 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, and it's about leadership, character, and creating a superior culture of excellence. My special guest today is a world champion aerobic gymnast and owner of Golden Future. She is Luby Gatzoff, and today we are going beyond championships. Hey, Luby, welcome back to the show. Hi, thank you very much for having me. I am so excited to be back. Well, you know, Luby, you have been doing such amazing things. I love talking with you about you winning the world championship in aerobic gymnastics, but I also know your parents, and I'm so happy that they're here now living in Hawaii and really helping you add to your business at Golden Future, and your husband, David, is such an outstanding person, such a man of great character. And I want to congratulate both of you on the addition of Baby Olympia, and I want to ask you, Luby, how has being a mom changed you? Oh, Rossi, I'm just so blessed with my family. I have to say I have the best parents and one of the kind husband that are so supportive in everything I do, and now that I'm a mommy, this is like another gold medal that adds up to my wall, but it has a special place on the wall. You can't even compare it to any other medal. To be a mommy is an incredible thing to me. I can be now not only a coach to people, but a coach to my own daughter, 24-7, and I feel very blessed. I couldn't imagine to have a better job than being a mommy. Well, I know, Luby, Olympia is going to have some incredible genes in her, and I want to ask you, Luby, how did you first get interested in pursuing aerobic gymnastics? I was always very curious about sport. I was little when I started to splits at home and handstands, and the environment played a big role. When I started first rhythmic gymnastics, next to my elementary school, there was a big window, and every time when I walked back from school to home, I would stop by on the window and watch what the kids were doing, and back in the day, that was rhythmic gymnastics. That had an influence on my curiosity, and that's why I started rhythmic gymnastics, and I signed up for this discipline. This later on brought me to aerobic gymnastics. We got it introduced to us, so to all athletes that were in rhythmic gymnastics, we got videos to look into it, and I fell in love of that amazing modern combination of aerobic gymnastics to move fast, to have the elegance in there, the strength, the flexibility, the modern music, and to, of course, perform perfectly and on a very high level. That was what captivated my heart, and why I chose to do aerobic gymnastics over 100%. Well, Luby, because of you, I'm a huge fan of aerobic gymnastics now, and I want to ask you, Luby, you won the world championship in 2014, and when you reflect back now on winning that championship, what were the reasons why you became a world champion? Many reasons. It's a full net that compliments, every factor compliments the other factor. Of course, the athlete needs to be hardworking, needs to have the endurance, but you need to have a very special and good coach. In my case, my coach was very selfless, very knowledgeable, and it happened to be my mom. On the other hand, I needed the medical support with personalized therapies to know the person inside and out, and I got that from, happened to be my dad. And then I had very patient friends, I had judges that gave their expertise as well, and myself, and I would, I would define myself as crazy and stubborn, and I don't want much, I want it all. So I think that whole net is what make me not only a champion, but a world champion. No, that makes sense, Luby, and you have such tremendous strength and flexibility and balance. I mean, it's incredible to see what you have done and what you still continue to do, and what would a typical day of training be like for you when you were training for the world championships? I was then still studying for my master's degree in health and fitness, so it was a very busy schedule as I had to wake up early in the morning around five, six a.m. in the morning, have a little quick healthy breakfast drive with my car to Salzburg, which was around an hour and 15 away from my hometown. Then I had all my classes and courses at university. Very often my mom would come to my university, we would train there for at least four or five hours. Then I would come back, do my mental training, dinner, study for my exams, and that over and over again. Now when I came closer to the world championship, I made a little break for about a month and a half, and I didn't have any classes at university, and I was focused every single day. It was a 24-hour job to prepare for the world championship. In the morning, three or four hours of training, lunch, then in the afternoon, summer training, and everything had a little emphasis on something else. First was flexibility, then cardio and strength. I was always busy with working on my different skills, and my day finished with some mental training and some mindset training, and then over and over again. It's like a little robot, but a humanly robot. Then once you hit that line and you're on stage, you're on, you just explode. After that, you have a nice little break or a little vacation and you can look forward to something else than just four. You mentioned that your mom was your coach, and that is so fascinating because it's so rare for a parent to really be a coach of such an elite athlete. I want to know, Loubie, what are some specific big things that your mom did as coach that really helped you excel? Of course, her knowledge was tremendously important to me. She knew me inside and out. That helped her to pull and push at the right moment. I do believe that. It was hoped with a lot of love, a lot of passion to see your own child succeed, to what she wants, because it was always the big dream of mine. Mom, I want to be a world champion one day, and I created the dream when I was very little. I remember I sent a questionnaire to the Federation, and I still was writing with my child signature. What do you want to be one day? What is your big goal? I want to be a world champion. I want to be between the best three women in this world. People are just kind of smiling because there's so much more to go till I get there, but they were also impressed that I had that big vision. I think if you have the right attitude and you focus and you have that supportive system, your parents, your medical assistants, your friends that are very supportive as well, and yourself, this brings you up and high and up. It brings you really to your goal. Having my mom as a best friend and a high-knowledgeable coach next to me is what gave me that extra push. I do believe so. Ruby, obviously having the right mindset is so necessary for success in anything we do, but I want to ask you specifically, what is the mindset like of a world champion? It's a very weird one. It is a golden one. It's one that you never give up. It's one that you go out of the conference zone, but you work and you work harder. You can always work a little harder than that harder. There is no limit at that point. When you really understand that you also mentioned this in your books, what if you remove the lines? There are no lines, especially at the court. This is just a vision to help people understand that you have to keep pushing way more than that. You have to go harder and harder and one step more and the next step more and you can. You always have to keep that in mind and focus. That mindset is really important. No matter what kind of a day you have, sometimes you'll have hard days. The weather will be not nice enough or you will just have a hard day at university or it's just you're tired from work. You have to shift your emotions towards a positive attitude. If you do that, you can control your mind. The mind is very powerful and that matter. Yes, because we're all capable of doing so much more than we think we're capable of and that's what you and I do as coaches now is to inspire the people that we train. Before competition, let's say around 10 minutes before you're going to perform. What are you thinking and what are you feeling? What kind of routine do you have? Usually the last 10 minutes are for mental training. Me personally, I was resting, I was stretching and just closing my eyes, going through my routine, imagining myself doing my routine perfectly. Every movement, going through the key points is very important and just wait to get on stage and explode and show everybody what I can do. Now, if I'm on stage and I'm just about to wait to hear my name, I'm basically kind of empty, feeling my heart beat super loud. I can just hear boom, boom, waiting. It's like a slow motion. I'm like on a fence on the electricity fence and just waiting there to go out and you know and give that spark to everybody. So it's really, I don't know, I have goosebumps every time I talk about the World Championship, but yeah, it's a very specific and one-of-a-kind feeling, a feeling you grow so much with. Very grateful I was able to have that and carry it with me my whole life now. Yeah, I know what you mean. It's like you can't wait to get out there and just show everybody how good you are. Yes, that's so true. Now, Lubie, when I had you on my show previously, you were just starting your Golden Future business and now your Golden Future business has really expanded and you're very successful with it. Can you tell me more about what you specifically offer at Golden Future? Absolutely. Golden Future is like a boutique, a gym, I would say, or a boutique health fitness facility. It's very tailored on my client's needs and I think the most interesting part is that it has a family setting, a very private setting. You know, you go to the gyms, which I adore as well. Everybody has its pros and cons, but there's so many people, a lot of machines, you know, but if you want the privacy to go out to really have that one-on-one with a world champion to talk, ask questions, you know, touch that feeling, then this is what Golden Future is providing. Not only for kids, we do have kids classes, which are private group classes up to three kids, sometimes two. It really depends also now on COVID-19, but we have the kids classes. We have private classes, one-on-ones with kids, in gymnastics, in just health-related fitness to give them their health and fitness back. And I do work with adults. I do work with seniors. I do work with programs for schools. I do work online. I'm reachable everywhere. So what we do is create a Golden Future, Hannah, share our golden keys to everybody, you know, touch as many hearts and minds as we can, and help the Hawaiian community. And Lubie, I've sent you some of my junior tennis players who play competitive tournaments. And when I would ask them, hey, how was your workout with Lubie? They all told me that, oh, it was so tough. And I asked them, I said, did you have fun? And they all said, yeah, that was a lot of fun, too. So how do you, what do you do to make things really tough, but fun? Because not everyone can do that. Well, very often I include myself in the movement. And I'm saying, we're going to have a competition here now. Try to be better than the world champion. Show me what you can do. And I think this is also something that motivates them to see me struggle. Not really struggle, but to see me also breathing and do the pushups with them. And then I'm just showing them that I'm also a human, but we have to keep pushing hard. We have to go over our limit. So I think that extra support of me being right next to them, and that's why I'm saying Golden Future gives that private feeling when they come in, is what makes it special. My kids and also adults, they enjoy my mindset, our talk, our interaction. And with kids, especially, I'm moving a lot. I just enjoy being with kids and now being a mommy. My heart is beating for our younger generation. So, so much, Rusty. And, and Lube, you know, what's great about you, I mean, you have so many certifications. I mean, it's unbelievable how many certifications you have, but you're able to really customize the training to basically every sport, right? This is true. I have from tennis up to golf, I have, you know, basketball as well, normal rehab and prevention. I do have also seniors with their specific diseases that come in. I also just had a central union preschool and program for their fitness day that I created. I am very happy and ready to help anybody who is ready also to get my keys from Golden Future and my secrets. So it's anything you need and you want that extra mindset is right at Golden Future. And Lube, you mentioned that, you know, you train adults and seniors. When you're training adults, what are, what are some things generally that, that they're looking to improve on? Depending from adults to seniors, if they're more seniors, it's a lot in their balance that we focus on and fall prevention. If they're younger, a lot have different goals. Some want to lose weight, get into a specific shape. Others want to work towards their high cholesterol or high blood pressure. And then depending on their needs, I'm creating my program and I'm adjusting the level and hardness of my movements. And it's been working really wonderfully. I've been working also with doctors together. So they're giving extra advice if anything needs to be considered. And we've been doing really great. I'm very grateful. So Lube, as a business, okay, you're obviously how, you know, your business is growing, you're having success. Why are you having success in your business? Because we do what we do. We go over every comfort zone and we have a world champion step on everything we do. And I think to be a world champion is not something everybody can achieve that easily. So to provide that from golden future to anybody who trusts in my work means so much to me. And we do everything with love and so much passion. And people can see that. I think people can feel that this is real. What they get and what we serve comes from our hearts and it has a high level of knowledge and experience. And I think this combo is what makes Golden Future very special. Yeah, I can, I definitely know that you guys have a lot of love and passion and really the superior attention to details. I really love that. And Lube, COVID has affected everybody, every business. What did you do to adapt and adjust your business during COVID? I have to say COVID had a big change on our in general life and the pandemic. I was pretty lucky because when we went into the first lockdown last year, so 2020 around March here in Hawaii, I was just about to change my commercial space to a new space. So that happened before we knew COVID hit. My lease expired and I knew I'm going to change not extent but to change to a bigger space because I am booked out. I'm today booked out, which is great. And I needed more space to give people the opportunity to have lessons at the same time or have a little bigger groups, give them more possibilities to move. And so when COVID hit and we had the lockdown, we did renovations in my new space, which is double the size. And it was a perfect timing because everything was down and we were working hard, like little bees on my new space. And the moment requirements eased up, I went back on one-on-one. And at the same time, my online classes ramped up a lot. A lot of online classes, not only here in Hawaii but all over the world, they were in need of getting the expertise and just to get close. And I saw many living rooms. Many living rooms. It was just so good to connect with people and see their struggle to not be able to go out and share their thoughts and their hearts. So golden future grew in the lockdown, grew in the challenge. Until that day, now I hope and I see my space that was now double in size probably will have to expand in the near future again. Well, that's great to hear, Luby. And that's really what great leaders do is they just find a way to adapt and adjust to really still achieve the goals that they want to achieve. And, Luby, you have both of my books now and I know that you've read both of them. And what are some things that really stood out to you in the books? First of all, congratulations on your books. I was really happy to read them and I feel honored that I was able with my baby to accommodate everything and, you know, put that priority to read the book. I think it's really something people should have in their pocket. It's very easy to read and gives great key points, just how to deal with life. In the second book, even more so, you can see the real Rusty. How did he get there where he is now? He gives so many examples of what situations you went through, so you're not only guiding how to strive for excellence and success, but what was your journey? And I think people get really close to the author that way. And they feel like, hey, we're already friends with you. Reading through that, I know Rusty now. It is really, yeah, you can feel that by heart. And one specific thing I really liked that you mentioned in the book is about your emotion and your attitude. And I think this is number one. Even to this day, every day, I keep that in my routine. You know, no matter what your emotion is, you can control your emotions. And it's so important to have the right attitude. If you do that, you can put that in the right direction. And then you don't have to worry about anything that happened five minutes ago, but you can look into the positive things and grow and put that aside. So the attitude is so important. And I really love especially that little part in your book very much. It's an everyday lifesaver for people. And so please keep that in mind, everybody listening. No, you're right. I mean, that attitude and emotions, I mean, really controlling everything that we have control of and really not worrying about things that are beyond our control. And you're right, Luby, the first book, I wanted to really provide a good framework. And then the second book really wanted to go further beyond the lines and share more about some of my journey as well. And I also know that you liked my one percent principle, right? I did. I did. And actually, I was telling you two years ago when we did the interview, I mentioned about it plus I do use a golden future. So I always say, you know, every day you have that extra little plus you put on your paper, something extra you do. And you are mentioning this with a one percent rule. So every day one percent more needs to be done so you can be successful and grow. And is it a plus? Is it a one percent? Or you want to call it differently? This is what is important. So you can go one step ahead, be a little better than than the rest. This is so important. So when I read it, I had a smile. I said, I know this rule. I'm using it. And it's really good. I'm happy you're sharing this with people. It's tremendously important. Yeah, because everyone can improve themselves one percent. And when you do that, it gets you closer to achieving the goals that you set set for yourself. And Luby, besides COVID, what's a big adversity or challenge that you dealt with in your life? I would say to multitask big movements in my life. Before I moved to Hawaii, if everything happened kind of at the same time, I finished my university degree, my master's degree in health and fitness. Almost simultaneously, I had the world championship and almost simultaneously, I was prepping to move to Hawaii. So those were three major waves coming at me. And it was a big challenge to get ready, be a hundred percent of all three, you know, do your best and get those different medals, you know, in university. Okay, I got that. So behind me now, world championship focus. I got behind me, you know, and then Hawaii. It was always my dream to be here in Hawaii and to help the Hawaiian community. So that I made that big step to be here. It was another big world championship goal for me. I want to go for the golden life now. I want to share everything I know to people. And but at the same time, to have that in one big wave, that was definitely the biggest challenge in life. And to multitask all those things. It was, yeah, it's not not doable. It is doable. And there is no I can't. It's just I don't want. So I learned that it's, it is doable. Just whatever your goal is set it higher, always higher, you can. No, you're right. I mean, and you did it, those three challenges all simultaneously happening to you. And, and you did it. And that that is that is tough, you know, moving to Hawaii. And Luby, when you reflect back on your young life so far, what's an important lesson you learned? Never lose focus. Work hard. And you should really know if you invest all your energy into something specific, do it with your heart. If it's halfway, it's not going to bring you where you want to be. So check and see if this is really what you're burning for. And then work hard and keep your focus. Don't let yourself go out of that path. And then this is definitely something I learned through my whole life now, be in sports, be in my work, also in my private life, you know, just keep working hard. See what is important, be with your heart there. This is, this is what, what is important to me. Luby, I want to ask you one more question before we wrap up. You, you have achieved greatness. How do you define greatness? You should be caring. This is very important. You should have a good heart and work tremendously much in your specific skill. But most of all, I would say it's important to be humble. So you can be great at anything in life if you're humble. If you, if you remember what really matters, if you have your family next to you, then you can be great. And then you can set your goals up high, even higher, and then just go for it. So I think greatness is a humble and humble. To be humble is the magic key factor in being great. I like that. And, you know, win with humility and lose with grace. And Luby, you are someone that has such great, terrific, positive energy. And I want to thank you for taking time to be on the show again today. Thank you so much, Rusty. It was my pleasure to talk to you and tell the audience more about Golden Future and my private life and hopefully inspire people. And this is not a one I wish everybody a happy holiday. Stay safe. And we'll see each other maybe in the future again on a third episode. Thank you, Luby. 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 Luby and I will inspire you to create your own superior culture of excellence and to find your greatness and help others find theirs. Aloha.