 Hi, I'm Rusty Komori, and this is Beyond the Lines. We are broadcasting live from the beautiful Think Tech Hawaii TV studio in the Pioneer Plaza in downtown Honolulu. This show is based on my book, which is also titled Beyond the Lines, and it's about creating a superior culture of excellence, leadership, and finding greatness. Today's special guest is an incredible person with an amazing story. He is the CEO of the Hu Len Group, which is an extremely successful general contracting and property management company for affordable housing and community projects on the Waini Coast. He is Charles Hu Len, and today we are going beyond real estate. Charles, awesome having you today. Glad to be here. Super excited to be here. How's everything been with you? Everything's been great. Everything's been really great. Just super excited for the new year and kicking things off. Okay, now I want to know about your background. Where did you grow up at? I grew up in Waini. Went to Waini Elementary, intermediate, high school. I grew up in a low-income housing area called Louvais, which is right across the Waini Boatharbor. Okay. And then you went to Waini High School, and did you play sports there? I didn't play sports in school, though I played soccer. I played baseball. I was in martial arts, did karate, got my second degree in black belt. So I was heavily involved in various activities growing up. And then you're a father of how many kids? Four children. Tell me about them. Yeah, my oldest is Darzi. She's in the mainland. She's married. Okay. My second daughter is also married to Krashana, and my son Justice. He has a girlfriend, and my youngest son is Tainui. He's 11. Great. I know, Charles, that you have an amazing story. And I want to ask you, what was the most difficult time in your life? See, the most difficult time would have to be, well, the most difficult time would have to be right, let me back up, right before you when difficult. So it's 2001, January, which is exactly what, 19, 18 years today, this month. I come up with the number one record label. There's an artist by the name of Patti, if you've heard of Patti's, Iron Girl, I was the record producer. Oh, I had no idea. I produced that album, so it came out in January of 2001. Hits the radios. Number one, I owned a nightclub right in Kalihi, in Kalihi, Dillion Zippies is at. They're renovated. The very back corner, that was my nightclub. I'm in my mid-20s, number one record label, artist, nightclub, and two months later, it all comes crashing down. I get raided by the FBI and DEA, and I find myself getting sentenced to eight and half years in federal prison for being a drug dealer. And so it gets worse from there. My wife divorces me. She takes the kids, is a threat to not let me see their children. Actually how it really goes down is I'm actually in, it's about a year after being arrested, I'm in solitary confinement. And that's hard. That was the most challenging thing I've ever been through, to be with my thoughts, the guilt, the punishment, I went through my head, how could I do this, what did I do? And a while in prison, my papers come under the door, my solitary confinement papers come under the door, I look at it and getting a divorce, and that just crushed me. That was the lowest point in my life. I contemplated suicide. I didn't eat, I couldn't sleep. I was actually starting to hallucinate because I didn't realize this later, your body immune system started going down, and so I got really sick. So what was like, I mean, that's a huge low point, but how bad was prison? You know, prison was bad in the sense of my identity getting stripped away, like I thought I was a successful person, and all that just falling apart, that it's just taking away everything. My businesses that I did have, my partners were, you know, they didn't do some honest things and affected the business. Losing my money, losing the children, losing my wife, so just losing everything. For me, it was almost like dying. I never had a near-death experience, but it was like dying for me. It was hard. I mean, I was in the Marine Corps, went through boot camp, which I thought at that time was the most mentally challenging thing I've ever been through. That doesn't mean, that pales in comparison to being locked up in prison and then being in solitary confinement and just dealing with myself and things that I've never, I never knew existed that I had to deal in face with. I'm forced to. There's no outlet. I'm not able to talk to friends, I'm not able to do anything about it, to cover the pain. Did you feel shame? Definitely shame. There was shame because most people didn't even know, and I was coaching kids soccer and baseball team. And so my parents didn't know, my father was devastated, grew up a strong Mormon background, and so it just devastated everybody, everybody. No one really saw it coming. So you're in prison, you have nothing, you just, you have nothing. You're at the lowest point in your life, so you have a choice to make. You can either be negative or positive. What became of that? What became your choice? You know, when I was at the point where it felt like I was dying, I remember what I wasn't thinking about, and what I was not thinking about was everything that I got. I was thinking about the cars and the fame and the music and the bars and the money. But then it dawned on me and I thought, man, if life isn't what I get, then it must be about something about what I give. And so I knew that at that point, I was going to change the direction of my life in a way that I was going to see how can I give the most. And it was interesting how this, I met this one guy that really changed my life. He put me through this exercise. I went through it, I'm just real quick, he put me through this like meditation exercise and got me all relaxed. And then at one point he was like, how are you feeling? I'm like, man, I feel really black. Oh wait, man, back up, I started crying. He had me cry. He's like, oh, just think about when you got married and think about your, when your son was born and I cried and I never cried this much in my life. And at that point, I realized I held in my emotions for a very long time. And there was this healing power of just feeling and experiencing. And I cried and cried and cried and I was able to get it all out. And then he put me through this meditation exercise and after this meditation exercise, he says, okay, do you trust me? And I was like, yeah, I trust you. And he said, okay, on the count of three, jump up and scream. I'm excited. I'm excited. I'm excited. And so I did it and I had this huge smile in my face. And I just wondered what the heck just happened. Like, I was really just calling it quits just a few hours ago. And now I feel the happiest I've ever been. My wife's still left. I still don't have my kids. I still don't have money. I'm still in prison. Yeah. I'm extremely happy. And this, this smile lasts till dinner time. Hours later I go back to him like, what the heck just happened? Like what happened? And I got so driven as to finding out what just happened. Because if I could understand how things changed for me in that moment, I realized there was something valuable there that could really change my life. So what became your purpose in life? Did you find your purpose in life right then and there or later? I, it was later. It was later. At that point, I somehow realized that I created the life that I experienced. Everything that happened as much as my, I wanted to blame, you know, my wife for leaving me. Why did you leave? You shouldn't have left. I've done this. I did that. Why is everyone doing this to me? I realized that I was responsible for everything that happened. And there was some, it was like a sense of relief when I realized that. I realized then that means if I'm going to change everything in my future, it was going to be because of me changing. And I just became driven to, to transform myself. So what did you start to learn and study about when you're in prison? I read books. I mean, actually the very first book I had never read a book in my life. I hated reading. And the very first book I read was a Tony Robbins book, Awaken the Giant Within. And it just blew my mind. I was like, what the heck is this? And it just started devouring books. Books I was reaching out to people because going to federal prison, I had access to people I would never have access to coming from my night. I was locked up. So they sent me to a prison camp so there's no fences or barbed wires, just a sign that says do not walk past. And some of the guys you might know, one of the guys that I was locked up with was Jordan Belfort. Did a movie of him, Wolf of Wall Street. So I'm standing up for count. He's a cross for me. And his roommate is Tommy Chong. And my roommate is this GE executive who started the company, the machine used to test your eyes. That was his company. So here this guy, I barely can read. I'm kind of dictionary around for years because I'm reading words I don't understand. And I'm around all this smartest people I've ever met, some of the smartest people in the industry. And I just soaked up everything I could. The guys have nothing but time. Yeah. They're not doing anything. They say, hey, can you teach me real estate? Sure. I've met them every week or stocks or business or raising money, private placement. So that's where I got my education. So you learned a lot about real estate while you're in prison. And then when did you buy your first property? So I came out of prison in 2007. It was my first year out of prison in 2007. What did you buy? I actually bought my parents home. With what? With what? You had no money. So the first, so how I bought, how I did that deal was there's this thing called a gift of equity where your parents can gift you the equity without having to put the down payment though. So I was able to get a loan and they basically gifted me the 20%. So I didn't have to put down the traditional 20%. And that's how I bought the property. My mind went to, OK, technically that's not a real deal because I got help from my parents. But it helped give me some of the validation that I can do this. When did you end up getting your second property then? The following year. That's fast. Yeah, the following year, I bought my second property. And then there was just loans where you can get, where there's no money down, just like a USDA loan. What happened is I got committed to the goal first. I was in the seminar and it was this 90-day seminar and they said, OK, what do you want to achieve in 90 days? I said, I'm going to buy a house. And I don't have the resources, I don't have credit. I've been in prison. So I don't have through your tax returns. I'm making minimum wage. I don't have all the makings to buy a home. So I committed 90 days. I'm going to buy a home and within three months. I bought, I wish technically it was my second property, I had Makar Kilo. And then it just grew from there. So when and why did you start the Hulun Group? Hulun Group kind of grew on its own. At first, my initial motivation was to do something. I needed to survive. I was living with my parents when I came out of prison. I lived with my parents in low income housing again. I was kind of dealing with the fact that my parents went in debt because of me. They were having to take care of your kids. They were having to take care of my kids. They sent me money. So they were in debt and living in low income housing, that was a challenge. So my initial drive was to get them out of debt. My father, I was fortunate enough to see my father again. I thought I would never see him alive because my father was very old. So when I came out of prison, he was probably in his 90s already. And I knew once he passed, they would be in a really bad financial shape because they needed his retirement. My parents needed his retirement to survive. So my initial drive was to just get them out of debt. I needed those finances and resources. But as I started to acquire more properties, and I started realizing the difference that I was making in people's lives and tenants crying, oh my gosh, you know, would you help me get them off the beach? Some of them just getting, you know, their first place. I realized that I was making a difference in the community. Oh, big time in the state legislature. You spoke in front of the state legislature. What, when did that happen? That happened last year, January. And interesting to call me and say, hey, Charles, I want you to come in and speak at the opening session. Yeah. And my mind goes, my mind wants to say, no, OK, I get nervous. I'm scared. Oh, you got to see me. You're asking me to speak. He's like, yeah, I want you to speak. What do you want me to do? Just do the opening speech. I want you to inspire, you know, get your job is to get everyone kind of in the right space to start the year. Yeah. And so I did that in January. And that was just such an amazing experience. That's awesome, Charles. And you're also a fantastic inspirational speaker. I've seen you speak before. And you give a great message of hope. How do you do you really love doing those inspirational speeches? I love. It's interesting when I hear the term inspirational, because I guess that's what is received. I get that quite a bit. I think, you know, as I'm up and I'm speaking and I'm sharing, I'm really not my whole intention and goal isn't to inspire. Yeah. And I know that's what that's what happens. Oftentimes, my whole goal is just to share really what happened for me, you know, my life, what I went through. And not on a surface level, just really down on an emotional level. The real challenges that I dealt with that I think a lot of people deal with on a regular basis. Yeah. And as I share with them, you know, my journey, people oftentimes says, man, that was very inspiring. It totally comes off like that. And I was inspired. And I even cried in your speech. But Charles, we're going to take a quick break. And then when we come back, we're going to continue going beyond real estate. OK. Thank you. You are watching Beyond the Lines on Think Tech Hawaii with my special guest, Charles Hu-Len. We will be back in one minute. Hi, I'm Lisa Kimura. I'm the host of Family Affairs on Think Tech Hawaii. Join us every Tuesday at 11 AM to talk about the issues that really matter. Everything from policies that need to be changed in Hawaii to the fact that we need better gender equality so that we can all have a better shot. Again, join us every Tuesday at 11 on Think Tech Hawaii for Family Affairs. Aloha. Aloha. I'm Dave Stevens, host of the Cyber Underground. This is where we discuss everything that relates to computers that just kind of scare you out of your mind. So come join us every week here on ThinkTechHawaii.com 1 PM on Friday afternoons and then you can go see all our episodes on YouTube. Just look up the Cyber Underground on YouTube. All our shows will show up and please follow us. We're always giving you current, relevant information to protect you. Keep the news safe. Aloha. Welcome back to Beyond the Lines on Think Tech Hawaii. My special guest today is Charles Hu-Len, who is the CEO of the very successful Hu-Len Group. And today we are going beyond real estate. Charles, you have a passion for helping people. Tell me about that. Oh, you know, it's when I think I first shared what was happened for me and my story and I had the confidence to share what would be coming from prison and I saw how it started to inspire people. And the benefit people started getting, it was crazy. Because my mind thought, well, it's just me. Like, well, what's so special about it? I don't realize how special it is. And as I started sharing and talking and people are like, well, can you speak over here? Well, can you come share over here? And it just started to grow and grow. And then more people would approach me and I learned so much over the years. I mean, from reading and attending various seminars and meeting amazing people such as yourself, you know, I sort of became this almost walking person who helps everybody I try to come across with, you know. And sometimes it's not often like it's, we get deep in a conversation, though sometimes I could be getting a cup of coffee with someone and just to brighten their day by, you know, opening up. And in the moment, somehow they feel different, you know. And to be able to constantly do that every single day of my life, no matter where I go from just meeting someone and brightening up their day just even for a small moment or a four or five-hour session or speaking engagement where I'm transforming a bunch of people's lives, I just enjoy it constantly. Well, what you are doing in the Wai'anai community is... I mean, it's amazing. I mean, I went to Wai'anai a few weeks ago and I see this building that I know you own because it's like really significant improvements there in Wai'anai. So I want everyone to visit Wai'anai and see what you're doing to really transform that community. I mean, you're definitely going beyond the lines. And I know you're working on my book right now. How are you liking it so far? I love the book, you know, I love the book. And one of the things I like about your book is the simplicity of it. Basics, getting down to basics. You know, I think a lot of people, and even myself included sometimes, I'm looking for the next thing. I mean, if I just, what's the next thing, if I learn or do or the latest trend or the latest technology, maybe that would be it. And what your book reminded me of is getting back to the basics. Just get back to the basics, the fundamentals and master the fundamentals. Like take those fundamental key steps that you do, like your purpose, right? And just drilling it in. You're just drilling it in, drilling it in. And so thanks to you and the book, my whole message for this year is fundamentals. Not only for myself, but drilling that into my company and everything I do is just getting back to the basics. It's all about the four P's and the eight keys. Yes it is, yes it is. And that's what you do, actually. It's just I put it together in a book. In a way that's easily explained that I would never be able to do it myself. Charles, I wanna ask you, what's an important lesson you learned in your life so far? You know, I think that I could sum it up. It would be that one moment in my life when I realized that life is all about giving. Yeah, it's all about giving. And I know I've heard some people say, well, if I give everything, then what about me? How do I give it? How do I get? I don't give. And I realize that if you limit your ability to give, you ultimately limit your ability to get. Yeah. You know, I was, quick, I was recently, it was for my birthday. I was wanting, I woke up in the morning, I'm like, man, what do I want for my birthday? And I said, I want two things on a Christmas tree because I haven't celebrated Christmas in a while. And I wanna see whatever opportunity put in my way for me to make a difference. And I got my tree, and I have this digital picture frames that come up. That's why he's my vision board. You know, digital pictures. Yeah. About a week prior to that, I get a call that the school, the Y and I Elementary is looking for a new library in the Learning Center. And so, fast forward my birthday, I'm driving and I'm visualizing these pictures that I put up a year earlier. And one of the pictures that pop up is a picture of Y and I Elementary sign. The second picture that pops up is the picture of about 30 students in the library. And I immediately, I'm crying. I'm tearing and I realize this is what I was meant to do. I was supposed to do this. And so, I call the person head of the committee and say, I'm gonna donate 100,000 that the school needs for the new library. Oh, fantastic. And there was something really liberating about that because my mind will say, I can't do it and how do I, don't do it, that's a lot of money. Oh, what are you doing? He wants to talk me out of it. Yeah. But when that happened, I realized how much a hold that money had on me and the limitations I put on myself. And if I just made, like I said, just giving and I realized I gave, but I realized I limited the amount I gave which limited the amount that I can get. Well, I love hearing that, Charles. Love hearing that. I wanna also know, Charles, what's a memory that really tugs at your heart that you have? It would be last year when I spoke at the legislature. And it's not the speaking itself. So prior to speaking, I was preparing for a speech, I was preparing for the speech and I'm in the offices and my daughter and my mother's there and I tell them I'm preparing for the speech. So don't mind me, don't bother me, just sit there. And I'm looking out the window and I'm just in the zone, looking out the window, hands in my pocket and my daughter snaps a picture. I don't know this. After I speak, I go home, I'm tired, I'm just preparing for the speech for days and I'm beat, I'm wore out, I get in bed, I go on my phone and I see this. Picture my daughter posted. And mind you, I had very strange relationships because I went to prison and so it took a lot of work for me to rebuild those relationships with my children because when I came home, they were adults. They had no reason to want to repair those relationships with me. And I opened the phone and I see and my daughter posts that picture. And on top of it, she says, you've always dreamt of changing the world. I will always support you, the greatest man, my father. And I realized at that moment to be a hero and to be considered the greatest man that my daughter has ever known is worth more to me than anything I've ever accomplished in life. And that is the constant reminder for me that life isn't about what I do or the successes or the buildings or what I change. And it's the legacy that I live of the memory of who I am, not only to my children, my family, the community and everyone that I come across. Whoa, that's amazing that, wow, Charles. I wanna ask you, Charles, about your business. I mean, you are so successful with your business and I mean, you're changing people's lives, giving them affordable housing and just really making Waini a respectable city. It's amazing what you're doing. Thank you. What are some challenges that you face with your business? The biggest challenge is the whole misconception that comes with Waini. Acquiring a building, I say it's easy to acquire a building and renovate it. Convincing new businesses to come to Waini and open a business, that's been the challenge. But we are overcoming those challenges. We brought in the first bakery to open up in Waini in 20 years, Pearl Harbor Federal Credit Union, opened up in Waini in one of our buildings. We got some of the best restaurants. Actually, in our Miley building, four of our tenants are rated number one in Yelp, in Waini for best restaurant, best vegan, best bakery, best nail salon. So we're looking to bring the best and the best entrepreneurs, the best businesses and bring them out to Waini. And yeah, it's just a challenge. However, we believe that it is possible that the people of Waini are not only Waini and are ready for it, but that there's so much more businesses and more opportunities that's in Waini that very few people tend to believe exist. Yeah, it's so impactful what you're doing. It's truly remarkable. And I wanna ask you one more thing before we wrap up, Charles. What are you hoping to achieve in your future? I wanna see the change in Waini. You know, Waini has always had this bad rap. Now growing up, Waini as a kid, always would hear about it, Waini. Stay away from Waini or all these just negative things that come with the term or our town, Waini. And I just wanna see it happen in my lifetime. We're a Waini, we're one day. All right, when someone comes off the plane visiting Oahu and they walk out to somebody on the street and they say, hey, where should I go? What do you think, where should I visit? And they say, you know what, you should go to Waini. It's the most beautiful place on the island. And for me to have that in my lifetime would just be such an amazing thing to see. Well, you're making it happen, Charles. It's, I mean, I want the world needs more Charles Hugh lens in the world. And I really wanna thank you for being on the show and taking time today. I mean, thank you for having me. You're an inspiration because one person is changing the community. And when you have one person that can change the community that leads to changing a state which leads to changing a country and the world. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Charles. Thank you. And thank you for watching Beyond the Lines on Think Tech Hawaii and a special thank you to my clothing sponsor, Eolani Incorporated. For more information, please visit my website, RustyKamori.com, and my book is available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and all Costco stores in Hawaii. I hope that this show inspires you to create your own superior culture of excellence and to find your greatness and help others find theirs. Aloha.