201: What to Do When Things Don't Go Your Way, with Haemin Sunim

Mike Schmitz

Welcome to Focus, the productivity podcast about more than just cranking widgets. I'm Mike Schmitz. I'm joined by my fellow co host, Mister David Sparks. Hey, David. Hey, Mike.

David Sparks

How are you today? Doing great. We have a very special guest who's joining us today. Before we get there, just real quickly, want to give one more plug for my reading workshop because this will be the last episode that goes out before that takes place. Settled on a date.

Mike Schmitz

It's April 19. It'll be at 11:00 a.m. Central time. So it's 09:00 a.m. Pacific and I'm going to cram everything I know about reading books and reading workflows and taking book notes into a two hour workshop.

If you are interested in joining, you can go to Mike schmitz.com reading Masterclass. There will be a link in the show notes. There's a paid workshop. It's going to be dollar 49. It's basically an entire course worth of content that I'm trying to condense down into 2 hours.

So you walk away with more bang for your buck. Excellent. And we have a guest today. Welcome to the show, Haman Sunim. Oh, thank you for having me.

David Sparks

It's our pleasure. I've always felt that there's a big overlap between what we're talking about here, focus, and a lot of the tenets of Buddhism about intentionality and focus. And Haman is a monk who has, well, actually, Haman, why don't you tell us a little bit about your past so you can share it with the audience. I'm author. I have written three books, and the most recent one, when things don't go your way, just came out in the United States and it's going to become available very shortly in the UK as well.

Haemin Sunim

And also, I used to be a college professor in Massachusetts for about seven years, and then I became founder of school for Broken Hearts in South Korea, Seoul, that's where I was born and raised. And I became monk in Korea. So I returned to my own country. And then I have offered many different kinds of counseling programs and group therapy sessions along with meditations. And you were educated at Berkeley, Harvard and Princeton.

David Sparks

And there's these three books you mentioned when things don't go your way, love for imperfect things and the things you can see only when you slow down. When we heard you were coming on the show, I bought when things don't go your way. But since then, I have consumed all three books. They're very good. I really enjoyed them.

I'm going to give you the really short review, because your books remind me of thich nhat Hanh's books. And in that sense, they're tricky because they're short and they get to the point. But you can bump into a sentence or two that you can spend a couple hours thinking about. So it almost should come with a warning label. I love the way you write, and I know you wrote them originally in Korean, I believe, but they translate very well to English, and I would recommend anybody that's interested in questions like that to check them out.

Haemin Sunim

Thank you so much. Yeah, that's precisely what I wanted to do, give you what they call drop of wisdom, and then let them think about this and ponder and meditate on it. Let's unpack that just a little bit, because there is a very unique style to these books, where you basically have these different chapters and you have a longer essay around a topic, and then you have the wisdom drops, I think, is what you called them when you were talking to Mike Vardy. And how did you land on the formatting that you used for these books? I find it nowadays for many people, especially young people, they find it hard to just read through the whole pages.

So I just wanted to condense, you know, the point that I wanted to make and then deliver in a very short, abbreviated form while in a satisfying the needs of reading a longer essay as well. So that's how I came up with the format. Well, I think it works really well. I think it's very effective. And the wisdom drops that you have, I found myself going through them, and every fourth or fifth one, it would just kind of hit different.

Mike Schmitz

So not everyone, obviously, is. Is causing me to stop and think, but there are definitely those ones that really resonate. And I think the. The formatting that you use is. Is very effective.

If that's the intention, is you want some of this stuff to stick, you don't want to just complete the book and move on to the next one. I found myself, and I read a lot of books. I've got a whole separate podcast where I read a different book every two weeks. But I found myself kind of brewing on some of the things after I read this, as I would go about my day, which is not, I guess, the standard protocol for me when I read a lot of these nonfiction books. Well, that's amazing.

Haemin Sunim

Even if there is only one wisdom drop that really resonated with you and maybe changed some perspective how to do things differently for the better, then I think I have done my work. Yes. I agree. There were a couple of those specifically around the topic of fear that really just hit me kind of going off of your outline here, David, so you can bring me back if you want here. But I really like the idea of dealing with your fear or facing your fear as opposed to running from it and hiding it and pretending that it's not there.

Right? Yeah. Yeah. The path to become free from your fear is going through the fear, not running away from it. Once you face the fear, you realize that, oh, this wasn't something that's so huge.

It's something that's so terrifying. Actually, in Buddhism, what we call the emptiness, insubstantiality of the fear. It was just the thoughts that was blocking me from actually advancing to my next level. So I recommend that, I mean, you cannot just do it all at once. You can just take a small dose at a time, and as you become closer and closer, and then you get to see the bottom of your fear, and then voila, you'll see that actual emptiness of your fear.

David Sparks

Haman, I have had a similar experience. I started a meditation practice in 1993. I do it like all the time. In fact, I think you can probably see my meditation cushion right there behind me. Oh, yeah, yeah.

But the, so I daily I meditate. And to me, that was one of the biggest discoveries after I did it for a while was what my teacher called untangling the knot. And I don't know if you've, you've probably heard this before, but the idea is you take an underlying emotion, and it seems to me, like for people, it's often one or the other. It's anger or fear. For me, it feels like it's fear more than it's anger.

I don't get angry very easily, but I do get afraid of things. And in the meditative practice, just kind of starting to say, well, why is that? Just like you said, running into it and finding the kind of source, reasons and emotions. It's a very strange sensation if you've ever experienced it, because at some point, the basis of the fear does become clear to you through, through reflection. And in my head, I literally, I don't know if this was planted with mean by a teacher or a book or whatever, but I almost, like, see a knot untangle and it just kind of dissolves and it's like then it's just kind of gone.

It's, it's just a extremely liberating process, but you have to experience it to really appreciate it, I think. Yeah, absolutely. If you actually take a look and face, you know, what is really there. And oftentimes, actually, it is just your imagination as you become closer and then become familiar with your own fear. I mean, in the beginning, it takes a lot of courage.

Haemin Sunim

It takes a lot of time. But as you are looking into it and asking the question, what am I really afraid of? What am I really afraid of? And what is really there? And then this becomes occasions of self discovery.

And as you discover about your emotion and deeper, maybe part of yourselves, and then you begin to realize that, oh, I didn't need to be so that afraid. I could just. Actually, the only reason why I was so afraid is because I didn't look into it. Yeah. Yeah.

David Sparks

I mean, and it's funny because there's all of these spiritual traditions around the world that kind of come to that conclusion that, like, your brain run amok. Run amok can get you into trouble, you know? And then if you can, like, figure it out and get to the bottom of it. But that is. That's just one little pearl of wisdom in this book.

So many topics, you know, and the format of it to pick up where Mike left off, is it doesn't follow the western nonfiction book tradition. Like, what we have now, I feel like in a lot of western books on self improvement, is it starts with a principle and then many, many stories of going out and finding so and so did this test or so and so. And they talk about all these different people that have had illustrative examples, and those are. That's great way to write it, write a book. But it also is a long way to write a book, whereas the.

The way your books are written, it's a very small essay. Sometimes it's self reflective. You share a personal story or just some ideas, but then you drop into these wisdom bits, and, you know, and they're just all little bits of wisdom. Like Mike said, I I really enjoyed the format as well, and I think you're onto something. Thank you.

Haemin Sunim

You know, I hope this becomes occasion for contemplations as opposed to just, you know, reading through quickly and then forgetting about it. Yeah. West, I realized that people have a different purpose for reading. In Asia and especially in Korea, people pick up books to learn. But I noticed that in the west, people also pick a book to entertain themselves, which is different type of readings.

David Sparks

Well, let's talk about that for a minute, because I agree with you. I think especially nonfiction books, if you're going to read it, you need to do more than glance off an idea. You need to engage with it. And you maybe need to find a way to incorporate it into your life. How do people do that in Korea?

Haemin Sunim

I think there's a whole genre of essay in Korea, and that is they allow people to write about their own story, and that relates to other people's situations. That is, as we read about other people's lives, it becomes occasion for me to be reflective about my own life. And it's not strictly memoir. It's very. Anybody can write it.

Even if you're not famous or have not accomplished something amazing, you can still write about one small segment of your life, small bits of it, and then become very contemplative about what that moment really means. So people enjoy reading it as a way to really get to know them through the lens of other people's lives. Like in your section on friendship. You've got a little one here. A good friend is a magician, the one who can easily double my happiness.

David Sparks

I just love that I wrote that down in my own little contemplation book when I read it. And it does kind of remind me as well as the Zen tradition has this idea of kind of throwing out a small story or koan or whatever to kind of spark your brain. And I feel like this book does. I guess I keep saying it over and over again, but what a wonderful little book you have written. Oh, thank you so much.

Haemin Sunim

I think friends, they do in a double hour happiness. Yeah. I went to amazing, beautiful place recently in Switzerland, actually. And then as I was, you know, hiking around and I was all by myself and I realized that, you know, while I was looking at this amazing, beautiful mountain, I just wish I had friends that I can like, you know, become, you know, amazed together. Become very happy together.

Mike Schmitz

Sure. It wasn't as nice as just looking at it all by myself because the scenery was just spectacular.

David Sparks

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I know as a monk you are deeply steeped in the tradition of meditation. We talk about it actually quite a bit here because I'm a fan. Mike has worked with it off and on over the years, and I do think that giving, one of the big goals of our show is for people to start to think about focus. And I think one of the ways you can do you can focus more is by stopping. And in modern society, I feel like there is a lot of pressure for you to not stop.

And to always be going and building in something like a meditation practice can really help you start to realize the benefits of stopping. I mean, the example I always use is because it's, to this day, shocking to me. When you go to the grocery store, I don't know what it's like in Korea, but in the US, everybody in line has their phone out in line to buy, you know, eggs. They it's like there's three or four minutes they have before they need to make a purchase, and they can't be alone with their own thoughts for three or four minutes. They have, they constantly need that distraction.

And I think, you know, a meditation practice is a way to start kind of building back on that. Um, did you. Because I know you weren't a monk when you were going through school, right? You were. Well, you tell me.

I think I'm a little off my game here. When did you get your formal training? Oh, when I was, you know, just about finishing my master degree, actually. But I became very much interested in spiritual practice ever since I was very young, and I asked big questions, such as, you know, such as, who am I and why am I here? I felt as though I was just thrown into this world without any kind of manual.

Haemin Sunim

And it is my job to find out all those reasons. But I realized that, you know, one of the ways to become aware of my own being is to pause. You know, like you say, we have to just stop and to see what is already there. Rather than trying to look for something that's not there yet, we should just pause and appreciate what is already there. I think that is one of the first step we can do for spiritual liberation as well.

So I really recommend people to take time and see what is really there in front of you. All those worries, all those anxious thoughts, it just disappears if you actually look at the things that's already in front of you. Yeah, that's kind of magical. That is, if you can just appreciate what is in front of you. Like, for example, I have glass of cup of tea.

And as I am appreciating the tea, the sense, smell, the textures, all of that, you know, comes alive. And this becomes occasion for me to slow down and become happier. So I think we lost the art of slowing down because of all this technology we have. But I think a path to happiness is truly appreciating what we already have. I was once at a retreat, and I had a teacher tell me, you're not eating your rice, you're eating your problems.

David Sparks

I think there's truth to that. But if somebody is out there listening and they want to become a little more intentional, they do want to find that pause. What is some advice you would give them to find it? I think you can just do it from where you are. You don't have to get to special place or time.

Haemin Sunim

Actually, when you are having a cup of coffee in the morning or talking to your wife or husband, then just really listen while they're talking or really appreciate the food that you are having. And when you are listening to music, really listen. When you are distracted and think about something else, then you cannot actually hear the music. But if you pay attention to what's already happening around you, then you become your life, become richer and happier. One of the things you mentioned in the things you can see only when you slow down under the chapter on mindfulness that I thought was really interesting was you said that the harder we try to suppress negative emotions, the more we churn them up.

Mike Schmitz

Could you speak to that? And maybe how the mindfulness meditation practice helps you sort through those things. Yes. As you are acknowledging what is already there, then you are providing some space for that negative emotion to be there. And while you are allowing that emotion to be there, you are not fighting, you are not arguing with it.

Haemin Sunim

You are not extending your negative emotions. Rather, you let the negative emotion to be there and watch slowly how it evolves. Because it's not frozen. It is all constantly changing, constantly moving. And as soon as you just provide that space for your negative emotion to be there, then naturally, sooner or later, it just evolves, and then, you know, disappears by its own.

But if you try to suppress it and in denial of your negative emotions, then this becomes part of your, you know, subconsciousness. And then, you know, later, you will end up projecting your own emotion onto other people. Yeah. So, for example, if you. If you don't, like, you know, selfishness, like, for example, I don't want to be selfish.

And then, you know, if you just keep on suppressing your selfish selfishness, you know, for example, then as you walk around, you will begin to see a lot of selfish people around you. It is because you're projecting that which you don't like. So I recommend that rather than, you know, suppressions, just let them be and. And be curious and see how that emotions, which I label as selfishness or whatever, sadness or depressions or anger, just take the label out and then observe the energy. And then you'll soon see that energy changes all by itself.

You don't have to do anything. You also mentioned in that chapter that the mind can't have two thoughts at once. So by letting that be, is that what allows you to disconnect from the negative emotion and focus on the positive? Yes. Rather than you are continuing with your thoughts and thereby you feel trapped in your own thoughts, you become the prisoner of your own thoughts by becoming mindful of your thoughts.

What happened is you are taking a step back and you are witnessing. And while you're witnessing your thoughts, you are not continuing with your thought pattern, the same thought pattern. You just pause. So one of the magical way to get yourself out of your thoughts is to slow down and observe your own thoughts. And interestingly, you realize that you are not the thoughts, you know, you are not your thoughts.

You know, you are that which observe your thoughts. I feel like that's a really hard concept for people, you know, separation of themselves from their ideas. How do you teach people that are struggling with that? You know, you do. It's very easy to tie your identity into what you're thinking.

David Sparks

And that can lead to all sorts of problems. Absolutely. Oftentimes when we haven't cultivated mindfulness, we end up identifying ourselves with emotion, our own feeling and our own thoughts, and thereby anybody who has different thoughts. Then you end up arguing with the person or try to convince that person to think like the way I'm thinking. However, there is a greater, you know, part of you which in Buddhism call awareness that allows you to quietly witness everything.

Haemin Sunim

You don't have to be so actor in your own mind. You can just take a. Take a break, actually, and then take a step back and observe, you know, and then what's interesting is you don't have to be so identify yourself with your thoughts and emotions, because they come and go. They always change. So rather than say, I have this feeling, and thereby, like, for example, if somebody say, I am angry, somehow you are identifying yourself with anger, that emotion of anger.

But what's interesting is it wasn't you who wanted to intentionally try to feel anger, to feel so much anger, because nobody wants that, you know, who wants to, you know, stay, be angry all the time. It just naturally happens. And then what happens is it will naturally disappear. So just observe this in a whole theater within your mind, how anger arises, and then you label it as anger, and then as you take that label away, and then the energy of anger just dissipates. Again, neutral observation.

David Sparks

Another thing you had said when you were talking about your tea that I think is an interesting point to kind of develop further is the experience of drinking the tea. You only get that tea one time. That cup of tea is available to this one time. Next time it'll be a different cup of tea. It's like the, you know, finding a way to be in that moment, to enjoy it while it's there.

Haemin Sunim

Yeah. You know, if we have an intention to actually appreciate what's already here, then there are many occasions in our lives, daily life, to feel happy, because you can actually, you know, sense and, you know, all this wonderfulness, wonderful things in our lives. So tea is just one example. Everything is impermanent, always changing. However, it doesn't mean that it is negative or depressing, actually, it means that we can appreciate all this changing quality of all the things that's happening around us.

So I talk about in my book happiness, and then I define happiness. Not chasing after what I don't have or resisting what's coming to my way. Our mind has this tendency to look for something that we don't have or resist what is already here. And as we are either resisting or chasing after something, then there is feeling of dissatisfaction, the feeling that it's not quite there yet. I'm not happy, not yet.

I need certain condition to be met. I talk about the practice of gratitude. That is, while we intentionally try to find elements of gratitude, then we stop chasing after something that we don't have, or we resist what is already here by pausing the either movement of our mind. Then we actually arrive here right now, that's all we have actually, and then begin to truly, you know, feel grateful and thereby feeling much, much happier. Thats a good place to talk about the first section of your newest book, when things dont go your way.

Mike Schmitz

The first chapter was really the one that I was thinking about the whole time. You were talking about anger and the disappointment with things not turning out the way that you want them to be. And that section is titled don't be all right. Do you mind kind of unpacking that for us when things aren't the way we want them to be? What is the correct response there?

Haemin Sunim

I think the correct response is observe, exam what is already there rather than trying to, you know, hope for something that is not there and thereby not accurately assessing what's happening, you know, so if you feel sad, if you feel or angry, just acknowledge, oh, it is there. The cloud of anger is passing by. The cloud of sadness is passing by. So even if you don't feel all right, it's okay, you know, don't be all right, you know, you don't have to be always happy or nice and relaxed. Whatever the emotion, it arises, make room for them to be there.

Because you are not that emotions, those emotions, they are just passing clouds. Soon it will disappear. I would encourage them rather than trying, rather than trying to, to manufacture some positive emotions, just observe and let them be. Whatever the quality, it is already there. And thereby that particular situations give rise to wisdom, give rise to what to do next step, as opposed to you try to do something without really understanding the situations.

David Sparks

The idea of observation giving you insight. If you can separate yourself from the passing emotion and just truly observe what's going on. I just recently had a friend who is very unhappy because she didn't get her promotion. She was talking to me. I've been here for three years.

We had a job open up for the middle manager and I didn't get it. And I feel like they let me down and I said well what did the people that have that position, what did they do to get that? Well I don't know. I mean they were here before me. I'm like did you talk to them?

Did you observe? And it's just like she was so upset about not getting the job she never stopped to figure out why or what it is that you do to get the promotion. And afterwards she had a list of things she wanted to do and research and I feel like this stuff all really ties together. It's so often we let the wild animal between our ears get in the way of seeing what's actually going on. Exactly.

Haemin Sunim

Yeah. So I think knowing what's really happening that's a key to success for our next step. So rather than projecting our hope, our wish, just see what is really happening. I really like that chapter titled don't be alright. I've come to know several Buddhists in my life and I think there's a common misconception that Buddhists are just at equanimium with whatever is happening and they're not.

David Sparks

I've known some Buddhists that really can get angry you know and they. And really passionate about things and. But the difference I think is in the observation and the action that follows from that. Absolutely. Yes I agree.

Mike Schmitz

I like that description you had of the cloud of anger or the cloud of sadness, whatever it is. So that's kind of challenging to me as I think about the culture and kind of the standard response. You bump into somebody at dinner they haven't seen in a while. How you doing? I'm good.

Right. That's what we try to project but we never really. I mean even if you felt like I'm not all right, that's not a socially acceptable response. You wouldn't want to say that to somebody. And I was kind of thinking about why is that?

That chapter don't be all right, acknowledge that you're not being all right. And I was thinking about it from the other perspective. If someone were to say that to me it kind of puts the pressure I feel like to well we got to solve this problem which is kind of the wrong approach is what you're saying. Like this is going to come and it's going to go and just recognize it and this too shall pass. It kind of is a very freeing way to think about these emotions that can come up and be very strong and just kind of dominate.

They take over your entire world when you encounter them. Yeah. As I was doing a lot of programs in my school for broken hearts, I noticed that many people, what they really, really want isn't so much for someone to step in and try to fix everything. Rather, what they are hoping is somebody will just quietly witness, acknowledge all the pain that I just went through, all the challenging, difficult emotion that I just had, and just being, you know, having somebody witness and it gives, you know, validations for my emotions. So as a friend, rather than trying to quickly fix your friend's problems, we can just let that person to talk about how he or she feels about this and then acknowledge, oh, that's how you feel.

Haemin Sunim

Oh, okay. Yeah. And in providing that space, I think it's compassion. It also reminds me a lot of empathy, which I have, I guess, a biased perspective on that coming from an emotional intelligence background. But I think it's very closely linked to what you're talking about with compassion.

Mike Schmitz

I think when you're able to express empathy with skill, it's really about saying and doing things to make the other person feel acknowledged and heard. Absolutely. When we feel completely alone and nobody is understanding how I'm feeling right now, it is such a lonely place to be. But when there is a one person, you know, best friend or husband or wife or, you know, whoever is there and knows what's really happening, then that person actually gives you a lot of comfort. And, you know, it just gives me a lot of support, emotional support, I realize.

Haemin Sunim

But if there's nobody, like, nobody understands or knows how I'm feeling and what I'm going through, then this person can think about awful things, like committing suicide or doing something unhealthy. So if we can just check in each other, you know, how are you, how things are really going with you, and then let the other person really talk from their own heart, then I think it would be better off for our society and for our own relationship. Yeah, that's a lesson I need, because I am definitely one of those people. When I have a friend that's having problem, I immediately go into fix it mode, like, okay, let's figure this out. Let's fix it.

David Sparks

Maybe that's not necessarily what they need to hear, but there's a part of me that just immediately wants to take steps. You have a good intention. You want to help friends. You want to get your friends out of their problems. So the intention is good, but at the same time.

Haemin Sunim

See what the needs of your friends is, and if what they really need is somebody who listens, then provide that. Be the good listener.

Mike Schmitz

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David Sparks

Heyman, you had said earlier about the importance of a gratitude and incorporating gratitude into your life, and I was wondering, do you have like a practice or recommendation for people who want to pick up and do more gratitude? Yes. One of the easier way to do it is finding a gratitude buddy. You know, somebody who can, with whom you can send a text message. And simply all you're going to do is whenever you feel grateful, then you're just going to send a very simple text message to your friend, and that will be the way of communicating between you and your gratitude buddy.

Haemin Sunim

And as you receive the messages from your friend, this is going to encourage you to look at other elements in your life that you feel very grateful. So this works well. And also another way is to find a small pebble or some stone that you like and then that you become, whenever you see that stone in your living room or in your bedroom, and you think about one thing, that you feel very grateful in that moment. So you can cultivate that practice as well. And as I am being served in restaurant or in gas stations or in a supermarket, you can really get in touch with your gratitude and say, truly, I'm really grateful for your help, and just, you really mean it.

So that can be another way of practicing too. I like that idea of gratitude buddies. Yeah, I got several ideas there. I also thinking a gratitude stone in your pocket could make a lot of sense every time you reach and pull it out of your pocket and you're like, okay, what am I grateful for at this moment? I like that.

David Sparks

But also I like the idea of using text messaging for it. That's something that often is. So often text messages get in the way. But what if text messages could be a way for you to express gratitude? And when you occasionally send out text message of gratitude to other people, whether it's your coworker or your parents or your relatives, distant relatives, then what you will get is another message of gratitude from their side.

Haemin Sunim

So it actually, in a healthy gratitude, I think give birth to another gratitude. It's infectious. Yes, yes, absolutely. So this is really positive practice, I. Believe the gratitude snowball.

Mike Schmitz

I'm kind of curious, Haman, with gratitude, is there a specific way that you would recommend communicating it to other people? Seems to me, based on my limited experience, that the more specific you can be with the gratitude, the more effective it is. Is that accurate? Absolutely. Yes.

Haemin Sunim

Yeah. You can talk about, you know, nice touch of like cinnamon. Like, you know, my friend, she knew how much I like cinnamon, and so she add that to the coffee, you know, milk and cinnamon. And then it just made it very special, kind of personalized coffee. So I commented on that, how grateful and thoughtful she was, thinking about what my need is and what my preference when it comes to coffee.

A little thing, very detailed things that makes it special, very eventful, memorable. One of the things I think that we struggle with in the modern world is the onslaught of technology and interruptions and demands. If anything, the world more than ever does not want us to stop and take some space or to pause. And a lot of people listening have jobs where they're constantly bombarded with email and demands and family and all that. What are some steps you would recommend to people who are, who are struggling, who know that they want to get a little more space or a little bit more pause, but they don't know how to get started.

I think you can look for your resting place besides your home somewhere, intermediary place. I talk about it in my book. It's called what is your, it's in Spanish. People. You can find, whether it's a beautiful coffee shop or public library or your favorite spot in museum or beautiful tree in your local park, just find a place that is very restful and very beautiful and just go there as much as you can on your way back to home or, you know, in between your meal like a lunch hour, you can just go and sit there.

I find it very nurturing. If you can just connect, you know, yourself with that beautiful space, it's readily available, it's free. You know, you can just find a very relaxed, very nice chair in your local bookstore, for example, you know, and you can just sit there and makes you feel very calm. And I think, you know, having that particular space is very important. It's not your workspace, it's not your home, you know, somewhere in between.

And I find that it works better if you can introduce the element of nature. You know, whether it's beautiful in a tree forest or it's a path that you love to just walk on, if you can just go there and engage yourself with your nature, you know, smell the fresh air, and then, you know, you know, watch the sunrise and, you know, sunset. All of those allows you to pause and appreciate your life. And I think this will become occasion for you to de stress yourself. Do you have a specific place or places that fit that description for you?

Mike Schmitz

Do you mind sharing some personal examples, maybe? Absolutely. Seoul has a lot of coffee shop, actually. And there's one particular very beautiful coffee shops. That's not big, it's small, but it's traditional house looking.

Haemin Sunim

Not many people go there, but I like one corner in that coffee shop. So after my morning walk, I would just go there and order a cup of latte and then sit there and just appreciate what is already there. And also, as a buddhist monk, I love to go to buddhist temple or even cathedral or church. I just really like that feeling of calmness. And so I would love to just go whenever I see a large cathedral or buddhist temple, and I will just quietly go there and sit.

I don't need to do anything. And just for sitting there for five minutes, rejuvenate, refresh my mind, and so that I can just go out and then do things that I need, that I'm required to do. I think a real important distinction that you make, though, is that it's not a place that you go for your work, and it's not a place that you go for being a family member. It's like it's a separate place. Contextually allowing yourself to separate from those roles and.

David Sparks

And just give you space. I think that's an important piece of this. Absolutely. Yeah. I think we all need it.

Haemin Sunim

You know, at home, there is a certain role we have to fulfill. Your father, your mother, you are, you know, you are brothers. And at work, that you are also fulfilling in another very important role at work. Right? You are boss, you are worker, you know, whatever.

But in that space in between space, and you don't have to play the role. You can just relax. You can just be nobody while appreciating the beauty around you. Yeah. The empty church that you were talking about, that resonates with me.

Mike Schmitz

I went to a small catholic liberal arts college. I'm in Wisconsin. I don't consider myself to be Catholic, but I would often go and just sit in that dark church, like, late at night when there was nobody else there. The church is hundreds of years old. It's really beautiful inside.

And there's just this peace and the stillness just from sitting in there. And you walk out five, even ten minutes later, and you just feel totally different. I gotta find another place like that. There's so many in Europe. If you ever get to Europe, every little town has this tremendous church that, you know, was built generationally.

David Sparks

And there's this serenity to it when you go in. Even regardless of what religious faith it is. It's just remarkable. I like the coffee shop example, too, but I've worked from coffee shops too much that whenever I set foot in one, I automatically go into work mode. Look for a comfortable chair in your local park, or if you like art, and if there's a specific painting you like, and then just going to your local museum and then standing in front of your favorite art, that becomes also another opportunity.

I think, knowing Mike, I think what they need to do is put a comfortable chair in his favorite fountain pin store, and that could be his happy place.

Mike Schmitz

Yeah, I could maybe talk him into doing that, actually.

David Sparks

What about when people are looking for that Cerenita, but they still are at work and at home, but they do need some space there, too. Do you have any advice then? I would say that try to wake up early and earlier than all other members in your family and carve out that just 20 minutes, just for yourself. You know, nobody, you know, no one in your family is interfering, you know, with your quiet morning time. So just having that alone time at home, just.

Haemin Sunim

Even if it's just 20 minutes, you know, that will relaxes your mind. So waking up a little bit earlier than other people and just have your own me time. Yeah. I would argue honestly that my 30 minutes meditation practice every day is that for me, even though it's in my home, it's in a corner, nobody bothers me. And it is a place for me to be alone.

David Sparks

And that's often in mindfulness practice. But sometimes untying knots as well. Absolutely. You can sit and meditate and. Or you can read scriptures, or you can read your favorite book, you know, you can pray, and you can do whatever you need to do.

Haemin Sunim

You are doing it just for yourself. One of the things I like about the book is that it covers a lot of sources of the book is called when things don't go your way. But to me, in a lot of ways, it's addressing sources of unhappiness. And I don't know if that was the intention or not. But I feel like so often when you become observant of yourself, the ultimate source of unhappiness is usually your own motivations, thoughts and obsessions over these things.

David Sparks

And like, for instance, there's a section on jealousy, there's a section on disappointment, and you really do a good job of unpacking this. But to me, after I finished the book, it really made me think about, well, what is the source of unhappiness? Well, often it's my own expectations and unfair judgment of the world, for lack of a better word. Right, right. When we expect something and then it didn't go like the way I wanted or like the way I thought it would.

Haemin Sunim

And that's often, that is often the case in our lives. So the title when things don't go your way, we feel a lot of disappointment and anger or sadness. And you may have low self esteem because of that. But I do believe that those opportunities is for us to learn about ourselves, learn about the situations, and then from that point on, you can actually grow. So rather than thinking that just because I didn't get the promotion, just because I didn't get the house that you really wanted or the college that you really wanted to get in, and yet you couldn't get it, just don't feel discouraged because you never know.

You really, really don't know in this life. This is just a mystery. Who can say that? Maybe all those people who didn't get to marry your first love and now you have husband and wife. You may say that, oh, I'm glad that that relationship did not work out because I found better one.

You know, I married, you know, another wonderful person in my life. So you really don't know. You cannot say, that is my only way to happiness. You don't know that.

Mike Schmitz

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David Sparks

I mean, right before the break you were talking about how when things don't go your way, that's not necessarily bad. And this is something I've been thinking a lot about lately, and it's been coming at me from a lot of different directions. I read a book by a company where they kept wanting to. The book was called Creativity, Inc. It was about Pixar people who made Toy story and all that.

And when the company was kind of growing, they kept thinking they were going to sell it to IBM or they were going to. Every time they thought they had the way they were going to become wealthy and rich, it just didn't work. And they were so disappointed. But all those disappointments added them to being able to make beautiful movies or the parable of the chinese farmer. I'm sure you're probably familiar with it.

It's the idea, and I'm going to very summarize it. We'll put a link in the notes of the idea where the farmers. I don't remember the exact. You may want to help me out. The farmer finds a horse and everybody says, oh, that's great.

And he's like, maybe it's great. And then his son falls off the horse and breaks his leg. I mean, that's terrible. Your son broke his leg and he's like, well, maybe. And then the conscriptor of the military comes through and they're taking all the young men to off to war, but they can't take the son because he's got a broken leg.

And they go, oh, that's great. Your son didn't go to war. And, you know, the thing is, in the moment, so often when we get bad news, we don't really know if it's bad news or not, or if it's just one more step towards things. And I feel like that's something that somehow has gotten lost. It's something that I have to keep reminding myself of in my own life.

It's so easy to get so down when you don't get things that you want or you think that you deserve, or, you know, you did the work and it didn't work out, but then it's so often that's just another step. Right, right. You know, with every success, there is always a hidden costs, right. And when. And then we don't think about.

Haemin Sunim

We don't know what those hidden costs are. Maybe you don't have any more family time because you are so busy or your health, you are losing good health and you may end up having some illness because you are overworking, working all the time. So even if you didn't get your promotions or whatever that you wanted initially, just be open. You never know what other opportunity you might have. As long as your intention is to help other people and grow yourself and try to serve other people, the communities.

And then, and I'm sure you'll be able to have different kinds of opportunity. So this becomes an opportunity for you to practice compassion as well as resilience. Because before, maybe if you haven't experienced any failure in your life, it's easy to criticize other people who are not doing well. And you just think that, oh, they are just lazy. They didn't put enough hours into their work.

But when you are on the other, if you are having through, if you are going through your own failure, experience of failure, then you begin to see, ah, okay, yeah, it's much more complicated than I initially thought. And I feel connected to all those people who are suffering, you know, and then your compassion increases because of that. And then at the same time, you know yourself. And that is rather than feeling that there's nothing you can do, actually, you find a way to stand up again and find different path. So you learn to be resilient.

Mike Schmitz

I like the way you describe that at the end there about you have the opportunity to develop these skills. Because I have to be honest, when you're talking about practicing resilience, that doesn't sound very fun. But I feel like if you understand the benefit that's going to happen as a result, kind of coupled with the idea of zooming out that you were talking about earlier, that makes it, I don't want to say more tolerable, but kind of like you. You don't get as high, you don't get as low because you realize that this is a moment in time and it kind of evens out in the end. And going through the thing that you don't want to have happen right now actually produces some positive character in the long run.

But you don't think about that as you're going through it. People are very good at making a short term plan, but they are not very good at making a long term plan. That is ten years and 20 years, whatever you want to accomplish in your life. So I think it's important for us to remind ourselves that rather than just think about short term based basis, let's just step back and try to accomplish your bigger goal, whatever that is. You don't have to be in a hurry, even if it doesn't work out exactly like you wanted at this moment, because you will have another opportunity.

David Sparks

That's, again, an ancient concept that should inform modern thinking. Because modern thinking to me is short term. Like, we judge ourselves and weigh ourselves on a very short term calendar and short term scale. Like, I had a bad day or I had a bad week. But we don't look at all the progress we've made over years.

And I don't know why that is, but I feel like that's very common with people and it's something we need to remind ourself that isn't the way it's always been. Absolutely. Yeah, this is a long marathon. You know, the life we are having, it's not like 100 meters. You have to, and then that's the only time you have.

Haemin Sunim

No, you have plenty of other time. And at the same time, there are other elements that is just as important as your work. That is your relationship, for example, your relationship with your children, relationship with your partner and with your friends, which are just as important. And oftentimes people who are super successful, they can, you know, they tend to don't put so much in effort cultivating good relationship, for example. So I think there's always some kind of trade off in between.

Even if you didn't get what you wanted in return, you might ended up having something, you know, other that is much more meaningful later on in your life. Yeah. Something that I think weighs into this, we haven't really discussed. So I was a lawyer for 30 years before I retired from that. And so I got to observe a lot of people with different ideas about how to live their lives.

David Sparks

And one of the observations I made was that a key component of this is, I think, the mindset that you're talking about, the ability to stay in the moment and, and to observe. But I also think ethical living, for lack of a better term, is a huge part of this. And I think that in observation, the people who live generally ethical lives are just happier. And I think that that is, I don't know where I'm really going with this, but I feel like, as we have this conversation, I feel like it's something we need to say that that's part of it. I think it is very important what you just pointed out, because at the end, you want to have a good night's sleep.

Haemin Sunim

You want to have undisturbed, very peaceful seven or 8 hours of sleep every night. But when you have a lot of unethical, if you have committed a lot of unethical behavior, then it's going to wake you up in the middle of the night. You have to rely on sleeping pill. So if you led your life in a very ethical, and there is nothing that necessarily worries you at night, then you will have a good health, which is important. So I believe that one of the measurement of success is the quality of sleep that you have at night.

And for that end, you need to have integrity in your life. Yeah, well, I'll tell you what I want to have integrity is, and that is my use of your time, because I feel like it's about time for you to probably go on your walk to your favorite coffee shop and have your moment of solace. And I feel like we've taken more than enough of your time. But, Hyman, thank you so much for coming on today. Mike and I are both big fans of what you're doing.

David Sparks

And like I said, you know, translated books, often they don't work as well in English. Right. You know, you wrote it in a different language. But these books are fantastic. They're delightful and very thought inspiring, and thank you for sharing them with us.

Haemin Sunim

Thank you. Thank you so much. And whoever listens, may you be happy, may you be healthy, and may you be always protected wherever you go. Thank you. Thank you.

David Sparks

And we're going to put a link to your website and your books along with some of the other things we talk to, and have a wonderful day. Okay, great. Thank you. Well, Mike, that was a really fun conversation. It wasn't as productivity focused as a lot of our guests, but I also feel like a lot of the messages he shared have absolute application to people trying to live a more focused life.

Mike Schmitz

Agreed. As a non buddhist, I still think there's a lot of good stuff in these books. And those wisdom drops, like I mentioned, continue to chew on those. Feel like if all you did was get the quotes, it's still worth taking a look at these. Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of stuff in Buddhism that I think is helpful to anyone.

David Sparks

I always joke is my, I learned Zen meditation practices and we were given partners. It was at a local Zen center, and my partner was a catholic nun, and she just wanted to get better at meditation. So people are always kind of exploring those traditions because they have something to offer. And I didn't want to get into it with Hyman, but I feel like there's so much commonality between a lot of Zen and buddhist thought, and like the ancient Greeks and aristotelian and stoicism, there's just a lot of common themes there, and I think that there is a underlying wisdom to it that we could all use. So either way, enough of that spiritual talk.

Let's. Let's wrap up. We are the Focus podcast. You can find us at relay dot FM. Focus.

Hey, if you want to join to the membership, deep focus, we would love to have you. You know, there's really no mystery. Podcasting revenue is way down, but we love making the show. We're going to continue making the show, but if you want to help support us, you could. Deep focus gets you an ad free version of the show and an extended version of the show.

In fact, today's deep focus Mike and I are going to talk about podcasts, talk about getting meta. But either way, thank you again for listening, and our thanks to Haman for coming on and sharing his story and some of his wisdom with us. Thanks to our sponsors. Nom nom indeed. In Squarespace, we're the Focus podcast gang, and we'll see you next time.

201: What to Do When Things Don't Go Your Way, with Haemin Sunim

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Episode Summary

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Episode Chapters

1: Introduction

2: Haemin Sunim's Background

3: Key Concepts from Haemin's Books

4: Practical Mindfulness

5: Role of Ethics and Gratitude

Actionable Advice

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