ELLIOTT ARMY SERIES: Build a Mind so Strong It Can’t Be Ignored
There is a moment in every athlete’s life when the game ends. The cleats come off, the crowd goes quiet, and suddenly the skills, the discipline, and the identity that were built on a field or a court have nowhere to go. For Kobi Canderoma, that moment did not signal an ending. It became the starting line for something far greater.
Kobi is a sales professional within the Elliott Group ecosystem and the co-host of the Corporate Athlete podcast, a show built on one powerful premise: everything you learn as an athlete can be transferred directly into the game of business and life. But to understand why Kobi believes this so deeply, you have to go back to where his story begins.
Growing Up in Hawaii: Ohana, Grit, and Learning to Adapt
Kobi grew up in Hawaii, a place he describes as a melting pot of cultures, ethnicities, and perspectives. Filipinos, Hawaiians, Asians, Caucasians, and more, all living together on an island where resources are limited and adaptability is not optional. It is a place where the word Ohana is not just a saying. It is a way of life.
His grandparents raised him largely on their own while his mother worked hard to provide for the family. From an early age, Kobi carried responsibilities that most kids his age never had to think about. And through all of it, his grandpa poured one message into him over and over: treat everybody with the utmost respect, love on them, care for them, no matter what they have been through or what they have done.
That lesson became the foundation of everything Kobi would later build.
The Coach Who Became a Father Figure
Alongside his grandparents, there was one other person who shaped Kobi profoundly: his baseball coach. From the age of four all the way through graduating school, this coach was in Kobi’s corner. Blunt, direct, and deeply invested in the young men he trained, he did something that very few people in Kobi’s life had done. He poured life into him.
Baseball, Kobi explains, is a game of failure. You can fail seven out of ten times and still be considered one of the greats. That reality taught him something invaluable. Failure is not the opposite of success. It is the path to it. Every strikeout is a lesson. Every error is data. Every difficult season is building the person you are becoming.
When Kobi eventually stepped away from the game, he lost more than a sport. He lost that coach, that father figure, and the structure that had held him together. For a young man who had already spent years quietly wrestling with identity and a longing for belonging, that loss hit hard.
The Edge of Losing Everything
Fast forward to Kobi working at a car dealership in Iowa, three months into a new sales career and staring down the very real possibility of being fired. Quota was eight cars a month. He had not hit it. With his girlfriend Savannah newly pregnant and finances already stretched thin, the pressure was immense.
It was in that moment, halfway through his third month, that Kobi found Andy Elliott on YouTube.
He describes the experience the way many people in the Elliott Group community do. It was different. Andy reminded him of that baseball coach he had grown up with. Direct, blunt, deeply committed to helping people become who they were meant to be. For someone who had spent years searching for that kind of voice in his life, it was like coming home.
Kobi invested in the 0 to 100K course for $299, a significant financial stretch at the time. He applied what he learned, and in his fourth month, out of eighteen guys on the sales floor, he came in fifth or sixth. He kept his job. And from that point forward, he never looked back.
The Thousand Dollar Leap
Not long after, Kobi made the decision to attend his first Elliott Group seminar. The ticket cost $1,000, money the couple did not really have, especially with Soul on the way. Savannah was not thrilled. But she trusted him.
He came back from that seminar changed. And the very next day, he closed the biggest deal of his career up to that point, a deal worth somewhere between $12,000 and $13,000, putting roughly three to four thousand dollars in his pocket for the first time in his life.
Savannah believed in him. And Kobi delivered.
That moment set a pattern that has defined their relationship ever since. He moves with vision and fire. She holds the kite string. Together, they are each other’s superpower.
The Corporate Athlete Podcast: Taking What Sports Taught You Into the Game of Life
Today, Kobi co-hosts the Corporate Athlete podcast alongside his business partner Luke. The show is built for former athletes and aspiring ones alike, people who understand that the repetition, the resilience, the ability to fail and get back up, are not just athletic qualities. They are life qualities.
The podcast launched about a month before this conversation took place, and already Kobi and Luke are growing. They listen back to their early episodes. They note the nerves, the pauses, the stiffness. And then they show up the next week better than before. That, Kobi says, is the athlete mindset in action. You do not wait until everything is perfect. You press record. You get in the reps. You improve one episode at a time.
What Makes Kobi Different: The Care Factor
When Celina asked Kobi what sets him apart from everyone else inside the Elliott Group, he did not talk about word tracks or closing ratios. He talked about care.
Remove the products. Remove the services. Remove the commissions. Do you actually care about the person sitting across from you? For Kobi, the answer has always been yes. He knows his clients’ kids. He has cried on the phone with them. He has sat in conversations that had nothing to do with business and everything to do with being human.
He credits Hawaii for that. Growing up in a culture where everyone is family, where you call people auntie and uncle regardless of blood, where community is survival, Kobi learned that genuine connection is not a sales strategy. It is a way of being.
And yes, he admits with a laugh, sometimes that big heart costs him a deal. He will spend two hours with someone he knows is not going to invest a single dollar, simply because that person needed someone to talk to. That is who he is. And he would not change it.
Being Known for Having the Biggest Heart
When asked what he wants to be known for inside the Elliott Group, a company filled with remarkable people, Kobi did not hesitate. He wants to be known as the person with the biggest heart.
Not the flashiest closer. Not the loudest voice in the room. The person who, when you really get to know him, surprises you with how deeply he cares. He describes himself as a people watcher, someone who observes quietly, takes in the room, and sees people for who they truly are.
He wants to be the comeback kid, not just in title, but in example. A man who grew up without a father, who nearly lost his job, who scraped together a thousand dollars for a seminar ticket, who chose life for his daughter when it would have been easier not to, and who built something beautiful from every broken piece.
The Advice That Changes Everything
As the conversation winds down, Kobi leaves listeners with a message that is simple and urgent at the same time.
Stop conforming. Stop waiting. Stop sacrificing your dreams just to live an okay life.
You have that thing. That idea, that business, that podcast, that vision you have been putting off for years. The world is not waiting for you to feel ready. And the only thing standing between you and the life you actually want is one decision.
Send it.
Be authentically you. Let yourself be vulnerable. Stop performing for people and start living for the version of yourself you were always meant to become. Because as Kobi has learned firsthand, one decision really can change everything.
About me:
I am currently a Master Facilitator for The Elliott Group in addition to being on the board of advisors for our Cultural Transformation Department in ELLIOTT ARMY.
With over 14 years of client service experience, I have held substantial leadership roles in the automotive industry. I’m also an accredited coach, a writer, a speaker, and a triathlon finisher. To contact me for engagements, you can reach me at [email protected].
