I recently gave a career lecture at the Sammul Middle and High School Entrepreneurship Club, introduced by the CEO, who is a former colleague and current business partner. While I had experience delivering startup lectures to countless university students as the former Global Business Team Leader at the Gyeonggi Center for Creative Economy and Innovation, the most embarrassing and difficult thing for me to admit after my business failure was that the very person who encouraged entrepreneurship had failed in his own venture. In that sense, this high school lecture was an especially meaningful time for me.

The lecture’s theme was my life journey of choosing the ‘narrow path’ others rarely take and the outcomes of that choice. Typically, such talks should conclude with a ‘happy ending’ of ultimate success. I worried that ending with failure might make the narrow path I walked seem meaningless. Moreover, I initially politely declined, thinking it absurd to discuss entrepreneurship without having personally founded a company and seen it succeed. However, the CEO’s repeated request to introduce diverse career paths to students, even if I wasn’t a founder myself, gave me the courage to step onto the podium.

Time constraints meant I couldn’t share everything, but I covered my experience starting as the sole representative for a UK mobile game company during university, meeting my life mentor Dr. Kang Young-woo after joining global giant IBM and then moving to SME Com2uS, the economic crisis and subsequent closure of the US branch office, the unexpected visit to Palestine and entry into the startup world following the company’s sudden merger and acquisition, and the days of struggling amidst the illusion of the ‘Creative Economy’ after returning home. The children listened with particular fascination to the journey from becoming a delivery driver after leaving the startup to endure the COVID era, to making a comeback as the head of a global tech company’s Korean branch. Above all, it was deeply moving to see the CEO who invited me listen with more immersion than anyone else.

I never thought I’d have another public opportunity to share my painful past and the ‘narrow path’ I walked. Yet, being able to share my story in this small but meaningful setting was a great comfort and a time of healing for me. It reminded me of Peter, who denied his Master three times under interrogation on the night Jesus was arrested. Just as the resurrected Jesus later restored him by silently grilling fish on the shore of Galilee and asking three times, “Do you love me?”—it felt as if the Lord was asking me the same question, gently comforting me. Passing through the path of suffering strengthened my inner self, and those diverse experiences illuminated the path I must walk ahead with greater clarity.

“Enter through the narrow gate. For the gate that leads to destruction is wide, and the road is broad, and many enter through it. But the gate that leads to life is narrow, and the road is narrow, and few find it.” (Matthew 7:13-14)