 Hi, I'm Rusty Kamori, and this is Beyond the Lines on Think Tech Hawaii. I was the head coach of the Punahou School 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, and it's about inspiration, welcoming adversity, and creating a superior culture of excellence. My special guest today won the 2017 Super Bowl with the New England Patriots. He is Martellus Bennett, and today we are going beyond football. Hey, Marty, welcome to Beyond the Lines. Hey, man, I know y'all won 22 consecutively. That's amazing. I need to look at this, but man, they're talking about winning. Thank you, Marty, but winning a Super Bowl, I mean, that's amazing, Marty, but yeah, we both share that striving for that superior culture of excellence, and Marty, you were on a recent trip to Hawaii and it was so great to see you and to meet your wife, Siggy. You both are so cute together, absolutely perfect together. Why do you guys make such a great team, you and Siggy? I think it's like we communicate very well about everything. So it's like just the communication level between us is nonverbal, physical, like, you know, just verbally. We communicate very well and we have a really good balance and support for like what each other need, and we have grown to become what each other has needed in every phase of life versus like, you know, one phase, someone's like being on any team, and one phase, the team needs you to do this very well, like this game, we need you to block. For next game, we might need you to go catch 10 passes. Can you be able to be what we need you to be today for the team? And I think that's kind of how we are, like even like something like dropping jet off at school, like it's very much a team. Things like, oh, I do morning drop offs, except for on Friday, she does morning drop offs. You know, it's just very balanced of like working together and very orchestrated and very much like a symphony, the way that we work together. And my brother and everybody was like, man, you know, Siggi, we're good at it. Only place I don't go if Siggi is, is in her kitchen. I never go in the kitchen. I never try to work with her in the kitchen, but I know that as a good teammate, it's like, hey, let's get out the way and let her cook. You know what I'm saying? So I think it's just about communication and being on the same page and only way to be on the same page is to communicate. Oh, I love hearing those insights. And yeah, I mean, you got to stay out of the kitchen. I mean, let her do what she does. And Marty, you and your brother, Michael, are both Super Bowl champions. That's not too many families can say that they have two Super Bowl champion sons. And what are some things that you admire about your brother, Michael? I think Michael, the thing I admire most about Michael is his dedication to friendship and the people that he love. I think that's one thing I'm constantly learning from Michael is like, how to make friends and how to keep friends. And just his love for people, like those around him, the support and how supportive he is for others. I think that's like the number one thing as a brother that I'll always be trying to, that I'm always like curious. Cause I'm not like a very like super friendly person have friends around me all the time. Or like, I know a lot of people, but not like how Michael know people and how he's able to connect with people and talk to people. I'm more like, you know, I'll connect for a moment then I'll disappear for a long period of time. But somehow Michael's able to keep the communication with so many people across the globe. So I find that's something I admire about him is especially for family. He's always there for his friends and family. I don't know how he makes time for so many people in his life and still able to conquer all his dreams. Well, I completely agree with you there too. I don't know how he makes time to do everything that he does, but yeah, he's so authentic and so genuine, so caring. And Marty, you had a hugely successful NFL career and I wanna ask you during the time that you played with the New England Patriots, what was your guys' culture of excellence like with your team? I think my favorite part of our team was we had this, I think it's hard to be excellent when you worry about those around you. So our model was do your job. Like if you do your job, the best that you could do your job, don't worry about these other players cause it's not your job to worry about your teammates. It's the coach's job to worry about what your teammates are doing. So like this whole idea of like focusing in and doing your job and being with doing the best that you can and doing what you're asked to do when you're asked to do it. And don't worry about anything else. If your task is to block this one guy, just block that one guy and everybody also take care of yourself because if everyone is doing their job, it's much easier to see who's not doing their job. And then a good leadership, what happens is on most teams, players have to speak up when other players aren't doing their job because coaches won't step in. But when you have great leadership, they're like, look, you ain't gotta worry about that. If he's not playing the way we want him to play, we'll take him out. You don't have to say nothing to us because we'll see it before you see it. And that's one thing I really liked about this, the identity of the team was like to do your job and just come to work and it was about work. It wasn't really about anything else. It's like, are you doing your job today? And it's just like, that's one thing I could do with my job. No, I love hearing that, doing your job. And how would you define the identity of the New England Patriots team during your time there? I would say that the identity for the Patriots I don't think it's changed because the leadership has not changed. I think if like a lot of places, when leadership change, culture changes because the leaderships, like they set the tone for the culture. So for us out there, I think that the biggest thing for us was it was just, I mean, it was just this focus and it was just no bullshit really. It was just, it was one of a few places where it was only about football. Like, hey, we want to see what kind of player you are and how you're playing do you let your teammates down? Do you pick your teammates up? Where are we as a team? I think there was a lot of great bond. I've never been on a team where guys who had such a great bond with one another, both offense, defense and special teams like everybody was cool. Everybody, usually there's a lot of clicks. We didn't really have clicks, right? You know, you have, of course, there's no matter where you go that some people that hang out with some people more than other, but it wasn't clicky. It was just because we related to each other the most. So I think you kind of eliminate these barriers these walls of like tearing down the walls and having like what they will call a horizontal business model versus a vertical business model in the locker room and things like that. So like Tom was it above us? He was here with us. So everybody would met on the same playing field metaphorically and literally. Yeah, makes sense. And man, that Super Bowl that you won in 2017 that was absolutely epic. I mean, you guys were playing the Atlanta Falcons. You were down 28 to three and then came all the way back to win 34 to 28 in overtime. Tell me about some background insights about what happened in that Super Bowl. I think the most important thing is kind of leaning to what I was saying earlier. I have been part of a lot of losing organizations. So one thing I knew, I know when I'm around losers because I have lost a lot of games. You know what I'm saying? Like I could tell when it's a losing culture or not. And when you play for a losing team but you have a winning attitude, you play into the game ends, right? Like you always feel like you have a chance because that's the only way that you can really talk yourself into going into the games anyway. Cause you always feel like today's the day. If you lose, you always go back. You have to be optimistic about it. But what the Patriots, we had only lost two games that year. One was a little bit of a fluke. You know, we didn't have our situation right at the quarterback and there was a lot going on. And then the other one we lost to the Seattle Seahawks own, which felt like one of those games when you run out of time. You know, you ever play a game and it's like, man, that was a great loss. You know, you had bad losses. Then you had the one, if we just had one more, like 10 more seconds, like who knew what the game, like you appreciate both teams, both sides to play well. So in a Super Bowl, like this was our first time, like, like we were getting our ass kicked. Like, you know what I'm saying? It was 28 to three. You and that thing, you like, man, what is going on? But then when you watch and you thinking about it, like, oh, we were shooting ourselves in the foot. Like we messed up here. We messed up here. We felt like it was all on us. And so I never, we had never been down like that. And this was a Super Bowl. So I'm going to the locker room. My attitude is positive. Like, hey, we 30 minutes, I come from losing organizations. 30 minutes, we can still win. You know, but when a team that's been winning, we know we won 15 games that year, you know, at one point we won 10 games straight. So you get in locker room. I'm like, man, I wonder what's going to be, what the locker room is going to be like. And you get in locker room and, you know, to lose a locker room, everyone's yelling. There's a lot of finger pointing. There's a lot of like, you got to do this. We got to do that. A lot of false motivation, you know, a lot of false enthusiasm. And, but we didn't have any of that. Everybody just went to the locker and they just sat down and then I have my oranges and my peanut butter and jelly sandwich. And we just kind of sat in the locker, guys put on their headphones, cultures went about their business and guys just kind of sat in a locker and you can see everybody going through like thinking like, what can I do? Not like, what can he do? What can he do? Or what should you do? Or what we should do? It's like, what can I do to help us? Everyone was thinking about doing their job better. And when I saw that in locker room, I saw everyone just kind of having this reflective moment. Like, hey, then the cultures came out and you know, they weren't yelling. Hey, what do you see? They still asking us questions. Like, hey coach, I think this will work. This will work. And they be like, all right, this is what we're looking at. Then we go back. We have our little conversations in our position groups and things like that. And the only thing that was said, I remember this because there was no rah-rah, no, oh, we got this. Just like, there's no, no Sparta, no 300, you know, saying no gladiator speeches. Julian Edelman, he said, all right, but we got 30 minutes to make history. Patriots on three, one, two, three Patriots. And then we went out there and we made history. The second half was interesting because it was one of the first times where you enter a state of flow and you don't really know what's happening outside of what's happening to you. There was times when we caught a ball the first down had to ask because I was so focused on doing my job. Where there is that was actually doing those plays. That's the only thing I could see and everything else was a blur. Throw me the ball, you know what I'm saying? I could just see the ball and know what my teammates are doing or not. Julian Edelman made this wild catch. I didn't even know he made the catch and Tom was like, oh, shit, he caught it. I'm like, he caught it. And he's like, yeah, he caught it. Even to the point when we won the game, I had to ask Tom, I was like, so we won right at the game over? He was like, yeah, we're champions now. We're champions now. Oh, shit, we're champions. Do we cry? What do we do? So the whole second half was just really about this high end focus that was so deep that it was like a state of flow that was almost like we ended up running like a hundred more plays than they did. And in that process, it was on every single aspect of the game. It was on offense, it was on defense. It was special teams. And they had plays where they'll hit us in the mouth, but we never faltered. We just kind of go back, come back. It's to the point where it was like, you're gonna have to keep punching us, but we're gonna keep taking it and you're gonna get tired of punching us to the point where we're gonna knock you out. You know what I'm saying? Like, hey, we could do like, you know, you ever hit somebody with a, your best shot, they don't go fall down, then you get another good shot on there and fall down. And so forth, you start questioning yourself. So that's gonna happen. I love hearing these insights from you because, you know, I wrote about that Super Bowl in my book as well. And it was just epic where when I was watching the Super Bowl, I mean, your sideline, nobody looked negative. Nobody was finger pointing, like you said. Everyone just seemed positive. It almost seemed like this is the culture that the leadership of the Patriots has. And plus, you guys have Tom Brady, right? Yeah, I think a lot of times when you think about leadership, a lot of times people will look directly at the coaches, but there's a lot of leaders in a locker room. Coaches aren't in the playing field. Like I tell coaches all the time, they draw this shit up on paper, but the game is played on grass, right? You know what I'm saying? On paper, the players move where you want them to go. On defense, when you play on grass, some dudes get paid $30, $40 million not to be where you trying to take them. So like, you know, it's a whole different ball game on the field. So like you have guys that lead the way who hold themselves accountable, but also, you know, hold each other accountable. And we're able to hold Tom, hey, Tom, that's not right. People are like, all right, hey, Martellers, that's not right. Hey, you know, they all call me smarty because they say I was one of the smartest people I ever met, but like, all the whole team was just like, you know, culture is, you know, just not the establishment. Culture is really the people of the establishment, right? With no people, there is no culture. So I think the Patriots do a good job of finding people who fit into their culture when they're drafting, when they're interviewing, when they're bringing guys in and they deal with guys and when guys who they may feel is not a great for the culture, they allow the players within the culture to get that person in place. It's not the Patriots way, when they say the Patriots way, it's all of the Patriots, right? You know, it's not just the coaches, it's not just upstairs. It's all everybody who's playing, even a janitor has to, you know, like, you know, the bathroom is done in a Patriot way. So it's really cool. It was really cool to be a part of. I learned a lot about business. There was two places I learned a lot about business and NFL, one was the Dallas Cowboys and the other one was the Patriots. Wow, now I love hearing your insights, Marty. And tell me Marty, I mean, you obviously work super closely with Tom Brady. What makes Tom Brady so great? I think there's a, you know, I'll say this, I was fortunate to play with a lot of quarterbacks that's probably going to end up in the Hall of Fame. The thing that made Tom great was his ability to adapt to those around him. You know, you get some people in their leadership role and they try to force you to adapt to them. You know, Tom will adapt to you and help you become greater with your good at, you know what I'm saying? Like, all right, you like this? Okay, I could do that. So he's like, no matter what you like, I can do it. So you tell me what you want, you know what I'm saying? And he'll adjust for his teammates to try to put them in position to succeed. So I think that was the thing that I liked about Tom. And he was willing to even with a rookie receiver we drafted was like one of some extra passes after practice, Tom will stay out there and throw to him. You know, so like a lot of times I think Tom, he kind of felt like the underdog. So he loved underdogs, right? He loves the guys. It was like, all right, they talking about you now. We all gonna go out there and kick their ass, you know? So I think he was one of the first competitors that ever played where it didn't like to lose. And he was just a good dude. We actually bonded over Pinterest. We both love interior design. So that's how we became friends. We were on a bus and sharing each other Pinterest and our interior design was kind of funny. Oh, that's super cool. I mean, just hearing, you know, this background and Marty, I wanna ask you what makes coach Bill Belichick so great? I think that the fact that he treats everyone the same, you know, you get in a lot of leadership roles, a lot of leaders of places and organizations, they don't treat everybody the same. They have their favorites. And you can't really do that when you try to develop a culture because the people of that culture feel that, right? If you have favoritism to these guys, everybody's gonna have their favorites. But to show favoritism, you know, within the establishment, like letting these guys have these rules, but then these guys are the rules. If the rules are the rules, the rules are for everybody. Within the establishment. I think that was the thing that I liked about Bill the most is that he was, it made everything fair, you know, because he treated everyone the same. So nothing really felt unfair because we all were dealing with the same Bill, no matter where we were on the totem pole. Now, did he have an open door policy with you and the rest of your teammates? He had open door policy, but not too many people walked through that open door. I used to go in there and say, what's up to him all the time and talk to him. I like Bill, Bill is full of wisdom. I like old people, you know, old people, you know, they have a lot of wisdom and they've seen a lot of things. And Bill's an old dude, you know, he'd been around football since Halus was playing football and, you know, Vince Lombardi and them guys. So, you know, his old ass knows a lot of things. So like I like talking to Bill about different things and just the history and he's a history buff. So just like asking questions and he's a really smart dude and he's very, I found him to be very funny. My teammates didn't find him to be that funny and but I thought he was hilarious and he made me laugh every day. So I was just kind of like very, I just, I like Bill, I have no issues with Bill. So Marty, is it true that if the players were screwing up in practice, if they weren't executing the plays at a certain level, that he would have them run but also the assistant coaches run as well? Oh yeah, he'd make the assistant coaches run. Yeah, that's kind of funny. He's like, oh man, you being like coach, and then your coach would be like, hey man, I ain't running today. So y'all better get your off shit together. Cause he wouldn't do it all the time. But sometimes he'll be like, he'll do it. And then the tight end coach would look at all the time and say, look, y'all do what y'all gotta do. Cause I, you know, our coach was funny. He's the head coach of the Giants now and I love him. He's a funny coach. He's like, and my bad ass ain't running nowhere. So y'all, you know, we ain't doing it. Yeah, I gotta get y'all stuff right. So it was like, it was always fun to see those things. And, you know, also holding the coaches accountable in a different way. And I think he thought it was funny too. So yeah, I think that's funny. But you know, every, he's so right though. Everyone's a reflection of each other. And so the assistant coaches are responsible for those players to execute the plays. And if they're not executing, it falls on the coaches. And Marty, you have both of my books and I was able to have a great time with you on the tennis court during your last trip to Hawaii. And I want to talk with you about some of the concepts that's in the books. And you, I mean, I gotta say, Marty, on the tennis court, you can be as great as you want to be in everything that you do because you're just such a athletic, disciplined, hardworking person. And I, in the books, I talk about mindset a lot. And I want to ask you, what are your thoughts about the mindset of champions? Yeah, so it varies, you know, I mean, there's some qualities I think a lot of champions are in competition with themselves, right? Like they're competing with something that's deep within them. Like they're trying to outdo themselves. They see something in themselves that no one else sees. And they're trying to become that, what they see. And that takes a lot of hard work. When you try to become what people see in you, then they will only, they can only see so far. But your belief system of what you can become is much deeper than what anyone can see from the outside because only you know what you have inside and what you're capable of. So they could only push you so much, but the champions, they see what they want to become. They visualize that and they push themselves and they do whatever it takes to become that thing and wherever it is that they're trying to become in. So I think a lot of champions, like I think there's like, there's winners and then there's like champions, right? You know, anyone can win, but not everyone could be a champion. And to be a champion takes a bunch, it takes a different. There's a lot of people could be great players as well, but there'll never be champions, right? And I think that championship mindset is something totally different from a winning mindset, right? And that championship is the willingness to sacrifice more than the other person, the other size willing to sacrifice to become what you know that you can be. And so that's why I think about champions, you know, and that's like every day, you know, it's like, you know, who's willing to, you know, work out two times in a day and the ones who are willing to do it every single time when they don't feel like doing it, there's some who will do it sometimes when they don't feel like doing it. But then there's those people who will do it every single time even if they don't feel like it. And then we're gonna find a way to get this much better. And getting better is not always this grand scheme of this. Like the great ones are, they understand the incremental aspects of the detailed intentionalities of practicing. Like practice is something that a lot of people don't know how to do. Like, you know, like what's my goals with this practice? What are my intentions in this practice? And what am I practicing and why am I practicing? And how do I cannot measure getting better in what I'm practicing? A lot of people just go out to practice and just do practice, right? But the great ones, like they challenge themselves in practice, they may only hit with a left hand all practice, you know what I'm saying? Like only do left hand layups, only dribble going to the left because I need to work on my left hand. It's easy to go to the right, I know I can do that. And even going to your left all the time, you may be messing up, you're gonna lose the ball, you're gonna do it, but you have to go through, you have to, they're okay with being uncomfortable in what they're not good at, whether that's in the public or in wherever it is, they're willing to work on what they're not good at and they don't get frustrated and they know they're getting better as an incremental growth, not like this gigantic overnight growth. Yeah, no, I love, I totally agree with you. And Marty, I wanna ask you about, you know, the difference between good teams versus elite teams. And a lot of times when I'm watching sports, you know, it makes sense to only do things that will help you win is what I would tell my teams. But oftentimes I see teams and players doing things to help them lose because they're undisciplined. So for example, elite teams have very few penalties. Good teams have a lot of penalties at times, but I mean, penalties are something that you have total control of because it's part of your discipline, right? Sometimes the ref just be tripping, but yeah, but most of the time, like jumping off sides, false starts, you know, some calls can be close. I do think that like when you out there and you're playing and the discipline of it, like a great team to me is a team, is exactly who's willing to do whatever it takes to win. The problem with that is to do that, you have to surrender your ego. Football is hard to surrender your ego in playing in a team sport because what got you there is your ego, right? It's like, how do you balance this ego-centric mindset of like being the best, wanting the ball? Cause the minute you don't want the ball, you kind of lose that dog in you, you know what I'm saying? So you got to find this level of like, you know, like, I'm going to do the best I can. And whatever it is I'm asked to do because I could impact the game with or without the ball. So the ones who think that they could only impact the game when they get the ball or things are going their way, those are the good teams. The ones that understand that everything that they do on the field matters and it impacts the game whether you're getting the ball or not, those guys become the great team, right? And it's easier to do that when you're winning. If the thing is when you start losing, some guys are buying to it. They's like, well, what can I say? You'll hear a lot of players say, what can I say we're winning? They're not really bought into the culture of what's been happening. They're just happy being in these moments. Like, cause when it's soon as you lose, you're going to say, I told you so. God, give me the ball if we want to win. The idea is like to be that person every single day in and that's harder than going out there and just playing, like to be like out there and present because like at the end of the game, what matters is, did we win or did we lose? And they'll Patriots was one of the few teams where it didn't matter, all we were doing is the best thing for us to give us the best possibility of winning. Like nothing else mattered. It wasn't about you catching the ball, me getting the ball, who get the ball. You may have a game where you have 150 yards receiving. And then next game you get two passes cause they want you to block the entire game. You know what I'm saying? But you have to accept those roles because it's about winning and it's not really about you as an individual. Yeah. And Marty, I am even more impressed with you because you're an author of multiple children's books. I mean, I mean, what compelled you to wanting to start writing children's books? Well, I've always been a writer. I was a, you know, no one, I've always been a creative. Like no one taught me how to make things. I just do it. You know, I had to learn how to play football. I had to learn how to run a route, how to catch the ball. All those things are taught to me. But creativity, no one had to teach me anything. It just comes out of me. So with the books that came down to, you know, as my daughter is a little kid and you start reading all these books and you realize, man, I ran out of books about black kids, you know, saying in two weeks. So it's like, how can I read books where she can, you know, cause when you, she could see herself in these stories because when you visit a fictitious world, you come back changed. You realize that your world doesn't have to be the way that it is. And reading and jumping in other people's shoes is how we learn empathy. And there's no other place, better place to do that than a book because you have to actively put yourself in their shoes with your imagination. Like a TV series is passive, right? We can imagine, but a book forces us to dream out what is written on these pages. And a picture book is fantastic because it's actually a kid's first art gallery and it brings families together. Like you read a children's book to your kid. You don't just hand a, you know, children's book to a little three year old. I'm like, hey, go read. You know, you had, you create a moment and we bond over children's books as a parent and as a child. So I love the idea of like bringing families together and entertaining and making families laugh and creating a moment that's shared between father, daughter, mother, daughter, mother, son, father, son, entire family, grandmother, grandpa. So I like the idea of creating those beautiful moments. I absolutely love it, Marty. And Marty, I wanna ask you one more question before we wrap up. Greatness can be defined in many ways. How do you define greatness? It's a good question. I think for me, it's just thinking as a, I think great greatness is in craftsmanship. You know, I think a lot of people are great on one level but I think to truly be great, you gotta understand all the working parts of whatever it is that you're doing, like the deep dive. Like it's one thing to be able to draw but then having to understand in the paper and having an understanding of the ink and having an understanding of, you know, how that pigmentation changes when it's printed. Like, you know, understanding all of the game, right? Those who are great, they really have a great understanding for all the game. There's really good players who don't really understand the entire idea of what's happening and what they're a part of. But the great ones, they understand it through and through. So it's like, if we're really looking at it, for me, greatness is a depth of craftsmanship and intentionality and practice. I think greatness is practice, it's not met. It's something that you have to do every single day. Like, anyone could be great for a moment but to be great every single day and practice and practice and practice, you have to practice greatness. And that's why practice habits are important because you don't just wake up great and you don't just stay great. You have to practice to be great. It's a work in progress. So to me, greatness is a work in progress. Marty, you are greatness. And I wanna thank you for taking time to be on the show today. Oh, man, thank you too, man. Next time I come out there, I'm gonna have my own rackets. Yes, you will. Thank you, Marty. 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 Marty and I will inspire you to find your own greatness and that we can create your own culture of excellence.