7 Years + 3 Lawsuits + 9 Members = 10 Million Albums Sold | EXO (엑소)

This group went from losing 3 members at the peak of their success to selling over 10 million albums. Meet EXO, the 12-member K-pop group that debuted in April 2012 under SM Entertainment. Getting there was not easy. Some members trained for years with no guarantee they would ever debut. Suho, the group's leader, trained for 7 years and watched younger trainees debut in other groups before him. He said he wanted to give up so many times. D.O. struggled so much with dancing when he first joined that he had to practice extra hours every day just to keep up with the rest. Sehun auditioned 4 separate times over 2 years before finally getting accepted as a trainee. Each of them fought just to earn their spot. When they finally debuted, SM Entertainment had a plan that had never been tried before. They split EXO into 2 groups at the same time. EXO-K would promote in South Korea and EXO-M would promote in China, with the Chinese members performing in Mandarin. The goal was to break into both the Korean and Chinese markets at once. It meant twice the schedules, twice the travel, and twice the performances for a group that had just started out, but they pushed through. In 2013, EXO released their first full album, EXO EXO, which included the hit song Growl. The album sold over 1 million copies, making EXO the first Korean artist to reach that number in 12 years. They won Album of the Year at the Mnet Asian Music Awards and were ranked the most influential celebrity in South Korea by Forbes Korea in both 2014 and 2015. Then, right at the peak of their success, the group began to break apart. All 3 Chinese members, Kris, Luhan, and Tao, filed lawsuits against SM Entertainment and left the group one by one between 2014 and 2015. Each of them said the Chinese members were treated differently from the Korean members, received less support, and were not given a fair say in their own schedules. In just over a year, EXO went from 12 members down to 9. Each departure was public and painful, and each time it happened, fans and media asked the same question: was EXO finished? The 9 remaining members, they had an answer. They kept going. In 2015, they released their next album, Exodus, which sold over 1 million copies. They followed it with Exact in 2016, another million seller. Then in 2017, their album The War sold over 1.6 million copies and became their biggest album yet. Every new release was proof that losing 3 members was not going to stop them. And today, EXO is the first artist of the 21st century to sell over 10 million albums on South Korea's Gaon Chart, reaching that milestone in November 2018. They have been called the kings of K-pop by media outlets around the world and built one of the most loyal fan bases in K-pop known as EXO-L. Suho once said, there were many times where I felt like giving up during my 7 years as a trainee, but what kept me going was the belief that if I just held on and worked hard, my time would definitely come. Sometimes the people you built something with will walk away. That doesn't mean what you built has to end. Keep going. If you've been here before, drop a hashtag #Believe in the comments below so I can feature you here in a future video. And if you're new, Welcome to Believe Nation, the only channel that helps you believe in yourself daily, one video at a time. Believe. Imagine you're 16 years old and your entire life happens inside of one practice room. You wake up before the sun, you dance until your shirt is soaked through, you sing the same 8 bars until your voice cracks. Then you go home, sleep a few hours, come back and do it all again. Nobody pays you. There's no contract that promises you a stage. There's a company, a schedule, and a maybe. Now stretch that out. for 7 years. While you wait, you watch the door. Trainees arrive after you and they get picked before you. They debut. You see their faces on television inside the same building where you're still practicing alone at night. You're happy for them, but it hurts at the same time. You start counting your age against theirs. You start wondering if your turn already came and went and nobody told you. That was Kim Jong Myun. He spent 7 years as a trainee at SM Entertainment before he ever performed for the public. You know him today as Suho, the leader of EXO. This is the story of EXO. 12 members, 2 countries, 3 lawsuits, and over 10 million albums sold. The 7 years nobody sees. Suho walked into SM Entertainment in 2006, picked out of a crowd by a casting agent on the street. 2 years later in 2008, the company was putting together a new group. Suho had trained alongside those exact guys for 3 years. He had a leg injury at the time, and for that reason and a few others, he wasn't chosen. The group debuted without him and became SHINee. He was 17, watching his own practice partners walk onto television, and what he did next was go home and study for his college entrance exam. He stayed and he kept training. He wasn't alone in that building. Down the hall was a kid named Oh Se-hoon. A casting agent had spotted him on the street when he was 12 and chased him for 30 minutes before he stopped running. Then he auditioned 4 separate times over 2 years before the company finally said yes. D.O. joined through a vocal audition and could barely dance. He stayed behind for extra hours every single day just to keep up with the rest of the group. Lay auditioned in Changsha, China at 16, then moved to a country where he didn't speak the language and trained for 4 years straight. His motto through all of it was 4 words: work hard, work harder. Chen got in through the casting system in early 2011 and had 11 months to become good enough to debut. Sehun was announced as a member on January 10th, 2012, less than 3 months before the debut. 12 kids from 2 countries, all of them told for years that they weren't ready yet. None of them had a guarantee at any point in this. Suho was in that building for 5 years before the group he ended up leading was even even assembled. There's a reason the wait was that long. Anders Ericsson spent his career at Florida State University studying how experts get to be experts. He studied violinists, chess players, doctors, and athletes, and his conclusion was that elite performers got there through enormous amounts of focused practice over 10 years or more, with raw talent doing far less of the work than most people assume. So by the time EXO finally debuted, Suho had already put in most of the decade that the research says it takes. A name from a planet nobody came from. So before any of them sang in public, the company had to decide what to call them. In December 2011, they settled on EXO, taking from the word exoplanet, a planet that is outside of our solar system. The name came with a whole story attached to it. Both of the debut music videos open up with the same animation and the same English voiceover telling a story about 12 legendary powers that split into 2 separate forces to keep alive the heart of the Tree of Life, which an evil force is trying to take. The 2 halves divides a tree between them and each carries a piece back to its own land. 12 powers split in half, each half in a different world. That was the company's actual plan, drawn as a myth. 12 members split into 2 units, one in Korea, one in China, each carrying the same songs but into a different country. So nobody in Korean music had launched a group with a whole mythology attached to it ever before. EXO arrived with a fictional universe already built in, and 14 years later, that approach is close to the standard now. 100 days before anyone heard a song. EXO debuted on April 8th, 2012. The campaign for them started on December 23rd, 2011. At midnight that night, a timer ran out and the first teaser dropped, a short clip of a member named Kai. Over the next 3 months, SM released 22 more, one member at a time, each showing a face and a skill, then cutting away before you got enough. 23 teasers, and between them came 2 prologue singles released in both Korean and Mandarin before the group officially existed. What is love in January, sung by D.O. and Baekhyun in Korean and by Chen and Luhan in Mandarin. History in March, one version from EXO-K and one from EXO-M. So by the time of the debut, there were already 4 music videos out and not one of them was a debut single. On March 31st, exactly 100 days after the first teaser, they held a debut showcase in the Olympic Hall in Seoul. By the time there was a song to buy, people had spent 3 months arguing about a group that had never released anything. They had favorite members already, they had opinions about the concept, the mythology already. Nobody in Korean music had built an audience that way ever before. 2 groups, 1 debut. Then SM did something nobody had tried. They split the group in half on day 1. 12 members became 2 units. So EXO-K performed in Korean for the Korean market, and EXO-M performed the same songs in Mandarin for the Chinese market. There were 2 sets of schedules, 2 sets of promotions, 2 countries to fly between. Every song was recorded twice in 2 languages by 12 people who had been a group for about 5 minutes. Lay had to perform in Korean and Mandarin. Chen and Xiumin and Luhan were on Chinese variety shows one week and Korean music programs the next. And because the units promoted at the same time, half the group was often in a different country from the other half, doing the same songs for a different audience on the same night. By design, the 12 of them were almost never on one stage together. The record itself was a mini album called Mama. And after all of that, the debut was fine. Not huge, not a disaster. It got attention. The concept Got people talking, and then the industry moved on to whatever was next. Seven years of training, one cool new brand strategy, one of the biggest companies in Korea behind them, and the launch landed somewhere there in the middle. But they kept releasing anyway. Also, if you want to take real action after this video, made a free worksheet just for you. Covers the top lessons from today, gives you space to write biggest takeaways, and helps you build a simple action plan. It's 100% free. Just click the link in the description below to go grab it, and I'll see you there. Growl. Sixteen months after the debut. everything turned around for them. On June 2013, EXO put out their first full album, XOXO. In August, they re-released it with a new lead song called Growl. The video was shot to look like one long unbroken take in a school hallway. There were no cuts, there were no special effects. 12 guys and a camera moving through them. In an industry that was built on really quick edits, this is one of the hardest things to fake. 12 dancers had to hold their formation for 3 and a half minutes with the camera never looking away. It hit number 1 on all 4 of Korea's major music shows and picked up 10 trophies in 3 straight weeks. Then the album crossed 1 million copies. No Korean artist had done that in 12 years. An entire generation of Korean acts had come and gone without any of them selling 1 million albums. The group that finally did it was the one whose debut nobody screamed about 16 months earlier. By 2015, Forbes Korea ranked EXO the number 1 most influential celebrity in the entire country. The year before, they'd been 5th. The awards then followed. EXO took Album of the Year at the Mnet Asian Music Awards 5 years running from 2013 to 2017, which broke their own record and put them in the Guinness Book of World Records for the most MAMA grand prizes ever won. 5 straight years as the biggest album in Asian music. They were on top, and that's exactly when it started coming apart. 8 days before the first concert, on May 15, 2014, Kris filed a lawsuit against SM Entertainment to end his contract. EXO's first ever headlining solo concert tour was due to open in Seoul on May 23rd, 8 days later. The tickets were sold, the venue was already booked, the posters were printed with 12 faces on them. The company pulled every poster at the arena and reprinted them with 11. The 11 who were left had to rework the show and walk onto the stage and perform anyway in front of fans that they've been promising this concert for 2 years. Suho after said, I was so confused by the situation. The other members of EXO also experienced a lot of physical and emotional stress stemming from the lawsuit, which came with our concert only a week away. But we came together and worked Even harder to strengthen our teamwork. Baekhyun said, because of this incident that came only a week before our concert, it was possible that we would fail, but our members worked hard. I want to say thank you to the rest of EXO and that I am proud of you all. They did the show all three nights. Three weeks later, filming a variety show in China, the eleven of them were shown a video montage of everything they'd been through. Lee Tao and D.O. broke down on stage in front of the cameras. Lee told the room. There would be times where it's tiring, but endure it and it will go away. It's no big deal. We're a team, right? And the group kept winning through all of it. By the end of 2014, with one member gone and the second one suing now, EXO were Japan's best-selling K-pop act of the year. That team lasted 5 more months. On October 10, 2014, Luhan filed his own lawsuit citing chronic fatigue and health problems that had been visible on tour. On August 24, 2015, Tao filed the third after ankle and leg injuries he said went untreated. All 3 left were Chinese members. All 3 were part of EXO-M, the half of the group built to open the Chinese market. Each of them said the same thing about the deal itself. There was different treatment, there was less support, there was no real say in their own schedules. In about 15 months, EXO went from 12 members down to 9. Every departure was very public— in the press, in court filings, in front of millions of fans who spent 3 years getting attached to a 12-person group. The music press asked the same question after each one: Is EXO finished? 9. Exodus came out in 2015 and passed 1 million copies. Exact came out in 2016 and did 1.17 million copies. The War came out in 2017 and did around 1.6 million copies, their biggest year yet. Don't Mess Up My Tempo came out in 2018 and cleared another 1.17 million. 4 albums in 4 years, every one of them a million seller. And after that 2018 release, EXO became the first group to pass 10 million total album sales South Korea. They lost 25% of the group very publicly in court at the peak of their success, and then they broke a record no Korean act had ever reached with 3 fewer people than they started with. So think about what those 4 years were actually like for the 9 people who stayed. Every interview had the same question. Every comeback got measured against the lineup that no longer existed because people left. The choreography had to be rebuilt from the ground up because a routine written for 12 members leaves holes in it when 3 people are gone. And guys, filling in those holes were the same guys who had trained beside the people who left. EXO handled it by releasing album, tour, album, tour. No public statements about the members who had left. Across their career, that adds up to over 100 concerts on 4 headlining tours. The answer to, is EXO finished, was 4 million-selling albums in a row. The letter between K and M. In August 2014, right in the middle of all of these lawsuits, EXO finally named their fan base. They called it XOL. The L stands for love, and it was chosen because in the alphabet, L sits directly between K and M, the letters of the 2 halves of the group. The fans were what the 2 sides had in common, and the timing tells us what the company was actually worried about. The fan base got its name in the same season the group started losing members, at the exact moment the 2 halves it was named after were splitting apart for real. Members left, contracts were ending, the lineups changed 3 times in 15 months, and XOL stayed through all of it. The albums that broke the 10 million record were bought by people who had watched the group shrink away, and they kept buying anyway. The quiet years. Then EXO more or less stopped. The 7th album, Exist, came out in July 2023, and after that, the members scattered. They made solo albums, they did acting, military service, which is mandatory for every South Korean man. They had to go do it, and that meant that the group members disappeared one at a time for 18 months each. Kai went, Sehun went. Between that, a legal dispute between SM Entertainment and 3 more members, Chen, Baekhyun, and Xiumin, ran on in the background. For more than two years, there was no EXO. There were nine men in their thirties doing nine different things, some of them in an army uniform, some of them in a court, all of them a long way from that practice room back in 2006. The announcement that they were coming back landed just before Sehun, the last of the enlistees, walked out of the army. Fourteen years later, on January 19, 2026, EXO released their eighth album. Reverse. It was their first album in more than two years. The members had gone through military service and solo careers in between, and on day one, it hit number one on the iTunes chart in 35 countries. 14 years after 12 kids walked out of a practice room and put out an album that the world just kind of shrugged at, every single thing that happened to that group in between would have been a real reason to just stop. The just okay debut, the three lawsuits, the choreography rebuilt around all the missing people, the two years with the group didn't exist at all, and half of them. went into uniform. None of it stopped them. Suho waited 7 years for one shot. Sehun got told no 3 times before the yes. D.O. stayed late every night because he couldn't dance. Then 3 of them walked out at the exact moment it was all working, and the 9 who were left made 4 more million-selling albums. So whatever season you're in right now, don't call it the end. A slow start, the people who walk away, a year nobody notices— none of that decides how your story finishes. So keep showing up to the room with the mirrors. Keep practicing. Your record is still being written. And congratulations, you're one video closer to who you're meant to be. Believe. Now let's learn the amazing story of Twice. These 9 girls went from competing on a tough reality TV show to selling over 10 million albums worldwide. Meet Twice, a 9-girl K-pop group who fought their way out of a survival competition. In 2015, JYP Entertainment held a competition called Sixteen, where 16 trainees competed for a spot in a new group. The show was filmed and broadcast for the public to watch, and every episode the judges scored each trainee on their singing, their dancing, and their stage presence. The lowest scores were eliminated, and there was no guarantee anyone would survive to the end. So the stakes are pretty real for every single one of them. Jihyo had already been training at JYP for 10 years without debuting. She had spent most of her childhood and teenage years preparing for a That had not come yet. Momo was eliminated during the competition and was told that she did not make the group, but days later the judges brought her back after reconsidering their decision. The pressure was constant, and every performance could be their last. Only nine of the sixteen made the final cut. In October 2015, Twice debuted with their song Like Ooh Ah. The response was positive, but they still were a brand new group that most people outside South Korea had never heard of. In their first year, they released multiple singles. Film music videos, and appeared on variety shows and music programs every week to get their name out. The schedule was intense, but they kept showing up. In 2016, the hard work began to pay off. Twice released Cheer Up, and it became the most played song in South Korea that entire year. A few months later, they released TT, and it reached number 1 on the Gaon Digital Chart in South Korea and charted across Asia. People started calling them the nation's girl group. Group, and their fan base, known as ONCE, kept growing. But success didn't make things easier. The group was performing constantly, traveling between countries, and releasing new music back to back. In 2019, member Mina announced she was dealing with anxiety. She had to step back from performing and missed parts of their Japan tour that year. It was a hard moment for the whole group. TWICE didn't hide it. They spoke openly about what Mina was going through, and their fans showed up for her. Mina took the time she needed and eventually returned to the stage. TWICE did not stop moving forward. In 2019, they became the first K-pop girl group to complete a full Japanese dome tour, performing across multiple stadiums in different cities all over Japan. In 2022, they made history again by becoming the first K-pop girl group to headline and sell out a stadium show in the United States, performing at BMO Stadium in Los Angeles. Today, TWICE has sold over 10 million albums worldwide Twice once said, we want to repay our fans with great performances and music. Their support is what keeps us going. The ones who win are not always the best at the start. They are the ones who never stop trying. Imagine giving up 10 years of your life to one single goal. You give up your childhood, you give up your normal teenage years, you work every single day for a chance that might never come. This was a reality for a girl named Jihyo. She trained for 10 years at a massive company in music called JYP Entertainment. Then she was thrown into a brutal reality television show called Sixteen. There were 16 girls fighting for just 9 spots in a new group, and every single week they were judged on their singing, their dancing, and their stage presence. And if you failed, you were cut. One girl named Momo was actually eliminated. She was told her dream was over. So that's the exact same pressure a lot of entrepreneurs face when starting a business. You put everything on the line, the stakes are real. And today we're gonna learn how these 9 girls survived this brutal startup phase to sell over 10 million albums worldwide. This is a story of TWICE. The brutal startup phase. Starting a business is terrifying. You do not know if people will buy your product. The music industry is exactly the same. In 2015, JYP Entertainment decided to build a new girl group. They didn't just pick the members in secret, they made them fight for it in public. They created a TV show, a reality show called Sixteen, and they had 16 trainees compete against each other. The public watched every mistake. The judges scored them pretty harshly, and the show physically divided the girls into a major team and a minor team. The major team got their premium treatment and the better living conditions. The minor team had to struggle in a lesser environment, and it created intense daily friction. So think about the mental toughness that's required to survive something like that. Science shows that high-pressure situations can completely destroy human performance. A study from the American Psychological Association shows that chronic stress directly impairs brain function and decision-making. These girls were under chronic stress every single day. The lowest scores were eliminated. There was absolutely no guarantee that anyone would survive. So this becomes the ultimate test in resilience. And in business, you will face moments where your competitor is beating you too. You will face days where your customers reject you. You're going to have to decide if you're going to keep going or quit. Gio had already put in 10 years of work. 10 years is over 3,600 days of practice. She watched other groups launch their careers while she stayed in their practice room. She could not walk away now. She showed up every single day, every single week, and performed through all of that stress. Surviving the cuts. So failure is going to happen, right? It's just a part of the journey on any successful career. During the show Sixteen, Momo faced the ultimate failure. She was eliminated From the competition, she was told she was not good enough to make the final group. So imagine how that feels, right? You worked your entire life for this goal, and the judges tell you no in front of the entire world. Most people, they pack up and you go home. Most people would just give up on their business after a major rejection. But Momo kept practicing. She kept working on her craft even when she thought nobody was watching. And that unseen effort is what separates successful entrepreneurs from people who just have ideas. Psychologist Angela Duckworth. spent years studying high achievers and found that grit, which is passion and perseverance for long-term goals, is the biggest predictor of someone's success. The judges, they noticed her relentless dedication, her grit, and days later they made a shocking decision. They brought Momo back. They reconsidered their choice because they saw her extreme work ethic and realized the team needed her specific dancing skills. The lesson here is that your current failure doesn't have to be the end of everything, right? You have to keep building your skills. Only 9 out of the 16 girls made the final cut. They officially became TWICE. But surviving the show was just the beginning of the group's real work. The launch and early hustle. So in October 2015, TWICE officially launched their product to the public, right? They debuted with their very first song called Like Ooh-Ah. The response was positive, but they were still a brand new startup company. Most people outside of South Korea had no idea who they were. They had zero leverage in the global market. So they didn't just sit back and wait for success to happen. They They went to work. In their first year, they released multiple new singles. They filmed complex music videos. They appeared on variety shows and music programs every single week to promote their name. The schedule was pretty intense. They slept in moving vans between jobs. They worked on very little rest. This is what the first year of a new business looks like too. You have to be everywhere. You have to market your product constantly. You cannot just launch a website and just expect people to find you. You have to show up. And Twice showed up every single day. They built momentum through just sheer volume of work. Research on habit formation from University College London shows that consistent repetition is the only way to make a behavior automatic and successful. So they repeated their marketing performance efforts until the audience could no longer ignore them. Hitting product market fit. In 2016, all that intense early hustle exploded into massive success. Twice released a song called Cheer Up. Up, it did not just do well, it completely dominated the market. Cheer Up became the single most played song in South Korea for that entire year. The song featured a catchy viral moment from member Sana that grabbed the attention of the entire internet. They finally found product-market fit. The audience loved exactly what they were selling, and a few months later they followed it up with a song called TT. It went straight to number 1 on the Gaon Digital Chart in South Korea. It also charted massively across Asia. People started officially calling them the nation's girl group. Their dedicated fan base, known as ONCE, started growing at a rapid pace. And when your business hits product-market fit, you have to double down on your efforts. Twice did not take a vacation to celebrate. They kept producing hits. They secured their spot at the top of the industry by delivering exactly what their customers wanted on a highly consistent basis. The cost of scaling. But success does not make things easier. Success brings a whole new set of massive challenges. As the business of Twice scaled up, The pressure multiplied. The group was performing constantly. They were traveling between different countries every single week. They were releasing new music back to back. The grind was completely nonstop for them. And in 2019, this intense scaling took a serious toll on the group. Member Mina announced that she was dealing with extreme anxiety. She had to step back from performing entirely. She missed large parts of their major Japan tour that year, and it was a very difficult, hard moment for the whole group. This is a critical moment for any team or business leader when a key team Breaks down. How do you handle it? Twice did not hide the problem. They spoke openly about what Mina was going through. The company prioritized her health over short-term profits, and that's backed by clear organizational science. Studies from the World Health Organization showed that unaddressed burnout and depression cost the global economy one trillion dollars per year in lost productivity. Taking care of your people is not just the right thing to do; it's the only real way to build a sustainable long-term business. And the fans showed up to support her. Mina took the exact time. Time she needed to heal. Eventually she recovered and returns to the stage stronger than ever. The group survived because they protected their most valuable asset, which is their people. Global expansion. TWICE did not stop moving forward. They took their massive success in Korea and expanded their business model globally. Breaking into foreign markets is one of the hardest things a business can do. You have to deal with new languages and new cultures and intense local competition. But TWICE trusted their product. In 2019, they became the very first first K-pop girl group to complete a full Japanese dome tour. They performed across massive stadiums in multiple cities all over Japan. They proved their business model worked in a completely new international market. Then they aggressively targeted the United States. In 2022, they made absolute history again. They became the first K-pop girl group to ever headline and completely sell out a stadium show in the United States. They performed at BMO Stadium in Los Angeles to a massive screaming crowd. The language barrier did not stop them. The cultural differences did not stop them. Great products transcend borders. Now today, TWICE has sold over 10 million albums worldwide. They went from crying on a brutal reality television show to dominating the global music industry. They built an empire through hard work and constant adaptation. TWICE once said, we want to repay our fans with great performances and music. Their support is what keeps us going. They never forgot the customers who built their The ultimate lesson for your business. So the journey of Twice is a pretty cool blueprint for a highly successful startup. You start with a brutal idea phase where survival is not guaranteed. You face public failure, harsh rejection. You launch your product and hustle relentlessly for that first year. You find what your audience truly loves. You double down on it. You support your team when the pressure gets too high, and then you scale your impact across the entire world. The ones who win in business are not always the smartest or the best at the start. They are the ones who refuse to quit. They are the ones who put in 10 years of practice in the dark before anyone knows their name. They are the ones who get eliminated and still show up to the practice room the exact next day. If you want to succeed, you need to build your mental resilience. You need to take care of your team. You need to put in the work every single day, even when it hurts. Now let's learn the incredible story of IU. This girl went from sleeping in a cockroach-infested room to becoming one of the top celebrities in South Korea. Meet IU, one of South Korea's most beloved singers. Her real name is Lee Ji-eun, and she was born in Seoul, South Korea in May 1993. Her family was doing well until her father's business failed. The debt piled up, creditors called the house constantly, and the family went bankrupt. Her parents could no longer take care of the children, so they sent IU and her younger brother to live with their grandmother in a small city outside Seoul. The 3 of them shared one tiny room. It was cold, dark, and full of cockroaches. Her grandmother sold small hair accessories at a market stand every day just to get by. To save more money, they moved in with a relative. One night, that relative came home drunk and shouted at IU for practicing her singing. He told her she would never make it. IU lay still in the dark, pretended to be asleep, and quietly promised She would prove him wrong. In 7th grade, she sang at a school event and felt something click. She decided right then she was going to become a professional singer. She auditioned everywhere and failed 20 times in a row, including at JYP Entertainment, one of Korea's biggest music companies. Then she got scammed. A fake agency promised her training and a TV appearance and took every coin her grandmother had saved from selling accessories at the market. IU was heartbroken. Heartbroken, not just because of the money, but because it belonged to the one person who had sacrificed the most for her. In 2007, at 14, she finally signed with Loen Entertainment. After 10 months of training, she debuted in September 2008 at just 15 with her first album, Lost and Found. The album failed to chart. She later said, my first album failed, but I'm grateful for that. She kept going. In December 2010, she released Good Day, famous for its 3-level high notes that even trained singers struggled to hit. It stayed at hit number 1 on South Korea's Gaon Digital Chart for 5 straight weeks, and in 2019 Billboard ranked it the number 1 K-pop song of the entire decade. Korea gave her a new nickname, the nation's little sister. She then took full creative control and started writing her own songs. In 2017, she wrote and executive produced Palette, with all 3 singles hitting number 1 in South Korea. Billboard named it the best K-pop album of 2017, and the New York Times placed title track on its list of 25 songs that tell us where music is going, making IU the only Asian artist on that list. Today, she holds the record for the most number 1 songs in South Korean chart history with 31 number 1s and has sold over 120 million paid digital downloads. Rolling Stone named her the 135th greatest singer of all time in 2023, and in 2025, Forbes Korea ranked her the number 1 celebrity in South Korea. By 2009, just one year after her debut, she had already paid off her family's debts and bought her father his dream car. Proof that Dad was wrong. Don't argue with people who say you can't do it. Just work hard and let your success speak for itself. Imagine lying awake in a cold room. You are wrapped in a thin blanket. You can hear cockroaches crawling on the floor around you. The room is tiny. You share it with your younger brother and your grandmother. This is your entire world. Your family was doing well, but then your father's business failed. The debt piled up quickly. Creditors called the house constantly. Your Your family was completely bankrupt. Your parents could no longer take care of you, so they sent you away to a small city outside of Seoul. Your grandmother sells small hair accessories at a market stand every single day just to buy food. She counts every penny. You wanna help her, but you're just a child. To save even more money, your small family moves in with a relative. You think things might get better, but they just get worse. One night, that relative comes home drunk. You're practicing your singing. He gets angry and shouts at you. He tells you that you're wasting your time. He tells you that you're nothing. He tells you that you will never make it as a singer. You're crying. You lie perfectly still in the dark. You pretend to be asleep, but in your mind you make a quiet promise. You promise yourself that you will prove him wrong. This is not a movie script. This is the real life story of Lee Ji-young, the girl who would grow up to become known as IU. She is now one of the top celebrities in South Korea. Her story, I think, is the ultimate blueprint for any entrepreneur. It shows you exactly what it takes to survive failure, to take control of your career, and to build an empire from absolute scratch. The science of rejection. Most people give up after one or two failures. IU decided she was going to become a professional singer in the seventh grade. She sang at a school event and felt something click in her mind. She knew what she wanted, so she started auditioning. She didn't fail once or twice; she failed twenty times in a row. She auditioned for JYP Entertainment. It's one of the biggest music companies in Korea. They rejected her. So think about the psychological weight of failing twenty times. Science tells us that rejection actually triggers the exact same pathways in the brain as a physical pain. A study from the University of Michigan showed that when people experience social rejection, their brains release opioids to kill the pain, just like when they're physically injured. And your brain is wired to avoid rejection to protect you. So every time IU stood on a stage and heard the word no, her brain felt physical pain, but she kept showing up. Then the worst thing possible happened. She found an agency that said yes, They promised her vocal training and a guaranteed appearance on TV, but it was a scam. They demanded money upfront. IU took the money that her grandmother had carefully saved from selling her cheap hair clips at the market. The fake agency took every single penny and disappeared. IU was completely heartbroken. She was not sad about the money itself. She was devastated because that money belonged to the one person who had sacrificed everything for her. As an entrepreneur, you're going to face moments like this. People will scam you. People will tell you that you're not good enough. You will feel that physical pain. Of rejection, but the difference between the people who win and the people who fail is simple: the winners just do not stop. They take that pain and use it as motivation. IU did not quit after she lost her grandmother's money; she just worked harder. The breakthrough strategy in 2007 at the age of 14, IU finally found the real home. She signed a contract with Low End Entertainment. She trained intensely for ten straight months. She debuted in September 2008. At just 15 years old. She released her first full album called Lost and Found, and it completely failed. It did not chart. It did not make her famous. It was a commercial disaster. Now, most teenage girls would have quit right there, but IU had a different mindset. She later said in an interview, my first album failed, but I'm grateful for that. She realized that early failure is the best teacher. If she had succeeded immediately, she might have become lazy. The failure forced her to get better. It forced her to study the market, to understand her audience, and to improve her skills. And then 2 years later, in December 2010, she released a song called Good Day. This was her breakthrough. The song became famous for a specific vocal run at the end. It's called the 3-level high note. It's an incredibly difficult vocal technique. Even heavily trained professional singers struggle to hit those notes. Hitting a 3-level high note requires extreme physical control. The science of vocal cords shows that high pitches require the vocal folds to stretch stretch and thin out, vibrating at massive speeds. You also need to have immense lung capacity and core strength to push the exact right amount of air through the vocal cords without damaging them. IU practiced this relentlessly. She treated her voice like a professional athlete treats their body, and her hard work paid off. Good Day stayed at number 1 on South Korea's Gaon Digital Chart for 5 straight weeks, and in 2019, Billboard officially ranked it the number 1 K-pop song of the entire decade. The entire country fell in love with her. They gave her a massive new nickname. They called her the nation's little sister. She had finally made it. Taking complete control. Becoming famous is one thing, staying famous is another. Many pop stars hit it big and then fade away because they let other people control their careers. They become puppets for big corporations. IU refused to let that happen. She thought like an entrepreneur. She knew that to build a lasting brand, she needed complete creative control. So she started writing her own songs. She learned how to play instruments. She studied music production. And in 2017, she took the biggest risk of her career. She wrote and executive produced her album called Palette. She was no longer just a singer singing other people's words. She was the boss. She was the visionary. She controlled the budget, the marketing, the sound, and the image. Now, taking control is scary. When you're the executive producer, you have nobody else to blame if the project fails. But IU trusted her own vision. The result was pretty massive. All 3 singles from Palette hit number 1 in South Korea. Billboard named Palette the best K-pop album of 2017. The New York Times placed the title track on its exclusive list of 25 songs that tell us where music is going. This made IU the only Asian artist on that entire global list. She transitioned from a manufactured pop idol into a respected independent artist. This is the exact same journey that you can take in your business. At first You might have to follow the rules of your industry. You might have to work for someone else at the start, but eventually you have to take the wheel, right? You have to take control. You have to start writing your own script, your own songs. You have to take full ownership of your company and your product. Building the empire. When you create incredible value, the money naturally follows. So IU built an absolute empire. Today she holds a historic record for the most number one songs in South Korea. Chart history. She has a staggering 31 number 1 hits. She sold over 120 million paid digital downloads. But she didn't stop at just music. She expanded her brand. She became a highly successful actress starring in massive hit TV shows like My Mister and Hotel del Luna. She became a brand ambassador for massive global companies like Gucci and New Balance. She diversified her income streams just like a smart CEO would. And in 2020, she made another another massive entrepreneurial move. She left her old agency structure and moved to a brand new company called EDAM Entertainment. But she didn't just sign a standard contract. The company was founded by her own longtime manager, and IU was the company's very first and only artist at the time. This means she essentially built her own corporate ecosystem. She surrounded herself with a team that she completely trusts. She dictated her own terms. The global respect that she commands became unmatched. In 2023, Rolling Stone magazine named her the 135th greatest singer of time, placing her alongside the biggest legends in global music history. In 2025, Forbes Korea officially ranked her as the number one most powerful celebrity in South Korea. The ultimate payback. But all the awards and all the billions of won in her bank account do not matter as much as what she did for her family. So remember the cold room with the cockroaches? Remember the massive debt that tore her family apart? By 2011, just one year after her breakthrough with Good day, IU had enough money to do something incredible. She paid off every single penny of her family's crushing debt. She completely cleared her parents' financial burdens, and then she bought her father his ultimate dream car. She took her family from a cockroach-infested room to total financial freedom in just a few short years. She did it through sheer willpower, massive skill acquisition, and a refusal to listen to her haters. Think back to that drunk relative, the man who stood over her in the dark and told her she was nothing. The man who said she would never make it, she didn't argue with him. She didn't scream back at him. She just stayed quiet, put her head down, and worked harder than anyone else in her industry. And that's how you win. You don't waste your energy fighting with the people who doubt you. You don't try to convince them with your words. You prove the doubters wrong with your actions. You build something so big and so successful that they cannot ignore you. Don't argue with people who say you can't do it. do it. Just work hard and let your massive success speak for itself. To learn how BTS became the biggest group on planet Earth, check the video right there next to me. I think you'll love it. Continue to believe, and I'll see you there. Meet BTS, a 7-member South Korean boy band from Seoul. This group went from debuting with a small album on a tight budget to becoming the first K-pop group to top the Billboard Hot 100.