Too Short for the NBA, Just Right for Everything Else: Tomas Martinez’s Story
Welcome to another edition of Feral and Fabulous! This week Kim sits down with Tomas Martinez, the San Antonio publisher, speaker, podcaster and former schoolteacher who once gave his first speech to an entire middle school while wearing a Michael Jordan jersey. Tomas tells the story of the kid everybody called Tee, the coach who said he was too short, the quinceañera where he met his wife Christina, and the day he picked his career out of a book. Along the way he and Kim talk about building something from nothing, why luxury is about how you treat people, and how to take your first baby steps with AI.
The Dream Crusher
Long before anyone called him Tomas, he was Tee. A friend of his dad’s called him Mr. Tee when he was two, and it stuck; his family still calls him that today. In middle school Tee was a hardcore Michael Jordan fan, out in the yard dribbling every day, and absolutely certain he was headed for the NBA. He was also, by his own count, “all of about 4’11”.”
Then a teacher showed him a magazine article: “More people get struck by lightning than get drafted into the NBA.” Kim calls her a dream crusher; Tomas allows she might have been a realist. Either way, she didn’t stop him. What nearly did was seventh-grade tryouts, where the coach picked his teams by who could jump and touch the net. Tee didn’t come close, landed on the C team, and was told to go do something else.
He went home and told his mom he was quitting. She sat him down and told him, “You’re gonna go and prove that coach wrong,” and that he needed to tell the coach so himself. He did. By the second game he’d moved up to B team, then A, and he went on to play point guard all through high school and a year at Wayland Baptist University.
A Jeep, a Quinceañera and the First Time He Said “Tomas”
After his freshman year, Tomas was on his way to a concert when the Jeep Wrangler he was riding in rolled four times. One friend was thrown from the vehicle, and miraculously, no one was hurt. He moved home to San Antonio to live with his dad, who offered to cover the rest of his college.
Not long after, his cousin talked him into going to a double quinceañera. He knew no one and spent most of the night by the DJ booth, watching a young woman he was sure had a boyfriend. At the end of the night he worked up the nerve to ask the guy she’d been dancing with. “Oh, that’s my cousin,” he said. That’s how Tomas met Christina, who had moved back to San Antonio from Chicago just two weeks earlier.
And here’s the twist: it was the first time he had ever introduced himself as Tomas. Everyone else knew him as Tee. Why the change? “It’s the weirdest thing,” he tells Kim. “Maybe I wanted it to sound more fancy.”
The Two-for-One Special
At San Antonio College, Tomas realized he didn’t really want the biology degree he’d picked at random. His dad handed him a book from the Alamo Colleges that matched jobs to degrees. Tomas flipped through it, landed on school principal, and announced, “This is what I wanna be.” About two years in, someone mentioned a small detail: you have to be a teacher first.
So he became one, and he planned his graduation from UTSA around a goal he called the two-for-one special: “I wanted to graduate on a Saturday and get married on a Sunday.” In 1999 that’s exactly what happened. He graduated on Saturday, married Christina on Sunday, and they left for a cruise on Monday. This December they’ll celebrate 27 years.
Two weeks before the wedding he still didn’t have a job, until Camelot Elementary hired him. He taught there for six years (shout out to the Camelot Knights) and spent 11 years in classrooms in all, including Indian Creek Elementary and KIPP Aspire Academy. He even earned his master’s at Texas A&M to become that principal. He never did, but he says the classroom was where he learned to read a room and keep it engaged.
Ignorance Is Bliss
Tomas didn’t grow up around entrepreneurs; Christina did. Right after they married, she bought a travel agency, and six to eight months later 9/11 changed the travel business overnight. They sold their share and kept going.
In 2010, while Christina was selling new homes for builder John McNair, they started thinking about businesses they could start. A search turned up a magazine franchise that, unlike every other franchise they’d chased, was still open in San Antonio. When people asked whether the city was ready for it, Tomas had a ready answer: “Ignorance is bliss.” The first issue was 32 pages. Fifteen years later, the San Antonio edition averages more than 140 pages, and there’s an Austin edition too. His view on why print still works when everyone said it was dead: deliver what you promise, and make something people keep on the coffee table.
Luxury Is a Level of Service
Kim asks what really makes someone successful at the high end, since it’s clearly not a headshot next to a Maserati. Tomas agrees: “A luxury agent is not necessarily defined by price point.” To him, luxury is a level of service, and if you deliver it at any price, your clients talk, the circle grows and the work follows.
He’s not a fan of fake it till you make it, either. People who have been around the block can tell. You don’t need the watch or the shoes, he says. Serve at your level, invest in your own growth, and move up from there. On personal branding, his rule is simple: “A personal brand without service is just trying to be famous.”
From a Michael Jordan Jersey to a Couch in Grant Cardone’s Studio
Tomas’s first speech ever came in middle school, when his classmates picked him to give his biography report on Michael Jordan in front of the whole school. He wore his Jordan jersey (an Amazon affiliate link that helps us pay our hosting bills). His second was a rap, delivered to the entire middle school, to get elected sergeant at arms for student council. Then came 11 years of teaching, which he calls being “on stage every day.”
Today he’s a certified speaker and coach who teaches classes, and he lives by a philosophy he calls KLT: know, like, trust. People have to know you, and that starts with knowing yourself. They’ll like you when you take a real interest in them, so “be more interested than interesting.” And trust comes with time, which is why he loves podcasting. His show, TM3 Impact, recently landed an interview with Grant Cardone, who said yes in a room of about 40 people and then gave Tomas almost two hours in his own studio. What struck Tomas most was how calm he felt: “I knew who I was.”
Baby Steps with AI
Kim saves her last question for AI. Tomas points out that the telephone took 75 years to reach 100 million users, TikTok took nine months and ChatGPT (we prefer its smarter cousin, Claude) took two. AI isn’t going anywhere, so treat it like a new hire: you have to train it. That means telling it what you don’t want, like the word “nestled” or “perched,” or four paragraphs to answer one question. His advice is to start small. Let it sort your email and draft replies the way you’d write them, then review and hit send. That alone, he says, is a game changer.
Feral or Fabulous?
Before the interview, Tomas grabs the paddle. Outdoor amphitheaters: fabulous, depending on the weather (cue the story of the Goo Goo Dolls (that’s an Amazon affiliate link) playing “Iris” in a downpour). Pickle juice: fabulous, and “the money shot” when he was training for his IRONMAN. Overcast skies: fabulous, because you want a little cloud cover on a San Antonio golf course. Ceiling fans: fabulous, he can’t sleep without one, while Kim won’t allow one running in the room. And root beer? He loves it, but he’s watching his sugar these days, so: feral.
A Personal Note
Kim and Tomas covered so much ground that they’re already planning a part two. Until then, we hope Tee’s story reminds you that a short kid with a big dream, a mom who believed in him and a willingness to say yes can take you a lot further than anyone in the gym would have guessed.
You can find Tomas’s podcast, TM3 Impact, on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and YouTube, and follow him on Instagram at @thetomasmartinez and @tm3impact.
As always, please like and subscribe (and throw us a comment once in awhile – we love to hear what you think!)
Watch the full episode: The One with Tomas on YouTube
