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There is a young couple.
The quirky newlywed and Sun Man.
To help young people find meaningful dreams.
After getting married, they toured the country on their first vacation.
They are currently doing a working holiday in Australia.
They are carrying out the 'Dream Project'.
You might ask, 'Is there anyone like that in the world?'
Here is a young couple.
Q.Please give us a brief introduction first.
Hello. We are the quirky newlywed couple Taeyang Park and Yuhui Jung, who travel the world to help and support people in finding meaningful dreams that make use of their individual talents. After getting married, we ran the Dream Project in Korea, and now we are continuing the Dream Project together while on a working holiday in Brisbane, Australia.
Q.Please tell us about the Dream Project as well.
' Dream Projectis, as the name implies, our couple's project to help people find meaningful dreams that make use of their individual talents and to support and cheer them on.We believe everyone has at least one unique talent, but some people either don't know it well or don't fit society's standards of success and therefore can't pursue a dream that's true to themselves.a small catalyst를 마련해주는 프로젝트It's a project.
Having studied professional counseling, coaching, and mentoring,Quirky Newlywed은 상담을 통해 각 개인의 달란트와 꿈을 찾고 현재의 삶과 연결할 수 있는 방향을 모색하는 것을 돕고, 마케터 출신인 남편 Sunmanhelps turn all of this into content and promote it online so more people can join and receive support. And rather than ending after a single meeting, we form 'dream-friend' relationships so people can continuously communicate and share the process of dreaming. This entire process is our couple's 'Dream Project'.
Q.When I see the two of you running the Dream Project with such cheerful energy, you sometimes seem like heroes from another world. I'm curious about your lives before starting the project and what led you to start it.
"I decided to put it into practice in whatever way I could."
엉뚱한새댁In my twenties,I wanted to experience many creative things'that was my goal. So I actually tried various jobs. I worked as a biennale docent, museum curator, newspaper reporter, hospital public relations officer, advertising agency designer, and creative art teacher, among other roles. And before starting the Dream Project, I co-founded a company specializing in career counseling and coaching.
I believe that 'every person has their own talent.' So I wondered, 'What talent might I have?' and took on various challenges. Through that I came to think, 'Other people must also have their own talents, and if we help and encourage them to discover those talents, wouldn't the world become a happier place with more people dreaming?'
So I founded a company with like-minded people, but my desire to empower each person clashed with another co-founder's focus on profit-driven business expansion, and in the end I let go of the company.InsteadI decided to put that determination into action in whatever way I could.So, through the 'Dream Project', I began meeting people's dreams directly on the street and encouraging them.
"I will use my life for a world where families are happy."
SunmanI worked as a marketing manager at a theme park in Busan for the past five years. My duties included overseeing advertising to meet annual goals and make the brand familiar to customers, as well as marketing activities for partnerships with other companies and recruiting annual members. In Korea, whenever my wife went on a Dream Project trip, I adjusted my company leave so I could go with her.
And while planning to travel the world, at first I didn't intend to quit my job, but I decided that my wife's and our family's happiness should come first, and by chance I had health reasons that required me to quit and come to Australia. On the contrary, after quitting and traveling the world with my wife, I became more motivated by a personal goal to visit about 100 affiliated theme parks of my former company around the world to study their marketing.
II realized that marketing should be an activity that fills society's needs and warms society, rather than a commercial tool that drives customers' desires.I gained this insight. The ultimate value I obtained while working at the theme park was not the ambition to become the best marketer, but...memoriesI learned that it is a sense of pride and mission to be responsible for those memories.
So I set a dream that I want my life to be used for a world where families are happy, and I developed the goal of having a good family that serves as a role model for others. Therefore, to begin with, I am supporting my wife's dream and moving forward together to nurture the happiness of our family members.
Q.What preparations did you make in Korea before leaving the country?
"To be honest, the dream project trip I originally planned was like a one-off event."
I thought that even just going once and being able to help someone's dream with what I had would be enough to satisfy me.
However, after the trip many people who had been following us online asked to hear our stories. So we held talks, the media picked up our story, and at the request of friends in places we hadn't visited on the first trip we went on second and third trips, and the dream project continued.In the process, the dream projectbecame more than just a simple tripI feel like it has become that.
Then,working holiday in AustraliaWe met many university students who had been on working holidays in Australia. Although it is a meaningful time to step outside one's comfort zone and nurture dreams, many returned without a clear sense of purpose or with increased anxiety about employment, saying it had only been a briefescapeand said that if they had met us before leaving for their working holiday it would have been great. From that point we began to consider going overseas ourselves to carry out the dream project little by little. However, because we had been balancing the dream project while working our jobs, it was not easy to let it go.
"An Opportunity That Came for the Dream"
In the winter of 2013, a venture company held a contest called to celebrate its first anniversary. It was not about dreams for oneself, but a contest where dreams that would be shared and helpful to many were gathered and shared. My husband and I entered and gratefully won the grand prize. However, due to the company's circumstances, the prize money was deposited about two months later than scheduled.
In the meantime, the idea of the Dream Project world trip began to sprout, and we felt that this prize money should be used for something more meaningful rather than for ourselves.Perhaps it was delayed so it could be used for something meaningful.We thought that. So we used the prize money to apply for working holiday visas and bought plane tickets to Australia. That was seven months before departure, and from the moment we booked the tickets it began to feel real and the rest of the preparations seemed to proceed smoothly.
"The biggest preparation was quitting our jobs."
I was not working at the time so I was free, but it wasn't easy for my husband to quit the job he had worked at for five years.
He was attached to his work and was even being promoted, increasing his standing within the company. However, he decided it would be best to let go of his current ambitions and leave the job for something that made his heart race.
Interestingly, around that time my husband was advised to quit his job for health reasons. His workplace was deep underground, which weakened his bronchial system, and the doctor recommended moving to a job in an environment with cleaner air. We took it like a sign to go to Australia, where the nature is beautiful and the air is fresh (laughs).
"English? Confidence!"
Among the friends we met on Facebook was an American immigrant who teaches English in Korea. She wanted to help our project and offered to teach us English, so about three months before departure we visited her home to learn. Although our skills didn't improve much in that short time because we were preparing other things, it was a good time to learn about the culture and customs needed to live in an English-speaking country and to overcome the fear of speaking English. So we adopted the attitude of 'we'll go and learn by doing' even if our English wasn't good.confidencewe gained.
Q.What was the most difficult part of planning/preparing the project? And how did you overcome it?
The hardest part wasthe worries and concerns of the people around usI think that was it. Even our parents opposed it at first when we said we were starting this project. They sincerely worried, "Why are you doing something that should be done by the government or non-profit organizations? And it's not going to make money anyway — isn't this the time when you should be earning and preparing for the future?"
Once, we invited our parents to a Dream Project lecture we were giving and showed them the media stories about us. They watched in silence, and after that they began to support us rather than oppose us — telling us to come eat before we left, to be careful of colds, and so on. Although it was difficult...our parents' trustThe moment we gained our parents' belief became our greatest strength. Through the Dream Project, we felt our family come together as one.
Especially the day before we left for Australia, relatives from both sides of the family gathered to spend the day together and to see us off with support and well-wishes. We were so happy we cried a lot. I think I'll never forget that moment.
Q.I'm curious how you felt when you first arrived in Australia, a completely new environment, for this new challenge.
"Patience, timing, and composure"
Many people travel the world in search of an exciting life, but for us the Dream Project was what excited us — world travel was not the main goal. We were full of enthusiasm for the Dream Project, but we were largely unprepared for travel and living abroad.
We thought we'd meet a lot of people as soon as we arrived in Australia, but right away...even basic things like how to use public transportationeven the basic aspects of daily life were all difficultBecause of that culture shock we also suffered from homesickness, and while our lives were stabilizing we weren't able to carry out the project at all, so we went through a difficult time.
Through this time, we 'Patience'and 'timing'I feel like I've learned about them. And 'composure'too. I felt strongly that if joy doesn't overflow within us, we can't pass it on to other places. It means we shouldn't let enthusiasm get ahead of us.
Now that quite a bit of time has passed, I've adapted well to life here and am creating a variety of dream projects.