024: Jung Park - Defining, measuring, and increasing your life ROI
Jung was born in Seoul, South Korea and migrated to New York City when he was 13. He currently lives in Denver, Colorado with his wife and two young children. He has over 20 years of consulting experience in design, branding, marketing, user experience, strategy, and business development. He also has over 15 years of experience as a start-up entrepreneur in all facets of entrepreneurship from funding to operations.
Leveraging his experience from consulting and his passion for strategy and entrepreneurship, Jung has built a unique platform of services. He provides a full suite of consulting and advisory services in entrepreneurship, strategy, culture, marketing, and branding to corporate, start-up and non-profit clients. Jung also delivers key notes, seminars and facilitates workshops on the subjects of corporate/personal branding, professional/personal development, Life ROI, entrepreneurship, value, culture, diversity, and Asian-American empowerment.
As a professor in practice at University of Colorado Denver, Jung teaches undergraduate and graduate level program on marketing, entrepreneurship and personal branding for the Professional MBA, 1-Year MBA, and Executive MBA program at the school of business and entrepreneurship center. Jung also serves as an advisory council member at the Jake Jabs Center for Entrepreneurship at University of Colorado Denver.
NOTES
the story of when his career and his personal health collided and how that played a major part in the arc of his career and how he shows up in the world today
what it means to consistently and passionately practice being virtuous to the things he believes in
how he has managed the biggest challenges he’s faced over the years — including insecurity, criticism, and doubt
what the future of personal branding looks like as social media behemoths like Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and the YouTube community continue to grow in popularity
how we as entrepreneurs can create a space for equity in our businesses
Jung explains the concept behind his newest project “The Life ROI”, that launches on August 21
LINKS
Jake Jabs Center for Entrepreneurship
TRANSCRIPT
Jung Park: 00:00:00 I think we're live for why and personal brand comes in for the millennials and Gen zs and the future generations is you better be straight on why you're undeserved, why your parents went through, what they had to go through to have you here, why they sacrifice and made things possible for you to be enjoying it and and be spoiled in so privileged that you have privilege that specifically categorize for dose white, Harvard graduate, multimillion dollar families would all money. I have privileges that my parents never did. My children have privileges I never did. It's our generation and each generation or responsibilities to provide a level of security and safety for the next generation. However, on the same token, that also allows us to spoil the generation after us to become weaker mentally, emotionally, and physically because of the privileges.
Gabe Ratliff: 00:01:03 You're listening to the artful entrepreneur podcast, a show about living an inspired life filled with vitality, creativity, and fulfillment. My name is Gabe Ratliff, and I'll be your host as I interview fellow creative entrepreneurs from around the globe to hear their stories and learn more about their work so that you can tap into your creative purpose and live a life that's drawn, not traced on the show. We talk about things like the creative process, personal development, community equity and contribution as well as the lessons learned along the way. All right, let's get to it.
Gabe Ratliff: 00:01:43 Hey guys, thanks so much for joining me on this episode of the Artful Entrepreneur. Yes, that's right folks. We have launched the rebrand of the website and the podcast is complete. We have now switched over. I'm so excited. It's, it's been an amazing experience. It's been overwhelming at times and fulfilling and life changing and empowering. And it's also pronouncing a shift in my business and how I'm showing up in the world and my priorities in my life and in my business. And I'm so excited for this shift to this new brand as the artful entrepreneur. So I thank you for being here and please give me feedback. You know, I'm changing up the music. I've changed up the intros and Outros and let's see where this goes. I'm excited for a lot of these guests that are coming up. It's really great that I'm branching out and I'm really owning up to the way that I want to show up for people and provide a platform for people of color, women, LGBTQ community, and just all kinds of people that have been marginalized as well as you know, creative entrepreneurs.
Gabe Ratliff: 00:03:03 I want this to be a space where we can have that conversation, but I can also support people and give them this platform that they may or may not be getting in other areas or in this space on podcasts. So without further ado, I want to introduce you to Junk Park. Jung Was born in Seoul, South Korea and migrated to New York City when he was 13 he currently lives in Denver, Colorado with his wife and two young children. He has over 20 years of consulting experience in design, branding, marketing, user experience strategy and business development. He also has over 15 years of experience as a startup entrepreneur and all facets of entrepreneurship from funding to operations. He provides a full suite of consulting and advisory services and entrepreneurship strategy, culture, marketing and branding to corporate startup and nonprofit clients. He also delivers keynotes, seminars, and facilitates workshops on the subjects of corporate and personal branding, professional and personal development, Life ROI, which we're going to hear a lot more about later.
Gabe Ratliff: 00:04:10 Entrepreneurship, value, culture, diversity, and Asian-American empowerment. As a professor and practice at University of Colorado, Denver, Jung teaches undergraduate and graduate level programs on marketing, entrepreneurship, and personal branding for the Professional MBA one year MBA and executive MBA program at the school of business. And in this episode we talk about the story of when his career and his personal health collided, how that played a major part in the arc of his career and how he shows up in the world today, which I actually learned when I met him at the Denver Startup Week in 2016 when he did a personal branding symposium for three days. It was awesome and it was right at the pivot for me when I left corporate after being laid off and took some time, did a bunch of deep work, went to Denver startup week, did this personal branding symposium, whole bunch of other things like ancient Tibetan death meditations and seminars and and work with business coaches and decided, you know, I want to be an entrepreneur and I'm ready to do that and I want to give this a shot.
Gabe Ratliff: 00:05:17 So now, three years later, here we are and we also talk about what it means to consistently and passionately practice being virtuous to the things he believes in, how he's managed, the biggest challenges he's faced over the years, including insecurity, criticism and doubt, which we all know plenty about. What the future of personal branding looks like is social media behemoths like Facebook, Instagram, snapchat, and the youtube community continued to grow in popularity. How we as entrepreneurs can create a space for equity in our businesses and he explains the concept behind his newest project, the life ROI that launches on August 21st hi Jung, thank you so much for being here on this episode. I'm so excited to have you here.
Jung Park: 00:06:00 Glad to be here. Thanks for having me, Gabe.
Gabe Ratliff: 00:06:03 So there is so much to cover in IIT, not only your story but the work that you're doing. I thought we'd start off with, I mean you have such a wonderfully diverse childhood that I was personally introduced to at your three-day personal branding symposium at Denver Startup Week in 2016 and I was wondering if you could share a bit of your background with my audience and kind of get us started from like where are you, where you at, where it all started for you?
Jung Park: 00:06:30 Sure, absolutely. I was born in Seoul, South Korea, pretty middle class family and my mother was an entrepreneur. My father was a military, a career military man. I have a younger sister and I grew up in a neighborhood that was middle class, close knit and pretty much happy childhood all the way through 13 years old and that's when my family moved to Brooklyn, New York and it was quite a culture shock. I still remember getting off the plane at JFK 1130 at night getting into my father's beat-up, old blue is Chevy station wagon that stunk of fish is my father was delivering fish for a living back then. And 1984 October 21st is when my second chapter of my life really began as someone who look funny. Apparently I had no idea that my eyes look funny and my name reminded people of the sound it makes when people drop silverware on hard cold kitchen tile floor.
Jung Park: 00:07:32 So I got to learn about myself from a completely different perspective that I wasn't exposed to before. Living in a homogeneous society for the first 13 years of my life. New York is most people would imagine is not the ideal place to make new friends. Especially if you got off the boat, doesn't speak the language and you don't know anyone. So the first few years are quite rough. There's one thing to challenge, it's one thing to face challenge. Knowing what is expected is another. Taking too well got be a house or apartment and not knowing what's gonna hit you upside the head that day. So the first few years are quite rough. First couple of years in school, we're even rougher. I I was, I was in seventh grade at the time, but they put me in elementary school again because back in them days, New York City public education decided if you don't know how to speak English, it's considered as a learning disability.
Jung Park: 00:08:27 So they put me back in elementary school in a class full of students with learning disability. That's where all the foreign kids went. And I pretty much sat around all day looking up every single word in a textbook in a trained English dictionary. That's how I spent the first couple of years trying to learn the culture, the language and make friends. So they gave me the work ethic. I believe besides the DNA that I born with the blessing from my mother on hustle, I had no choice but to start my day off two, three hours before school by rang. So I can look up every single page that we're going over and the textbook in class that day using my Korean English dictionary just so that when the bell school bell rang, I can start off the day on the same, the competitive landscape and starting point as my schoolmates.
Jung Park: 00:09:21 Otherwise I could never keep up. Joe. Early on I was forced to hustle and it stuck by me, so I grew up in New York. My parents, sorry to move out to Colorado after my mother witnessed a armed robbery take place where the gunmen had placed the gun on my father's forehead as he was robbing him. It's happened before, but it was first time my mom witnessed it, so shortly, shortly after that they sold the business and decided to start something. Audi in Colorado because my mother had a close childhood friend here. I took a year from college to come out and help them out so that I can help them start their business and then go back to school and funny thing happened. I met a girl, fell in love, got married, and then I dragged her back to New York for five years. And both of us graduated from our universities in New York.
Jung Park: 00:10:19 And the company that I was working for doing consulting work, it was just launching a Denver Office that was supposed to be the hub of central region. So my company moved me back to Colorado back in 2000 to manage the central office or central region. My wifi abuse, she was ecstatic because she's native Coloradan and she never really wanted to live in the east coast. So we came back in 2000 and then we've been here ever since. My wife, bless me with two beautiful children, Madison is my daughter. She's 14 going into high school as a freshman this year. And my son Mateo is seven years old. Wow.
Gabe Ratliff: 00:10:58 So now I know that you also have a very relevant story around your career and personal health and how that played a part in the arc of your career and where you are today. And I was wondering if you could take us back through that story and how that affected you in corporate and where you are now as an entrepreneur.
Jung Park: 00:11:21 Sure. You know, when you and I got together for coffee back in 2016, I believe this was right before something happened that would add to this story, the first bout that I had in a corporate culture where I knew that I was in aligned with what the corporate world dictated from me was back in 2000 two, I had taken a job here locally for a private company. First time ever that I worked for a private company in my life, experienced professional racism. I grew up in New York. Racism is everywhere and people, a unsolicitedly tell you what they think of you. So I'm used to that phase type of treatment. But when I, what I experienced back in 2002 was very underhanded under the skin. There'll be many nights when I'm watching sports set at nine o'clock at night and realize that one statement that my colleague made or my supervisor made wasn't a compliment at all.
Jung Park: 00:12:23 It was actually a very underhanded, a racist and prejudice comments. And there were many things happening that made me realize that I was feeling stress due to the conditions that I had zero control over. So after about four months of being in that company and dealing with this stress on a daily level, my body finally freaked out and said, listen, I ain't doing this no more. One afternoon on a Friday by les cy from Waist Up, I became paralyzed and I couldn't move for a few days. What my body was trying to tell me was there, listen, you can't abuse me this way. You're in an environment that is toxic that is misaligned with your core values and you're having to fight battles for eight to 10 hours a day. And this is not sustainable. Of course, I didn't listen. So I finished out what I could back back in them days and, and closed up a year at this company because I come from an old school where you're never supposed to leave a company before your job.
Jung Park: 00:13:28 Not that anyone cares nowadays. But that was the old school mentality that I had. So I stuck it out for a year and I'm here at Cu Denver to get my MBA because ultimately I wanted to consult at a different company. I also knew what a healthy corporate culture looks like cause I, I have great mentors. When I was doing consulting back in early two thousands, I had a great mentor and a supervisor named Brian Van Dyke and an older brother then my mother never had for me, that I found in a middle of Iowa. That's where he was born and raised at. He showed me what a great leadership looks like and I wanted that experience again. So after graduating from the MBA program, I competed in a business plan competition, which led me to starting my entre entrepreneurship career earlier than expected by mentor. Brian had actually offered me a job in his company in Chicago and I turned it down to pursue what I thought would be a great business venture, which led to running the business that I had zero experience or expertise in. I simply started that business because as cu Denver, when I was in open enrolled in the MBA program, we had an annual business plan competition and any students who attended the business planning class were required to enter the competition. So I simply, this sold because
Jung Park: 00:14:52 It was a required that business plan happen to come in first place in 2004. So I have some funding and momentum. So I turned down the job that Brian offered me in Chicago doing more consulting work to actually start my own hybrid retail and a service business, which I ran for 11 years. I started the company with a 10 different credit cards, 100% on debt financing, which I would never ever recommend anyone doing. But that was all that was available to me. And I had to do what it took to actually get off the cliff and figure out how to fly sleeping three to four hours a night. Four 11 is taking on consulting work to make sure there was enough cash to keep the business afloat, swiping my own personal credit cards, my own terminal at the retail location to make payrolls.
Jung Park: 00:15:45 I made things work, make the company profitable and had cashflow positive. But do you to a external factor that seriously, that been our move from a smaller location to a bigger location. I s face some serious serious challenges in 2015 and 16 that I didn't expect. So like all entrepreneurs do when there's challenges or nos, we don't typically back out, figure out a way to conquer it. That's what I did. All right. Consulted full time for a client while making that money to pour back into the business. And I was determined to make this work. And in June of 2016 while I was out to dinner with friends and his family I blacked out as I was getting up from the dinner to leave and when I blacked out, my head happened to land right by the foot of I retired nurse having dinner and she jumped on me and, and found that I stopped.
Jung Park: 00:16:49 I had stopped breathing and my heart had stopped. So she instructed my buddy to do some CPR along with her and she hit my heart, started it again before the paramedics got there. So besides the concussion that doctors couldn't tell me exactly what happened, happened to my heart. They certainly couldn't guarantee that it wasn't going to happen again. But after 30 days of laying around waiting for my conclusion to clear, I have nothing but trying to figure out how to go back to work. I have to go back to 80 hours a week cause I gotta to make this thing work. So I did a month after and I went right back to 80 at 90. Then I was a week of hustling and doing what I'm supposed to do. When I saw a post on Facebook, a buddy of mine out in Thailand had passed away and the way his family and friends describe what happened was exactly what happened to me, except he wasn't lucky enough to pass out and black out by sort of a retired nurse. It was in car by himself.
Jung Park: 00:17:50 And when I saw the picture on his son lap, and to be the same age as my son would one hand on the coffin and with the puzzle and confused and, and sad look on his face, I couldn't help to realize that I had missed my wake up call three months earlier when I blacked out. But this wasn't, this wasn't to be missed again. And I realized it was a wake up call. That's when I started shutting all my businesses down. I had about three entities and I felt terrible for my investors, but I had to do what I had to do to live another day from my family. So I shut my business down December of 2016 and I went back to doing consulting work in 2017 to provide more of a financial stability from a my family as well as for me to recoup and recover so I can make sure that I'm a around when my son, he becomes a father himself.
Gabe Ratliff: 00:18:49 Thank you so much for sharing that. I really appreciate that, John, because I mean that's really powerful. I, I mean, I can't imagine what that's like having a buddy in Thailand who essentially went through the same thing but didn't have that blessing that you did. And I mean, that really goes to show you, you never know what tomorrow brings. And I, I similarly, it's part of what's led me is that I, I similarly had a friend who tragically passed away in an accident a couple of years ago and we had just celebrated two weeks prior his 40th birthday. It, it was that same kind of occurrence, right? That it just, can he, outside of what happened to you specifically? It's just like another reminder that, I mean, I mean, I can't imagine what that was like and you know, and on top of that, right, having you sit at an 11 year business with investors and you know, employees and all the work that you had gone to or gone through too, keep the business going and to, to, you know, persevere through those challenges. I mean, that's you, you came through it and you did something with the insights of that situation and that experience and that you're now pushing that out to the world and, and owning your, your owning the, the message that you send out to the world. You're owning that it's in your space. And that was a big part of why I wanted to have you on the show so that you could share that story because it's just so powerful and it's stuck with me since 2016
Jung Park: 00:20:34 I'm sorry to hear about your buddy as fascinating. It's an interesting thing. The business world I teach here at the business school. As you Denver, specifically within the entrepreneurial community,
Jung Park: 00:20:46 We're busy and brainwashed and condition only benchmark and look up to to do a successful people. And the way we define success for those people is literally nothing but a dollar sign next to their name. And I think we're more than that. And we should be more than that. And failure is not something that people want to talk about approach. Certainly failure is not something to celebrate. I heard people, not intentionally, but there were many people that were hurt financially, emotionally through my business ventures. So I don't celebrate failure. However, I would acknowledge and failure remains a failure unless you learn something from it. And that's when it becomes a life lesson. And I think more entrepreneurs that we have out there talking about what they've gone through and not just a fancy Chapin as she accolades of what they've accomplished, but what consequences and what price they paid to get there.
Jung Park: 00:21:47 This is not an easy thing, as you know. And I think every single individual who's thinking about getting into entrepreneurship should walk into it with eyes wide open learning from it. And benchmark it, those individuals who pay the price to get there and who pay the price and never got there. So I get to tell my story and it hurts me to tell those stories. I certainly don't get any kicks out of this and I'm certainly not one of those people. We're looking for sympathy by telling us as sob story here. But if it just touches one person, we can make sure that they put their families and their health first before they're chasing the American dream. I think that's the, that's what would make this story not a terrible one, but and learn about opportunity. I don't like it for myself but others.
Gabe Ratliff: 00:22:35 Exactly. Yeah, exactly. And thank you for, I mean that in a lot more clear and concise way cause that that's, that's what I got from it and that it was in a time when I had just been in corporate and I was in a startup and you know, 60 to 70 hours a week. So I truly connected with that story. And this is before we had lost Matt. And you know, I was just cranking and cranking and cranking and I not only drank the Koolaid, I made it, you know, I mean I was like 100% onboard with the work we were doing. I loved our clientele, I loved the, the instructors we were working with, you know, providing this modern concept to education and online education and sharing of knowledge and doing things that fulfill you and how that all interacted in that model. And so I was just completely devout to mention the how familial the work environment was, but it was just so much work.
Gabe Ratliff: 00:23:50 And I had that same physical, not to that degree whatsoever, but I had that same physical understanding of, you know, just, I was in poor physical shape, mental shape, spiritual shape. I just was not really, I was like missing out on events. I missed out on a friend of mines. Actually two friends of mine wedding in India. You know, and it's a regret I have because I put my work in front of being a part of this once in a lifetime thing where I missed their wedding in this amazing place. And I mean, there were elephants walking them through the city to where they were being wed. And I mean, just amazing experience that I wasn't able to witness with my friends. So, you know, it's just things like that that I really resonate with in that story. I wanted to mention, you brought up when we met for coffee and one of the things I loved about that conversation that we had after this symposium was during our chat, you talked about that you, you had come up with this really great visual method that you use for tracking joy and satisfaction and fulfillment in your life.
Gabe Ratliff: 00:25:02 Now I was wondering if you could kind of take us through that, you know, that that method that you came up with and how you came up with it and, and how that works.
Jung Park: 00:25:11 Sure. So after what happened in 2016 not knowing exactly how many days I may have, I really wanted to focus on creating some happiness in my life. And I like anyone else, Aye Google happiness. I saw that 20 plus Ted blogs, there were very smart people talking about happenings that are all different levels of using big data and the rebel inside of me or speaking up saying, yeah, that's fine as a definition and a metrics for other people's happiness, but what the hell is uas and I struggled. So I had to figure out what was going to work for myself. So I sat down and literally went through and reflected on the Times that I was happy, what were the components? And I created a very simple mathematical equation that leveraged three components, which was people activities. Where I found myself experiencing happen is not at the moment of happiness, but in reflection.
Jung Park: 00:26:17 So for the remainder of 2017 for six months, I went to create those activities in the places I want to do with the people I wanted to. I'm on my calendar and tracking. So for six months of doing research on myself and my own life using time as a university of universal unit of measure, I simply tag the intentional activities on my Google calendar and I'll reflect and review on a monthly basis as to where I was and how much time I had intentionally invested in creating happiness myself. There were times when I intentionally created those, the bad square other things happen such as my wife and I and setting up within a day, but date night and her and I would get into an argument on the drive over to the restaurant and I have to sadly script that from my plan to say that wasn't happy.
Jung Park: 00:27:19 It wasn't necessary, right? We had to have tough conversations as most couples do. It certainly did not create the outcome that I was seeking. So I wanted the data to be pure as possible. So in six months of tracking, I've found that out of 24 hours that I had access to for six months, I was happy 11% of my time. So for the first time in my life, I was able to look in an objective data point that says I was intentionally the moment of happiness that I created for myself 11% of my time. And those people that know me, we would say, well, you know, there's probably too high for you because you can be a miserable best. And, and they're right. I, I'm not sure what a good balance of happiness is in my life either. I think I would be very annoyed if I'm happy too much.
Jung Park: 00:28:11 So, but I, I've never had a baseline to compare it to. So in 2018 I began tracking happiness, fulfillment, and satisfaction using the inspired by the Basil Owes Ohio gives you needs. I need to define what satisfaction that fulfillment that and what happens is men, based on my definitions and my experience in inflection and I tracked all those things in 2018 to see a entire year's worth of data points. And I'm sad too report that my happiness had dropped by net 45% 11%. It wasn't enough to start with, I didn't think. But having it dropped that 45% if you look at any ROI model, dropping net 45% is detrimental. So I had to go back and reflect on, want to stick in place in 2018 that prevented me from intentionally investing my time into creating happiness for myself. And the result was said I had a job.
Jung Park: 00:29:13 I went to work for somebody else in a toxic culture and toxic leadership leadership where while it provided financial stability for my family, which was very much needed from us that way, I appreciate it, but the level of stress in the baggage that I was carrying home and wasting the entire weekend to recover from it and to recharge my battery, to go back and phase phase the same toxic environment was sucking the life out of me. So after 11 months of holding the other job, I finally resigned. It wasn't worth it. So the day after I quit, I started intentionally scheduling activities. That would increase the, the probability of happiness that I would experience in the first activity that I scheduled was after dropping my son off at school, I would go on a walk with my mother and I would catch up with her and my mother is a very important figure in my life and I realize one of the reasons why I was so unhappy was because I simply did not have any time that I could invest and having those treasurable moments this soon I will not have access to or I'll not have the luxury to as my mother as in mid seventies so since April 5th they have the, I quit up to this point.
Jung Park: 00:30:38 The last time I looked at the dashboard, I increase my happiness back up to 12% and that's what intention does with knowing exactly what causes me happy, what causes me happiness, investing my time effectively and efficiently to create those outcomes of happiness. And out of this one. Another revelation in a reflection that I realize is as a father, husband and his son and a brother, I realized majority of activities and components that I was using to create those happened is intentionally, we're actually creating an indirect experience of happy days in which I was feeling happiness as a result of making my family happy, which is honorable, still creates happiness for me. But what I realized was that there was no single thing that I was intentionally creating that didn't need anyone else. It was for me by myself, creating happiness alone and not having to depend on anyone else are not creating happiness for someone else and in directly experiencing it from someone else's happiness.
Jung Park: 00:31:51 And I don't think I'm alone in this many fathers and mothers and husbands and wives, we're busy working professionals are so swamped with the things that we have to do, the things that we want to do for our families that we put ourselves last. So terms like self compassion, self care is not even in the realm of reality for most of us. So that is a very valuable lesson that I've learned by tracking how I'm investing. The most valuable asset I have that we all have or may not have, which is time over a period of a year and a half, close to two years to see how I'm spending my time, how I'm utilizing my assets and what the return on investment was based on those intentional activities.
Gabe Ratliff: 00:32:40 How do you keep in check or in balance on, you know, a daily and weekly basis as of as of, you know, today based on all of that you've learned from all this tracking and these metrics that you've been able to pull over the last few years?
Jung Park: 00:32:57 It's a quite a bit of a balancing act because I am a, I am painfully aware of paralysis analysis. The minute I allowed the data points to drive my life where I'm constantly checking every checking, I think I am doing more damage than not tracking it at all. So, and also reflection works fast when you have spent some time involved and engaged in the activities. So I actually look at it on a monthly basis. I've hired a very smart young man who was a computer, was at 19 years old to build me a web app that would use the API to Google calendar to pull the data out so that I don't have to manually track it anymore. So I look at it on a monthly basis and also on a monthly basis gives me an opportunity to reflect on how I spent that the past month. So I don't have to ask myself those annoying questions like what the last month ago, I know where it went because I looked at it a and I reflected on it.
Jung Park: 00:33:59 So I look at it on a monthly basis and I'll look at what worked, what didn't work, and also how I'm going to intentionally invest next month. Because I may not have the following month to pivot and refine. So to me, that's the heart, the heart and the core of any entrepreneur and entrepreneurial mindset is that we test, we learn with pivot, we refine and we continue that process. There is no end to this. While, I guess there will be one day when I'm six feet on that. But until that point, whatever that comes, it is my responsibility to figure out how to best invest this treasure that we have called time wisely. So for the remainder of what little or many years we may have left that we increase their return on investment so that we leave this earth with few regrets as possible. So I looked at my dashboard on monthly basis and now reflect them. They find them pivot as to what I need to do differently or what I need to continue to do ah, the following month.
Gabe Ratliff: 00:35:07 So I'm curious with that as, and this is something that I'm constantly experimenting with around time blocking. Cause you know, that's also a big catchy thing that gets thrown around a lot. And you know, I, one of the things that's worked really great for me that I know that I actually learned from other podcasters like Tim Ferriss and Pat Flynn, people like that is having a podcast day. Like today, Tuesdays are my podcast day and that's when I have interviews and that's when I work on things in record intros and do all these things. And that's worked really great for me because I, I, and in that mental space when I wake up, I'm excited. I know that I'm going to have this amazing conversation and that it's, it's going to be a fulfilling day that, you know, I'm gonna, I'm going to be interacting with another human and this kind of intentional way. So I definitely understand where you're speaking to around that. But my question to you is around how you handle time blocking based on the extent that you've gone to around tracking your happiness, satisfaction, and fulfillment and like what you found works for you and, and how you feel about all of that is its flesh been fleshed out over the last few years.
Jung Park: 00:36:27 Sure. I recently read a book called deep work by Cal Newport and in the book he talks about historical figures who have intentionally invested their time into doing the great work that they wanted to do and passionate about. And in the book he also mentioned Bill Gates and the week that he takes off to go into a cabin and lock himself away, a bunch of books, right? And disconnect from the world. So one of the things that I have a really hard time with as simply accepting someone else's process or methodology and following their five simple steps, I think it's a full of crap. I think we need to be on our own a platform and manage our own destiny accordingly. It's our responsibility also is two benchmark and research and piece together what works for ourselves. That way we don't blame anyone else. Ah, we don't trade anyone else but ourselves.
Jung Park: 00:37:32 So looking at all these different styles of how people do what they need to do with time blogging and dedicating the time that they need to for the work they wanted to do. I found that I myself are against authority figures and sometimes myself becomes an authority figure that I fight against as soon as I put, try to put myself in a rigid schedule because I hate that even if it's me doing it. I hate it. So what I try to do is on a weekly basis, I block out time. There are times when I need to block out what I need to do as a father and a husband and a son. These are things that I need to do. There are blocking and tackling and functional duties of what is expected of me and then there are plenty of time left over. Even with all that and working to earn a paycheck to pay the bills to intentionally block out time where I am investing that two hours or one hour into what it is that I need to work on our one to work on.
Jung Park: 00:38:32 One of those activities that I found myself enjoying by myself for myself is believe it or not, I like to drive that in traffic. I like to drive. So, and I also liked the travel. So being that we are financially strapped, one of the ways that I can accomplish two things at once is I'll try to pick a day during the week between 9:00 AM and 12:00 PM where I make a simple drive up north towards Fort Collins or doubts Colorado Springs where I drive about an hour, pull over into a gas station, grab a sandwich and drive back. So two hours, nothing but by thoughts and the music I want to listen to in a traffic free highway. And it also tricks my mind into thinking that I'm somehow on a road trip, especially when upload to a gas station and eat a sandwich so there are ways when I am blocking my time out for the things that I want to do and, and be realistic that some weeks away to visit with the things I have to do.
Jung Park: 00:39:38 But I know that I've missed out in a week or Ms. Dot. In two weeks. Now feel the emotional and physical stress of that if I continued out on that path so that I can schedule out two, three weeks, a block of time that I can invest into something that I want to do. That brings me joy and peace of mind. So for me, that works, that flexibility. I know for some people it works a lot better for them if they block out an entire day or they'll block out an hour early morning before anyone else gets up. So I think each individual has to find, figure out what works best for that. Because the last thing we want to do is create something for the sake of creating more stress in upon us because we don't follow through with those things and dealing with the guilt and disappointment after, we'll have plenty of people doing that to us. We don't need to be doing that to ourselves. So we need to figure out what works for each of us. Using a framework that is nimble and flexible and tried things out and see what works, what doesn't.
Gabe Ratliff: 00:40:44 I love that. Thank you for sharing that because I think that's one thing that I find a lot. You mentioned it earlier, you know where people are just saying, you know, do this, do these five things. I do this, you know, and I'm always, I like to ask people about their rituals cause I'm always interested as a lifelong learner, what people have found that works for them. Like just like when we met for coffee and you shared this original concept with me, I just, I remember it being and I still am just blown away at that look at the analytics side and that pure focus on really trying to wrap your head around how you're investing your time as someone who looks at investments constantly. And really took that to the degree that it really merits because time really is the currency that we are, are blessed with and each have to manage in our own way.
Gabe Ratliff: 00:41:46 And that something that, you know, it just supersedes money and possessions. And that's something that's become very prevalent from my wife and I as we talk about, because we also love to travel and have experiences and have made this huge shift towards a more minimalist life over. I've been working on it for a while, but we as a couple have been working on it now for a good year or two, shifting towards this less possessions, more experiences. You know, just trying to hang out with friends and cook and just do things we love. We both love food and cooking and travel and all these things and experiencing new cultures and learning more about our world. We just got our, our scuba certification for her birthday this spring and that's been a bucket list for both of us and is an absolute passion. Now. We both are just smitten with scuba diving and just that it's almost like going to space.
Gabe Ratliff: 00:42:47 It's this whole other world that we hadn't been able to really truly investigate. One of the things I wanted to ask you about you, you wrote this really great comment. When I was asking about what your why is and I wanted to read that back to you cause I just, I loved what you said. You said to consistently and passionately practice being virtuous to the things I believe in and wondering, what would you say are some of those things that you, you've found that you just truly believe in that are just, I mean, obviously family is important for you and having time with them, but what are this, what are some of the other things that have billowed up for you that you, you know, or just what you truly feel like you, you believe in and want to share with people?
Jung Park: 00:43:30 Sure. By the way, good on you living out your bucket list. I mean, that term in itself is pretty pessimistic if you think about it, that we're supposed to put all these things into a bucket as if it's guarantee that we're going to get to do those things when we have a healthy retirement. So good on you and you for your wife for living out all those things that you shouldn't have to wait for until you're old and ailing. We should be doing that now
Gabe Ratliff: 00:43:58 Hear! Hear!
Jung Park: 00:43:59 Absolutely. So I'm doing a change management talk next week, for a group of professionals for a large fortune 50 company. And when I was given the task of talking about change management, one of the first things that I thought about going what I've been doing consistently just change the framework on the mindset of how we use words that neither help us or hurt us. The word change, it's a scary one. Many people have emotional traumatic experiences with changes that had zero impact or control over that two place that dramatically changed our lives in the past.
Jung Park: 00:44:43 So when I look at life in general, I don't think it's changed that we need to focus on as the evolution. No, all walls, I'm not the same five year old shit had the, my mom needed to chase down to what my face in some ways I still have those DNA traits. Amy, I'm not a different person. I haven't changed, but I've evolved. The two one year old married John is different than that. They're year old married and father John versus the 48 year old that you're talking to now. His father too was passing him issues that he had to overcome. I'm still the same person and had Bobby evolved. The reason why I've giving you my why in that fashion was I wanted to stay true to the values that have been instilled in me by the upbringing and the love and care that my parents have shown in my upbringing, my childhood, and then my mother continues to do every day and my job as a father of two young children as to what values I am intentionally instilling in them that will help them throughout their lives.
Jung Park: 00:45:53 I told my 14 year old daughter the other day that by job and her mother's job is to prepare them for life. Now that doesn't mean there's five things that she needs to do. That doesn't mean a five fancy words, core values and things that we've heard on a podcast or watch Sean that blog or read about in a magazine. But something deep inside that we practice over and over, especially when we have something to lose. By practicing those values and those values evolve as we evolve and that doesn't mean that we're flipping and flopping and that we have changed is simply means that we are adapting and we're surviving and we're evolving, becoming smarter, becoming riser, and becoming emotional more fallible as well. One of the core values that I'm virtuous to at this moment in my life professionally and personally really is practicing vulnerability. I am using Bernay browse dare to lead as a one of the required readings for my upcoming leadership class for the Cu Denver Executive MBA program.
Jung Park: 00:47:05 Yeah. Bernay has done an incredible work and I love her personal brand of how emotionally available she is and how much you follow the ability she practices and I try to make a distinction between being vulnerable and practicing vulnerability. I'm a bit of a control freak as most entrepreneurs are. Being vulnerable just seems like there's a big bullseye painted on my chest and I'm open to any kind of attack that might be coming. However, if I practice folder ability, I get to control how much of it I practice where and with whom. So I'm in control of my own vulnerability that our practice, there are certain individuals out there who would see vulnerability as potential weakness and use it against us. I was certainly in our practice vulnerability with those people, but there are a lot of good that could be done and a lot of help that we can provide to those who are hurting mentally, emotionally, inside young people, old people.
Jung Park: 00:48:09 It doesn't matter. There's a lot of hurt out there in the world and it doesn't take much, but simply practice in vulnerability with the right people to lend that helping hand, not for the sake of helping them, but because this is your core value and you're simply practicing it. So right now I am virtuous too, practicing vulnerability. And then I try to practice that professionally with my clients professionally, with my students in the classroom and personally with my own children and letting them know that I did many stupid things when I was younger. I got lucky. Now, that doesn't mean that my children shouldn't in distribute things. They need to. That's how they learn. But it is my job to provide some guidance and, and stick out a hat when they need a a help up. So I am trying my best to be virtuous on practicing that value today, which is vulnerability.
Gabe Ratliff: 00:49:07 Nice. I'm such a huge fan of her. The other thing I love about her is that she speaks to vulnerability, but she also is such an advocate for boundaries, which as I started to learn more about her and listened to her speak and you know, started to read some of her books and heard her on some podcasts and, and I just was really starting to kind of unpack what that meant as she talked about it more and more, or at least I as, as I heard it more and more. And that's something that I feel has been a struggle for me. It's something that as you start to really look at it, similar to vulnerability, that is really empowering. When you recognize that you have the power to set that boundary for yourself with someone and yourself, you know like what, what you are, what you are willing and not willing to accept so that you can live a life where you are fulfilled and happy and, and living the life you want to live and are not showing up to somebody else's expectations.
Gabe Ratliff: 00:50:18 You're showing up to your own, you know, and it's been so great to go through that exercise and continue to really think about what that means. Cause I'm a giver and I'm a pleaser and those are two bad combinations in that context because I want people to be happy. I want people, I want for all kinds of people. Even the same with my clients. You know, when I'm coaching a client on podcasting or with their business w I want for them so much cause I can see it. It's just, it's, you know, it's what it's like being a coach. But one of the things you have to understand is that some people just aren't ready for that. They're not in that place. So you have to show up for them where they are. And that's a tough lesson to learn, but it's, it's, it's just true.
Gabe Ratliff: 00:51:07 And as you start to unpack what those boundaries are for you and where you really are, then you can really start to take that next step forward, I think and feel because then you have this understanding, you know, you're not in denial anymore about it or not even knowing that it exists. You starting to look at where you sit with something and realize it's just like you were talking about with the work that you are doing and realizing that wasn't working for you and that that was a boundary that you did not want to, to break anymore.
Jung Park: 00:51:42 Right? You, you hit up on multiple points there. That really resonates in lines with my philosophy and the way I typically work. At the end of the day, fear comes from stealing out of control or not knowing exactly where the next step should be. So feeling sense of loss, thus being lost and not knowing exactly where you're headed and also having a bunch of things that happen in your life where you feel like all the external controls are impacted in your life and you have zero control over your own life. Either way, it's very stressful and you start living by fear. And I think, at least from my perspective, someone who enjoys control over other people over my own life as to what happens today, tomorrow and next week and next month, especially with the fact that what we don't exactly know how much of this we have left as Nolan was sent home from the hospital with a birth certificate that has an expiration date on it.
Jung Park: 00:52:44 So knowing all that, that there's just, there's a scarcity in the assets that we have available to us. I typically try to live but not simply saying no to things, but assessing is this the right person? Is this the right time is just the right thing I need to be doing to invest my time because there are other people, other things in order to places I can invest this particular time in and I am, I am making a strategic decision here. Am I making the decision to spend this time with this person at this place it right now. And is this the right decision when I still looking at spending my time as an asset, I want less spending and I want more. And that is no different than I would deal with financial resources. We want our expenditures to go down while we increase it on the investment is for future growth and future pay off and return.
Jung Park: 00:53:38 So when we look at it from that perspective, it does help me to say no to certain people in certain things and is not to be rude, is not to sit on a peddle stool and feel as if my time is worth more than their time is simply asking my self. The question is, is this a good, a good investment for myself and for them? As you said earlier, gay, we could lead the horses to water, but we can't make them drink. We can provide all the fishing poles in the world to people. But if in the wrong place, at the wrong time, then I catching any fish. So I have to be very strategic and conscious about why spend timeline and how I spend that time. And there has to be a mutual benefit. There has to be something of value that we both walk away from after investing x amount of time to say that was worth it.
Jung Park: 00:54:37 And I can say that now because I track it and I look at it and I realize how much my time has been spent in the last 15 plus years on meaningless meetings. People who want to just take from you and, and we all have those people in our lives where they're friends or colleagues or whoever who was suck the life out of you. And when they're done with you, they'll move on to the next victim. We simply do not have, you know, time, especially you. But those of us who are parents, we just don't have that kind of time or energy to be spent and wasted. And on those individuals who are selfish, who are out to get other people because they think this is the way to get ahead of the world, who doesn't practice vulnerability or or act and compassion. So even though I sound very judgmental and every bit of a typical the Yorker Asshole, I have to protect my investment and that investment is time. And I think we spend about average of 45% on a monthly basis on things that we simply don't keep track of, that we don't pay attention to. And I think this a huge loss in this ever so declining supply of time that we all have access to
Gabe Ratliff: 00:55:55 Hear! Hear! I totally agree. And I also, you know the, I want to put a little tag on that too because the, the other thing that I find with that is that, you know, to your point about, you know, you may come across as this or that. One of the things that I've really tried to look at that, and it's, it's that you're living your example, right? And that you're, you're live, you're, you're, you're walking the talk. And one of the things I've seen come out of that from a situation like you just said, is that, you know, you could, you could say, you know, you know, however you say no to offering that time, that you don't want to be misused is that that person could recognize the power of your time and that it's not, it's not worth taking advantage of and that then they shouldn't be taking an advantage of and that it might actually switch there, there a philosophy or the way that they look at situations because then it gives them, you know, it might not be right when it happens, but it could be down the road where they just, they start to recognize that trend.
Gabe Ratliff: 00:57:03 And at least that's my hope. That's something I've tried to do is just live that example. But, but then have that intention behind the no. And we all say have the potential to say yes to things and then realize that wasn't a good investment. And so you continue to hopefully learn from that. But that's another thing that I've tried to do at least personally, is to live that example and say like this and that way you're approving through your actions why you do that. And so it doesn't come across as, you know, being this New York asshole, it's really just, no, this is what's important to you. This is the example you want to live in your life. And that's what we're sharing today. And like how important that can be, no matter what the story is that got you there or the journey that you've been on, the experiences that you've been through, the losses that you've gone through and even the triumphs that you've gone through. But just that like, that's what's important and why, you know, and I think that that really can also potentially have the possibility of being a positive example to others. And just the way that you're speaking to how you manage your time in that investment.
Jung Park: 00:58:10 Oh, I appreciate that. I think at the end of the day, you may get blamed for many things when the time comes and you're about to kick that bucket. And as Frank Sinatra says, no, as you near that time, how many requests will you really have on the that and one of the things that you're going to be blamed for and one of the things you're going to regret and feel guilty without. One thing that I do not wish to regret about as not living the life the way I want to live and not being ashamed or embarrassed and feel guilty about not standing up with the things that I believed in and living, as you said, walking the talk and if one thing that I'm okay being blamed for is doing things my way and living by it and standing upward and accepting all the consequences and responsibilities that come with that, at the end of the day, regardless of what each individual shoes do, as long as he or she can stand by their virtues and values. And they could go to grave knowing that they've got everything in their power to walk the talk and live by their values. I think the of regress, as Franklin says, will be too few dementia, and I think that's one thing that I try to live by as regardless of how successful I may or may not be, bye son or my daughter ever asked when the time comes, I want to be proud. Say My dad died. Yeah. You know what? Yeah, there are things that I could, I wish that I could have done differently, but they're not that many because on the all the important big decisions in my life, I made those decisions based on my values and there isn't a single thing that I would do differently.
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Gabe Ratliff: 01:01:26 I want to ask you about challenges and you know, the biggest challenges that you've faced and how you've been able to manage them over the years. You know, in your, in the questionnaire you commented on insecurity, criticism, and doubt. And I was wondering if you could speak to those and, and where you sit with that today.
Jung Park: 01:01:47 Sure. I mean, there's something that I have to deal with on an hourly basis. The biggest theme is in the biggest critics are the ones that live in our hearts and minds. And these are older voices that live inside of our heads and hearts that continue to do damage and to us. And one of the podcasts that I use in my class for my students as well as my clients is a podcast that Radiolab did while back about inner voices. And the, and the synopsis of this is that the voices that we hear in our heads, and sometimes people get scared as if they need to go on medication. If I talk about inner voices that I hear voices, other people identify them as thoughts, but they do exist. These are the unconscious, subconscious biases in decision making process that we go through every single day.
Jung Park: 01:02:41 In my case is a voice that that crept up back in 1984 when I landed in New York because prior to that audio and have a voice that was telling me that I'm stupid, that I don't belong. Ah. Some people refer to that as an imposter syndrome voice. That voice that tells me that I'm not good enough, that voice that tells me that I still talk funny because you just got off the boat and you're pronouncing r's or the ELLs backwards. That my eyes look funny, that my head's too big and I'm, I'm stupid. I'm not good enough. These are voices that lived in my head for the last 30 some odd years and it's not mine. Those are, that voice came from collective hate that I experienced growing up in New York with all those people that hated for whatever reasons that they hate it for, and sometimes you'd have nothing to do with me, but it, it has to do with what I represented my eyes look like.
Jung Park: 01:03:40 But that voice lived in my head for awhile where I started listening to it without paying attention. And after what happened in 2016 that voice was making predictions. Certain days when I got up in the morning and I was taking a shower, that boys would literally say, you better not take your kids to school this morning because today's a day you got lucky last year, but today's a day you're going out and if you're taking his kids to school in the morning, you're going to take them out. Wait. Yeah, so you better have someone else take them. The voice gained power. As I was insecure, as I was going through something that was hard, it is fed and then powered by fear, so more fearful. I was about the uncertain future. They're uncertain. Gee, that was delayed in front of me. The louder the voice got and it impacted how I drove from the impacted daily decisions I was making.
Jung Park: 01:04:32 It's certainly impacted by emotional state. So I had to do what I had to do. And the only way to prove this voice wrong was to show that every single thing this voice was using to get at me, I had to prove it wrong. So a year after what happened to me in 2016, I went back to the same restaurant, set at the same table or at the same thing to show it's voice that it was wrong. It was making predictions every step of the way throughout the entire journey from by playing, going down to be crashed my car or waking up dead in an Airbnb and never ever making it to the restaurant, let alone making it back home. And I made her journal entry to every single thing that this voice predicted that I proved wrong to the very last entry that I made one three in the morning, what?
Jung Park: 01:05:24 I was safe sitting on my couch at home. I said, fuck you. You're wrong. I'm here and I'm still alive and I'm kicking. And ever since that, they, that voice quite a doubt, a little bit noticeably. And when I designed for my previous job back in April, as my 40th birthday was approaching, the voice came back and the voice was actually now presenting a financial case because the voice is part of me. It's not me, but it's part of me now. And they knows exactly how to get to my head. So the voice has prepared a financial case. Yes. Said, you know you're worth more dead than alive. You know, your wife has a couple of life insurance policy on you, so the best thing you can do for your family at this point is provide what they deserve by killing yourself. Joe said that they are better off and your children are young enough where they will forget you and as you know you do it.
Jung Park: 01:06:21 As soon as they forget you that are life that will, that they will have and your wife is still young enough to be married. So this is how you're going to do it. And the voice. Literally walk me through the steps as I was driving down highway 70 as to how to fake as suicide by crashing into cars and going off the cliff. This is the s this is the same voice just telling me as I'm launching my own program that I'm not good enough. Who's going to pay to see you and hear you talk had nothing but a stupid as far as they got off the boat that don't belong. So that voice is always part of me, but it's my responsibility to manage that voice and, and, and fight against a voice. I can deny it. It'll gain more power. I can't ignore it with the only way for me to deal with these voices is to fight back with the weapons they're using to simply show your raw what other predictions you're making.
Jung Park: 01:07:15 Whatever financial cases you're making, I'll prove you wrong. And that's something that I'm battling as we speak today. And many people are very uncomfortable with the, I thought of talking about suicidal thoughts. And one of my best friends, Jason Regea who is quadriplegic who's won three Olympian Metal Olympic metals, two world championships and now he's coaching the national team at Denmark in wheelchair rugby who taught me that there is a huge difference between being suicidal and having suicidal thoughts and I think is only human that we have those thoughts sometimes because life is tough and there are challenges and there are obstacles as seems unrealistic to overcome, but we have to be able to talk about it and acknowledge it and deal with that. Otherwise, I think those thoughts drive us to make decisions where we reach the stage of suicidal. I'm not a doctor, I zero background in research in this, but that's what I've experienced and almost every person that I opened up to and talk to you about also acknowledged that they also had suicidal thoughts.
Jung Park: 01:08:28 We have to be able to talk about these things and certainly talk about these things in class and different settings as well because I want people to know they're not alone. I'm not alone. We all deal with the same demons. They just happened to live inside our head. Sometimes we gotta be able to own it and manage it. That fear, that imposture syndrome of feeling like I'm not enough. And as Renee Brown says, I am an author. Yeah. I can look back in my own journey and show objective Lee that I've a game challenges and I'll earn the place that I am today based on the sufferings and challenges are overcome. So I deserve to be here. And the sense of pride and confidence that I feel is sought that they, because I own it and I earned it. So I try to remember, remind myself with that positive voice every time other voice creeps in and does as a daily struggle.
Gabe Ratliff: 01:09:24 Well, thank you for sharing that. Junge I mean that's, we all face that and I appreciate you being vulnerable, being vulnerable in that way to take us there. It really is up to us to be able to fight back and say, I, I do deserve to be here. I do deserve to be whatever that success is for you and me and those out there listening to the show. We do deserve it. We do deserve to be here. We do deserve tomorrow. We do deserve today. We do deserve to do those things that we have in our mind that we really want to do or that that we have always wanted to do. I thought at this point would be a great opportunity. To switch gears a little bit, I'd like to start to kind of speak a little bit to the work that you're now doing based around what we've been talking about. You are currently working on a project called the life ROI and I was wondering if you could tell us about that.
Jung Park: 01:10:24 Absolutely. For the past 10 years or so as I work as Public Speaker, facilitator, also teaching at UC Denver, I've got it covered. Many different projects. Anything from Asian American empowerment through personal branding to building an effective two and then operationalize and core values, and when people looked at the variety of programs that I've gone, they tagged me and labeled me as a typical entrepreneur. Choosing any shiny thing in the air. And, and I agree with that perception for the most part until this year, what I really forced myself to look at, what is it that I'm doing? What do I find most passionate about what I've been doing and really prioritizing the things that I want to spend time on and I everything down to about 10 different programs and it still looked very different from one another's. So I had to dig a little deeper to see what the through line was with all of those things that I've been doing.
Jung Park: 01:11:25 And it came down to that one concept of the life ROI. When I Google that I couldn't really find anything except for financial services firms equating the life worth of a person to how much money to have when they're ready to retire. So everything was based on financial metrics, which I don't have any problems with, but it just cannot be the only one no one ever puts on a tombs foot. Students don't have a loved one who's passed the last remaining balance in their checking and savings account. It's not about that. Only. So I started thinking about, so what should be life ROI if there is a such thing? And the first thing I had to figure out is what's the unit of measure that we have to agree to to use as two as a, as a metric. And I thought that time, one hour at a time was universally enough where regardless of how old hog rich, how young, how educated you are, you simply cannot buy more time or trade for more time.
Jung Park: 01:12:32 You got what you got and you have no idea how much you have you have. So there's a bit of urgency as well as it is a scarce resource. So I started thinking about if time is the ultimate universal unit of measure, then how do I build something that makes sense to practice? So he's not some theoretical bullshit that's way out there, hard to grasp for something that we could practice every day and and put into creating a consistent behavior as we go through spending 24 hours each and every day. So I came up with a frame mark. As I said earlier, I do not do well when someone tells me what to do. I certainly don't do well when someone says you just gotta do this five, six simple steps. So what I wanted to create with a framework that every single individual will can take and we find and pivot and revise to make it theirs.
Jung Park: 01:13:27 So it's flexible, is nimble. This gentleman has room for improvement. I've been using it for the last two years and I, I felt like I was ready to share that with people who may be interested in it to start measuring and increasing intentionally the return investment in their lives. I've shared some of it with my students so far. The validation and feedback was great. And also I've had clients and students for the past who said, you know, they do want to take your class, they would like to enroll in your program, but not necessarily in a higher education environment. So I decided that this was something that I wanted to out
Jung Park: 01:14:12 And perhaps our last project as it took me 10 years to figure out how things worked and to be 10 years to figure out how the middle, I knew about what I was doing before my own venture. So I figured that if I'm lucky enough to have next 10 years, it will give me just enough time to figure something out. So I believe in this. I, I practice it. I'm walking the clock, I'm refining it every single day and for the first time introducing a program outside of a higher education environment for any working professionals or students who's ever struggle or wonder about what is there in life, what is it that I want to do? Do I even know what success means from our own life? Or am I simply following what has been talked about and embracing someone else's definition blindly as to what success means in life. So I'm super excited. I'm at the same time that annoying voice keeps telling me that just not going to be good enough, but screw it, I'm gonna run with it. And see what happens.
Gabe Ratliff: 01:15:19 That's awesome. I'm so glad to hear that. I was, I was very excited to hear about that. Thank you. Thank you. You know, as a, as a professor as well as you were just commenting on at University of Colorado, you are the, you're the tether between the business world and upcoming business owners and entrepreneurs of tomorrow. What, what does that look like to you today? I mean in obviously with this program that you're launching, you're seeing something that's obviously a need in the landscape and so that's why I wanted to ask you, being that you do have this higher education connection, where does that sit with you in the work that you're doing as a professor?
Jung Park: 01:16:03 But I think there's, there's a couple of things there's happening and I appreciate you using that terminology to describe the word or the role that I play. I do find myself in a unique position. I respect and appreciate all the hard work that our tenured professors do that research and study a single subject for a very long time to really create a subject and expertise in their own topics and subjects. Then there are people like us who aren't seasoned professionals, investigate consumer research and publishing. However we have something that is still valuable, I believe, to the students as well as the work in professionals, which is real life experience of people who've actually tried stuff and failed and learned from I think two worlds and two paradigms can coexist and combined. I think we can deliver at a high level of experiential learning that we may not, I have taken advantage of in our traditional education.
Jung Park: 01:17:10 I respect University of Colorado Denver. I came through here. I'm an alum. I drink the Koolaid, but there are things that I can and cannot do within the infrastructure of this institution. So I'm looking forward to taking my program while I'm still teaching. There's no conflict of interest as when I'm launching on my own is very different than what I'd be teaching here. But I want to make it available to people that are that they've seen the needs are identified at the bag, but simply cannot find the ways to get there. There are certainly no shortage of self help gurus that are out there that can help you and I think they do amazing work. What I'm looking for is too few individuals that may be come from same cloth as myself where we need to figure out on the way. And the last thing we need is someone to someone to tell us what to do, but somewhat to show us how and tell us the why behind it so we can create our own path.
Jung Park: 01:18:07 Someone who could serve as a Sherpa who can show you the, the bumpy rose and the hole in the ground. While we may still step in it and trip over it, they're there to guide us and take the backpack off my shoulders for a few minutes if I need to catch a breath. And that's the role that I would like to play on my own. Starting this venture and being a parent of two young children and having a wife who was also a high school guidance counselor. This struggle and suffering is now unique to working professionals and adults. We have young people struggling with some of these issues and we see it, we see it in suicide rates, we see in a school shootings, we see in bullying. They are people that are hurting out there at a young age. And I think the sooner we can introduce the concept and the thought process of finding purpose in their lives, that is not something that is jammed out their throats by adults, but something that is unique to Dez that they're creating and they own.
Jung Park: 01:19:13 I think the future may look a little brighter. So I, I do want to roll the program out to all different age groups and make sure that I customize a framework so that it is appropriate and relevant to each age group and each a background of audiences and students that our work with so that it can be there. This is not about me and this is not about my framework. This is not Jones' methodology. I'm simply sharing a framework that has worked for me and if it's going to, it can benefit others. I will love anyone to take it and run with it and make it their own.
Gabe Ratliff: 01:19:49 I'm so excited to see where this goes, especially to come from that place.
Jung Park: 01:19:54 Appreciate it. Thank you.
Gabe Ratliff: 01:19:56 So relative to that, I also wanted to bring this up because this is obviously relevant. Two specifically. I actually be curious about this because a father, but you know with social behemoths like Facebook, Instagram, snapchat, I just read snapchat just had massive numbers. No, that just came out and you know, the youtube communities is continuing to grow in popularity. What do you see as the future around, you know, personal branding and, and, and also relative to where you're coming from with the life ROI and how that relates to my generation all the way or our generation all the way down to, you know, your kid's generation, my niece and nephews generation.
Jung Park: 01:20:43 I don't think there's anything unique about what we're facing with social media and advancement of technology that the millennials and Gen z's of the world would interact with and define as they go forward. You know, with my parents, it was the TVs that the evils were doing the bad work through TV and they didn't want us to watch TV when we had beepers at that, there was, it was the end of the world. So I think each generation goes through whatever evolution steps scary and new and uncertain that we have to deal with where a personal branding comes in that day in the future is very much tied to and fits under the umbrella of life. Our ROI in that with the younger generation and newer generation coming their face with challenges of external factors and influences and impacts has never ever played the generation like it's about to. We've never faced this level of intrusion in our privacy
Jung Park: 01:21:47 They're also self-propelled. We've never had a generation prior to us that was the worst pop icees of our own lives, right? Where we are creating evidences for the approximate tutors, all the deeds that we are doing unknowingly sometimes. So I think where life, ROI and personal branding comes in for their millennials and Gen z's and the future generations is you better be straight on why you're undeserved, why your parents went through what they had to go through to have you here, why they sacrificed and made things possible for you to be enjoying it and, and be spoiled in the privilege that you have. Privilege is not specifically categorize for dose white. Harvard graduate, multimillion dollar families would all money. I have privileges that my parents never did. My children have privileges I never did. It's our generation and each generation have responsibilities to provide that level of security and safety for the next generation.
Jung Park: 01:22:53 However, on the same token, that also allows us to spoil the generation after us to become weaker mentally, emotionally, and physically because of the privileges and the lawnmowing parents that are out there mowing in front of the kids, making sure they never ever have to trip over a smallest pebble ever as they managed through the path for their children that is not doing them any favors when they go out there and face the real world. So I hope the future generation, you can look at themselves and it starts with introspective. You better know who the hell you want before you go out there and do anything else. And if you're not getting that at home for some reason, I hope there's avenues available for us, the old people to provide that access and knowledge, not just information because information is free and kids can find it on Google, but that knowledge of practice, so practicing something and that application and the wisdom that comes from failing and redoing and being able to show someone else how to do it and making all those things available so that we are preparing our young people for life, not just for a median range income, not just for enough money to pay for a house with two, two car garages, but life as a holistically is defined professionally and personally so that they can live a fulfilled whole life that will professional life, that successful while they're grown as children hate them and they're onto their third or fourth spouses.
Jung Park: 01:24:28 And I think that's what I hope for as a, as a parent, as a father. Obviously this is a work that my wife and I are trying to do with our own children and also as educators for other people's children as well. It's not easy. There's no shortcuts, there's no simplified steps because we've got to get through it head on and there aren't many people who are brave enough or who doesn't realize how brave they are achieving. Take this on and then I'm hoping that there are enough of us who's comfortable in the uncomfortable than this of uncertainty to make sure that we do the right things, not just by tomorrow or even next year, but do the brave things that we know we're not going to be alive to see the success soft, and I think there's truly the longterm vision and life goal and bravery they want practice.
Gabe Ratliff: 01:25:19 My immediate question to that is around, you know, whether you're a young person or you know, if, if you're, say you know, an upcoming entrepreneur, a young person, or even a parent with the young person, where do you see that coming into play as far as starting to look at how you show up in the world and managing that brand and what you're putting out into the world. How do you see that all playing a part into that and how that should work?
Jung Park: 01:25:48 I think, and we discussed this earlier, you feel whole person and what I mean by that is not being perfect in every way we can. No one can. However, if you know who you are, if you know your, your strengths, your weaknesses, things you're working on, things you
Jung Park: 01:26:04 Hate, things you love, but deeper understanding of why you love and hate those things, why you're good at certain things or you're not good at certain things. This self-awareness allows you to build an authentic self confidence and no one else can take away from you. And once you have that by doing the hard work of looking inside for it, there's not much out there that external factors can do to shake you up because you're, you're standing on a solid foundation of knowing who you are and why you are the way you are. And I think for the parents, it's not telling our kids what to do or even how to do it, but describing who they are through nurture and nature as to who they really are and about values that they resonate with and what values that you want to instill in that. And, and making sure they understand the why long before we show them the house and the law.
Jung Park: 01:26:57 There is no shortage of the West and the House that we can take a look at that we could implement from a tactical perspective. But what's the why? What's the strategy? Why is it the right strategy for you, for you to spend the rest of your life doing? Is that the right path? If not, how do you make U-turns and pivot as you go forth? And that's all mindset. I think it really starts with tapping into what we believe in our mindset long before we engage in anything that's tactical or execute executions because of what then the house don't solve problems for the long term. They simply deal with the symptomatic evidences while the root cause is brewing and getting bigger. So we going to go deeper and have those uncomfortable conversations with our children, with colleagues and spouses to make sure that we understand the the why behind things so that each action, each behavior, each word that come out of our mouth is intentional.
Gabe Ratliff: 01:27:57 Speaking of which, this is a great place for me to kind of shift a little bit around diversity and inclusivity cause I know that's obviously also a very important part to you about your life particularly, but also your, your work that you're doing on and off the field. You're, you're an advocate for diversity and Asian-American empowerment. You've got your program connecting the yellow dots and I wanted to ask you, I had a couple of questions around this, this element. I just had a woman who is helping with diversity in tech. Elaine Marino was just on and we got into this conversation around diversity primarily in the tech space. But another thing that I've noticed is that there's been this really awesome push for Asian American actors in film and TV series over the last year or so, you know, like crazy rich Asians and I just, we just saw a really cute Romcom recently always be my, maybe and absolutely hysterical. But you know, Hollywood has had, they've been making some big waves with woman's equality, you know, with the time's up, the me too movements. But also now this push with just the diversity in, in their pictures and with, you know, people behind the camera directing and writing. How do you feel about that and do, do you think times are changing? Like, do you think that this, that w we have the possibility to make this, this push for diversity and inclusivity on a global scale?
Jung Park: 01:29:29 Yes, and I think we're hurting them in the right path. Anytime people are talking about diversity, inclusion and equity is a good day. I don't think there's any work that is detrimental or on the healthy or harmful by working on diversity, inclusion and equity intentionally. My own take is that in that framework of mindset of diversity and inclusion and equity, there's a certain sequential order in which in this come with, and to me equity is a mindset is an emotional, ethical, moral northstar. They guys us to really understand that one difference between the equity and equality and to what equity and inequity looks and feels like. Then the process of making that mindset that at decal more compass into practice through a methodology and cohesive process is to practice of inclusion. So you did you, are you understanding the why and you're implementing through the how of inclusion and the natural outcome is diversity.
Jung Park: 01:30:34 Once you understand the why and the how, the final outcome should be the type of diversity that makes sense in each environment, each organization with the audiences and she stakeholders within their community instead of leading with diversity for the sake of diversity. And that's what you have where it's from the outside as a superficial, you know, das of colors, but no one understands why those colors are there or how much of each color should be there. So looking in my own community of Asian American in today's popular culture, Hollywood and what they put out is a good indication and a barometer of where the culture and current society is. Would racism raise a quality in the equity? And I believe Asian Americans are probably the last group that is actually benefiting and working intentionally on this movement. I typically use the case of will Smith. How will Smith now started out as a rap artist, is taking on dramatic roles in Hollywood, not because he's a black man, not because he's a black man with a skills to wrap, but because simply he's a good actor.
Jung Park: 01:31:47 Well, he needs to pay homage to Denzel Washington who paid the way for will, but also Denzel Washington has benefited from Jim Brown who made a controversial movie on interracial call during the 70s we, Raquel Welch, who also benefit benefited from the forefather of Sydney port ta experienced both racism from the white community but also racism from his own community because you guys were born in Virgin Islands and he spoke English with a British accent, so we cannot for go the ancestors who fought the good fight for us to have the privilege that we have today. However, we are still far behind and that I don't know of many. There are some, but many dramatic films coming out of Hollywood where an Asian male is playing the leading roles simply because the script called for men, not specifically for an Asian man.
Jung Park: 01:32:51 Scripts that could go to a black, white, Hispanic or Asian men. Well, simply an Asian man was chosen not because of the color of his skin or shape of his eyes or because scrip call for one, but simply because he is the best actor or actress she is. The best actress to tell the story. So I think we got some work to do and for those of us in our forties, we need to make damn sure that our brothers and sisters are up and coming. They're in the twenties and thirties are benefiting from us paving the way. And those 20 year olds and 30 year olds better recognize that they also have upcoming brothers and sisters that they're responsible for. This work does not happen because of one thing that happens. This happens because of years of sacrifice and the good fight that people fight, not for their own success but the success of their future generations and those that are following their lead. So while I am excited and I'm glad to see some of these changes take place, I think we've got a long ways to go.
Gabe Ratliff: 01:33:59 I hear you brother. I hear you. It's a rough topic for me because I just did my interview with Michael Il seven Akuna who I saw do a Ted talk and we got into this conversation. Cause he's an African American male. He is a hip hop artist, but he works with the police and youth helping break down those barriers. And we got into this the same conversation. And it's something that I'm really trying to support this conversation and the work that we're all trying to do. Those of us that are trying to do this work and as part of this shows mission is to support people that have been marginalized and giving them a voice and helping those out there that have this same fervor for life and for captaining their own ship. Being an entrepreneur, being a creative and living a life with vitality and fulfillment as we've been talking about today.
Gabe Ratliff: 01:35:03 And giving them that space to feel like they're not alone and that others are out there doing this work and that we do have a lot of work to do. And this, you know, I'm so excited to see this shift as I started seeing, you know, crazy rich Asians and these other shows starting to pop up and shows like queer eye doing so well. And I also do a film and TV recommendation, a called critical fandom that every Friday I put out something that I'm recommending cause I just get so many people asking me, hey, what are you watching? What do you recommend? And people kept saying like, man, you should post something. So I started doing it recently and the very first show that I recommended was ugly, delicious with Dave Chang, who's Korean American and he's a chef. And he did this show that is absolutely amazing because each episode touches on different cultures.
Gabe Ratliff: 01:36:00 Well it starts with Italian and he's in Brooklyn and he's, and he's, you know, a couple of the guys go to Naples and they're looking at like Nepal, a Tano pizza. And then there's an episode around Chinese food and how it's actually not Chinese food is Chinese American food. And we've never actually had authentic Chinese food cause it, it's such a different palate. And He, he has an episode about Korean food and he sits down with, you know, several people and his like are, are I can't remember who all was at the table, but he's having this really wonderful conversation because he himself is Korean American and he can have these amazing conversations cause he's not a white guy trust who's right, running around as a critic or as a, you know, as a host or whatever. He's a chef who knows the business and he's also the Korean American.
Gabe Ratliff: 01:36:54 So we can have these authentic conversations with other people who are marginalized and get into these really interesting conversations around food. And I've just, I just, one thing I love about food and travel is that you can really tap into a culture in that way and you can really get connected to people through that way. And that was one of the things I loved about the show is that they can tackle those kinds of things and also shine a light on the diversity and the evolution that's, that's taken. And I just love that he can have that conversation.
Jung Park: 01:37:26 And it's unique that he has the perspective to do so. And that's where I draw the line between equality and equity, right? So if we're simply approaching this very topic from a mindset of equality, that would mean that give the Korean American guy, his Korean American cooking show that's equal, right? That's treating with a equality. Sure. All these other people came before you with different colors. So you get to have your own. Now that's simply stopping any quality. But if you're giving someone equity from a mindset of holistically understanding alive. Yeah. And equity is providing this gentleman Dave Chang with what he is, he needs uniquely from his perspective and leveraging and making the best out of the unique strengths that he and only he can bring to the table. And that's equity and not enough people are talking about that. So if there were to simply put him in a chef jacket and put them in the kitchen like they used to, there's a guy named Ming that used to do that in the nineties no disrespect to chef Ming, but because he was Chinese American, majority of his show was Chinese American cooking to start with. That's equality. Now we have to go through that to get to equity, which is the same conversation and something I posted on about us national women's soccer team. While everyone's screaming equal pay and does a first step, we need to get to, if you simply look at and return an investment of how, how much less of resources they had compared to men's team and how much more accomplishments that may, if you're purely looking at it from a business perspective, they have a higher profit margin and return investment, more margin than men's jeans. Therefore you quality pay is injustice because it should be equity, which means the women deserve to be paid more based on what they've accomplished with less.
Jung Park: 01:39:17 So that's something that I, that I'm passionate about and talking about and going back to food. You know any other culture, food is language of love is also currency of love. This is how you share a love. This is how you include someone, how to make someone feel as part of the family. Even though they met, they might've got up, gotten off the bus, that that. So breaking bread, scooping rice together is truly how you make someone feel included. And I'm glad to see that there is a movement, not simply gentrifying the cuisine and the culture by simply taking what his tastes you from one culture and shoving it into a hamburger bon and calling it something else. But these individuals that are out there understanding the why behind the cultural artifact and really understand being how to evolve it rather than trying to wash it all together and say, now we offer this as many fast food restaurants do. And that's the wrong way of doing design and evolving our culture. So I believe in using food as language of love, my own household. Also using it as a currency of love and inclusion and trust with my professional colleagues so that we get to break bread more often than not.
Gabe Ratliff: 01:40:37 That's great. I love that. Yeah, we could go off on that tangent for a long time, I'm sure. Cause I agree and I, that's something that's very important for us. I've worked on about 150 shows that were predominantly around cooking, baking and cakes and it did nothing but just completely demystify what I thought was this untouchable ability to cook and to be able to do it properly in a day. You had to go to culinary school and do all these things and it was like this unattainable thing that was demystified through the work I was doing and, and getting to hang out with these chefs and I, I've befriended some amazing chefs. One of my most recent chefs that I've worked with that I've, I've just bonded with immediately is chef Fernando Ruiz. We bonded immediately. But one of the things that we just bonded about was just that there's that whole just love for food and, and that it's just this like open, experienced and it's been something that's like essentially saved his life.
Gabe Ratliff: 01:41:42 And, and it's just this pure thing that you can do and, and, and share it with people and it's, and it can improve your life and make it better. And I, I love that it has the ability to do that for people, whether that's, like you said with, with colleagues or in your home or with people that come to visit or with friends that you can have that kind of exchange. And that is such a great pathway to what we're talking about with equity. So I appreciate you going off on that tangent for a minute with me.
Jung Park: 01:42:13 Absolutely.
Gabe Ratliff: 01:42:14 I'm wondering about, to pull it back around how this can relate to say, a, an entrepreneur or us working in, in our day to day with our businesses. How, how can we create a space for equity in our businesses?
Jung Park: 01:42:30 You know, one of the first things that I do when I engage with client or workshop dealing with the topic of equity is Ashley Stepping back and talk about the inequity first. I've been to many meetings where white privilege, Harvard graduates, we're talking about solving the problems of that equity and yet there wasn't a single person in that room just ever experienced equity. It does not make sense. It's as ridiculous as me and my buddies who are fathers sitting around trying to design them best pregnancy and child delivery experience for women because we happened to be in the same room as the women as our bombs, but we do not know what that feels like. So I think the first thing we have to do is be in that uncomfortableness. Should we actually have people at the table who can openly and transparently without any reaper, any punishments coming back their way to be able to talk about openly or what it equity feels like and smells like and tastes one.
Jung Park: 01:43:32 That's the first place to start. And that's the entrepreneurial way of doing things. Anyway, we are out there solving problems. We're not simply creating a better mouse trap, but we're trying to figure out what our customers are suffering from, what their needs and demands are and solving that problem. So therefore, what I usually recommend is let's talk about what inequity means in your organization, in your company, you know, audience and community, and invite those people at the table to openly share their experience with him and equity just so that we understand what the problem and the root cause it is and we're trying to solve. I think there's a first place to start. And the second thing is not confusing equity with equality, just because you treat everyone the same. That's not a solution. No one wants to be treated the same. We all want to be treated the way we want to be treated and each individual should be identified, acknowledged and recognized for his or her own needs and not grouped into a label, whether it is religious race, socioeconomic status, just say you belong today, grew up, therefore we have one way of treating people like you.
Jung Park: 01:44:37 These are all very uncomfortable topics, but these are the hard work that we get to put into to truly accomplish equity. And just to geek out about equity a little bit more, I mean the current definition of equity that we're using came from the 20th century definition of financial equity, whether it's the equity you have in your homes or equity you own in a, as a piece of a stock or membership percentage over and own innovation. But the definition that we use before that was to 16th century definition of a person's right to own a piece of property. So you came from illegal, right, for people's property ownership. And before that was your original version of equity, which meant fairness. I think we do for another definition, another involved definition in the 21st century of what equity should mean, which encompasses all the previous definitions and what it should mean for current generation and future to come. And I think that's the heart what we have to do. So equity is not a light topic that we push. Pushy treat, doing a brown bag lunch. This is something that we really gotta put our hearts and mind to and deal with this deeply. Get involved and committed to defining and practicing for the future generation to come
Gabe Ratliff: 01:45:55 Here, here. And, and as I was commenting about before, as I was speaking with Il seven about this from his perspective, you know, I was coming out and saying clearly that we don't know what we don't know, especially coming from being white male privilege. And I, I love that this is a conversation that's happening and I think about it a lot more these days as I'm having conversations like this about what you faced when you were young and not having that voice in your head until it was brought upon you after coming here and recognizing that I didn't have to deal with that. And so I, I, that's part of why I'm having such a diverse type of such as such diverse guests on the show is because I'm trying to, I'm trying to unpack this not only for myself but for others and be able to have these conversations though so that we can get to the bottom of these things and be able to hear these stories about what it was like for each other. It's something that we have to face and we have to take action and keep having these conversations and not, and not think that, oh, it's getting better. It's getting better. And just keep thinking it's getting better. I mean, it's the same thing we know about business. We have to take action. You can't just sit around and think it's going to get better and think you're going to make sales and think you're going to put up a website and it's all gonna come together.
Jung Park: 01:47:21 Right? You can't build, it doesn't mean they'll come. Exactly. I mean, something we have to acknowledge from my perspective is gay. It takes people brothers like you who have experienced what privilege feels like and be able to acknowledge that yes, I have privileges that others may not. It just doesn't mean that you're simply categorized as a privileged person. Right. And the rest of the world hates you. He's just simply recognizing the privilege that you have. Other stuff I have privileges that you don't. So, you know, one of the clients that I have is Cummins the diesel engine company and they have a, a woman's affinity group and they're really outstanding. And the work they do around diversity because for this women's affinity group, the active members are both men and woman and then attend these sessions along with their female colleagues because it doesn't make sense that bunch of minorities of any class a and descriptions and categories would sit together and complain about all the things that to overcome when the offending group is not invited to be educated and become their allies.
Jung Park: 01:48:37 Some of the racist talks and massage monistic stick talks are done when those individuals are already in the room. So we need allies from every group to stand up. When those conversations taking place behind closed door, the perceived safety of their own kind, we need allies to speak up and say that is not okay. That is not right. We need men to do that for women and we need whites in other colors do that for every single color that we have. We need heterosexuals to do that for our LGBTQ Bi community members. It takes allies should do that. And, and in order to gain allies, we need safe environment like the one that you're hosting and facilitating for us to talk about it from a many different perspective to collectively drive toward or something that we all want for our future children.
Gabe Ratliff: 01:49:32 Absolutely. Thank you. Yeah. I man, I, I just, I can't believe how great this conversation has been. I, I have to, I have to start winding us down here, but I just want to applaud you for all the work you do and for being so open and vulnerable with this conversation to whatever extent that has been from your story to the work you're doing. And you know, through, you know, the experiences that you've had in your life that have helped guide you to get you here. I was wondering if you could share about this. You've got something coming up here on August 21st I was wondering if you could share that with us before we do a few wrap up. Fun Questions.
Jung Park: 01:50:16 Sure. Is that I talked about earlier, this is a first program that I'm launching launching on my own and what's coming up on August 21st is an introductory session. I am launching a six week a seminar shear regions of timber and now we're going to take this opportunity gene by friends and family and those who are great supporters of, of my work to come and this into an experienced introductory session, setting expectations what's to be expected in the upcoming six week session that they may be able to utilize themselves and also make recommendations to do is who may find it interesting. So it's a two hour session and is it will be hosted at workability, which is a great coworking space with great visionary owners. We're providing a different experience in this really saturated coworking office concept industry where we, we will host anywhere from 40 or 50 members guests so that we can have an intimate environment where I'll share the frame or go life our life looks like and how we can be implemented through their framework that I'll, I'll choose and share over the six week period. It would also give us a chance to network and get to know each other and build a collective on a larger scale. So it's August 21st Wednesday from five to seven 10 at workability downtown (in Denver, CO).
Gabe Ratliff: 01:51:50 Okay. So got a couple of fun questions before we wrap up. Sure. When you think of the word successful, this is a, I thought this would be a great conver or a great question for you. When you think of the word successful, who's the first person who comes to mind and why?
Jung Park: 01:52:05 My mother, I'm, I'm, I'm blessed. I would, having someone like her as my north star who every sense of the word, she is successful as a human being, as a mother, as a wife, as a sister, as a mentor. And a friend, so that's an easy one. It's my mother.
Gabe Ratliff: 01:52:27 Love it. She's adorable too. Oh my gosh. She's so adorable. I love seeing the photos on your site of just you guys having family time and I love the story about you taking time to go on these walks with your mom. That's so great. If you could have one gigantic billboard anywhere with anything on
Jung Park: 01:52:46 It, what would it say? Wow, that's a big one. I would say for right now, I would say deep thinking they've reflection. I'm aiming for 2020 I think we need to, I think we need to correct our path. I think we've gone through what we to needed to as a learnable experience as a society, as a country, as a culture. I think we be Jassen some corrective measures that is not simply correcting what has been done from opposition, but really spending the time to understand what the right thing agreed. Agreed. That's another long conversation. Traversal one. Yes, it is. It is. I really feel like we do have this opportunity and we do have the hindsight and I think with along with that, the motivation, there's a lot of drive and motivation for a lot of people that are looking to step up and are stepping up.
Jung Park: 01:53:47 And and I, and I'm, I'm really hopeful that this charge that a lot of us have and are trying to put out in our own way is making a difference and hopefully not just continuing to be a siloed, a fair where we're just in our own echo chamber anymore, but as a, as a place where people are actually maybe taking taken stake and the actions that have have happened over the last several years and can be a force for action too, like you said. Right, right. Some, some wrongs and, and hopefully get us back on what I would like to think is a good track for us at 2019 yes sir. Or 2020 that point I could not agree more. All right. Favorite documentary or movie? I know that you like documentaries. Ooh, there are so many. Top three. Okay. So documentary, I don't think anyone's going to know unless you're curious.
Jung Park: 01:54:46 Korean or Korean American. There's actually a a documentary style talk show that I watch religiously. So currencies is season has ended. I'm really hoping to new this. You season. He's basically a host. We used to be a comedian who's great at just like you drawing the stories out of people. So while they had panelists up on stage, there are poets, scientists, social scientists, doctors, they do not lend their expertise. They're actually there to listen to the audience members and the audience gets to have a safe Barb. And even though he is broadcast live, I, I broadcast all over the country in Korea, they get to have a safe environment where among strangers they're opening up and sharing their deepest, darkest secrets and struggles and the amount of hello through peer support and peer mentoring and peer learning that happens on the audience size. It's
Jung Park: 01:55:44 Just amazing. So watch this show religiously from a documentary perspective to really learn what the real life is like. And while they're speaking Korean to culture, our culture is different than this culture here. People are people. And I take that into every classroom. I teach in every workshop I work or every Chino dies in Lover Show documentary type of talk show hands down. That's it. It's actually called talk to you Todd. That yeah, it's a miss. I think they miss an opportunity to translate the white wire. Really it should be talk with you and not talk to you because everyone's talking with each other. Including the panelists and the expert teams, experts and the, and the host salt. So anyway, that's that one. I got many, many favorite movies, but the one that I'm using in my workshops, the leadership and organizational development and culture development is actually a godfather one and two.
Jung Park: 01:56:46 And I used the wisdom that is, we'd been into the very well directed in shot a godfather using individuals like testio and Clemenza to talk about what leadership looks like, what followers look like, what values apply, what it means to have an organization they share core values and how consistent behaviors. But the one that was displayed by Clemenza earns and is right and support from ga. Father just started his own ballet while Tessio was out for number one and solved, Ooh, jumped at the perceive opportunity to do whatever it takes to get what he wants. That ultimately ends up being killed. So I use godfather into leadership and different workshops that I do to one, keep the audience engaged and entertain so that the theoretical concepts aren't sure hard to digest, but if they can just think about the famous quotes and the dead adorable face of Clemenza that they will be able to remember the concept and actually get to practice it in their office and and cubicles every day.
Gabe Ratliff: 01:58:03 That's great. I love that. I love those personal connections that people use just like that, that you are where you can take something that you're really devout too. I love seeing other entrepreneurs that find a great way to be able to integrate that type of element that's your passionate about when you're off the fields and be able to use that on the field. Like I'm Pat Flan, you know, he's a big back to the future fan. So he just had his big conference, Flynn con one in San Diego and, and you know, it's this whole reference to back to the future and he did a very like eight bit look to it. It had this whole eighties
Jung Park: 01:58:42 Kind of vibe and, and he's, he's doing that same kind of thing of just utilizing these things that he's really devout to as a fan but then pulling them in and using them in his work. So I, I love hearing that. That's awesome. I appreciate that bank. That means a lot coming from a story telling yourself there. Oh, thank you. So any final words as we, as we wrap up, anything that you'd like to share that we didn't say or you weren't able to say yet? I think we're pretty thorough. Gabe. I been in your choosing before as a consultant, as a facilitator. It's not easy to make people talk. That is certainly on the topics that we discussed today. So I would like to acknowledge how part of a work this is and how you're quite a master and getting people to open up and share their, keep his thoughts and feelings.
Jung Park: 01:59:34 Sorry. Hope you continue your efforts with any new ventures. And that my engage in, as long as you are like that, they can church you why you're doing what you're doing. I have no doubt you're going to be successful. I just hope that today's talk for your listeners wasn't too heavy and too uncomfortable, but hopefully those who bothered to or practice enough vulnerability and bravery just stick through it. But have walked away with at least one question or one thought that was new and different, but that may be helpful to practice and put into their daily lives tomorrow.
Gabe Ratliff: 02:00:13 Well, thank you sir. And final question, where can people find you on the interwebs?
Jung Park: 02:00:19 I think the easiest place would be my personal website, www dot j u n g p a r k dot me. Jungpark.Me and also on LinkedIn.
Gabe Ratliff: 02:00:31 Awesome. Well, thank you so much Jung this has been an absolutely phenomenal conversation and thank you for your time and thank you for your continued efforts, brother.
Jung Park: 02:00:42 Well, thank you for the opportunity and a great environment to share my story. I appreciate it. Thank you.
Gabe Ratliff: 02:00:51 Well, that's it for this episode. If this is your first time listening. Thank you so much for being here. I really hope you enjoyed the show. The Artful Entrepreneur podcast comes out by weekly and is available every other Thursday for your enjoyment and all links and show notes for this episode can be found at theartful.co if you haven't yet, please subscribe to the show and leave a rating or review on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. If you'd like to be a guest or know someone, that would be a great fit, please go to theartful dot co slash guest and thanks again for listening. Until next time.