(Minghui.org) Mr. Han Jiao-Jeon, division chief of the global automobile company GM Korea, feels he entered a new phase of his life when he started practicing Falun Dafa at the age of 40. He quit smoking and drinking and his outlook on life became optimistic. He now has a lively and warm heart. His coworkers describe him as “a man who has lived two different lives.”
Mr. Han Jao-Jeon, division chief of the global automobile company GM Korea, is a quiet and gentle manager.
Mr. Han’s father, who studied the Book of Changes (Zhou Yi) once told him, “By the time you are 40 years old, your life will change. I will leave this world in September.” His father died in September that year, and Mr. Han faced dramatic changes when he hit 40.
“With the financial crisis in 2002, my former company filed for bankruptcy. It was hard on me and I had problems facing the reality. One day I saw a group of peaceful Falun Dafa practitioners when I visited Bukhansan Mountain. I researched the practice online and was surprised to find that over 100 million people worldwide embraced the practice. I also learned about the persecution. Instinctively I thought that if 100 million people practiced it, there must be something unusual about this teaching,” Mr. Han recalled. He decided to learn Falun Dafa.
Mr. Han learned how to do the five sets of exercises from a practitioner and downloaded the book of the main teachings of the practice, Zhuan Falun, from the Internet. He read the book in four days and felt overwhelmed. The book answered all the questions that had puzzled him for years.
“Every word in the book resonated with me. I knew how to live my life, and my worldview changed. After my company closed down, I felt lost and did a lot of reading, trying to get back on my feet. Simply reading the Falun Dafa teachings enabled me to undergo significant changes, which was amazing.”
As a child, Mr. Han was interested in meditation and spiritual cultivation. When he got older he spent money and learned a breathing method and a qigong, but he was not satisfied with the results.
This time he felt different, “The first day I learned the exercise movements, I felt a sharp pain in my palms and my body warmed up. The movements were round and slow, yet I started to sweat all over. After I finished the exercises, I felt light and comfortable.”
When he bought a gift for the practitioner who taught him the exercises, the response of the practitioner surprised him. The practitioner turned down the gift and said, “Practitioners do not take any payment or reward when they show others the exercises. When you show others the exercises, you must do the same.”
Since he was little, Mr. Han never stopped asking, “Time is endless and men only live several decades. We just came here for a short period of time. Does life end when one dies, or is there something that goes on?”
No one understood him, and he had no one to discuss this topic with. He often imagined living alone in a cosmic space. To find answers, he browsed the classics of philosophy and Buddhism. None of them answered his questions.
“My interest has always surrounded philosophy and the purpose of life, yet I never got the answer I wanted. I could only let go of the questions when I drank. In the end, I had a lot of drinking friends.”
After he started a new job, he started drinking every day. He’d drink after work, sometimes until midnight.
“My wife hated seeing me like that, but I just couldn’t control myself. I’d drink anything, whatever I could get my hands on.” He drank with friends every day after work and usually smoked two packs of cigarettes a day. His wife couldn’t stand him and constantly fought with him. Their relationship seemed to have come to an end.
“My health declined as well. I developed a stomach ulcer and relied on medicines. Intense anxiety prevented me from sleeping. When I hit the lowest point of my life, I came across Falun Dafa.”
Miracles happened after he took up Falun Dafa. “A few days after I began practicing Falun Dafa, I found alcohol disgusting. I knew that I should stop drinking when I read Zhuan Falun, but I didn’t try very hard to quit. I just gradually did not want alcohol, and started to avoid drinking occasions.”
The news that he, a known alcoholic, stopped drinking quickly spread among his coworkers. At the company’s gatherings, no matter how his coworkers urged him to drink, he would not give in. A year later, his coworkers handed him soft drinks at company gatherings without asking him.
“I quit smoking at the same time I quit drinking. I tried to quit smoking many times before and failed. After I began reading the teachings, I easily stopped smoking. Seeing my changes, the coworker sitting next to me quit smoking as well.”
The news of him quitting chain-smoking spread even faster. Being the first person who quit drinking and smoking at the same time, many went to him for suggestions on how to quit. “Everyone asked me what happened, if I really quit, and what the secret was. I’d tell them of how I took up Falun Dafa. From then on, when my coworkers saw me, they’d say, ‘Oh, Falun Dafa!’” Mr. Han said with a big smile on his face.
As a supervisor, Mr. Han did everything by the book. His strict managing style earned him the nickname “viper.” Everything changed after he took up the practice. He became gentle and good at communicating with his team members. “When I stopped blaming or accusing others, it opened up the window of communication.”
Mr. Han Jiao-Jeon stands in front of his company.
His experience told him that if a manager managed everything and every detail, it might seem that he was doing the job, but his team members might become passive, and he would end up exhausted. “When a project comes, I plan it with my team members and fully explain the principles of how it should work. I then leave the rest to them. When I show that I trust them, it gives them a sense of confidence, and they are calm and vigilant. This way they are able to detect it if something goes wrong at an early stage, and solve the problem after talking to me.”
He adjusted his attitude toward his team members, and he tried to maintain a peaceful work atmosphere. “The quality of the management is directly reflected in the outcome of the work done, which in turn affects the management. Practicing Falun Dafa allows me to become selfless and calm. Because I understand the principles of how things work, I seldom worry or feel stressed out. When a manager is relaxed, so are his team members, and the outcome will naturally be good.”
Mr. Han has over 40 people on his team, four times more than the other teams. Sometimes he felt that it wasn’t fair. However, he learned to let go and accept the fact. “For a practitioner, nothing is coincidental. When I suffer, I see it as an opportunity for me to repay my debt and an opportunity to stay calm. The practice strengthens my will.”
He realized that expanding one's mental capacity is the key to clearing resentment. One of his team members damaged a luxury car and caused a big loss. As a manager, he needed to shoulder all responsibility and criticism. “I tried to stop resenting my team member, but his face kept appearing in my head. In the end, I realized that he did not do it on purpose, and he indeed blamed himself.” “By practicing Falun Dafa I learned how to put others before myself. I tried to protect my team member and prevent him from suffering a negative outcome. Although I could not fix the problem, I looked at it as a test for my tolerance.”
“A few days later the incident ended with only a warning. We went through a very difficult time, but I remained calm and protected my team member. Afterward, our team was more united than ever.”
Mr. Han’s wife and daughter noticed his positive changes after he began practicing. His family relations improved.
“My wife and I used to fight, and then not talk for days. Every time we talked, we fought. Things have changed. When my wife got angry, I listened to her carefully, and as soon as I did that, she calmed down. My daughter now tells her friends, ‘My father has changed.’”
Doing dishes, washing the car, and cleaning the house have become part of Mr. Han’s duties at home. No matter how tired he is, he prioritizes his family and gets things done. After he started to help out at home, he realized how he used to put his wife in a difficult situation. “I put her in a terrible situation, and owe her a lot. Now I want to repay what I owe.”