We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful BONGGUN KIM. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with BONGGUN below.
BONGGUN, thanks so much for taking the time to share your insights and lessons with us today. We’re particularly interested in hearing about how you became such a resilient person. Where do you get your resilience from?
I used to be a very weak-minded person since I was young. Unlike my brother who inherited my mom’s personality, I inherited my dad’s side of the gene mostly. However, as I grew up, I saw how hard my mom worked and lived her life, I’ve tried my best to at least get to a little bit of what she has done for us.
As I was training myself to be like my mom, my work ethic, resilience, and an overall mental strength has grown up, and I became who I am today.
Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?
I’m doing stand up comedy mainly every day, every night. This is what I have been doing since I came to Canada in 2017 as I started learning English. What makes me feel excited about what I do is, that when I put my heart into my work and believe in the work of writing, the unexpected hidden truth of the story is revealed out of nowhere. That’s the most cathartic moment of the whole work process because once you find it, it is not doubted the truth(joke) that I found will make the audience laugh and eventually show them a new perspective of life over a certain matter. That’s where I believe all these human connection is made, which makes the world a better place in harmony.
I also love to work with other comedians(mostly my friends) cause everyone has a specific part they are good at, and when write together or make some comedy sketches together, we learn from each other and make great things eventually. Above all, there’s nothing better feeling that you can have to make your friends laugh.
My friends and comedy colleagues Andrew Oporto, Noor Kidwai, and I have been making skits called Diversity Hires together. We are dealing with problems of Canadian & Global society, if you are interested, please check our social media.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
It’s really important for people to go on a stage every day, every night no matter what cause Stand Up Comedy itself is a sport. You gotta train it every day to get better tomorrow and day by day but also, in the beginning, it’s important to learn structures of how stand-up hour is made by watching great comedians in the industry and in the past. Most of all, how jokes is working.
Once you set those parts, you will slowly go towards your style of comedy as you write and perform everyday. Sometimes, you feel it’s mundane to go out every night but it’s not just performing it’s about you getting new information, new knowledge, and realization of new things by sharing things with other comedians.
Also, you gotta be open-minded to support other comedians as well as asking help from other comedians. Sometimes, we think this is competition so get very jealous of what other people are doing. that’s No, the life stories of each one of us are different, there’s not every competition but fighting to ourselves to be a better comedian the next day.
As you juggle and balance all these mentioned above, you will eventually roll with all these things and eventually create your own brand
1. Work Ethic
2. Open mindedness
3. Knowledge
4. Non stop learning
5. Make your own brand
Okay, so before we go, is there anyone you’d like to shoutout for the role they’ve played in helping you develop the essential skills or overcome challenges along the way?
My mom was always a biggest supporter who gave me words of positivity as well as challenged me to become a strong person that can go through every possible moment of life.
And I can say close comedian friends around me has helped me a lot to get where I am today. They always work hard, never stop learning, challenge me to be a better comedian, supporting me when I am going through hard times, work together.
So it’s really important to have a group of people that has the same mindset and goals, so you can move forward together.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://bonggunkim.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bonggunkim01
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BONGGUNKIM01
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@BONGGUNKIM01
so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
