In his lecture, Ilchi Lee told the moving story of his father and expressed his gratitude to him, at the Lecture & Concert to Become 10 Years Younger, in celebration of his latest book Walking to Save My Life: Jangsaeng Walking (in Korean), at Seoul Plaza Hotel, Seoul, South Korea, November 21, 2007. In a tribute to his father’s influence on Ilchi Lee, he expressed his gratitude for and attributed his strong confidence and bold creativity in his life to the power of belief, love and messages embedded in his brain when he was a child.
Two years ago I created the Jangsaeng (Longevity) Walking method to heal my own back, which I had injured in falling off a horse in the Arizona desert. The book based on this walking method was published in May 2007, and has sold more than 130,000 copies, making it a bestseller in South Korea.
Throughout 2007, I have shared Jangsaeng Walking with tens of thousands of people, giving 100 lectures in five countries. Many people have sent me stories of how they recovered their health, or changed their personality and relationships by changing their basic walking style.
I invited my father to this event, hoping to honor him in person. But his health condition prevented him from coming. Soon to be 90, he hurt his back a few years ago while protecting his wife from falling down. Since then, because of advanced age and a back not yet fully recovered, he rarely leaves his home.
I was born near the start of the Korean War, in Cheonan, South Korea. I was the eldest son in a family with a strong paternal lineage of teachers. My father named me Seung Heun, to connect me to core life principles. [Later in my life, I took the name Ilchi, to express my mission in life as one who points the way.]
My parents had very high expectations for me, but during my youth I failed to satisfy them. I felt no interest in school life, and did not concentrate on my studies. Had it been today, I would have been diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder, a condition of delayed learning capacity.
In school, my hands could not follow my thoughts, which occurred very fast. My teachers’ explanations did not interest me, nor gave me any satisfaction. This was why I could not take notes, or concentrate on what they said. Instead, I was lost in my own thoughts all the time. Because of my highly introspective personality, I had no friends. The only one who talked to me and became my friend was my father.
My father never scolded when I showed him my consistently poor grades. As a life-long career schoolteacher, he was no doubt perplexed, feeling, “I have never seen a child like you in my life.” Instead, he always encouraged me, saying, “Great talents mature late; you will become a great person later.” The reason why I did not lose courage, despite my lackluster school life, was because of his positive messages, which became deeply rooted inside of me.
When I was in high school, out of curiosity I began to smoke cigarettes. Soon, my father found this out. I expected that he would furiously berate me, but he did not say a word. Instead, the next day he bought me a dozen packs of cigarettes. While he himself smoked a cheap brand, he advised me to smoke good-quality cigarettes if I really wanted to smoke. I made up my mind then not to smoke again in my whole life. He had again educated me to have good thoughts and form good habits.
After graduating from high school, I was not interested in attending a university; I twice failed the entrance examination. Without a clear goal, I spent my time teaching the children in his town what I had studied – Taekwondo and Aikido martial arts.
One day, my father suddenly retired from his school position. I believe that he might have felt doubt in encouraging me as a late bloomer. He was in effect saying that a person who failed to properly teach his own son lacked the credibility to teach students.
My father gave me half of his retirement grant, telling me to play the role of the eldest son by using the money to invest in a business for me and support my younger brothers. So, I opened my own Taekwondo studio in the daytime, and went to a university in the evening. I began to take care of my brothers and behave as the head of the family.
I deeply feel that it was the power of belief, unconditional love and other positive messages that my father planted in my young brain that enabled me to become ambitious and confident as I have lived my life since then. These attitudes proved invaluable when I went through my ordeal on Mount Moak, South Korea, meditating to discover the deeper reality of my life at 30 years of age; when I taught body-mind health exercises for free at a local park for five years; and when I came alone to the United State to live, and work to create an international base for sharing my holistic fitness principles and practices, which today I call Brain Education.
Because of the challenging experience of my own schooling, I developed the concept of the Brain Operating System, and realized the principle, “Good news makes a good brain.” Thanks to the model of Jangsaeng (longevity) that my father showed me, I have devised a way of living a Jangsaeng life to realize one’s dream, while being healthy and happy. I offer my deepest gratitude to my father again and again.
