The 51st story of a full-length business novel.
His words are redolent of the great British warrior, Winston Churchill. He survived the Dunkirk Crisis and won the World War Two in the end. After the War, he was asked by reporters, ‘How could you survive the Crisis?’
He said flatly.
“Failure is not fatal. Also, success is not final. Success is the courage to continue that counts. Thus, success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm. With the courage I survived the Crisis and made a success. The success was the victory in the War. That’s it.”
In this way, Churchill saw success as tireless and indomitable courage. Like him, Cheong, Ju-young also believed that success would be made only by paranoid passion and self-confidence but not by ‘Oh, Fortuna’. Indeed, ‘Oh, Fortuna’ was nothing to him. Even to the present, a mass of the Korean people say about him that:
“His success was due to diligence and passion. Animated by achievement motive he was filled with riveting ideas throughout his life. Such ideas were natural-born, but not from learning at school. All of them originated from his indomitable guts and gumption. With this sort of unflinching qualities, he broke a road and made the pace toward his bright future. He has never lost passion during his lifetime. In this point, to him, passion was ability. And the passion made him a man of ability. Then it made him a man of success in the end.”
Presumably, his achievement motive and aggressive lifestyle rubbed off on his son. Yes, it might be true that his primitive diligence and hard-driving style were instilled in his son. Willingly or unwillingly, therefore, the son habitually practiced all of his role-playings from the cradle. Over time, those all became a good teaching to the son. As a result, the son was endowed his father’s unique qualities. Like him, the son is tough and aggressive. His spirit, like him, is hungry with a pushing spirit and a chin-up attitude, unwearied and industrious. His thinking is, also, odd yet creative. All the extraordinary instincts dwell unchanged in him. So, he is the clone of his father. Especially, his obsession ran more toward leisureless mind and workaholic attitude.
Fortuitously, at the right time, the drastically changing world weather coiled around himself. As a result, the obstinate policy, Saturday Management, might have been born as a spin-off. In turn, all of it drove him towards a much bigger dream than his father’s. Now he has a great dream to spring up into the world stage beyond his father’s greatness.
In this relation, there is an intriguing account. It was another teaching from his father. However, the teaching was not from his father’s idea. But, it was from a mentor of his father. A certain Korean’s life made his father one of the great captains of industry in Korea. By all accounts, Cheong, Ju-young was not a bookish person at all. But, in early age he, as a boy, chanced upon a book for children. It was on the life of Chang Bo-ko. In it, there were lots of working knowledge and adventures. Soon the boy found it aroused much amusement. Then he came to read it all amusingly. (Below is an image of a juvenile book. Source: www.lib.umich.edu)
The preface of the juvenile book begins as below:
“Chang, Bo-ko was an entrepreneur as well as a general in the middle of the 9th century in the Far East. But, he was assassinated by a henchman. By an unidentified rumor, it was said that he was so ambitious and treacherous to rivet on the kingship. Further, he was said to have sought to make a revolt against the country.. However, such a rumor was not based upon the historical facts at all. All of it was a figment, fabricated by bastards. So it was a groundless one. In origin, he was a benevolent warlord as well as a loyal servant for his country. Nonetheless, his political rivals defamed and slandered him out of jealousy. Then they killed him by an assassin, along with exploiting the wicked rumor.”
All of it was the summary of his life in the book. Then the book runs in detail as follows:
“The birth and early life of Chang Bo-ko was little documented. But, he was known as a descendant of the vanquished kingdom named Baekjae(百濟). Baekjae was destroyed and united into Shilla around the middle of the 7th century. (Below was the map in the Far East at the time of the 7th century. Source: www.sacu.org)
After the union, more than one hundred years passed by. Then he was born in the early 9th century. So he was a nation of Shilla(新羅). But Shilla did not give him a chance to make a dignified life. The reason was that he was from the lost nation. It was truly an unfair discrimination. But he was not discouraged. Rather he was resolved to be an extraordinarily great man outside Shilla. Then, he went abroad to seek for his fortune, Oh, Fortuna. After crossing the deepwater Yellow Sea he entered the prosperous Chinese Empire, Tang China(唐). There, he earnestly wanted to fulfill his boyish hopes and dreams. Then he joined the Chinese army as seaman by exploiting his extraordinary abilities; swimming and shooting arrows. Then and there, he devoted himself for improving his education. At the same time he cultivated a great dream. Then and then he became a high-ranking commander as an admiral. It was in his early thirties.”
In this way, his success story started in the book for children. At this point, the book looked to the boy like a treasury of information. Especially it was on the secret to success. Predictably, the part stunned the boy even if it was a simple copybook. Also its maxims wakened his hidden mind anew. Right, the boy found the courage in the book. Then the courage led him to do something in life. Later it would change his entire life. Continuously the copybook encouraged him in a concrete way as below:
“He was born from a poor family because he was the colonial people of the fallen nation Baekjae. So his early days were always so poor, humble, and unfortunate. Thus, he had to drain the cup of hunger and poverty to the dregs in his boyhood. In spite of natural-born adversity, he had ‘New Thinking’ even in his tenths. It was the start line for him to create his destiny. With the new thinking he found out ‘New Possibilities.’ But the new possibilities were not at his home town but the huge continent, China. There, he tried to fulfill his dream throughout his life.”
While reading the very part of the book, the boy found out that:
“It is highly readable. It is not a pulp novel at all. But, it is a real dream board.”