The Heart of Business
"The Heart of Business" podcast, hosted by Mo Fathelbab, is an authentic and insightful exploration of the human side of leadership and professional growth. Through candid conversations with accomplished business leaders, thought leaders, and peer group facilitators, Mo will delve deep into the personal journeys, challenges, and triumphs that have shaped their careers. Mo Fathelbab's skillful and empathetic approach creates a safe space for guests to share their truths and vulnerabilities, revealing the emotional and often unseen dimensions of success in the corporate world. Each episode offers listeners a chance to glean practical wisdom, heartfelt advice, and a profound understanding of the intricate interplay between leadership, authenticity, and personal growth.
The "Heart of Business" is the official podcast of International Facilitators Organization, LLC and hosted by IFO's founder and CEO, Mo Fathelbab. To learn more, please visit www.internationalfacilitatorsorganization.com.
The Heart of Business
Chuck Hall’s Journey of Resilience, Relationships, and Reinvention
In this episode, entrepreneur and founder Chuck Hall takes us on a powerful journey—starting with his earliest days mowing lawns and delivering newspapers, to building a national construction company that now operates across 14 states and specializes in senior living facilities.
After rising through the ranks at top construction firms, Chuck's trajectory took a dramatic turn when he was fired in 1998. But instead of spiraling, he saw an opening—leveraging grit, creativity, and a well-timed opportunity with Enron to launch Charles Hall Construction. With a foundation rooted in four guiding values—live to learn, be a friend, walk the talk, and finish strong—Chuck grew his company through economic downturns, a global pandemic, and beyond.
He shares how he eventually transitioned from working in the business to working on the business, now spending 70% of his time coaching and developing his team. A long-time believer in peer groups and entrepreneurial forums, Chuck reflects on 28 years of learning and growth through candid conversations with other business leaders.
You’ll hear about the full-circle moment when his parents got to witness his success, and the one piece of wisdom he hopes every leader remembers: “Be curious.” Because curiosity unlocks information, removes assumptions, and ultimately leads to better outcomes.
This is a story about resilience, reinvention, and the power of relationships to shape our path forward.
Please visit www.internationalfacilitatorsorganization.com to learn more about Mo Fathelbab and International Facilitators Organization (IFO), a leading provider of facilitators and related group facilitation services, providing training, certification, marketing services, education, and community for peer group facilitators at all stages of their career.
Welcome to the Heart of Business podcast. I'm your host, Mo Fatalbab, President of International Facilitators Organization, IFO. Today, our guest is Chuck Hall, Chairman of Vitality Global Holdings. And Chuck, I believe we met 25, 30 years ago. Does that sound right?
Speaker 2:It sounds about right, Mo, at least 25 years ago I've been in business closer to 30, so I'm sure it's closer to 30.
Speaker 1:Well, that is amazing. Well, welcome to the show. Great to be with you.
Speaker 2:Thank you. Thank you, I'm so glad to be here.
Speaker 1:Thank you. So, chuck gosh, I think we met when you joined the Entrepreneurs Organization, is that right?
Speaker 2:That's right. Yeah, good memory. It would have been in Chicago or DC, probably Chicago, though.
Speaker 1:I think in Chicago, yeah, and your business then was construction.
Speaker 2:Construction, real estate and construction. We built and developed uh senior living yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, let's go back and just kind of get back to your original entrepreneurial roots. What was your first startup?
Speaker 2:wow. So my first, first startup, I think the kind of the classic entrepreneur story. I cut lawns and had a paper route. My fun story there is, you know, the early days. I would go door to door and sell the services and I would recruit my brother and the neighborhood friends to do the actual lawn mowing service. You know my parents raised us, um, you know my parents raised us. Uh, they believed in the basics, right, they owed us nice house, school, the basics. And if we wanted new cleats, a new bike, if we wanted you know those things that we enjoyed, it was up to us to, you know, raise our own money and and buy it ourselves. So that was instilled in me from a very early age. If I think about my recent career, the last 30 years, I was sort of forced into being an entrepreneur again. I had a very successful early career coming out of college but unfortunately my ego got way ahead of my abilities and I was fired. I was fired in July of 98. And what?
Speaker 1:was your career at that point.
Speaker 2:I had worked for a number of very large, some of the world's largest, general contractors and construction managers. I had their really unique opportunity to manage work in the Far East and the Middle East, kuwait, abu Dhabi, singapore, Taiwan. Really, really fortunate, I got to be on the team that built St Jude's Hospital. That was an amazing experience to be around the kids and the families and the doctors and the doctors and Molly and I were married in 89. So she, you know, very gratefully, I'm grateful to her, of course.
Speaker 1:We had a lot of moves in those first 10 years based on the projects we were put on, and you were about to say you got fired. Yeah, and your ego had something to do with it.
Speaker 2:Tell us more about that I like to put it now, that my ego was so out of control it wouldn't fit through a double door, and a very humbling experience. Bob Clark, you know, the founder, owner of Clayco, a brilliant, amazing human being. Every time I see him at a ypo event now I thank him for that, you know, for the good old smack in the head as they say uh, you know, it brought me back to down to earth, really forced me to look at my true talents, my true abilities and decide what I was going to do with that.
Speaker 1:charles hall construction was founded because of it well, it's amazing because there's a lot I want to dig into here. First of all, bob Clark spoke to an EO event I remember in St Louis, and he said something that I've never forgotten. He said in business, I found, you're either spiraling upwards or spiraling downwards. There's no status quo.
Speaker 2:Yes, that is so true. I mean, Vern has a version of that too. Right, it's very similar.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah and so okay. So you lost your job and that was a blessing, because it caused you to decide to start your own business. Right, right, and you've never looked back. Do you think you could ever work for someone again? I?
Speaker 2:don't think so, and not even I'll be way more firm. There's no way I could work for someone else. I am so blessed with what I have today and the partners that I have in the different businesses it's I couldn't imagine doing it any other way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so how did you start Charles Hall Construction?
Speaker 2:It really got launched. It was in the early months of trying to figure out what I was going to do. I was interviewing around to test the market and at the playground with Chase our son at that time was four or five years old and a close friend had just landed a senior leader position with Enron in the Chicago office and I was telling him what I was looking for. He was telling me some of the needs they had and I was like I could offer those services to you and my favorite story there, mo, is they.
Speaker 2:You know, after a series of conversations, I got this phone call from Eric. He said hey, the leaders from Enron are going to come in from Kansas city and from Texas and they want to interview you. Well, we had a shared office space at that time, so I made some phone calls to some friends. I had my parents come in and I filled every empty desk in the place and as I quickly guided them through the space, I said this is so-and-so and this is so-and-so and this is so-and-so and this is what they do and this is what we do, and let's go to lunch. The whole tour lasted maybe eight minutes, but we got the deal and that really helped launch Shorstall Construction.
Speaker 1:Well, that is a great story indeed.
Speaker 2:You know, we often hear the phrase ready fire aim yes, Right yeah, building the plane as we fly it, as they say.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then tell us about Charles Hall Construction. I know you guys did some big projects. I know it's a pretty significant company. Give our audience a sense of what you all have done. Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 2:So we are from the get-go. We are a national builder, designer and now owner of commercial real estate primarily focused on senior living and multifamily apartment buildings. I think we take care of and house something close to five or six thousand residents across 14 states. Our largest project we ever built was close to 100 million dollars, 500 plus units. The smallest we've ever built was a memory care community right here in Vernon Hills of Chicago, the Chicagoland area, which had 48. So just about everything in between.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then from that business I know I've had the pleasure of working with you and your team on a few occasions what have you seen as the key ingredients to success? So somebody who's listening, who's maybe thinking about starting a business who has yet to even get going. They hear this and they're like, wow, that is so far away from where I am. What are some of the breadcrumbs to get them there?
Speaker 2:first thing that come to mind are my core values, my personal core values. Right, it's the things that I center on during the good and the bad live to learn. Be a friend, walk the talk and finish strong. Those are my four core values. And if I think about and I do, as you know, quite a bit of coaching and mentoring of young entrepreneurs, I really enjoy doing what others did for me in that time and you know the, the two that really come to mind when I'm coaching and mentoring is be a friend and walk the talk. Do what you say. You know that that old, that old notion and say what you do, because really, no matter how good you are at what you do, it is more about who you know and how you're able to build trust with who you know, make those commitments with who you know and deliver. Right, the five dysfunctions of Patrick Liancioni. It's really that simple. Much harder in practice, yeah.
Speaker 1:And one thing I remember when I talked to you last, you said you spend 70% of your time coaching your team members. Is that right, yeah?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's. That's very accurate. It's probably a little bit more now. Across the eight different, seven different business units that we have. I spend the majority of my time thinking about working on strategy and leadership development. And leadership development is truly walking alongside those leaders on their journey as they experience their experiences and, you know, help quicken, help them fail more quickly. I like to say Help them fail more quickly.
Speaker 1:I like to say how did you come to that transition from what might be more of a traditional management role to really leaning into the coaching of your wonderful people?
Speaker 2:So it was about 2016. And I was starting to realize, while I love being in the business, I really enjoy and get just so much heartfelt gratitude out of participating when I work on the business. So when I am focused on a leader, their role and what the business needs, and I'm able to help them identify that gap. Where are they today? What does the role need them to be today and tomorrow, and I can work with them along that journey. That's just really rewarding to me. So in 16, I started this transformation.
Speaker 2:You know we read the book Strength to Strength and Form, spent a lot of time talking about that work and what does it mean and what does the second curve look like? And, as you know from our gathering of Titan Days myself and three others once a week we have an accountability call and that accountability call is based on our life by design, and so for the last 18 years, I've had a document I've worked towards and rewrote almost every year what is the next five years, 10 years, 15 years look like? Well, it was in that 2016, 2018 period. I was taking a really hard look at what does my career look like as I move into my later 50s and into my early 60s, and it was kind of an epiphany moment for me to make that shift.
Speaker 1:And that is what the book Strength to Strength talks about. Really, it's shifting from your knowledge that is used in practice to your sage knowledge. Is that how he calls it Something?
Speaker 2:like that. That's exactly right. Yeah, that's sage wisdom, right, the wisdom that you can only get through the school of hard knocks.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and along the way, of course, you have joined a forum, maybe more an EO forum, perhaps also a YPO forum, yeah, so how long have you been in forum?
Speaker 2:I have been in forum 20, almost 28 years, some form of a forum. So I was in in my. In the first year we created our own forum. I, just when I reached out to a group of friends in Chicago, I didn't know about EO, I didn't know about YPO, and in that first year it was. It was very helpful, but I needed more. And then I found the EO Forum and I was in that forum for close to 12 years and some people who played a significant part in my life Chris Krause comes to mind, greg Windsor and Jeff Greaves come to mind. These are gentlemen who took the time. We got to know each other and, most importantly, in forum we, you know, we helped each other with our blind spots. Right, it's what are we missing? What are we not seeing? And how, as a formate, can I help you? Either move towards something you're stronger at or work on what it is that is troubling you at that time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what would you say?
Speaker 2:Chuck is the form effect on your life as a whole or your life as a professional. I'm a better husband, I'm a better father, I'm a better friend because of form I mean, I know that sounds simple, simple, but it's, you know, as I'm a better father and because my kids have participated in YNG, because I am more you know, I'm more giving, I'm more aware in you know, form helped me create a better balance in my life, just you know, as one example, so that I was there for the kids more often than I probably would have been.
Speaker 1:And that's a lot. For somebody who works as much as you do. That says a lot, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, chuck, let's go back to something you said earlier, actually, about your upbringing, and I'm wondering if your kids had the same luxury of having to work hard to get what they need beyond the basics. Because one thing I'm seeing in you know, 30, 40, 50 years ago it was just different. You know, we didn't have as much abundance as we do today, and I don't know how you grow up with such abundance and say to your kids, hey, sorry, you got to make your own way. So how was that different than the way you grew up? Yeah, and how do you think it'll impact them?
Speaker 2:Well, I think the biggest difference was I was aware so growing up my dad worked three jobs. He had a full-time job as a manager and two other jobs that were entrepreneurial. My mom was aware. So, growing up, my dad worked three jobs. He had a full-time job as a manager and two other jobs that were entrepreneurial. My mom was entrepreneurial. So the only way I saw my parents was if I went to work, either on the docks with my dad you know if I was pumping gas or doing whatever or in the boat working on the water, you know, fixing or doing things around marinas, or my mom selling real estate, right? So they didn't come to my soccer games, they didn't participate in coaching it. Just you know, that just wasn't the way.
Speaker 2:The other thing and I am who I am because of this but there wasn't a focus on scholastics. School and homework fell below earning money playing sports. And then there was a focus on school. I didn't really realize until what I was missing, until later in high school. Fortunately, I got my act together. So I'm very fortunate to have married a really smart woman.
Speaker 2:Molly is brilliant and together work ethic. She has a fantastic work ethic. Her upbringing, where school was important. Education was number one and the work ethic that I brought to our marriage. I'd like to believe our kids had a great exposure to both. I opened the first office just down the street from their elementary school so the kids could get out of school, they could come in, they could work around the office emptying trash, doing cleanup, doing odd jobs, and they would get an allowance from our controller, kathy, and then they would go off and spend it on candy or, you know, in Chase's case, he ate. He ate more his body weight a day, it seemed like. So you know he would take it and buy a sandwich in town. And you know, mo, I have the benefit. Now Chase is 35. Sarah is 29. Very successful careers, very grounded in who they are and what they want out of their career, and they're on their way to developing their own families. So Molly and I feel like we've you know we've succeeded there and helping them along the way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that's, that's wonderful. So I'm struck by the entrepreneurship in your family. So you came from an entrepreneurial family. How much did that impact your choices as it as it went? So first you got a job and then you're like, ah, maybe not.
Speaker 2:So I love this question. When I look back over my life, over my career, there were some definite milestones that my upbringing in an entrepreneurial family made a significant difference. I started school at Roger Williams College, transferred to the University of Cincinnati in my sophomore year. That was the year 86 that Reagan enacted the luxury tax. My dad's business fell apart and unfortunately he had to claim bankruptcy. And I got the phone call from mom hey, you got to come home. And well, at that point in my life I had the confidence that I could support myself. I was already pretty much paying my own way, but I had the confidence that I could say I'm going to stay here and I'm going to figure out how to make it work, because Cincinnati was having a big impact on me. At the time I had met Molly. That's where we met. So that was one significant point making the decision to not run home but to stay put.
Speaker 2:I started my own business carpentry, doing that sort of thing. You know the flash forward to that moment when I was fired, I had the confidence my toughest sell was Molly. Right, we had a five-year-old and a one-year-old at home. We had a new house. I had to sell her on the idea that I can do this. She knew I could do it, but it was. You know. The issue was was was home care or healthcare? And then the next big significant moment was when Chris, you've met Chris, my partner, chris Gay he approached me to join him in the ownership of Vitality. I am not a healthcare person, my whole career has been in real estate and construction, but I was willing to commit the time to learn the business of senior living and one of the best moves I've ever made certainly one of the best investments I've ever made.
Speaker 1:In what ways is senior living different, which I'm sure is very different than just plain old construction? What has it brought to you?
Speaker 2:A deep, deep-rooted satisfaction. Growing up, my mother's parents lived in basically supportive housing. They were factory workers. They couldn't afford the true senior living like we know it today and I didn't know it then. But working on that St Jude's Hospital, seeing how I can make a difference in the lives of others, not just through bricks and sticks but truly through what I do, and then joining Chris walking in a memory care I used to have some really nice red hair and I'd walk into a memory care unit and if someone had a redhead in their family I became their family member and I would get a huge hug, or you know, visiting our teammates and the leadership and seeing how they're making a difference in the lives of others, it really touches me to know that I'm making a difference for someone else's family that wasn't there for my grandparents.
Speaker 1:Beautiful. I always find there's a connection right, there's a reason, there's a reason. So, chuck, I love all the just great stories and the success and the connecting it back to family and how you've impacted your children. What about the tough times? Can you think of one or two examples where there was a tough time and maybe your forum helped you?
Speaker 2:Yeah for sure. So the first that comes to mind was the crash of between what? 2008 and 2013. I was really fortunate, my forum, we got together and we literally had the conversation of right, we're not driving new business, what are you going to do to sustain it? One of my friends said I'm going to pull my Rolodex out and I'm going to clean up my Rolodex and I'm going to connect with this. I had a friend who focused on processes and procedures and how is he going to really settle in to drive his business. I did a little bit of both. This is when I really did my serious core value work and where I really doubled down on my relationships within senior living and, as crazy as it seems to me today, we doubled our business through that downturn and we increased our fees through that downturn because of Forum, because of that support network, the trust we had on each other. And you know, they knew my blind spots, they knew where to support me or where to kind of, you know, kick me in the rear. So that's one. The second is the pandemic, you know. So it me in the rear, so that's one. The second is the pandemic. So in the pandemic we have the construction company. It is now multi-regions, very large. We're doing deals with our good friend Chris Johnson, out in New Jersey is one example. We're delivering projects that are north of $80 million each one. So I have that going on. We have Vitality, which is now a couple of years in the making. We've got a couple of thousand lives under care and we have 1,500, 1,200 employees and the pandemic hits.
Speaker 2:The first thing I did in March of that 19 was I reached out to the YPO network, so much broader than just my forum, and I said, hey, once a week we're going to have a phone call and it's going to be an hour and 20 minutes. The first 20 minutes is your top 1%, your bottom 1%. We're going to create a parking lot and we're going to spend the rest of the call going through each other's parking lot. What are we learning from the government? What are we learning from our local health department? What are we learning from each other? And we, you know we would take that away, and so that forum of you know upwards of 30 or 40 people each week we got each other through the pandemic.
Speaker 2:One One friend turned his factory in China into completely. You know the masks and the gowns that we needed. You know, someone else had access to other pieces, someone else had access to we had a formate, who had direct access to the White House, so we knew right away what policies were coming out so we could make immediate adjustments for our residents and our team members. I think I would be in a very different place if I didn't have YPO and Forum, just in that one example.
Speaker 1:That is a great example. So would you say, you thrive in chaos? It seems like in both of those examples you've come out better off.
Speaker 2:And chaos. It seems like in both of those examples you've come out better off. I definitely thrive under pressure. I, because of my upbringing, I remain pretty calm in difficult situations. I have patience. I'm very curious in those difficult times. So, rather than getting angry or frustrated or being, you know, captured by anxiety, I'm able to look at that fear and anxiety and say what is it about that that's making me anxious and I can work on it. So it's been a? So definitely it's. I don't sweat like most people do in hard situations.
Speaker 1:It's a, it's a great lesson for all of us because, you know, the same event happens and people have different emotions and different reactions, and some people buckle under and some people are like no, no, no, it's time to go, time to get to work.
Speaker 2:One of my favorite books on this subject is the Surrender Experiment. Favorite books on this subject is the surrender experiment. This, this notion of uh, working on the business or in the working on the business, or are you working in the business? Right to me, working on the business is the willingness to literally let go and trust in the people that you've coached and mentored, trust in the processes you've created, because collectively we're so much smarter than just me individually. So if I'm driving my business white knuckled and I'm only focused on what's immediately in front of me in that little box anxiety, fear, spending way too much energy without other resources experiment the book. It was literally this notion of all right, I'm going to open myself up to and be grateful for those that are in my lives and let them influence where we're going and how we're getting there.
Speaker 1:Beautiful, beautiful. Thank you. So, chuck, thinking about the future, what's next? So you have a 10, 15 year plan, I'm sure, and before you get to that you know again, somebody listening might think well, this guy could retire. So what keeps him going?
Speaker 2:What keeps me going is I love, love what I do. I'm out of bed most mornings, you know five, five, 30, without an alarm clock straight into my workout, and it's I am driven by the people I work with. So as long as I think, as long as I feel like I'm contributing to the greater good of our team members, I can see myself being engaged for another 10 years. You know, to me now it's how can I help those that are my partners and our leaders get somewhere they might not otherwise get, whether that's financially or personally or professionally? My 10-year plan, which I just it just so happens that I will be presenting on that with my Gathering of Titans forum in a couple of weeks, looks like the five to seven years future. We're still growing.
Speaker 2:We have our next fund in mind that actually starts to bring together the idea of multifamily and the idea of senior living. We call it active adult, this continuum, this opportunity where someone in their late fifties, early sixties, can really live and thrive and and know that they can be cared for through their end of life. So that's a big passion of mine. And then, as I think about, you know, seven to the 15 years I want to be. I want to remain engaged in mentoring, I want to remain engaged in coaching and I I'd like to remain at a board level. Uh, molly and I are starting to talk about things like hey, wouldn't it be neat if we spent 30 days in pick a country, right? And we're talking about hey, wouldn't it be neat if we could take a couple weeks and take our grandchildren to? We're talking about hey, wouldn't it be neat if we could take a couple of weeks and take our grandchildren to a dude ranch? So a lot of that is in our planning for the future.
Speaker 1:Yeah, sounds lovely. So Chuck back to your entrepreneurial roots. Did your parents have a chance?
Speaker 2:to see your success. You know they have and they both are still alive. And one of my favorite moments over the last couple of weeks was that our daughter Sarah's wedding, dad's 86 and mom's 81. Dad's, it's pretty tough arthritis, uh, you know, he worked with his hands, his whole career and his back. He was out on the dance floor and we were enjoying the moment together as a family, celebrating Sarah and Alex and to see the smile on his face enjoying that moment just so precious.
Speaker 1:Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, chuck. One last piece of wisdom that you could share, something that you live by, something that just is a reminder for you. When things aren't necessarily working the way you expect what do you rely upon?
Speaker 2:the first thing that comes to mind mo is be curious, and with curiosity brings information. It helps a situation unfold. It helps alleviate assumptions, which are often deal killers.
Speaker 1:So ask more questions, learn more before jumping to assumptions.
Speaker 2:And be open to really understand the human being that's in front of you and the journey they've been on, and if you can make that kind of time in difficult situations, I find nine times out of 10, the situation ends up successful.
Speaker 1:Chuck Hall. What a pleasure Thank you for your wisdom, thank you for your openness, thank you for sharing your journey with us and thank you to our audience as a reminder, podcast reviews have a real impact on podcast visibility, so if you liked today's episode, please give us a review, and you can find all our episodes on our website at internationalfacilitatorsorganizationcom. Thank you for listening and watching and have a great day.
