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According to the Greek mythology, Heracles had an astounding wisdom and wit. At the time, the king was Augeas. He had thousands of livestock in his stable. So the stable was always dirty owing to their excrements and filth. Nobody could cleanse it up. Such a dirty condition lasted for more than thirty years. So the king was troubled and depressed with the worst condition of his royal stable. One day he heard of Heracles’ stunning wisdom. He was, also, stunned with his wisdom. On the other side, he was jealous of him out of his narrow-mindedness. Then he ordered his men to send in him before the palace. When he met with him he said to him that:
“I am told you are a wise man with a brilliant idea. I hear you can settle down any problem with your wisdom. But so far I have not seen such a genuinely real scene with my physical eyes. Really I’d like to see it personally but also as king of the country. Today I have a big problem related with my private but royal stable. So far, nobody could have cleansed it up. With your great wisdom I want to get it cleansed. From now on I’ll give you one week in order to cleanse it up. So, you have to finish it within a week. Otherwise, you must have been a liar enough to deceive the people. Then I’ll punish you as a liar or a trickster.”
All of it was his words to Heracles. In light of his threatening speech, at a deeper level, the King’s mind was not to clean up the stable at all. Rather, his hidden mind was too much tricky and sinister. If he did not do it as such, the king intended to kill him on the charge of trickery, deceit, delinquency, or whatever it was.
Therefore, either willingly or unwillingly, the brainiest guy Heracles had to fulfill this assignment within the designated time. He nosed out his hidden mindset. After looking around the filthy stable, he found it out that the stable was close to the river. Then, he thought out an idea. It was that the river waters might be useful for washing out the dirty stable. Then, he made a channel between the riverside and the stable. Then, with the waters he washed the excrements and filth inside the stable and then cleansed it up completely. The assignment was completed handily within a few days. Thus, the king could not kill him.
Like Heracles, Cheong, Ju-young was such a man of unschooled talent. Here was an anecdote to show that he possessed a working knowledge. In his thirties, he, as a business man, was ordered to re-cover the desolate Korean airport with the green grass. At the time Korea was at War. The president-elected of the USA, Dwight D. Eisenhower, was to visit Korea and see the war situation. At the moment when he got down from the airplane the staff around him wanted him to see the grass-grown airfield. (Below was the scene of Eisenhower’s tour of the Korean War in December 1951. Source: Wikipedia)
But, there was no green grass around a Korean landing field. Already the coldest weather had winter-killed plants and had not permitted them to grow up outdoors. Of course, at the time Korea had no greenhouse at all. And, there were not ‘artificial turf’ at all unlike the one at the present days.
Nonetheless, he had to layer the airfield with the green grass. However, he could not find it out throughout the country. Here, the assignment looked impossible. For a time, he was a little bit tense and worrisome. But he never winced nor diddled around. Of course, the severely cold weather couldn’t stop him. To him, it was a ‘catch-as-catch-can’ situation.
Within a few days, he came up with a vagarious idea. It was that:
“There is no green grass in the winter season. However, there is something similar to it on the farm. It is winter barley. Now the barley endures the cold weather. And it is growing over there under the deep snow. Thus, the barley can be a substitute for the green grass. Let me replace it with the barley. Then with it I’ll cover the airfield. Then I can make a green airfield. Yes, that’s right. I can do it.”
Chafing his hands, he removed the snow in the barley farm with picks and shovels. Then, he with his men dug out the buds of barley from the ground. With them he could have clothed the airfield with the buds of winter barley. Then the barren landing field changed. The surface looked green. There was no difference between winter barley and green grass. Nobody did recognize it. The assignment was fixed and completed. No problem. It was his gumption. And it was the crunch for his great success. Of course, it was not a normal and ordinary way at all. But, with the gumption he carried out any job as such completely.
From time to time, Cheong, Ju-young would say to his men and colleaguesabout success and fortune as below:
“So-called, Oh, Fortuna is nothing to me.Correct, misfortune is not a failure. A man of success has 90 % of passion and 10 % of self-confidence. As for me, there was 0 % of anxiety for failure. I didn’t turn to Oh, Fortuna or the charitable Grace of God in heaven. Any intelligent man should not entrust himself to fortune, or Oh, Fortuna or whatever it is. It is the key to success under any circumstance.”