Push Button of Hope Inside, Preacher of Happiness Says
By Park Si-soo
Staff Reporter
Choi Yoon-hee is one of the most popular and well-paid public speakers in Korea. The 63-year-old describes herself as a "designer" who maps out the road to happiness.
Nearly 40 years ago, she was wrestling with an endless cycle of despair, poverty and depression with no help in sight following the collapse of her husband's business. She even considered committing suicide.
Choi said the "button of hope" she found in her heart at the height of her desperation led to a dramatic turnaround in her life.
The act of pushing the button symbolizes the bold steps necessary to reset one's mentality through positive thinking, she added.
"My tragedy began with my husband quitting his job in the government," she said. "He used our home as collateral for loans to launch a business in Seoul. But it went bankrupt in just two months and my family was forced to move down to Busan."
One day, Choi, who was sick and tired of her misfortunes, decided to commit suicide. Before she did, she called in her children, who were playing near the house.
"If I were a woman without children, I would have killed myself at that time by any means. But I couldn't do it seeing my adorable children. So I halted my plan," she said. "My last and only alternative was to find a breakthrough by myself."
She remembers the moment as the first time she pushed the button of hope in her heart.
"Since I pushed it, a series of miracles have played out in my life," Choi said.
The first thing she did was to search the job listings in newspapers and apply for jobs. In the same year, she became a copywriter at a major ad company, the first money-making job of her life. She was 38.
"The positive thinking and can-do spirit I obtained after pushing the button made all things possible," she said.
It also made it possible for her to overcome a variety of weaknesses as a copywriter and climb the corporate ladder.
"I was equipped with three major weaknesses as a working woman at that time. I was female, I was not pretty and I was married," she said.
"I was confronted with so many visible and invisible hurdles at the workplace, such as the 'glass ceiling' and bullying. In order to shatter the barrier and overcome weakness, I worked more and studied harder than my male colleagues for months.
"The experience was a nightmare. But whenever I faced my physical and mental limits, I pushed the button and restarted.
"Under ideal conditions, everybody can obtain whatever they wanted. Real happiness comes when one makes a seemingly unobtainable achievement under adverse conditions." Her efforts paid off when she was promoted to become the company's chief copywriter. She resigned from the post in 1997.
"I don't believe that having a nice house and car, a good academic background and a high salary is the surefire way to achieve success," Choi said.
"The bottom line is how much happiness and appreciation we feel we have in the present moment."
The path to reach such happiness may not be easy, she explains, but when you are in trouble you always have the ability to “push the button of hope inside of you.
“It works.”