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The topics and opinions express in the following show are
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solely those of the hosts and their guests, and not
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What's working on Purpose? Anyway? Each week we ponder the
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answer to this question. People ache for meaning and purpose
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at work, to contribute their talents passionately and know their
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lives really matter. They crave being part of an organization
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that inspires them and helps them grow into realizing their
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highest potential. Business can be such a force for good
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in the world, elevating humanity. In our program, we provide
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guidance and inspiration to help usher in this world we
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all want working on Purpose. Now, here's your host, Doctor
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Elise Cortes.
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Welcome back to the Working a Purpose program pased training
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in this week. Great to have you. I'm your host,
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Doctor Elise Cortes. If you haven't heard this show before,
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we've been on here since February of two, tenty fifteen.
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I am someone who loves the passionate people and organizations,
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and most leaders don't really understand how much energy, human
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energy they're sitting on. I help them unlock it. I'm
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an organizational psychologist, bloggal therapists, workforce advisor, and the founder
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of the Gusto Now movement. But the title that I
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really live by that much is much simpler as I
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simply traffic and energy now the surface motivation of another
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engagement initiative, but the deeper force what I call Gusto,
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the life force for performance that drives commitment, perseverance, and
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genuine ownership of a shared mission in the clients who
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serve You. Can learn more about so whom we can
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work together at gustodashnow dot com or visit my personal
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site Alice Coortes dot com for more information on my
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books and how we can help you. Getting In today's program,
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we have with us Michael Yang. He's a career an
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American entrepreneur, investor, and adventurer whose journey bridges two continents
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and tell us of a lifelong pursuit of meaning. Born
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in Seoul, South Korea, he immigrated to the United States
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at the age of fourteen and went on to build, create,
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and lead companies during the birth of Silicon Valley's Internet revolution.
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He's the author of Coming Alive on the Ride, a
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memoir of motorcycle travel, self discovery, and Korean heritage. We'll
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be talking about it today from the Danish point of
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his Korean heritage itself and the learnings that came with that.
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We're going to hear about some of the points from
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his forty thousand miles in motorcycle travel, and finally some
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of the his entrepreneurial ventures and pursuits and how they
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came to be. He joins us today from Los Angeles,
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CAV I am here at different place. I'm here broadcasting
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live from the University of Texas at Dallas, the Devian
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Jendal School of Business. Michael, Welcome to Working on Purpose.
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Thank you, thank you for having me so so welcome.
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I want to celebrate this beautiful thing you brought into
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world with Michael. I know you have four children, and
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I like to tell my guests because most all of
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them are authors that writing a book is harder than
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bringing a child into the world. I know because I've
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done both. So I just want to say congratulations.
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Thank you, thank you so much.
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So let's start. Oh, absolutely, you know, it's always amazing
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to me. I don't know about you, Michael, but I
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want to go into like, you know, Barnes and Noble
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or any kind of a bookstore. I'm always amazed, Like,
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I know what it takes to bring a book into
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the world, and look at all of these hundreds of
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thousands of books in here. It's crazy to me.
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Right right, But we're driven by the story that we
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want to share with the world. So it's been a
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labor of love for me.
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For sure. Well let's start a little bit here. Just
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you know, I love how you open your book and
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you say, to my fellow adventuress and adventurers at heart,
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my hope is that in reading this book, you'll be
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inspired to embrace the adventure that is your life, finding
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the most soulful elements by the university along the way,
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and ultimately be rewarded with the gift of adventure, the
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daily joy of mystery, beauty and truth. Let's start with that,
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shall we might go. Let's start on that note.
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Sure, yeah, so you know, life is hard and there
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are a lot of struggles that I think everybody goes
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through whether you're successful or not. But in my experience,
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you know, I try to do my best in everything
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that I take on. And later in my life in
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my sixties, I went on a cross continental motorcycle trips
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across America and Canada and Mexico and realize that, you know,
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taking on adventures in life, despite the fear and the
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anxiety that comes with you know, going into something that's
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unknown and uncertain, has provided a tremendous amount of growth
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and and realization about myself and added meaning to my life.
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So that's what I want to encourage audience to do,
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to embrace the adventure.
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Hmm. I want I want to echo that there, Michael.
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One of my coaches and mentors is Sean Anderson, who
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I met on air many many years ago, and he
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has a practice when he travels, he likes to go
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into a country that he traveled, he plans to walk across,
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so no two wheels, two wheels, but walk across over
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a certain period of time. And he generally what he
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does his approach to that is he doesn't plan hotels
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in advance or hostels or anything like that. He finds
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lodging and food along the path. And he's a vegan,
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so it's no small feat to be able to do this,
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and he does it to stay sharp right, to keep
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those life skills of origing of sorts, if you will,
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really strong. It's amazing.
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Yes, I mean, in my experience, going into a foreign
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country is a great idea because you're kind of in
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a unknown environment, and when you get to talk to
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the local people, you sort of see how they think
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and how they live, and I think that is a
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sort of fine enlarging experience. So I think travel to
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foreign countries is a great thing, and I encourage everybody
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to do that if they haven't already.
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It's one of those things. Someone said that it's one
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of the best ways to remove judgment, bias, and ignorance,
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and I completely agree with that.
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Yes, yes, absolutely, And.
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To that end, Michael, I want to celebrate that you
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came to the United States when you were fourteen years old,
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and your father blazed the trail. He came first, and
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it was because of his courage and tenacity that he
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was able to get the whole family here and look
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what you've done. We're going to talk in the third
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segment about your business pursuits, but I want to say
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to you, you are what makes America great. Oh, people
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like you that come You're welcome, who come to this country,
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who don't speak the language, who find a way, they persevere,
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they see the opportunity, and they sail past those of
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us who were born here. I want to just celebrate that.
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Oh, thank you so much. I was very blessed to
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be able to come to America. I had a just
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wonderful image of America and believe that it's a country
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that provided an opportunity, and I did my best to
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try to get the best education I can, work as
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hard as I can and pursue my dream, and I
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was rewarded with some success. And I'm taking that success
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to something more meaningful by encouraging people to find bitter
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path for themselves through my book Coming Alive on the Ride.
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Something that I learned from your book that I wanted
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back to because this segment I wanted to focus as
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much as we can on your early heritage and your education.
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You talk about what was like to grow up in
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South and South Korea. After the war when North and
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South were divided with very different ways of being governed
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and such. Can you speak a little bit about how
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the war changed, how your country was divided and how
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it was led.
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Right, So, the Korean War was very devastating war, even
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more devastating than the US Civil War because it was
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same country, same people who lived in the same land
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for hundreds and thousands of years, but because of the
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ideological difference between sort of communism or socialism in the
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North supported by Soviet Union, and then sort of democratic
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capitalist society supported by the United States in the South Korea.
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And that was really the beginning of the division of
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two Koreas, which is tragic and very sad. But you know,
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I think that the history has proven that the communism
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doesn't work. There's no incentive for people to work hard
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and try to create additional value to the society. So
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the capitalism is has proven superior. But capitalism requires that
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you look after those who have fallen behind through some
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social safety nets and others. So, you know, I think
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Korea is looking for that new way where everybody can
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you know, lead a decent life regardless of you know,
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where your stations are in the society, and so yeah,
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it's a kind of very interesting comparing the Korean experience
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and the American experience as it relates to sort of
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ideological differences between the two countries history.
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What would you say, I don't know, you could You've
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written a whole book here about your experiences, but just
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a few things that you would say that what did
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you what did you get from growing up in Korean?
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What what did it teach you that has been useful
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that you brought forth into your life.
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So, you know, I think the biggest thing that I
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would say I learned is, you know, the importance of harmony,
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whether it's in family or in a country. We were
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pretty poor, uh in the sixties in Korea because the
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war devastated the country and the country Korea has not
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much natural resources other than some farming, and so uh,
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you know, I think it taught me to be resilient
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growing up in that in that society that had very
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scarce resources. But even more than that, I think the
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importance of living in harmony of another one another is
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very important, especially after the devastating war that divided the country.
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But yeah, coming to America was a complete eye opening experience.
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Because of the abundant resources as well as abundant opportunities
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that America provided something that we didn't we didn't have
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in Korea, and that was the reason why my father
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decided to come to America and bring the family along,
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to give us better opportunity in education and in my
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in our career.
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And I really applaud that change. I lived in Spain
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and brazila in my mid twenties, and it made all
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the difference in the world to live in those countries
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and learn from them, and learn from their cultures and
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be expanded by them through those cultures. So you became
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a US citizen, I want to also celebrate that. How
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old were you when you became a citizen.
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I was nineteen years old when I became a US
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citizen nineteen or twenty. I was a third or fourth
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year student at UC Berkeley, where I was going to college.
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And you could get applied for citizenship five years after
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you have a perment, residence status or the Green Card.
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So we decided to my father said we're going to
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live here, our children will live here and become Americans.
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So we got to become a naturalized US citizen. So
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we took that we applied for citizenship, got past the test,
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and we received a naturalized citizen certificate around nineteen eighty two,
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when I was like twenty years old.
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So two follow on questions to that, what did it
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feel like to get that citizenship?
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It was, you know, I was I was excited to
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become an American and and I maintained my Korean heritage
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and the roots. But as my father told us, this
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is our new country, and so we're gonna live here,
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We're gonna have our children here, and and basically we
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need to put our roots down and and and become
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a productive and useful American citizen. And so I was
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very excited to to you know, become a US citizen.
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But I realized that I'm I'm you know, I'm from Korea.
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And so, as I wrote about in my book Coming
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Alive on the Ride, even my soccer teammates in high school, uh,
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sort of teased me because of you know, the way
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I look and and where I came from. So I
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realized that I am different even though I'm an American
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and I'm a Korean American. And I realized later in
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my life that that that difference is actually can be
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a strength because I am I have a sort of
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unique perspective being a Korean American who was also American
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and Korean.
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No doubt about it, it gives you a strength, no doubt
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about You have a whole different perspective and lens on
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the world, and you understand the value of the resources,
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the opportunity in a way that others who grew up
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with it just take for granted, I think, right. The