Chung Ju-Yung’s Relentless Road to Hyundai

In today's episode, we're exploring the life and legacy of Chung Ju-Yung — the visionary founder of the Hyundai Group and one of South Korea's most iconic business titans.

This is the story of a man who rose from poverty to build a global business empire by turning every setback into fuel, and giving everything he had until there was nothing left to give — a visionary who simply never took no for an answer.

If you've ever wondered how extraordinary people got their start — and how you can too — this podcast is your front-row seat to a life and legacy built to last.

Transcript

The Bulldozer’s Mindset

SPEAKER_00 0:05

For a long time I was known as the bulldozer. It was meant to depict me as an uneducated upstart who dug up the ground first and thought about it later. It's obvious that I did not receive much schooling, but not receiving formal education does not mean one is lacking in wisdom. It is a mistake to think that broad and deep knowledge can only be obtained through formal schooling. I'm someone who believes that if a person limits themselves to fixed ideas inherent in common sense, they will not be very creative. People with a strong will to succeed have unlimited potential and creative abilities. My motto is shorten the time. This was the surest way for improvement. Yet there are always people stuck in their rigid ways of thinking, content to waste time and money. If you search for a method, it will come to you. If you can't come up with a method, it's because you didn't think hard enough. The Hyundai of today was built by pushing aside all of our problems like a bulldozer. My performance as a bulldozer in thought, calculation, and prediction was a product of a modest intellect. By thinking and trying harder than others, I continued to push ahead in all my endeavors. That was an excerpt from the book Born of This Land, an autobiography of Chung Ju Young, the founder of Hyundai. Hello and welcome to the Build to Last podcast. Build to Last is a show where I dig into the lives of history's most remarkable individuals to learn not just what they achieved, but how they achieved it and to uncover their values, the convictions, character, and foundations that were built to last and made them unforgettable. One of my goals for this podcast is to cover people that are successful from all walks of life, you know, politicians, athletes, entrepreneurs, religious figures, to find common themes and values that show up again and again in the lives of people who make a lasting impact, and values that you and I can learn from to make incremental improvements to our daily lives and to build a fulfilling life on solid ground. So without further ado, here is the life of Chung Juyang. Cheng Ju-young was born in modern-day North Korea into a very poor farming family. His parents were hard workers, but even so desperately poor and barely getting by. Just to, you know, show you the extent of how poor this family is, he the family was, he writes, during the farming season, father never took a day off. Even during the winter months, he never paused to rest. And you know, his mother also helped with the farming and raising animals, and she also wove. And he writes about his mom, her skill at weaving silk was renowned throughout the neighborhood. While other weavers needed five days to make a 20-foot roll of silk, mother only needed two days. Mother would set her own goal for the day, and she would only step off from the Korean bloom after she reached her target. Creating silk from silkworm breeding requires a massive amount of mulberry leaves. It was not as if we had our own separate mulberry field, so we had to go deep into the mountains to pick leaves from wild mulberry leaves, mulberry trees to raise the silkworms ourselves. My mother was a very competitive person and never allowed herself to be outdone in weaving silk. We were extremely poor. Even though my mother and father worked their fingers to the bone to make ends meet, they struggled. Back in those days, farming families were so poor that words cannot capture their suffering and destitution. All one could do was to look up to the sky and pray to the heaven to bless us with good weather in the hopes of an abundant harvest. But even if we were blessed with a bountiful harvest after working ourselves to death, we barely had enough food to last a year. We owned very little land. During the winter in Tongchan, my hometown, the snow would pile up as high as a man, requiring us to dig tunnels to get around. In a bad harvest year, every household would quickly run out of food. During the long winter months, we could only manage to cook millet for breakfast, skip lunch, and get by on bean porridge for supper. After such 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. And this is crazy, right? That the man who would become one of the richest men in South Korea, start Hyundai, which is an iconic international auto company, and shape the course of his country, came from literally nothing. And that's why I want to spend a lot of time in my podcast on the early beginnings of successful individuals, because I feel like that time is so instructive in that it shapes people's lives. And hopefully you and I can learn a thing or two from that to build our lives better. So back to the book. For three years before enrolling in primary school, I studied at my grandfather's Tedang, which was a Korean village school where he learned Chinese classics. As I started primary school, my father began to train me to be a top-notch farmer. It was a given that I would spend every Sunday and school vacations from dawn till late at night on the farm working alongside my father and learning. For my father, there was no concept of free time. But even while toiling on the 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 toiling father, is this all that there is? Moving to the city was my only hope. So he decides to run away from his home to the city to find a job at a factory. And his father finds him and brings him back, but he's not deterred. He runs away again another two times, and here I quote from the book. Another long conversation took place when I ran away from home for the third time after stealing 71 that my father made from the sale of the family cattle. Father caught me attending the bookkeeping and accounting school in Seoul. His father said to him, Are there any parents in this world who don't want their children to be successful? If you're successful enough to bring your parents and siblings back to Seoul and look after them, why would this old man hold you back? But you better not forget that 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? A nobody. And a nobody like you isn't going to make it. Even if you graduate from bookkeeping school, at best you will be nothing but a lowly assistant to the Japs. You will throw our family out into the streets blindly chasing after the stupid dream. I'm old now, so you need to be responsible for looking out for our family. But since you refuse, we will have to return to begging. I feel like for most people, you most certainly expect to find encouragement from your family and parents at the very least, but not in this case for Chung, so I can only imagine how hard it must have been for him to hear those discouraging words from his dad. But he was a determined young little fellow, he says, but this time around and the second and the third time, my father somehow found me and I was forced to come back. My father's determination to keep me home was extraordinary, but I was just as determined to leave. In the late spring after I turned nineteen, I ran away from home for the fourth time. This time I went directly to Seo. That fourth time ended up being the last. I can only imagine how hard this must have been for him to, you know, chase his dream and try to build a better life for him, but at the same time carry the guilt of not listening to his parents and probably making them very upset. He arrived in Seoul and from there he went on around to different cities, you know, taking whatever jobs he could find. And for the first time, he was actually able to save a little bit of money. And after working in different places, he eventually made his way back to Seoul, and he writes At every opportunity I scoured the city for a better job. One lucky day, Bokunk Rice Shop hired me as a delivery boy. It was a stable job with great benefits. I got free lunch, free dinner, and one large straw bag of rice a month. This was the best job yet. My previous jobs barely covered my meals and required me to live in bed bug infested rooms. Whatever I did, I never slacked off. Compared to farming, the workload of the rice store was nothing. Yet I still threw myself into the job, just as my father did on his farm. From the very first day, I made sure that I was the first to arrive. I would sweep the entrance area 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. I cleaned and organized a store, delivered bags of rice on time, and greeted customers in a cheerful manner. After six months, the owner showed his confidence in me by placing me in charge of bookkeeping instead of his son. No matter how small the task, such as delivering rice on a bicycle, I pour all my energy into achieving the best possible results. Half measures, compromises, cutting corners, or being realistic, do not exist in my world. Do it until nothing more can be done. Give it your all till the very end. Two years passed. One day, all my hard work finally paid off. The son's profligate spending habits had finally pushed the owner over the edge. He unexpectedly offered to sell me the rice shop. The delivery boy had now become the owner. Now I was on my way. So by 1930, and this is this is crazy. Chengju Young is just 24 years old, and the farm boy is running his own rice shop. Just think about that for a second. No inheritance, you know, there's no safety net, there's no business degree. It's just pure grit and hard work and a refusal to stay stuck in his circumstances. Um but unfortunately for him, the good times did not last. And the very first of many challenges that are going to come his way start here. Um at the time, Korea was still under Japanese colonial rule, and the two Koreas were still one country. Um so on July, in July 1937, the Japanese military escalated um, you know, a Marco, the Marco Polo Bridge incident, which was a clash between the Japanese and Chinese troops near Beijing into the Second Sino-Japanese War, which marked the start of World War II in Asia. Um, the Japanese government's general who was in Korea declared martial law. And so, by you know, two years later in December 1939, the Japanese colonial authorities instituted a rice rationing system, and all the rice shops in Korea, including Chung's, got requisitioned by the government. And just like that, he lost his business. So then, you know, with the money that he had made, he goes home and he buys his father some farmland and gets married, and then he gets back to work. You know, he starts to think about his prospects, and along with some friends, um, a mechanic and a handyman, he buys an auto repair shop called Ado Service. Um, with mind you, no experience in cars, and this is a theme that's also going to recur in the book, just like this theme of him running into trouble after trouble and yet standing back up no matter what. So on this, he writes After signing the contract on March 1st, 1940, we worked tirelessly for 20 days straight without much sleep. We made good money. However, as the saying goes, bad luck comes in threes. On March 20, so 20 days after, only five days after we had paid off our loan, a fire broke out. I barely managed to escape. The garage was burnt to the ground, and all the cars that were there for repairs were completely ruined. So, like I said, it's gonna be a recurring theme in his life, and really what makes the story so remarkable and inspiring, he keeps running into trouble after trouble, and somehow every time he comes out stronger on the other side. So after the fire, he takes another loan to open another auto repair shop. But here's the catch. At the time, it was nearly impossible to get a license if you weren't also an automobile manufacturer. So instead of giving up and not even trying, he pleads with the police chief every day to not shut their shop down. And eventually he manages to get the police to look the other way while he runs the shop. And he writes about this. He said, Do your best till there is nothing more to do. And this can-do spirit extends into the creativity he brought into his business, which was another theme that I found running throughout the book and his life. Um, when most other repair shops exaggerated the extent of the damage and overcharged their customers and took a long time to repair, he took exactly the opposite strategy and he would charge more for a shorter return period, and his business flourished. Um, and as you'll hear, as I mentioned, you know, his life is going to be an unending series of just, you know, giving it everything he has until there is nothing more to do. And here he wrote for which which for me honestly was the most fascinating story in the book about what he learned from bedbugs. He writes 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 really is the truth. The bunkhouse where I slept as a laborer in Incheon was teeming with so many bed bugs 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 the idea of placing a steel pot filled with water under each of the four legs of the dining table. It worked temporarily. Unfortunately, uninterrupted sleep lasted for only one or two days, and then things went back to the way they had before. The bed bugs were bothering us again. We wondered how this could be possible, considering that the bed bugs would fall into the pot of water if they attempted to climb any of the table 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 am 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? We just need to stick to it and not quit. Looking back, I see that my life has been an unending series giving all I have until there's no more that can be done. Reading that story gives me a shiver down my spine too every time I read it. Um so back to his auto-repair shop that was doing considerably well. Um, but unfortunately, just like before, good times weren't going to last. So the situation under the Japanese occupation steadily worsened, and Japan started an all-out war against China in 1941. And they were desperate to sustain a war that was beyond their means, so they started to extract everything that they could from Korea, anything that would be useful for the war effort. And one casualty of that push was Chung's auto repair shop that was forcibly taken over by a bigger shop, and just like that, everything he had built was gone again, and he walked away from it at 29 years old. But the stakes were about to get even higher. With the war, his brothers were about to be forcibly conscripted into the Japanese Imperial Army unless they found a way to work at a mine that supplied the army, in which case they would be exempt. So Chung jumps at that possibility. He signs a contract shipping ore, and his get he gets his brothers out of army duty. Um the Japanese surrendered in World War II, and now we're in 1945, and Korea finally gets liberated from Japanese rule. This is also the time when the two Koreas split into North and South by the American and Soviet forces. Um but unfortunately that liberation doesn't translate into stability right away, and the country is in total disarray. Um, the weak Korean government that was formed was quickly subsumed by US military rule. But in times of trouble is where opportunity arises. So in 1946, the US Army started selling property that previously had belonged to the Japanese, and Chung bought about 660 square meters. And with that land, he went back into the auto repair business and he opened his shop, which was called Hyundai Motor Service Center. Um, and he gets to work and business booms. The word um Hyundai translates to modernity or modern time. And then almost by accident, you know, while he's doing this business and, you know, working with the with the government to submit contracts, um, he stumbles onto the industry that would actually define his future. So one day, while submitting paperwork, he notices that representatives from construction companies were being paid a lot, right? And he's stunned by just how much money that there is in construction. And he writes, I was completely shocked to realize how much money was in construction. This difference in profit was not due to our own lack of effort, but simply reflected a difference in the scale of the two industries. I thought to myself, for the same amount of effort, why not go for the real big bucks? His partners, including his brothers, opposed the idea, but to that he said, I have rarely started a business without being laid. Labeled reckless success is 90% determination to 10% confidence. I remind myself of this every time I start a new project. There is absolutely no room, not even 1%, for doubt or apprehension. And that's incredible. So in 1947, he starts a construction company with zero experience in construction. So at first, they do whatever they can to survive. They're doing small jobs, repairs, you know, building quarters for the US Army. And at this point, you can already guess it. Just as they were getting going, trouble came knocking again on their door. In 1950, North Korea invaded South Korea. And Chung's younger younger brother, Nyu, was a journalist at the foreign affairs desk of a prominent newspaper. And he would have been a prime target for communist execution. And so he had to be evacuated. And leaving the rest of their family back in Seoul, Chung helps evacuate his brother out to the southernmost part of the country to a city called Busan. And there his brother finds work as an interpreter for the U.S. For Armed Forces for the Corps of Engineering in Busan. And Chung does what he does. He finds opportunities. He gets acquainted with the first lieutenant and starts working on construction projects for the US Army. He writes here This work was so time consuming that I barely slept more than three hours a night. An interpreter by day in you worked in our offices at night. Working like this, our coffers filled up in a month. When the Chinese People's Volunteer Army entered Seoul on January 4th, 1951, everyone was forced to retreat. This time my entire family and all of my workers fled to Busan. We bought a house in Busan and built temporary quarters for all my workers in the front yard. Everyone, down to the lowest technician, stayed with us. We cooked rice on the portable cooking stove and pots we had borrowed. We ate together. We hung the Hyundai Engineering and Construction Co Limited sign on the bustling Degio Street. We did whatever was needed to get the job done. And I I think this is so inspiring, right? They're just pushing ahead in face of extreme adversity. Um adversity that I think most of us in the West are probably not familiar with, you know, haven't haven't seen anything like that. Um and this is something you also see throughout the book on his working style. He really does believe in treating every worker in his company the same. No one gets preferential treatment, including himself, because of their title. Um, everyone works hard and everyone gives it their all. Um, so he says, in just two months, Seoul was retaken. There was no shortage of work. By then, Hyundai Engineering and construction had a near monopoly over construction jobs for the US Eighth Army. So this is incredible, right? Like starting very small with no experience in construction, and now they have monopoly over any construction contracts that are coming from the American uh military rule for the from the American military. Um, but Chung was aware that the war was bound to end at some point. So, you know, being being sort of smart about that, he starts to look for Korean government construction orders in order to diversify away from their dependence on the US Army. So now we're about in 1953, and this is when they get their start. And they start that by doing a restoration work on a bridge. Um, and he says, From the moment I started my own business to this day, I have never experienced an ordeal as severe as that one. So what happened here was, you know, the construction went at snail's pace and, you know, was plagued by disaster after disaster, and they were dealing with runaway inflation. And at some point, you know, his partners said, you know, we should just halt this and uh and you know, we should just just throw in the um, you know, we should just uh throw in the towel. But that was not going to be an option for Chung. For him, he realized that trust was very important to a businessman and that he was convinced that the moment you lose trust, it's all over. So when the project was all said and done, they were left heavily in debt. And he writes, I do not blame bad luck for the hardships we faced. I had only focused on winning the bid and was not properly prepared for the job. Long-term construction projects should be carried out on the basis of installment contracts to prevent losses from inflation. In spite of everything, I had no intention whatsoever of abandoning my business. I had failed because I was lacking and in need of more experience. However, I brushed this off and simply thought of it as an expensive lesson. This thought helped put things in perspective. I was surprisingly calm. I just love that he takes ownership of the situation instead of pointing fingers and says, okay, I messed up, but let's move on and learn from this. And I think this is something I've seen over and over again with people who build incredible things and people that we've covered on this podcast, they don't dwell on their failures. Um, they instead take them in stride and keep going, you know, stronger, smarter, and more prepared than ever before. Um, but the other thing is, you know, they don't forget those failures either. They carry the lessons with them like tools in a backpack. Every mistake becomes something that they use later to make better decisions, avoid old traps, and sort of, you know, spot opportunities they would have missed before. And seeing how they had completed this Gore Young Bridge um project, despite taking huge losses, they scored brownie points from the government. And going forward, that meant they had, you know, little difficulty um winning, uh, you know, winning further government projects. And his company, while it was still an upstart, you know, ended up because of this winning the bid to rebuild the Han River Bridge, which was Korea's biggest construction project to date, um, which was destroyed during the Korean War, and that left everyone stunned, you know. So uh that just goes to show you, you know, he was an upstart, but they kept at it, you know, despite despite sort of like the disasters that plagued them at this bridge, they kept at it, and that led them to sort of become um the winner for the bid for this huge project. Um and the ordeal at this Goryoung bridge also taught him to have the right equipment in place, and he really invested in that too. So again, he's learning from his failures, and that's what set his company apart was their early adoption of advanced machinery and heavy equipment. He says, Through this project, I was able to confirm my motto that as long as you don't die and remain healthy, there may be periods of hardship, but never complete failure. This is honestly my one of my favorite quotes in the whole book, and it's such a powerful statement because it's so easy, and I'm guilty of it too. It's so easy to say, I couldn't this do this because you know I didn't have the best schooling growing up, or I didn't have this opportunity or that opportunity, or you know, my parents didn't invest in me, or whatever, you know. But this guy literally came from zero and achieved so much. So when he says, you know, as long as you're alive and you're healthy, there's no excuses if you give it your all. Um so I think this is so incredible. He goes on to say, I believe that timing and action are the keys to success or failure. Cement is the most important material on a construction site. We were constantly desperate for a reliable supply of cement. In 1957, I set about establishing a cement plan to solve once and for all the problems caused by the paucity of cement. So when they first submitted their plan, you know, it ended up in failure. And then again, you know, when they tried, there was a change of political power. And this is another thing, you know, he's constantly going through regime change and political turmoil, which is bar none. Um but despite of that, they were able to, you know, you know, they were not able to get approvals. But eventually in 1961, this is four years after he had set out to establish a cement plan, he finally gets the approval to construct the plan. And this is yet another example of his determination to, you know, to keep going in face of hurdles and setbacks, but also just have the vision, right, of that this is, you know, whether that was like having advanced equipment and machinery or having good, reliable access to cement, this is what is going to make our construction company the best. Um, and so once the the project was completed in 1964, um, really about seven years after he started uh to do this, it became a turning point for his company, Hyundai. And I want to, you know, next read to you a little bit about his work philosophy, which I thought was, again, super powerful. This book is really a gem. Even if life doesn't stop for a moment, everybody wants to enjoy life comfortably at a leisurely pace. However, I think there is nothing more foolish than living a life according to the mantra of doing enough just to get by, not knowing how precious one's time is. In one lifetime, we can become a revered, immortalized politician, a scholar, a revolutionary, a writer, a musician, or a painter or businessman like those that we admire. These remarkable people did not take two or three lifetimes to accomplish what they did. They did it in one. To be sure, individual aptitude and ability, environment or excellence differs from case to case. Not everyone can pull off such deeds in a single lifetime. However, if you make full use of your time by living diligently, you can excel in any field. Such a life would be considered a successful one. You might think that if the work has been done procrastinating does no harm, but if you end up procrastinating all the time, this will soon add up to an enormous amount of wasted time. For these reasons, I never give my workers a lot of time to finish a task. Get it done by tomorrow morning. I know I must have hurt the feelings of many as growling was the only way I knew how to speak to them. I'm truly sorry for that. However, I am certain that rigorous examination, training, and encouragement made Hyundai what it is today. Whatever you're doing, life without hard work and a sense of duty is a life wasted. To make money, you have to shorten the construction time. I barely slept. I always brought a cot with me to work side work sites. I always used to go straight to the construction site no matter where I had flown in from. I never set aside time to recover from jet lag. There were, of course, times when I felt tired, but if the CEO does not lead by example and merely orders workers around, his words will fall on deaf ears. Gosh, this is just, you know, such powerful commentary on the value of the time that we're given on working hard and not wasting the time that we're given because there's just so much that we can do, as he said, in one lifetime. The next leg in Hyundai's exponential growth came out of Chung's unstoppable ambition. Um, so now after two regime changes and again, endless political turmoil at home, which, you know, given he's a businessman, it was impacting his business as well. Chung decided that going abroad was the way to grow his business. And as usual, again, with zero experience in foreign markets, but with hundred percent determination, he starts in Southeast Asia with the goal of using that experience to pivot into the rest of the world. And so he does. They start with building highways in Thailand, river dams in Vietnam, and ports and naval bases in the Middle East. And this was again, none of this came easy. If you read the book, you'll you'll learn about the hurdles that he faced, and which is just extraordinary that, you know, he is so determined to overcome all the troubles that come their way. The money that he was earning abroad and then depositing back in Korea played such a decisive role in strengthening the Korean currency as well. So I just think it's so amazing that this one man's determination and ambition is not only fueling his own business, but also contributing to his country, you know, and developing Korea. And that was the impact, you know, that he had on the world and on his country. Um, so what another thing he did was in Korea, for example, you know, his company was laying down the literal foundation of the country's futures. You know, he built roads and expressways, um, infrastructure that would really power Korea's modernization and eventual transformation into a developed nation. So it's really just so wild to think about how much of modern Korea traces back to this man's time and to his refusal to think small. Um moving forward to 1969 now, um he gets the license to start Hyundai Motor. And, you know, in his true chunk fashion and his motto of shortening the timeline, they turn out their first car was called the Cortina just in six months after breaking ground on the factory. But unfortunately, the Cortina is just a big flop, you know, it it became a laughing stock, really. And there were jokes like if it stops, it's a Cortina, or Cortina, the car that you need to push, you know, these jokes were making the rounds. So not exactly the debut he was looking for, you know, after working so hard on his dream. But if there's one thing we've learned about Chung by now, it's that setbacks don't slow this guy down, they fuel him. And he writes exactly this, right? He says, quitting is not in my dictionary, it's never going to happen. We were almost bankrupt after a lot of ordeals in 1976. The pony hit the streets. It didn't feel like the car, it looked like a chicken that had lost its tail. But what do I know? Even before it came off the assembly line, the pony's popularity had already gone through the roof. Two hundred and twenty-eight dealerships in sixty-two countries wanted to import it. Building Korea's first domestically produced car was one of the biggest challenges I've ever faced. Even with the success of the pony, I endured indescribable hardships and unrelenting pressure. And this section proved to be very providential. He says, Today, Hyundai Motors is one of the most important companies in the Hyundai group. This stems from Hyundai's origins as a car repair shop. Construction emerged as Hyundai's core business because of the inherent economies of scale that result in big contracts and yield great returns. But in the long run, I believe it's automobiles that will become Hyundai's greatest success story, which we see today, you know, the brand is so global and so internationally recognizable. If having a, you know, and if having a construction business and an auto business wasn't enough for this guy, you know, he then decides that he wants to get into shipbuilding. So he writes, When a small idea the size of a grain is implanted in my mind, I nurture it until it grows into a major project that I can visualize in my head. This is a specialty of mine. So we're just gonna take a break here and just think about how insane this is for a second. He already has two highly successful businesses, but he decides that's not enough. I have to contribute to my country's growth. So let's build our first shipyard and oil tanker. This guy was just a visionary at a different level. And mind you again, there's zero experience. I mean, we know that, right? There's just no experience in shipbuilding, but there's a hundred percent determination. And just like every other project he touched, he attacked this one with the same obsession for speed and efficiency. And he writes, Everything was finished in just two years and three months, which is remarkable. We set the record for the fastest time to build a shipyard and two oil tankers. By 1975, Hyundai Shipbuilding had the world's largest shipyard and the capacity to build the world's largest ships. And this is starting from scratch. He says, We knew nothing about building ships, but we were determined to make the best ships that we could. So, you know, they've had a huge achievement here, but at this point, and this actually for me was one of the was the standout stories in the book, just honest creativity, right? Like, you know, so trouble comes knocking again, and you know, again, it's a pattern at this point. But, you know, he has his way of reframing hardship, and I just love the creativity in the story. He says, in any given mission, the most devastating error is to give up. If there's one thing I've learned, it is that life is a constant struggle. In October 1973, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, or OPEC, shocked world markets by raising the price of crude oil by 17%. Global trade volumes plummeted, creating the worst recession the shipping industry had ever faced. On top of this, the Suez Canal reopened in June of 1975. Since oil tankers of over 70,000 tons could not pass through the canal, a 200,000 ton super tanker would be rendered useless. We were hit especially hard because of our heavy focus on supertankers. Ship owners added to our troubles by canceling orders. So imagine how hard that must have been and the amount of capital required in this business. So they had about three 260,000 ton supertankers on their hand. But, you know, back to his motto, do your best till there is nothing more to do. And this story is just incredibly amazing and creative. So in March 17, 1976, we created Asia Merchant Marine and officially entered the shipping industry. At that time, the transportation rights of all oil that we imported from abroad were dominated by foreign companies. I was planning to use Hyundai ships to carry the oil that Korea imported. But foreign shipping companies demanded$14 million for transportation rights, claiming that this was the amount that they would be losing. But that was none of my concern. In the past, we paid them to borrow their ships because we didn't have our own. But now we did. We could move our own oil. The idea that we should pay for their losses was patently directly absurd. I refused to budge. I held out for eight months, and the price they demanded dropped to three million. I still wouldn't budge. I stuck to my guns, we were going to transport Korea's oil. Eventually, I got what I wanted and I didn't pay a single dime. That's how we put those three super tankers to good use. So this I mean this story is just absolutely incredible. I mean, that never give up, keep giving until nothing more can be done is so clear here. The guy is just Relentless. I mean, you could just be there and be like, wow, the global economy is collapsing. We have these tankers on hand. What do we do with them? Like, we're incurring losses by the day. But he's like, no, like, I'm gonna find a way to put these tankers to a different use. Um, you know, that process is not easy, but he keeps at it and he gets to where he wants to. And he's a visionary and he is a nation builder too. You know, he's thinking about his country, um, you know, how to drop their their their oil bill and you know, strengthening the currency, uh, building the country's infrastructure. The guy is just relentless. So the book was um written when he was in his mid-80s, and I like this one paragraph from the book where he talks about the way he's approached his work, and he says, The years have come and gone, and now I'm in my mid-80s, but age was never important to me. To this day, I remain completely engulfed in my work with no spare time. What has always been most important to me is how I use my time for work. Other than thinking about how to develop and grow my business, I'm actually not very interested in anything else. For me, time is the capital that must be managed most wisely. I make a plan, jump headfirst into it, and finish a project in a shorter amount of time than other people. When others are hesitating, I have already begun working. It's not an exaggeration to say that my life was defined by time rather than age. This is how I have lived, and this is how I have succeeded. I really liked this paragraph because he's just so clear that time is of the essence, and using time wisely and efficiently, being laser focused on his work was how he succeeded. The last story that I want to tell before I wrap up is about the Olympics. And that's because it shows just how far his influence reached in. You know, there's just so much about his life in the book, so I re highly recommend that you pick one, copy up. Um, but Changju Young, as you can tell by now, was not just a businessman, right? He was a visionary nation builder. And despite the political chaos and turmoil, his business ventures across construction, cars, ships became the backbone of Korea's economic development, and it played a vital part in making the country what it is today, which is incredible and crazy to think of at the same time. So when Korea decided to bid for the Olympics, you know, it was only a matter of time before he got pulled into the mix. Um so in 1979, President Park um announced that Korea was going to, you know, place their bid to host the Games, but he got assassinated later that year, and that sort of threw the country into another political chaos. Um by next year, you know, 1980, um, the government sort of reluctantly submitted the bid, but no one really believed that you know they had a shot. And the general sentiment was like, you know, we're gonna get crushed by Japan and this is going to be embarrassing. So the key players started sort of distancing themselves from being involved in the bidding process and handed the whole mess to Chung Ju Yang. But, you know, if there's one thing we've learned so far about him, it's that he never runs from responsibility and he runs towards it. And as he put it, I live by the principle that if you're presented with an opportunity to assume a position of social responsibility, you must take it and do your best. And he really meant it. And with basically little to no support from the government, he poured all of his time and energy into making sure that they went in and put their best foot forward to win this bid. Um, he made sure, you know, that the team treated North Korea with respect and diplomacy. You know, he reached out to the committee members from um the Middle East and Africa, people, you know, other countries often overlooked. Uh, you know, he even had his sister-in-law make flower baskets for every um member of the committee. Uh, and that's really the level of detail he was operating on to make sure that they put their best foot forward. Um, and all of this, you know, while everybody else predicted that Japan was going to win, you know, and you know, even right before the the bidding, the, you know, the bidding results were gonna come out, the local German newspapers were saying that, you know, that Japan's gonna win it. So for a country that went into this whole thing expecting to scrape together maybe three or four votes, um, Chung secured 52 and Japan received 27. So he did what almost everyone thought was impossible. So I just I just thought this was so amazing that he got into this process because some people thought, you know, we're just gonna let this guy take the blame because we have no shot. And then he just turns the whole thing around and, you know, gets Korea to to host the Olympics. Um, so back home, he was also, you know, tasked with serving on the Olympic committee. So even though he didn't really want to, but you know, he served with that for that as well and saw through what was a highly successful Olympic. So, um, so I just think that, you know, it's so incredible that in one lifetime this, you know, this individual was able to do so much for his country, for his business, for his family, and for himself. And that's just so, so inspiring. Um, I think Chang Juyang's story is set in a unique time in history. He saw firsthand um the country go through multiple wars, regime changes, the fight over communism and free market economy that played just so close to home, and he thrived despite all these challenges. Um, I like what he wrote about this time. He says, every person starts out under similar conditions, but some do well and some do not. Those who are dissatisfied with how their lives have turned out tend to focus on the unequal results rather than acknowledging the un that unequal results may be the product of differences in effort and talent. In a free market economy, no third party, including the government, can resolve that inequality. Due to such inequality, the young are drawn to a communist system. However, their understanding of communism is naive. Though communism dangles the fantasy of the equal distribution of wealth, in reality, it is an equal distribution of poverty. The Chinese and Soviet experiences of the past 50 to 70 years are a powerful indictment of communism and its shortcomings. And I think that that means a whole lot coming from someone who started from nothing and made something out of himself. And I think when you zoom out and look at his life as a whole, um, couple patterns jump out. And I think that's the most energizing part of his story. You know, he wasn't the smartest guy in the room, he wasn't the most educated. Um, he didn't come from money, but what he did have was just this relentless belief that if he gave it his everything, he could figure it out, and that setbacks are part of life. I mean, we saw that that he faced setback after setback after setback. But it's that responsibility is something he ran towards and not away from. You know, he didn't wait for perfect conditions. Um, his whole life was in, you know, engulfed and set in political turmoil. Um, but you know, he didn't wait to feel ready, he didn't wait for permission. He just moved, he learned, he adapted, and he kept going long after I think most people would have tapped out. And I think that for me is the real takeaway here that life is a constant struggle and that you gotta do your best till nothing more can be done. And with that, it's a wrap for today's episode. I think this book is just extremely inspiring. And if you made it this far, thank you so much for listening. I'd love to hear feedback if you have any, and if you like today's episode, please share it with someone you think who would enjoy it. Until then, happy reading and thank you.