Podcast
The Most Inspiring Autobiography I've Read- Chung Ju-Yung Founder of Hyundai
Founders
- Father’s Discouragement and Unspoken Love
- Chung Ju-yung’s father discouraged his early ambitions, calling him a “farm boy who only finished the sixth grade.”
- Despite this, his father’s love was evident in his silent support, waiting for Chung’s return home late at night. Transcript: David Senra Okay, so now we’re going to get more into what he learned from his father and running away from home, which he ran away a total of four times. So it says his, meaning his father, his total assets consisted only of a healthy body and a diligent character. Father never took a day off. Whether or not others were drinking or gambling, father just worked, quietly toiling away in solitude. Father was a man of few words. Even when working beside him all day, I heard him speak at most three or four words. The longest conversation we ever had was the time he found me after I’d run away from home and he tried to convince me to come back. So this part I’m about to read to now, this is the third time he ran away. So his father finds him in Seoul and Chung escapes to the city because not that he loved his family, but he realized he didn’t want to wind up a poor farmer’s whole life. So he realized the city is where all the opportunity is. So he kept running away. His father would keep finding him. Finally, the fourth time, he just couldn’t take it anymore. But I want to talk about this time specifically. So he says, father caught me attending the bookkeeping and accounting school in Seoul. This is what his father said. It’s pretty here, but there’s a reason for it. And so now a direct quote from his father. Are there any parents in this world who don’t want their children to be successful? If you are successful enough to bring your parents and siblings to Seoul and look after them, why would this old man hold you back? But you better not forget what you are, just a farm boy who only finished the sixth grade. I hear Seoul is crawling with unemployed graduates of vocational schools. But you, what are you? A nobody. And a nobody like you isn’t going to make it. You will throw our family out into the streets, blindly chasing after this stupid dream. I am old now, so you need to be responsible for looking out for the family. Since you refuse, we’re going to have to turn to begging. So when I first read that section, I just couldn’t imagine ever talking to my son that way, saying, you know, you’re just a poor boy, you don’t have an education. But when the longer the story goes on and when I revisited this section I realized he’s saying that because he’s afraid he loves his son he wants his son to succeed even though those words Don’t seem like that he just he’s afraid he lives his entire life the difference between Chung and his father’s Chung believed that he had unlimited potential he believed that it’s A difference really between like a fixed mindset and growth mindset. His father thought, that’s it. This is what our family is supposed to do. This is, I’m a farmer and that’s just what my life is. Chung never believed that. He never put limits on anything. So let me finish this section. He says, even today I get a lump in my throat when I recall my weeping father crouched down as he uttered these words. Later, I brought him to Seoul to live together. This is an example of his father’s love. At the time, my schedule consisted of working late nights, barely sleeping, and returning to work early in the morning. Not once did my father tell me to come home early. (Time 0:12:13)
- Extreme Poverty and Determination
- Chung’s family endured extreme poverty, eating tree bark and grassroots to survive.
- Witnessing his parents’ arguments about food, he resolved to leave for Seoul and succeed. Transcript: David Senra By simply staying awake and waiting until I came home, he demonstrated his unspoken love for me. So the story of It says, story of Chung Jooyoung is not complete without understanding that he endured a different level of poverty. As I read this section to you, I want you to keep in mind, this is a different level of poverty, and the person writing this book eventually works his way up to becoming the richest man in Korea. So here’s an example of that. Back in those days, human feces, they call it night soil, was the primary fertilizer for dry fields. Kids and adults made sure to relieve themselves at home to add to their essential stockpile. We were extremely poor. So let me back up there. Let’s say you’re at a friend’s house or you’re at school. You have to go to the bathroom. You have to come home because in order for your family to survive, they need you to defecate in a bucket. That’s a different level of poverty. We were extremely poor, even though my father and mother worked their fingers to the bone to make ends meet. Back in those days, farming families were so poor that words cannot capture their suffering and destitution. After harsh winters, we would completely run out of food by the time spring arrived. From then on, we barely managed to stay alive by eating tree bark, grassroots, and wild herbs. You can imagine, going through this level of struggle is going to, it’s going to shape, it shapes his personality, it would shape anybody’s personality. And some people would destroy, but the people that succeed and then don’t give up, it’s going to make them stronger. We’re going to talk more about, I’m going to tell you more about his struggle and then why he’s going to have to run away for the final time. I’ve always been scolded for being impatient. I’ve always been in a hurry that I would sometimes put shoes on the wrong feet. There was no concept of free time. So I want to pause here. When I’m reading biographies, you kind of build like this model in your mind. If you were able to have a discussion with them, you’re able to ask them questions and kind of guess at what their answer would be. And when I was reading through this section, and this is something he talks about over and over again, he talks about the value of time from the beginning of the book to the very end of the Book. And so if he were alive today and you were able to ask him how many hours a week did he work, his answer would be all of them. So he talks about that a lot. There’s no concept of free time. While toiling on farm, I would think to myself, will I always be a farmer and never straighten my crooked back? A farmer who will never feel full for even a day? A life like this to suffer like my father? Is this all there is? The sad reality of farming is that no matter how much one struggles, the payoff never equals the amount of work put in. I wanted to leave my hometown and try anything other than farming. I wasn’t sure, but I thought no matter what I did, if I worked as hard as I did at farming, I could make more money. Moving to the city was my only hope. I still, and here’s what pushes him over the edge, and when he leaves and never, and doesn’t come back, he moves his family with him but he never goes back to farming i still vividly remember My parents arguments were always about food their arguments would be become more and more heated until the table was overturned and the food ended up on the floor i murmured i can’t take This anymore any fleeting resolution to remain on that farm evaporated. I was determined to go to Seoul and succeed. After I turned 19, I ran away from home for the fourth time. The fourth time ended up being last. (Time 0:15:20)
- The Importance of Diligence in All Tasks
- Take simple tasks seriously and give maximum effort, even for seemingly small jobs.
- Avoid half-measures and compromises; strive for the best possible results in everything you do. Transcript: David Senra So he said, whatever I did, I never slacked off. Compared to farming, the workload at the shop was nothing. Yet I threw myself into the job just as my father did on his farm. I made sure I was the first to arrive. He’s just supposed to be delivering rice, but he would be the first one to show up. And he would do all these extra things just to make the shop better. I would sweep the entrance and sprinkle water on the ground to keep the dust down. Because his son was a lazy bum, the owner began to appreciate my work ethic. Okay, so this word lazy. He talks about this a lot. As you could imagine, remember, he’s in his 80s when he’s writing this. He struggled for decades, becomes wildly successful. He’s also extremely hard and driven person. He talks about in the Korean culture at that time, you know, you don’t tell your kids you love them. You don’t express any kind of emotion. He will explicitly say over and over again how he detests lazy people. There’s a quote that I always think about that comes from Kobe Bryant. And Kobe says, I can’t relate to lazy people. We don’t speak the same language. I don’t understand you. I don’t want to understand you. And so in this section of the book, he talks about the difference between this son who was given a job without having to work for it, works for a local merchant in a big city. He’s like, this guy’s not my competition. He stands no chance. And just you know work circles around him so he says i realize that even simple tasks require patience no matter how small the task such as delivering rice on a bicycle i pour all my energy Into achieving the best possible results i need to stop there he gets the job like do you know how to ride a bike and chong never he’s never even seen a bike he’s like yeah i can do that and So he stays up he has to teach himself and he does it within like a few days for hours and hours and hours a night learning how to ride a bike just so he can he can keep this job so he says i pour All my energy achieving the best possible result half measures compromises cutting corners are being realistic he puts those words in quotation marks do not exist in my world. Do it until nothing more can be done. Give it your all until the very end. This thought is the very essence of me as a person and the fundamental principle of my life. (Time 0:20:27)
- Learning from Bedbugs
- To avoid bedbugs, workers placed pots of water under table legs, which the bugs overcame by climbing walls and dropping from the ceiling.
- Chung learned from their persistence, realizing that even bedbugs give their all to achieve their goals. Transcript: David Senra Whenever I tell people that it was bedbugs that taught me nothing is impossible if one puts in one’s best effort they think i’m exaggerating but this is the truth so to make ends meet he’s Taking any jobs you can imagine taking any job he can possibly get and it’s all manual labor he’s back to where he started so it says the bunkhouse where i slept as a laborer was teeming With so many bedbugs that it was almost impossible to fall asleep. Some of the other workers tried to think of ways to avoid the bedbugs. But even when they slept on top of dining tables, they were still bitten as the parasites could climb up the legs of the tables. We put our heads together and came up with an idea of placing a steel pot filled with water under each of the four legs of the table. It worked. Unfortunately, uninterrupted sleep lasted only two days. Then things went back to normal the way they had been before. The bedbugs were biting us again. We wondered how could this be possible considering the bedbugs would fall into the pot of water if they attempted to climb up any of the legs. One night we decided to stay up to see how on earth they survived the water and managed to bite us. We were completely dumbstruck by what we saw when the lights were turned on. The bed bugs were climbing the walls and dropping from the ceiling onto our bodies. To this day, I cannot forget the shiver down my spine that I felt back then. This made me stop in my tracks and think. Even bedbugs think long and hard and use every bit of energy they have to achieve their goal, and ultimately they succeed. I’m no bedbug, I’m a man. These bedbugs can surely teach a man a few lessons. If these bedbugs can do it, why can’t we men do it? (Time 0:29:02)