Discovering Your Beauty From Within With Dr. Rina Shinn

Discovering Your Beauty From Within With Dr. Rina Shinn

Welcome to the show, Rina.

Thank you, Kimchi, for inviting me here.

I’m happy to have you here. Please share with us your story. Where you are from, at what age you came to America and what was your life like before you moved to America?

I was seventeen when I came to America from Korea. Before I came, I also had little bit of a rough childhood because my father was killed in a bus accident when I was about eleven, twelve. I had to help my mother and it was a little bit tough. My mother managed to save money and came to America. Her sister was living in Florida for about twenty years before that and was begging her to come to this country. When I came here, we found out that all the life savings that my mother sent to her sister was squandered by my uncle. We found out that there was no money. My mother had to go back to Korea to make money because she didn’t speak enough English to make any income here. At age seventeen, I just turned eighteen around that time, I became the head of a household with two younger brothers and grandmother. I need to work fulltime and go to school. I did manage to go to Harvard after two years because my family really wanted me to go there. After that, I went to medical school in Chicago and then become a surgeon. I have the typical immigrant story. I came with a $100 in pocket. That’s all we had to a fairly well-established lifestyle.

I wanted to be a surgeon from childhood. Ever since I was young, people told me that you can’t be a surgeon because you’re a girl. I said, “Let me prove you.” That was my dream for most of my life. I was going to retire as a surgeon basically. I was a general surgeon, a trauma surgeon, a vascular surgeon for about ten years. During that time, I became chief of surgery at a state hospital, but in 2008, due to the economic crisis, they have to close down. I had a choice of going back to being a trauma surgeon and a general surgeon or open a new practice. At that time, my last child was only one-year-old and I felt that was so unfair because he would have never seen me if I have to come back to the fulltime general surgery or trauma practice. I opened Adonis Cosmetic Surgery and Spa at that time and got further training to become a cosmetic surgeon. That’s my short story about where I came from and what I did so far.

You stayed here with your two brothers and your grandmother? Your mom had to go back to Korea to work to support and to send money here?

That’s what she did. Then after I went to college, she did come back because she got remarried and then my stepfather and my mom came to this country and took over my brothers.

The whole family is living in the United States?

Yes.

What was your life like when you just came here to United States? Did you have to adjust or adapt to America?

Absolutely. I only spoke maybe five phrases, one of which was, “I do not speak English.” I found out if you didn’t speak English, you can’t even get a job at McDonald’s as a cashier. I had to work in the back all the time just flipping burgers because I can’t take the order or anything like that. I was in the small town in Florida just North of Fort Lauderdale area. Back then, there was no Korean there at all. It’d be a couple of Chinese. We definitely stood out in school and there’s definitely prejudice. We’re talking about almost 40 years ago. At that time, I was just too busy to be even bothered by the racial slurs that I was hearing and all that. The teachers and the administrative people, they respect you if you do have good grades. That was good, but I wasn’t that popular with other students necessarily. It was an interesting exposure there. In retrospect, I was not necessarily discriminated, but a lot of things we’re just simply not something that I participated in. Since I came very late in school, I only did two years of high school, I was never aware of the fact that I was not part of the clique or part of the group since I was working on my own. I had to work fulltime to support a family and do all the schoolwork and extracurricular activities and all that. I truly didn’t have any time to be bothered by the discriminative treatments or anything like that.

Sometimes that’s a blessing to be busy. You don’t pay any attention to anything else.

Going to an Ivy League school in two years after I came to this country was not an easy feat. I had to do lots of work.

What about your children?

I have a daughter who’s going to college. She’s in Berlin. My children are biracial. My husband was from Germany and so my kids speak Korean and German. I have a middle child who is going to high school and my youngest one is still in the elementary school.

Beauty From Within: Life is made of thoughts and as long as you change your thoughts and willing to change it, you can achieve anything.

 As a mix, did they experience any discrimination in America?

They’re truly a mutt because they’re 50% Korean and 50% German. We’re in a town that’s very heavily Hispanic. It’s 60% Hispanic here. As such, if anything, the White is a minority here. My kids sometimes look like Asian and sometimes they look German and most of them they look like regular Americans. I don’t think they were really singled out. It’s interesting though, when they were young, when they were like three years old that they were called disadvantaged because they speak Korean and English. The German and not English at home, but they had to go to Head Start Program and all the announcements for that program were sent to our house in Spanish. The understanding was that any kid who don’t speak English at home must be Hispanic was the concept there. Things are different 30 to 40 years out. They regard their multicultural background as an advantage, not as a discriminatory basis. Their friends are almost jealous of them for being able to speak Korean and German fluently. I think things are turning more global these days.

You think that multilingual is an advantage?

Absolutely. I think so. Especially since they speak perfect English as well, it’s considered to be an asset rather than disadvantage. All throughout out my career in this country, people have been asking me, have you been discriminated? Yes and no. The superficial-wise, yes, I was. People make the snap judgments. I’ve been called a Gook and whatever it is, but anywhere that was important like my career or actually going to medical school or getting a recognition, I felt that I was really fairly treated in this country. When I was in medical school, I was chosen as the best surgical student, which was very nice because of the cash price of $20,000. I was really impressed by the professors who voted for me who were aged White men, but they said that, “She’s the girl.”

I was the only girl in a group of 30 students who were going into surgery. She was Asian, but we know that she knows the best and she has the best skills so we want to pick her as the candidate for that one. I realized that if you work hard and if you let people know that you know your stuff, that people are truly color blind in the higher level. I know that there is a glass ceiling and there are a lot of discriminations, but in my experience, I’ve been very blessed with the people who are willing to give me chances for me to prove. Once I can prove to them I’m as good as anybody or better than others, they accepted that. It’s to the merit of America truly. That’s the reason that kept me here and that I decided not to go back to Korea, is that this is truly the country where if you show them your quality and your ability, they do honor that.

Looking back in your life, what has shaped you to become the person you are now?

Definitely, my parents. Despite the fact that they were in the post-Korean War in Korea, yet they instilled in me and my younger brothers about this very American westernized concept that if you have your goal or desire and give everything that you have, you can achieve anything you want. There’s one part when my father’s business went bankrupt. We were okay, not well to do but mid-level income. Once we got bankrupt, we went into one room shanty town place. My parents prevented us from talking to the neighbor kids saying, “You don’t belong here. These are not your friends. This is temporary changes. Even at this setting, you guys will be the best you can if you put your mind to it. You will achieve anything you want.” Anybody whoever passed by that a single room and overheard us would have laughed their head off of it. There we were, broke as can be a in a single room with no heating, no indoor plumbing and yet my parents were telling us that you are better than this and you will achieve any and everything you want. That amazing positive thinking that my parents instilled in me, that’s probably the reason why I was able to succeed in many things.

How did they get that kind of inspiration from Korea?

They were the first generation who went to college. My mother and father both went to college and they were considered to be intelligent. That was probably what influenced them to think of that way. That it is possible for anybody to set their mind and for certain goals and go after it and achieve it. Truly, they were the archetypical people for positive attitude and all that without them naming it. That was an amazing luck for we have that kind of parents. Despite the fact they didn’t have any material wealth handed out to me, but the psychological self-confidence they’ve built in me was a priceless.

Who was your role model growing up and who is your role model now?

Having been in the surgical field, I have quite a few role models in the surgery who really embodied the concept of the surgery as a vocation. I remember one professor who grabbed me and taught me that if you’re a surgeon or a person with a knife, you’re no different than the thug on the street. You’re violating somebody’s body protection called the skin by cutting into it. As such, it’s your obligation to make sure that the person regains to health once I operate on them. That dedication I learned from my professor. More recently, my role model is someone named Florence Scovel Shinn. She has the same last name as mine, but that’s an Irish last name. She was from the turn of the century, when the new thought movement was going. She didn’t have any specific training or education in theology or the metaphysics, but she was way ahead of time before anybody was doing Law of Attraction or Positive Thinking and all that. She had really found a way to teaching people. She has a book called The Game of Life and How to Play It. It’s a light beat book and there’s no preaching part in it, but it’s basically saying that life is made of thoughts and as long as you change your thoughts and willing to change it, you can achieve anything. She’s my role model. I try to be like that. I try to have my life truly focusing on obtaining things that are joyous to me for which I am grateful for and trying to have a life that is meaningful in a way that I can say, “I have a good life” in my deathbed. She’s my new role model.

The Game of Life and How to Play It

What do you think about the word legacy?

Legacy is a good word but I think not in a somber way as if it’s a duty. I don’t think about I want to have a legacy and something specific to leave behind, whether it’s accomplishment or money or anything like that. I think the sheer fact that we are alive and that we have meaningful interaction with other people and the fact that I happen to have children that I can show my children how to live a life and how to enjoy it. I think that should be the legacy.

I concur with that. I keep telling my husband, “I’d like to see is our children.” That’s what we pass on. Good, bad, or ugly. If we teach them all the good things and they turn out to be good citizens and they have good life because of the values we pass on, that’s our legacy.

I am the result of the legacy of my parents. Their amazing attitude about life that one should have put goals really high even when the situation is desperate and that one can achieve anything if one keeps their attention to it and put all their efforts into it. That’s why I’m here. I’m hoping that my children follow the suit. Another thing that was amazing for them was despite the fact that they were Korean parents, they never pushed me, which is really against the norm. In Korea, they are really, really gung ho about educating children or over educating them. We were up at 5:00 in the morning to go to preschool seminars and then go to school. Once the school is over, we go to the evening study groups until 10:00 or something like that and you barely get home and do homework and it’s midnight and then you repeat the cycle. We had a school on Saturdays as well.

It is just really geared towards educating children and pushing them to get good grades and all that. Whereas my parents were saying, you’re smart enough to get whatever grades you’re going to get, just take care of your health. That was very un-Korean. That’s what I was giving to my kids as well. My daughter has in fact overdriven herself and she was like, “I want to go to Harvard and I have to do this and I’ll do whatever.” I’m not going to push her to do anything. In the end she decided that German school was better so she went to picking up a university in Berlin. My children are given more or less the same treatment that I was given from my parents. “I trust you guys. You have enough brain and that if you decide to do something, you should be able to put your hearts and soul into it, but I’m not going to force you to do anything.”

Did you say your children can speak Korean, German and English?

It was easy when they were young, but once they went to school, it was a little bit tough because when they speak English for eight hours a day and their English vocabulary progressed much faster than either German or Korean. They tend to not want to speak the language. I had allies on both sides, Korean and German grandparents and the kids knew that if they wanted to get good Christmas gifts from the either side, they have to suck it up in either Korean or German. That was very helpful.

Do you think the Korean culture is tougher to the kids or focused the kids more in education than let’s say, Indian or Chinese?

I think it all goes in there. That education is so important for the Eastern and far Eastern countries. They’re all emphasizing on it. I think the systemically Korean school system is tougher. They have so much more emphasis in going to higher level university and all that. Koreans have, I believe, 93% literacy rate and over 90% college education rate which is extremely high. They joke about a how Seoul has the highest density of the PhDs in the entire world. There’s a huge push for the academic achievement, as such there are lots of pressure for it and sometimes pathological pressure because they also have, along with Japan, very high suicide rate among children. To that extent, it’s probably not a good thing the pressure they’re putting on their children.

Do you think the pressure to have good grades and to be educated causes suicide in children?

Absolutely. They were just driven to get their scores up to the point that they’re really not learning what they should learn, which is for them to be prepared for living a life. That concept of how to honor one’s body and be healthy and seek what is truly meaningful for them, those are all set aside for getting better grades. That’s unfortunate.

I see that a lot too. I’m from Vietnam and I look at the Vietnamese and in Chinese, we focus more on education, success, material, holistic, rather than relationship and religion you put with the family, with each other. Even in the marriage, I think they focus more on stability and security rather than love and connection. Is it the same in a Korean family?

It’s really hard to make sweeping generalizations for Koreans because things are quite different. If I know anything that Koreans are suffering is a low birth rate. They have a birth rate of 0.8%. You need 1.2% to maintain the population growth, but Koreans now have negative population growth. A lot of things that I can describe as the characteristics when I was there in my youth in Korea is no longer the same after 30, 40 years. The younger generations are far more exposed to the Western culture. They are a lot more prone to not getting married and even the ones who are married, they tend not to have children much. That’s why they are having a negative birth rate there.

Is interracial marriage used to be an issue there but no longer an issue?

I think it’s still is an issue. It’s a lot more open, that’s for sure. After the Korean War, especially when there’s the US troop present there, interracial marriages and especially African-American and the Koreans, they were really looked down a lot. There is a little bit more opening for that, but I don’t think it’s to the level in the America. You have to understand Korea was the last country to open up to the Western influence, far later than China or Japan. They tend to be extremely homogeneous and thus more segregated.

I have a lot of questions, but I don’t know if you’re comfortable to talk about it.

I’m open for any questions.

You mentioned about Korean have some issue with interracial. I know that in Vietnam we do have that too. Even in here I heard somebody who is educated and he gives that comment. He said, “No. I would not accept my children to marry an African person.” I was just shocked. I say, “I thought you are living in America?” I don’t know why. It seems like Asian, we have some discrimination toward others too.

In Korea, this racial discrimination is now a big issue because Koreans use to point fingers at Americans and say, how Americans are mistreating blacks and all that. The biggest issue now is there are a lot of South Asian people from Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, they come to Korea to work because it has a better working condition. Sometimes did marry Koreans from either gender and their children were born and raised in Korea speaking only Korean, but they’re distinctly different from other Koreans. These Asian people have much darker skin and different facial features and these children are discriminated greatly. There was a really a moving and touching book by one of these children. The gist of the book was that how unfair it was that she was born in Seoul, Korea and she’s never been outside of Korea. She’s never visited her mother’s country or father’s country. As such, she regards herself as Korean because she was born, she’s half Korean, she’s speaking nothing but Korean and yet other Koreans are regarding her as not one of us. The Koreans are definitely facing that discrimination issues.

What about Korean people living here, do they still have that discrimination issue?

It depends on when they immigrated. People who immigrated here 30 or 40 years ago, they have that level of racial discrimination that they brought in from. Whereas the ones who’s immigrating now, they tend to be little more open. That’s what I found. For the past 30 years in Korea itself, they’ve been exposed to the concept of having multicultural life. A mixed together, with my aunts and uncles who came here along with us 40 years ago, they’re very, very discriminatory. They swear up and down that they are not, that they’re very open-minded. If you listen to them and if you watch their behavior, they really do not want to mix with other cultures and they truly think the African-Americans are different species.

The older generation, if they immigrate here when they are more mature, when they are older, they still brought some of the Asian thinking and beliefs into this country, even though they have lived here for 20 or 30 years. It’s very hard for them to adapt. What will you not compromise or tolerate anything in your life? What will you not compromise?

Basically, my personal value, because that was one thing I asked my best friend to get me out of my surgery program if she ever saw me turning into someone up than she knew me as. Going through training like surgery is tough. It’s like going to a boot camp. They are trying to mold you into a certain personality or attitude. Sometimes it’s very premature or immature or very cynical and all that. I like to be faithful to who I am and if my job or petition or situation forces me to not be who I am, then I won’t tolerate it. Even if it’s for money or moving up or getting better recognition, that’s just not worth enough for me to give up my own concept of who I am and what I treasure or value as my value points.

Beauty From Within: If you are much in fear and if you’re criticizing yourself, you cannot be grateful.

What does the word power or success mean to you?

Power and success means actually freedom, personal freedom. Otherwise, if you have lots of money, but you don’t have any freedom to do whatever you need to or you feel bound to your work or job, then that’s not really a power. Power also means the freedom to be able to speak your mind. We take it for granted that we have this amazing freedom in this country, which many people in the world do not get to appreciate it. For me, the true power is the ability to express oneself in a free fashion and be able to control one’s life, including time and money, and resources in a way that one sees fit.

What things have you done that you are proud of?

I think the proudest thing that I’ve done is having three kids. Until I became a mother, I just never thought that I’d be so grateful for them. It’s just fascinating to see children come to our life and change us. I learned more from them, than I teach them per se. Having been a surgeon has been a very monumental achievement and I’m glad that I have chosen that. I am at the stage that I don’t think my occupation defines who I am. The fact that despite all this turmoil and the financial ups and downs with my life, I still have the type of curiosity of a child. I’m still finding lots of things very interesting. I read a lot and I find things fascinating. My deceased grandmother from my mother’s side was like that. Even at age 96, she was very curious about lots of things and she seeking to learn things and all that. It was so wonderful to see her not getting jaded by her age but always been curious about other people. Luckily, I have that trait in me as well. That’s what I’m grateful for as part of my achievement.

If you keep your mind to be curious about things, you learn new things, you continue staying young. I see older people like 90 or something like that. They’re still singing, they’re still dancing, and they’re having fun. I look at them, just like us, having fun and it’s a joy to see that in people at their age.

There’s no such thing as having to behave according to the certain age. There’s a saying that you can be twenty and ancient, and you can be 90 and still young. There’s a chronological age from calendar counting, but there’s always the self-perceived age. The other interesting thing is all of us think we’re about 30, 35 and there’s a biological reason for that because that’s probably the age of all the cells you have in your body. Everybody says, “I’m 60 years old, 70 years old.” There isn’t a single cell in your body that’s a 60 or 70-year-old because your cell constantly turns over and changes. For instance, your skin is at most maybe one to two weeks old, the same thing with the stomach lining or a gut lining, maybe a week old or so. Some bones maybe a bit older and the oldest you have is maybe 30 some years and so those neurons, the long ones that goes through your body. As such, we all feel like we’re about 35 or something like that. If that’s the case, there’s no reason to insist that, “I’m 80 years old. I’m not going to change. I’m going to be just stuck here.” You can always change.

It’s very insightful to hear this from you. We’re not older than 35. There’s no excuse of, “I’m too old to learn.” What do you do for fun?

I do lots of reading and then once in a while if I have time, I’d like to sketch. I sketch my kids’ faces and things like that. That’s about it because I don’t have much time. When the kids were young, we always took them to some natural parks and national forests over the weekends. I’m lucky to get some reading and swimming. I love swimming. I do that maybe three times a week or so.

What’s next in your life?

I have actually one book coming out called Instant Pain Ease. It took two years to publish that thing and it’s coming out and that’s to show people how to remove their pain by pressing on different positions. It’s really fast and anybody can learn. I’m offering webinars and mastermind classes around self-image. I’m gearing towards to people who are in the startup phase of a business. A lot of times, one has to be really, really honest with oneself to change anything. That’s reflecting my experience. When I was opening in the cosmetic surgery practice, I was saying, “This is going to get better. I’m okay. Things are going to be better or whatever.” I was not really 100% honest with myself that I didn’t know a thing about running the business and that I was scared stiff every single day. That I wasn’t sure that it will float at all or that if I’m to fold. I found that in order for us to change ever, we have to be willing to be really honest. To look at things the way it is and not sugar coating it or not making it worse off than it is. I realized that it takes real courage every day to do tiny little things differently.

Otherwise, we tend to be in the habit of being fearful and worried and although it’s an awful sensation, it’s easy because it’s something we’re used to. We’re so used to being fearful and having worries and all that. For us to say, “There’s no reason to be worried or those fearful things or the things that I am afraid of may happen or may not happen.” If that’s the case, I might as well think of be in a situation or imagine the circumstances to be a positive one. In order to do that, it takes courage for you to not worry about it. If you look at a bank account that’s negative and you have to pay payroll to the next day, it is so easy to be fearful about it and worry and worry and worry. It takes lots of courage to say, “I’ll get through this. This is another obstacle that I know how to take care of.”

One last thing I really learned and this was also a hard lesson, was that we are so easy to criticize ourselves. We criticize others, but we criticize ourselves the worst. We have to forgive ourselves, not just others but us and especially us. Once I started to say that I am not going to blame myself and I am going to be nice to myself and I’ll forgive myself, and that was the only point at which the gratitude to come in. Everybody tells you, “You have to be grateful and do the prayer of gratitude every day.” If you are much in fear and if you’re criticizing yourself, you cannot be grateful. Those were the three things I learned during my business adventure. That I have to be really dead honest with myself. I had to be taking courage every single day, not to fall back into being fearful. Then actually have the intention to forgive myself and not criticize myself.

What would be your advice for Asian women?

In what aspect? About entire life?

Entire life, yes.

Every human being is 99.6% similar and 0.4% different. All of these superficial things like skin color or hairs or the facial features, it’s really miniscule. There’s not really that much difference. Just because you’re an Asian woman, does not mean you have to act differently. I really don’t regard myself as an Asian woman. I regard myself as Rina Shinn who was born in Asia, who is active in America now but have children who are half German. All of these things are just artificial labeling. As such, we are not obligated to follow with that labeling at all. I’d say, don’t ever think of yourself as Asian woman. You’re just a person. You’re an absolutely gorgeous, wonderful person with the full potential that you can do anything. Once you think it that way, many doors will open up for you. Don’t think of yourself as Asian or categorize yourself in one way or the other.

The second one would be that as a woman you are actually at a much more powerful position than other people because we’re born with the empathy, because we are able to have children and that is a great asset that we need to utilize. A lot of times it’s being used as a weapon against us. Sometimes because people want to bind us with that role and they force us to be putting everybody else’s needs before us and all that. We don’t have to. We can have empathy for others and we can apply that empathy for us as well. Being female gives you tremendous advantage, if not disadvantage. Just because they’re power positioned male, does not mean that we’re any less than male to achieve. One should be just completely embracing the fact that they’re women and that they’re powerful in having that empathetic connection with other people. The third thing that I like to tell Asian-American women is that the atmosphere is changing. It’s truly possible for us to actually achieve things in this country. That proved maybe 30, 40 years was not even imaginable. There are a lot more Asian-American people in the powerful positions and impacting positions. I think it’s time for us to say, “This is a new time and any kind of limiting thoughts that I had before, I should simply disregard that and just move on. “This is time for us to shine or go higher or achieve more. Those are my three advices.

Sounds like a sage, a wise woman. Thank you for these three advices. If anyone wants to get in touch with you, where do you want to send them to?

My regular website is the AdonisCosmeticSurgery.com. They can maybe check back on FeedbackControlMastery.com. They can also reach me through my email, [email protected].

I really enjoyed and learned a lot from you. I believe that everyone will to. Any last word that you want to share?

Thank you so much for inviting me. I had a great time as well, and I’m amazed that you’re doing this wonderful work of having the Asian women to get together and help them support each other. Kudos for you, Kimchi. Good job.

Thank you. Did you learn something new from this talk? Like what Dr. Rina said, be kind to yourself. Forgive yourself on past mistakes. The more you accept yourself, the more beautiful you look and feel. Let me know your thoughts about what we discussed in this episode. Until next time, live life loud.

Links Mentioned:

• Dr. Rina Shinn
• Adonis Cosmetic Surgery and Spa
• The Game of Life and How to Play It
• AdonisCosmeticSurgery.com
• FeedbackControlMastery.com
• [email protected]

Episode Quotes

“Multilingual is an advantage.”

“The children are really not learning what they should learn, which is for them to be prepared for living a life.”

“You can be twenty and ancient, and you can be 90 and still young.”

“My occupation doesn’t define who I am.”

About Dr. Rina Shinn

Dr. Rina Shinn earned her bachelor’s degree at Harvard College with honors and received an MD degree from the University of Illinois. She has been practicing general surgery in Pueblo Colorado since 1997 and has expanded her practice to incorporate cosmetic surgery since 2008.

Dr. Shinn immigrated from South Korea at age 17 and went to the high school in Florida prior to attending the college. She had a dream of becoming a surgeon from a young age solely because she was told that she could not be one due to her gender.

She practiced a general surgery, trauma surgery, and vascular surgery prior to becoming a chief of surgery at the former Colorado state hospital. When the hospital closed in 2008, Dr. Shinn opened her current practice of Adonis Cosmetic Surgery and Spa

In addition to pursuing innovative methods of rejuvenating oneself, Dr. Shinn has been incorporating holistic methods to improve oneself.

Dr. Shinn has been coaching fellow surgeons and other business leaders regarding transformative growth in their practice and businesses for the past 10 years.
www.adoniscosmeticsurgery.com
www.feedbackcontrolmastery.com