way so not only did you both go to Creighton but you both went to Damian. Oh yeah Daryl is also a monarch. We're Daryl and I are deeply connected. So Kathy how did you first get interested in interior design? Wow that kind of goes way back you know when I talk about my upbringing there was never a con I didn't even know what interior design was you know our house as I said was nice and it was comfortable but you know we just had the necessities really you know in our bathroom whatever towel you know my mom took out of the dryer that's what was there that's what was used it didn't have to match that wasn't a concept you know and so when I was busy doing you know my businesses and by the time Daryl and I got married you know I've always been an entrepreneur I've done you know one thing after another I'm one of those people you know I see an idea I see an opportunity and I'm not afraid to do it and take it on and that's kind of what attracted Daryl and I to to each other but I was very busy and I knew that when we got our home I needed help and so I hired an interior designer did a great job was very happy with that working on my business when we were going to do our next house approached her but she was busy and so I hired someone else and that was a total fail so I just had finished one of my events and I thought you know what I want to learn about this I'm going to do this and I set upon a lot of self-study and I really looked at magazines this was pre-HGTV and I looked at pictures and I said what what is it about this room that I like oh look at how they repeated the colors or the textures and I'm not recommending that everybody does this but this was my own home and so if there were going to be mistakes to be made I was going to make it I just sort of picked myself up and I just did it and I was very humble and nice and asked a lot of questions whether it was to contractors or you know going out to vendors and I picked up the pieces and did my very first project and surprisingly enough ended up on a cover of a magazine where they called me the natural and I have to tell you Rusty that cover because you know when you're interviewed you don't know what angle they're going to use right so that cover made me really uncomfortable because I did not feel like a natural at anything and I was like oh my goodness you know this was probably a fluke I only did this one time and they're calling me the natural but um but yeah that's kind of how we got started but that gave me the confidence in design and then we bought another home we sold that home bought another property Darryl trusted in me I fixed it up sold it and kept on doing that until 2008 and that's really how it got started well Kathy you definitely are a natural and I feel very fortunate and honored that I was able to to go to your house um this is last year before COVID and your home is absolutely beautiful I mean it is gorgeous and I went into Darryl's walk-in closet and then I went into your walk-in closet and Kathy I have to say I have been in condos that are I mean it's not as big as your walk-in closet and and your walk-in I mean people can live in there it is the most gorgeous walk-in closet I've ever been in yeah it was uh it's bigger than my first apartment so yes I didn't have a lot growing up um I had to um you know make my own money to buy any clothes that I wanted and that was something that was important to me and so why not I decided to go for it well I'm so happy you did and you know seeing all that I'm just thinking without a doubt you are our state's top interior designer in my mind and and Kathy I want to ask you why why are you successful you know Rusty I think um and and thank you but honestly I do not feel I'm the best that's so sweet of you to say that but there are so many amazing designers here um I just work really hard at it um and so I think what makes me successful any any level of success that I've had I can really attribute to something I learned early on in life and that was you know my dad always told us you know don't be ordinary strive to be extraordinary and that was just rammed into us from a very very early age he also said you know don't do what's expected of you always do the unexpected always go the extra mile and um so you know from the time that I could my mom would even trust me because my mom babysat six kids at a time I always wanted to earn money and so I said mom I want to babysit and so when the parents you know wanted to go out for an evening or something like that and as soon as my mom trusts me more importantly the parent trusted me I started babysitting and um my parents didn't have to tell me this Rusty but I would of course do what a babysitter is expected to do but then once the kids are you know doing their thing or taking a shower um I'd start cleaning the house I do whatever dishes are in the sink I'd straighten up by full things by the time the parents came home not only did they have somebody babysit they had a housekeeper there and I just always believed in doing extra doing more doing what's not expected being the best that I can be and going out of my way for other people so I think that is what has attributed to you know some of my success well Kathy in addition to being featured on homescape magazine I mean you were on the cover of midweek and not too many people can be on the cover of midweek but I want to ask you Kathy what's a big challenge or adversity that that you dealt with in your life you know an ongoing challenge but something I really struggled with um early on for as long as I can remember when I was in school was I just um I just could not focus in school and I I didn't understand why but no matter how hard I tried you know I could pay attention for a few minutes in class and then my brain was just on fire I was creating stories and pictures in my mind developing games you know what am I going to do thinking about my friends problems and how I can solve them I was always dear Abby to my friends um so it's just like it was chaos in my mind and I couldn't quiet my brain but back then I didn't understand what this all was I just thought there was something wrong with me my parents didn't know about this my teachers always said that I was smart but I wasn't applying myself so that was always the critique that I got all my life and eventually I just you know thought well maybe school isn't for me and um you know you remember that movie Rocky when Adrian's father says you know Adrian you don't have much of a body so you better develop your brain you know for me I really felt like well I don't have much of a brain I better develop my personality and so that was a challenge and that was a struggle but once I got out of school that's when things changed for me because I had laser focus when there was something that I wanted to do but not only laser focus I found that unlike a lot of people who are more inside the box thinkers I could multitask and do five things at one time talk to five people at one time keep all the plates spinning and I saw things differently and came about problems and challenges in different ways so what started out for me as tremendous adversity today has sort of become a gift and how I discovered that was when Nikki was in school and the teachers at Hana Holy you know called us in and said we think you ought to get your daughter tested um we did and found out she had ADD and um thought we they told us that we might consider you know putting her on medication we chose not to do it but I read all kind of books and that rusty was when the skies parted and I understood and realized wow that was me all those years ago I didn't even know that and um I was able to help my daughter and tell her what has worked for me and instead of having her feel like a dummy instead of her feeling like something's wrong with her she saw that her mother was a success she looked up to me and I said you've got mommy's brain secretly I felt bad for her but I'm like you're like mommy and I just tried to work with her and channel and how she has to take notes and she's got to sit in the front of the classroom and we had to talk to the teachers and did all the work we needed to do and to her credit Rusty she was able to turn things around by the sixth grade and just went on to do unbelievably well academically. Kathy thanks for sharing that I mean that's really inspiring and and yes we all learn so much from those Rocky movies for sure and Kathy I know I know that you read my book twice right and what stood out to you in my book? You know um I've always loved and uh what turned things around for me was self-improvement self-development so I used to read you know think and grow rich and Tony Robbins and all that stuff so when you gave me your book a few years ago I read it cover to cover I thought it was fantastic and I believed in all the principles you know that you were sharing but then when you asked me to be on this show recently I thought you know I'm gonna go back so I you know dug up your book and I reread it and uh truly truly you did a fantastic job but the I think the one point that resonated the most to me was um I think it was key set lucky number seven that's how I remember things key number seven and that was um I embracing or welcoming adversity um so to me that is so important because as you say in your book adversity is inevitable it's going to happen and if you don't know how to cope with it and deal with it you're gonna crumble I um we taught that to our daughter um I read a book about um raising children and they said you need to teach your kids how to cope because if you don't they can turn to drugs they can turn to you know bad influences and so Darren and I talked about this when when Nikki was in my tummy but in business as far as dealing with adversity I consciously have to think about that because problems always arise um things happen the order comes in wrong it doesn't look like how you want and you just have to you know especially in front of your team just focus take a deep breath and instead of focusing on the challenge or the problem or the adversity I focus on the solution and finding it and I tell myself in a positive mindset I am going to figure this out and sometimes it's immediate and sometimes I have to marinate on it but I think when my team sees and I lead by example then they jump in and they brainstorm and and they know that hey things happen let's figure it out we need to overcome this challenge let's just do it and so I thought that was a great part in the book oh thank you Kathy that that makes me feel so good and and yeah it's not about you know protecting a child from a challenge it's teaching them how to face it and absolutely and Kathy you have I mean your style is just truly amazing and I want to know what is your design philosophy you know my the funny way that I say it when I talk to clients is I say you know this isn't Burger King you can't have it your way if you're coming to me as a designer I think that my responsibility is not just to give you what you think you want but really to strive to give you what you don't even realize you want yet or what is possible to have and so the way to do that is really to ask a lot of questions and of course I want to find out what colors they like and don't like and those sorts of things I ask them you know show me some inspiring pictures and and that's how I kind of narrow things down but then I want to push them beyond those boundaries and I want to take it to another level and I think what sets me apart from from some designers is I really come from a marketing standpoint I really believe that you know even a home should have sort of a brand identity it should reflect you know the people who live in in that home and say something about them and their personalities but especially for businesses it's all about the brand and so for example for why Hata I did 14 of their spaces the most interesting one was their their lounge Russell Hata wanted a lounge and they didn't have enough space on the property because there were so many other things I did bathrooms and two kitchens and but he wanted an employee lounge so we got two mats and shipping containers fuse them together and I created the lounge at why Hata and you would never know looking at that picture that that's actually an employee lounge so you know that was one space a law office that I did you know green energy environmental law it needs to feel like that and then for the Ronald McDonald house which was actually the the most inspiring design space that I've done to date just this past year designing something for sick children and families at the Ronald McDonald house I knew I wanted it to be bright and creative and hopeful and inspiring and so I had to use every square inch of that space to kind of provide you know all of these um joyful moments in there for the kids and the families to enjoy well Kathy I mean that Ronald McDonald house you you did the renovation for that family recreation center and and basically you uh your your daughter's foundation the non-profit Kids for a Cause you're the director of Kids for a Cause and you guys had raised over three hundred thousand dollars for the Ronald McDonald house can you tell me more about that yeah sure you know we never set out to start a non-profit when Nikki was eight years old in the third grade they were told to do something for their community and so at that time she liked to sing so long story short she put on a concert and other kids and other parents over the years she kept wanting to do that and um so we had these kids concerts because the money that she raised at eleven hundred dollars when I took her to the Ronald McDonald house to meet Jerry Chong and deliver that money it made such a huge impact on her so she wanted to keep doing that and so these kids concerts grew over the years and um to date uh well over 10 years Kids for a Cause has raised over seven hundred sixty thousand dollars for non-profits benefiting kids causes here in Hawaii and so it just kind of happened it evolved um I was nurturing and mentoring my daughter you know as a leader taught her how to start her own board and junior board of directors and said you're going to need help you can't do this if you go big or go home right and so she was building and developing these then these kids that came on to our program they were mentoring other kids and then we inspired them now what do you want to do you don't want to have a concert they did soccer clinics and bake sales and whatever and so it really kind of grew organically but has turned into such a nice mission and a way for you know kids to learn meant uh leadership skills and for me to kind of act as their mentor and provide these like leadership boot camps for them that's what going beyond the lines is all about there Kathy I love it and you're also on the board of the Hawaii theater and you guys had raised over three hundred thousand dollars for the Hawaii theater as well can you tell me about that too yes I have been on the board of director there for a number of years and the most challenging year of all of course has been this past year you know with us being shuttered because of because of COVID and being on the development committee and us just racking our brains what are we going to do and me ever being the think outside the box kind of a person I thought back to you know what what are some of the things that resonated with me and I always remember the Jerry Lewis telethon and it's like okay let's showcase our beautiful theater and we did this virtual concert but we made it also a telethon and we got sponsors and you know we we did it big and we raised over three hundred thousand dollars through our virtual concert and telethon and it's just so important for us to keep our doors open we're celebrating 100 years next year rusty and it is such you know an iconic and historic institution here and we just need to keep it alive and going and anything I can do I'm willing to to do it we just have to keep our theater alive and so I'm hoping people will support that and Kathy your new project is to really help us sacred hearts I mean there's a before and then the after a visionary situation and I'm just blown away with that you want to make an innovation center for them right yes well they they had planned for the last few years to make an innovation center and I've been on the board at Sacred Hearts Academy for for a number of years and I had heard that Dr. Sayu who we both know and love was a big contributor to this this innovation center and knowing that his name was going to be on the wall and knowing you know the limited funds that we have at Sacred Hearts Academy you know I agreed to take on the project of designing the the innovation center and again always coming at it from you know a creative point of view but what's going to inspire how first of are we going to brand it I mean this is an all-girls school so I wanted to brand it but I wanted to make it fun of course innovative and interesting and going back to the challenges that I had had in school was sitting still you know and incorporating chairs that are like fidget chairs so they can kind of move and you know get that energy out of their little bodies and even the stools that are in there it's going to be a multi-purpose room so I'm very proud and excited about that new project that I'm working on oh that's so good to hear and yes we both love Dr. Lawrence Sayu and everyone I want to ask you one more thing before we wrap up Kathy what gives you fulfillment I think what gives me the greatest fulfillment is you know taking things from concept to completion and seeing the joy that that brings so when that comes through interior design you know that little seed of an idea whether it's taking a business and taking it from nothing and turning it into something or creating an event and seeing the reality and the joy or the money that it raises or the happiness in people's eyes seeing the space that gives me fulfillment but I also see that in people as well and that's like my daughter the children and kids for cause the girls in the GGG program at Sacred Hearts Academy but you know seeing it through and taking those necessary actionable steps to make things as good as it can be going beyond the lines Rusty. Kathy I love it and you definitely go beyond the lines you Darryl and Nikki and it was a joy to have you on the show today. Thank you it was a pleasure being here it's so much fun talking story I think we could talk another couple hours right it's so much fun thank you. Thank you Kathy and thank you for watching Beyond the Lines on Think Tech Hawaii for more information please visit RustyKamori.com and my books are available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. I hope that Kathy and I will inspire you to create your own superior culture of excellence and to find your greatness and help others find theirs. Aloha.