We were lucky to catch up with Yeon Chung recently and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Yeon, great to have you with us today and excited to have you share your wisdom with our readers. Over the years, after speaking with countless do-ers, makers, builders, entrepreneurs, artists and more we’ve noticed that the ability to take risks is central to almost all stories of triumph and so we’re really interested in hearing about your journey with risk and how you developed your risk-taking ability.
It’s not so much the ability to take risk, but sometimes life will throw you into a situation and you have to either fight or flee. Freeze may not be an option. I had no choice but to fight in order to take care of my family. And even though I may not have loved myself enough at the time to take the risk, I loved my family deeply enough to know that I had to take a leap of faith and give it all I got!
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
I went from a corporate job that felt comfortable to a back breaking minimal paying job in a totally different state with not a single person that I knew! It was exhilarating and dreadful at the same time! I was ready to take my side hobby which was flower arranging, to a hobby that would pay me! So I took baby steps in this direction. I imagined myself surrounded in flowers all day, everyday and getting paid to play with them! ( It’s actually a real hard work but I love it enough to call it a play! ) After I moved to Oregon from California, I took a job at an events company working as a graphic designer but also helping with their floral team and then after that, a minimum wage paying job at a local floral shop to learn the retail side of business. When I quickly realized that no one was going to hire me as a floral designer, only as a bucket cleaner and a floor sweeper, that is when I decided to hire myself! I’m an Art Center College of Design graduate with 20 years of work experience at Disney Consumer Products and always been a creative my whole life! I always knew that I wanted to strike out on my own someday, do something I really love, be my own boss! I just didn’t know when exactly that was going to happen. And when it happened, I was not quite ready but I also knew I was never going to be fully ready. So I started anyway! I signed a six month lease on a small space I found. I named my business after my daughter Kawa, so that I will push myself to keep with highest standards to honor her! So I started, with just a table and a pair of scissors.
Six years later now, I have top ratings and glowing reviews on BloomNation, Google and Yelp! Been operating business in the same spot ever since!
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
1. The first and foremost, staying true to who I am. I was an artist first, business owner second. Money was not my number one goal, expressing my art was the goal. And many other business owners will disagree with this, but for me this is how it is. That I am an artist first. And then believing that customers who relate to my point of view on aesthetics and can appreciate what I do, will find me! Yes, with some help from Google and Yelp advertising, they are finding me, LOL! And money did come! So I am happy to report it is working for me!
2. Saying no to everything that makes you less empowered to be your true self. Yes, this often means saying no to money. And again many other business owners will think very differently from me but I don’t chase after money. I chase after my creative desires, the right projects, the right people! I will often turn away customers, and not because I am so arrogant but I am actually looking out for their own interest when I know that I am just not the right artist for them. And in subtracting, I am actually creating more space for the right customers to come in. It takes time, it takes patience. It takes a buildup, but it does come, and the money follows.
3. Saying yes to challenges and changes that will help you grow!
It can be tempting to be content with a well oiled machine that keeps going and producing. Not wanting to make changes. Why fix if something is not broken mentality. But as an artist, this is like being a frog in the pot. It will be a slow death. And so I try to push myself out of my comfort zone. Whether it’s taking on a project I have never done before, or a teaching a class and speaking in front of people that I am not used to doing or learning and figuring out how to be more sustainable in floristry with higher cost of goods, all these things are helping me grow and for my business to extend itself.
Staying true to myself does not mean staying unchanged. On the contrary, it means realizing my full potential by learning, growing and constantly evolving!
One of our goals is to help like-minded folks with similar goals connect and so before we go we want to ask if you are looking to partner or collab with others – and if so, what would make the ideal collaborator or partner?
This flower journey has led me to connect with some of the most amazing people in this world!
I love my daily business of creating artful flowers and collaborating with other creative folks on special projects! I love to share the joy of nature’s beauty with others and celebrate everyday moments just to celebrate life! There’s nothing quite like flowers, just take one look at a flower and you will see what a miracle it is. I mean I hope that you can see it because some people can’t! And I am so grateful for these beautiful miracles in my life! They didn’t just happen. They were definitely designed!
You can contact me at my business website for any collaboration inquiries, or follow me on Instagram for more floral inspirations and more on sharing my flower journey!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.kawaflowers.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kawaflowers/profilecard/?igsh=ODc5a2N4NXpxc29u
Image Credits
They are all my own photos!
so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
