Half Bloom

A fourth-grade science museum trip in Nagoya—seeing a huge close-up of an ant’s kaleidoscopic eye—basically traumatized me and shaped my intense fear of bugs. There are some things that we can recover from, but there are things that we can't. In this episode, I talk about my experience at the World of Coffee in San Diego, how I've been really learning more about how geography and culture shape coffee and competitiveness differently than in Korea. And we also get into some real, deep t...

Expose yourself to new places, new hobbies, new situations. The things that you think you're "wasting your time" in can be the door or even the road for you to get to learn more about yourself and the world. As I've been delving into my other interests and trying to find ways to connect everything that exists around me, I'm learning more about myself and how I can make the most out of my strengths, and I hope this podcast episode can help you to do the same. --- I hope you can find the segme...

Appearance is much more important than we think, but not in the way you probably are thinking. Knowing how to portray yourself on the outside can change not only the opportunities you receive, but it can be a method to alter your own mindset, to trick yourself into thinking or acting in a way that will lead you to your goals and dreams. 💭 This week’s questions: - How are you guys working on opening your mind to different opinions? - Have you ever done a personal color and personal body style ...

Is your room messy? Then maybe you’re a genius. I think I had a lot of random coffee tips I’ve been wanting to spill onto you guys, so I hope the tips help in your coffee journey! Also, the more I realize how difficult it can be to change ourselves, I also notice how easy it can be to just position ourselves to have no choice but to change not only our external, but also our mindsets. And I hope to continue to share the ways in which I have been changing my environment to do just that. To bec...

When different worlds come together, it's often more shocking and uncomfortable than welcoming. And having interests in a variety of things, and building upon those passions is never a bad thing, for each topic, each field will teach us something new about the world and eventually about ourselves. Today, I talked in great detail about the anime I watched while sick, the coffee hand drip method that has a bit of a history in general and for myself, and more on languages as explained by some m...

Connection and peace—sometimes that's what I think that's all we're searching for daily. In this episode of Half Bloom, I’m coming back in a more casual, unedited way—just me on my veranda, brewing coffee, and letting my thoughts land where they land. I share a bit of closing my cafe, maybe not the full personal story, but the real shift underneath it—how I never wanted coffee to feel like competition, and how I’m trying to return to coffee as connection. Then we go deeper into the season I’m...

Words are powerful—but the labels we put on ourselves can keep us trapped. In last week’s episode, I talked about laziness. Today, we go deeper into burnout: What’s the real difference between being unmotivated vs. being burnt out?How do labels like “lazy,” “sensitive,” or “negative” feed the cycle?And is it even possible to recover when you feel completely drained?In this episode, I share personal reflections, some lighthearted stories from my café, and real listener notes from the Story Jar...

Are we actually lazy—or do we just lack a reason to move? In this episode, I unpack the real causes behind so-called “laziness,” from perfectionism and fear of failure to losing sight of your ‘why.’ I share personal stories from my coffee journey, lessons from my dad’s work ethic, and how play, experimentation, and self-acceptance can reignite your drive. Plus, I leave you with 4 questions to help you understand your own motivation and start finding it again. And also, here's the link to my ...

Hi friends :) In this episode, I talk about how going through a forced break (in my case a hospitalization) allowed me to rethink what's important to me and what I needed to direct my attention and energy. When we're so busy with life, we forget what's important but not urgent. And we get so good at protecting ourselves, we lose what can actually make us stronger. I hope you can find a moment to give yourself a pause in between your life before having to undergo a huge pause like I had ...

Thinking against what your primitive emotions tell you may actually lead you to the results you want. But bearing through and keeping everything within yourself, for some people in particular, is incredibly difficult. For those people, I promise you that some things need to be held deep within you, so that you can actually get what you want in life. Some things mean more when you don't always express them, and focusing on understanding what other people are going through, what they're feeling...

We often let our minds wonder and sometimes we lose focus or concentration. When we were able to ask questions and lean into our curiosity sometimes those questions can lead to creative answers or projects. Of course, those questions are not always very helpful. Sometimes they are absolutely useless, but it’s fun to be able to discover new knowledge and find more depth in the stuff that we do. And I think that’s why the curiosity led me to wonder about how other people think and the way that...

Interactions between one another, and the little messages that we leave behind with one another as we pass through each others' lives, whether verbal or non-verbal, develop reactions in some sort of way. There are magic moments in our day and in our lives. The way we interact with nature, our surroundings, and also one another. We've collected a couple stories in our magic story jar that I read out today, and will touch upon other conversation starter topics in the next episodes. And because ...

Building something from scratch is always good experience, but when you have expectations of yourself from others and yourself, it can easily get disheartening and confusing. Everything I had thought about this cafe turned out to be different. Everything I wanted when setting up my own cafe had its essence either covered up or hidden in other forms, that it was starting to confuse me. Our thoughts about ourselves and our dreams and aspirations are not always aligned in the most truthful way, ...

As we go through our journey of life, we use our dreams as motivators to get from step one to step two. Then from step two to step three. But what if we walk 52 steps and realize that that dream that we once had is not our dream anymore? What if that dream that we had, once accomplished, is no longer our dream? What if, that dream that we worked so hard to achieve, is only the surface level of our bigger dream? What if your true dream is hidden under the layers of dreams we ...