How to tell between compromise and sacrifice

Traveling with family, rooming with your best friend, dating someone who seems to check off all the boxes sounds fun until you realize that the compromises you are making to maintain the connections aren’t necessarily being reciprocated. And perhaps, you’re left doing more sacrificing of your values, time, and energy than is needed.

In this episode, we’re brewing some delicious dark roast on the Brezi to test (and boy does it do it really well actually) while getting deep into the fine line between compromise and sacrifice. 

We talk about how this shows up in friendships, dating, and business — from the cafe chapter of my life that quietly dimmed my light, to how I lost my intuition trying to keep everyone happy. But trusting your gut matters more than you think, and what it really means to be in an active, engaging, energy-matching relationship.

And before we wrap up, some exciting summer updates: new coffee bean collabs, offline events, and a fitness journey I've been keeping pretty quiet about.

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I hope somewhere in all of this, you find a little more clarity on where your line is — and the courage to stand behind it.

00:00 Intro: The Fine Line Between Compromise and Sacrifice
01:00 Coffee Brewing: Brezi Cold Brew 
03:35 Listener Appreciation & Jeju Trip
05:14 The Cafe Story: When Compromise Became Sacrifice
08:02 Losing Your Instincts
12:10 Compromise in Friendships & Dating
16:48 Work-Life Balance & Passion-Driven Work
21:23 When Compromise Becomes a Sacrifice
24:13 People Pleasing, Boundaries & Losing Yourself
26:23 Outro & Summer Updates (new coffee bean launches coming this summer!!!)

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Sincerely, Nadia

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I think there's a fine line between compromise and sacrifice. How much are you willing to compromise your ideas, your thoughts, your actions before you realize you're just sacrificing yourself and losing yourself? One of the easiest ways we can see this is in traveling when you are, especially with your family, even some people really want to travel for food. Other people really want to travel to go sightseeing. Some people just want the resort, the luxury, the comfort, the just relaxation. But others want a thrill. They want to be able to look around, go to places, see all the really cool monuments and museums and all the good things to see in that new country. Even in that there's a difference between opinions and how we want to react in the world. But it's not only just actions and preferences, but it also really has to do with the ways we have conversations, our values, etc. Welcome back to Half Bloom. I'm your host, Nadia, and like the intro. Today I wanted to talk about the differences between compromise and sacrifice. But of course, before we begin, we're gonna make some coffee today, and I'm so excited about this cold brew machine. So this is a brezzy, and I actually helped out at their booth with Pico Lot in San Diego, and it was actually so delicious. And the fact that it's able to brew at different temperatures and then eventually produce cold brew, I think is so spectacular. And I'm so excited because the darker roasts that I had for my coffee basically just leftover coffee that was just a little too I don't want to throw it away yet. Those coffees I've tried to do all sorts of ways to brew that coffee in dark roast that has been left for a very, very long time, pretty much has no hope. But this Brezzi is able to save it. So I did grind some beans here, and I'm going to brew some coffee here. You can see the modes here. I'll actually let me just okay. So it's it's flickering because it's my camera, it's not really flicking on here, but you can change your what mode you want, and you can save your profile. So I'm not gonna add my profiles yet, I'll just show you what the regular. So you can choose your roast level, and then I've added 20. So I'm going to just do 19 because I just felt like that produced better for this coffee, and then you're just gonna press. And so I need to add coffee into this little thingy here before we start. So I've got a filter here. There are two different kinds of filters. I'm just gonna use this wave filter, not gonna rinse it, and then I put just to 20 grams into this little container here. If you guys are listening to the podcast, make sure to check out the YouTube video afterwards because this is really cold equipment. And it's magnetic, it sticks on to the part where the water is going to come out. I also have the server that came with it. So I'm just gonna put it under here and basically press play. It'll tell me how many milliliters and how many minutes it averages out, and I'm just gonna keep it this way for this coffee. So it says it's cold brew time and it's heating. You can hear it going in the background. So it's going to heat the temperature to 50 degrees Celsius of the water, which is not cold, right? And then it'll brew, it'll do its blooming and then also brew. While we wait for that, I also have ice today. Just really wanted some iced coffee to end my day today. Also, I do have to go to the gym afterwards. FYI for you guys listening to the podcast. I feel like you guys get the most details of my life ever. And I love to be able to share that with you guys because I think it's a different level of connection that I have with you guys compared to people on more short form content. So I really appreciate all of you guys for being here. I am so thankful for the last episode where I talked a little bit more about the problems that I went through last year and so many supportive messages from you guys and a lot of encouragement. So thank you guys so much for that. I'm really hoping that some of the things that I did say resonated with some of you guys. It's a really complicated kind of situation, and I know not everybody deals with the same exact stuff. Maybe some of you guys do, and I really do hope that can also help those who had dealt with that kind of relationship in the past as well. But also just the tips that I share are things that I hope that anyone can also relate to and enjoy and appreciate as well. So yeah. Oh my gosh, I'm super excited for this coffee. It's gonna take four minutes, but I also really do hope that you guys understand how much of an ADHD kind of personality I sometimes have. We like to talk about all sorts of different things, but the overarching idea and concept I hope will stay on track as well. Ooh, it's starting to come out. The coffee is starting to come out. Can you see on the screen? Exciting. I know we're a couple days late on this episode. I went to Cheju last week, right after or right after I posted this episode. It was actually fun to be able to do guest barista experiences once again since I started the cafe. And a lot of people are still asking me if I'm going to do the cafe or not. And I think this actually goes back to the compromises and the sacrifices. I think there were compromises in the very beginning because there was mutual business interactions and relationships that were being built. I had to supply my coffee to Nungshim at the time, and it was really great, lots of opportunities to be built. But once I actually opened this space, which I originally wanted it to just be B2B and wholesale and a studio for my YouTube and Instagram, but because the space was so beautiful, and also because coffee is a food, people need to test it and eat it and try it to be able to really get messages across, and it's a service thing, right? It's hospitality industry. So I ended up becoming a cafe owner and I didn't actually want to be one yet. Now I don't know if I ever want to be one at all. I just do love service and being able to chat with you guys and talk about coffee and that whole environment. I think there's nothing like a cafe in this world. But the thing is, I don't think I'm going to be able to operate my own all all by myself in the near future because I know a lot of people are still asking me that. So the compromise that I made at the time, which I did call it a compromise, was the fact that I had to run a cafe. It was a good space, it was extra money to bring into the cafe to the space, and so that was the the compromise that I made. But eventually the sacrifices that had come out of it was the additional people that we had to hire, it was the time I didn't get to really rest almost at all. It was like working constantly, trying to figure out things to manage the cafe, and I realized that I wasn't focusing on the right things, and eventually I noticed that the amount of time and effort that I was putting into this cafe was necessary, but at the same time, I think everyone has different qualities and traits that they're really good at that need to be really enforced. And for me, I think, and unfortunately, my strengths weren't able to really be apparent during the management of the cafe, and so a lot of my light was dimmed during that time, and of course, the people in my life at the time were not very healthy for me at all either. But more and more I was giving up on myself, my identity, and losing track of what was important because I honestly couldn't even see what was important at all. I didn't know what my values were anymore. I was searching and trying to obtain something that I wasn't even sure was real. I thought it was real at the time, but now I realize that they weren't real, and I don't think I surrounded myself with the right people at the time. And it was hard for me to see who the right people were because I had never actually been with really supportive, encouraging people throughout my entire life. Or maybe I just wasn't trusting of my instincts at the time. So I think I also sacrificed my own self in the process and my intuition. And before I talk about intuition, the coffee is done. It says enjoy on the cover. So this is how much came out of the 20 grams of coffee that I used. And I do have some ice water. This is a concentrate because I didn't want to extract too much of this coffee because it is pretty old already. So I'm just gonna pour it in. It already has some water. That might be too much, actually, but it's okay. We'll just drink it a little. It was like ice water already in here. But if this is too much, I can always put it on here and then just like pour in cold water, which is also great. I know some people just use this as like a cold water dispenser as well. But yeah, so cheers. Oh no, it's perfect right now. It's perfect for what I need right now. Oh this is you guys have absolutely no idea how excited I am about this. To be able to produce such a clean, dark roast, concentrate cup is insane. I think it brings out, I think this technology brings out flavors and depth and body from coffee that you probably and from that you normally wouldn't feel from your normal horror drinks, even with the same exact coffee. And I know that there were a couple beans that we used in the past that I personally thought was really the best way to brew it was with this brezi. So then now that we have our coffee, we can talk more about my instincts and how that was sacrificed. So, in the process of trying to sacrifice for relationships and business opportunities, I lost my instinct, and that was one of the biggest things that I think was a threat and harm in the end, at the end of the day. Because I think I'm a very intuitive person, and different people have different things that they rely on in terms of their bodily senses. So if anyone knows the human design chart, it's kind of like the MBTI. My uncle years ago told me about this, and it was just fascinating because you just put in your birth date and where you were born. It's like the Koreans Hajju, and it kind of gives you all this information of your strategy for a living, the it's really I don't actually know how to explain it, but it basically is your way of trusting yourself, how you act, and how you potentially respond, and the reasons why maybe you are more keen to feeling a certain way, or it actually even tells you different strengths as well in a very different way than the MBTI. So if you haven't tried it already yet, you should try the human design test. I think it's very it's a good thing to look at both with the MBTI and the human design test, just to figure out like how you should trust yourself and how you should react to the world, if that makes sense. Because I think MBTI is more of your character and your personality, not your character, your personality. And I think it's more energy and thought processes that MBTI targets, but the human design test is more of your reactions and how you should approach different things. So for me, one of the things was that I am somewhere, I'm someone who should really trust my intuition. And I've been hearing more and more now that yeah, you should trust your instincts more. I know some people should follow their feelings, maybe some other people or minds. I haven't seen like their brain yet before, but I know feelings and intuition is a thing, which I'm not totally sure what the difference is, but I think it's like for me, there's like a gut feeling that tells me like that is good, that is bad, red flag, green flag in any situation. So I think that I when I took this test, I should have known that, but I think it was I've never actually discovered that the my intuition was truly proving correct before in the past. So I was just pushing it away and trying to give people and situations the benefit of the doubt. But found turns out that my intuitions most of the time, very most of the time, are correct. And if not, then at least it makes me feel in a more safe position to be able to um navigate my life, even if my intuition may be wrong, by following that intuition at that time gives me at least some kind of action and hope and encouragement for the immediate steps, even if I have to change it later on. But most of the time they've been correct so far. So this compromise and sacrifice situation did happen in my interpersonal relationships last year and also in my business. So there were two places where I had to figure that out. But the reason why I wanted to talk about this is because my friend and I, who were actually planning a new different kind of podcast very soon, we both speak the same four languages English, French, Japanese, and Korean. So look forward to that podcast. We're still in the plannings, but because you guys are listening to this one, I wanted to give you guys a head notice. And if you guys have anything you want to hear from people who speak four languages, please let me know. Random tangent. But yeah, we were talking about relationships and how difficult it is to find people who and how much as we get older, and depending on the person, I think, and also because we get older, we're exposed to different people, we get a little bit more picky about the energy we spend, especially in friendships or even dating relationships. These two situations I think are the most common when we're talking about how much compromise and sacrifice because we actually get to choose these people in our lives. So with friendships and with dating, I think I know a lot of my friends who haven't dated in ever or years always say that I don't know if I can give up my lifestyle, I can I don't think I can match the other person's lifestyle because I'm so used to mine. And trying to give up stuff for the other person is just not, I don't want to do that. But that's where I think the idea of how much should we compromise to the other person and try to match each other's paths, how much of it that, how much of that is actually important and how much are you willing to do because you don't want to do too much of it because then you are sacrificing yourself, right? So, where do we find these moments of compromise? It has to do with your lifestyle, your values, your day-to-day priorities, your family, anniversaries, even, your energy level, like I said, travel is one of them, and just living at home or living with roommates, for example, as roommates, the places that you want to go to, the foods that you enjoy, the work and life balance, even. What is your opinion on work and life balance? Are you a play hard, work hard, or do you need that work and life balance? What kind of conversations are you guys having? Is there someone who likes to talk more, or is there someone who wants to listen more, or do you guys want to both talk a lot? Or trying out new things? I think this is actually a very big thing because there are people who are more stable searchers and people who are more adventurous and want to try out new things and just keep trying and going for that dopamine. So I think these are the the this is the list that I came up with on the spot because I think they are the most common that I we see in relationships in general. Lifestyle, I think, and travel and home living really have to do with are you a cleanly person like when you do the dishes? Do you care about what kind of house you live in or car? What are the areas in which you want to expend your money on and expend your time? But these things I think are things that we can have in conversation with roommates and with dating as well. But one of the things that I think is really hard is the energy levels, work-life balance, and also the conversations. So, number one, so I actually have the list here that I wrote down earlier today of the things that we have to sacrifice and stuff. But the energy level I think has to do with what we feel when we click with people. So when we click easily with someone, it's more we don't have to spend as much energy to match their pace, to match their level. If someone is a little too hyper and we're a little bit more shy and reserved, it's really hard for us to feel like we want to open up to that other person. But there are still very bubbly people out there who are going to be able to carefully bring out the quiet person in us. So that energy level is something that I think we always have to be careful of and cautious of. And I think though, that if the other person really wants to get to know you or if they're open to that, they were they will try to match your energy. And if it doesn't work out, you'll realize later. But I think first impressions are very important in this aspect because yeah, usually first impressions, if you're a little overbearing for one another, it could be underbearing or overbearing, I'm saying, because even bubbly people are like, Why that person's a little too reserved, it's hard for me to get close to, it makes me feel awkward and uncomfortable. That's also a thing. So, how can we go about that? I think it's a matter of just like being open with it or even just saying, Hey, I want to get to know you. And yeah, I think there are people who also ooh, I don't want to get to know you, but that's also a matter of, are you? It's like a it's never a one-way, right? These relationships, it's always two ways. And then the work-life balance is something that I've been thinking about a lot recently because I think as someone who never really cared too much about work-life balance, as in a lot of my life ends up being my work, and I love being able to do that because I think there are people in the world who want to split their money-making business with their own personal hobby and free time. And I think it's a very healthy relationship to have, no doubt, because then you're able to actually stop the stress of work and then just go on to your personal lives, which I'm super jealous of. But for other people, they really want to do something that makes them happy that they're passionate about for their work, or else they just don't have the motivation to do that. And I don't know why it's hard for us to be able to do work if we're not interested in it. But I think it does help because we're able to really delve deeper into that topic because we are so interested in it. And therefore, because we are so interested and invested, we will spend hours of our time on that weekends in the middle of the night at 2 a.m., at like 4 a.m., we will be able to get up and do it. But at the same time, of course, the stress really never ends. So of course there's pros and cons for that. But as someone who has always been like work hard, play hard, I have come across the conversations where there are people who say, Oh, I personally am someone who likes to run a business. I'm the work hard, play hard. But I don't want my partner to be the same. I want them to be a little bit more relaxed. I want them to just not really have as much of a drive and passion, like I don't want them to have as much of an insane drive as I do because I am enough. Which I think is really interesting because there are people who want the same level of intensity, but there are also people who don't want that same level of intensity, opposites versus the same, and it really depends on the person. So, how much are you willing to compromise? For example, if that person meets someone who has a drive and they're really attracted to them, are they going to compromise and live with that, or do they feel like it's going to be a sacrifice and it's gonna harm the relationship even more, and therefore they won't pursue that relationship? It's a question that I have for that person I had this conversation with. And then the third thing that I mentioned is the conversation. So this is what me and my friend Minji were talking about, and it's the idea that sometimes when we are trying to relay information to one another, it's I don't think it's necessarily as much of are you guys both friends and having this conversation. I think honestly, it ends up becoming are you in a healthy relationship with this fellow person? And hear me out. So when we're having conversations with people, there's a listener and there's a speaker, and it's important to be an active listener, but I also do think that it's important to be an active speaker. And what I mean by that is you have when you're talking to someone in person, it really indicates higher emotional intelligence if you're able to look at the other person and say, Oh, this person is not interested in what I'm trying to say, oh, this person is very invested, or oh, I want to be able to relay this information that is interesting and dynamic for this person to listen to because they too are giving time to you to listen to this conversation. Of course, if it's a shared topic or shared interest, it's easy to be able to hype each other up in the process, but there are times I think that we forget that we just want to tell your friend about your day-to-day life, some random thing that we saw on the internet, some random celebrity, and we just want to share that. But how much of that are we going to tell the other person and how much are we going to listen to that? So it goes both ways, and I don't want people to be like super highly cautious of this. That's kind of where I am all the time of am I saying too much? Oh, maybe I should stop halfway through my stories to just like not talk about this anymore. But I do notice that there are, I think, people who will continuously talk and not really realize what the intentions and the position of the other person is. Like, for example, in that anecdote, there could be, for example, a friend who likes to continuously talk to me and say all these random things about topics that I don't really care too much about, that don't give me that much vitality in life. It could be a random celebrity, gossip, rumors, things like that that don't really give me life productivity. It could be interesting, but I'm not interested in it. And that friend may continuously tell me over and over again and not really listen to what I really have to say about like I want to talk about other things, but this person is still so focused on talking, telling me about all these news and things that happen in their lives and whatever it may be, just to fulfill some kind of need that they may have. And in that process, at first it becomes a pro compromise because I'm compromising myself to be able to listen to my friend, but later down the line, you're actually sacrificing your time, and your time is too valuable for that. And so there I think moments where it's just better to not it's I know it's harsh to say, but I think that at this age I'm now able to say that there are limited energy expenditures that we can have in our lives, and it's just not worth it to be spending your time listening and sacrificing your precious time to be able to build something, to be able to learn something, to even just rest, even compared to listening to people who don't have that much substance in the stuff that they're talking about. Of course, sometimes we need some of that excess like random stuff, but at the same time, if there's someone in your life that is doing that constantly and you're absolutely drained and disappointed in the fact that you still have. To deal with this kind of situation since I don't know, maybe childhood, then I suggest you like figure out like where to break this up because it might not be healthy for you and it's a waste of your time. You have other things to do and things to produce in the world that will make better difference than how you have conversations and how you approach your life later down the line. It's a matter, I think, of how open and flexible you are in your life. A lot of this has to do with yo-yu that comes from your heart, and yo-yu as in the freedom and relaxation and openness in your heart to be able to accept new surroundings and possibilities, but also go in with the confidence that no matter what happens, you'll still be able to pull out in the end, and that believing in your potential, believing in the possibility of doing well is something that only comes out when you are able to overcome your fears of uncertainty. So a lot of people I think have this fear of failure, fear of uncertainty, and that's why there's a lot of sacrifice and a lot of harshness that comes in that also destroys potential and beneficial changes or higher standards for yourself. And going back, this is why things become sacrifices and giving up rather than compromises. Because you're scared that if you fail the situation or this relationship or you're uncertain about how it's gonna go, you are more likely to lose your relationship, or you're uncertain about how it's gonna go, you are more likely to lose yourself and just continuously match the other person because you aren't confident enough in the potential that you have to be able to say, No, I this is how I go, this is my that's this is my line, this is my border, and this is where I need to stand. So it really has to do with how to be able to say no and not being a people pleaser all the time. Also, not all of it is related to this necessarily, but I do think that being able to understand where your boundaries lie and where you are able to sacrifice and be okay with yourself compromising because it's all important, it's it's part of the human nature to be able to do that as well. It's how we are able to grow as a society, but at the same time, it's very important, I think, to be able to understand that you can start losing yourself in the process. It's like a step-by-step process if you continuously let yourself doing that. And it's the same with this coffee too, right? This is a dark roast that can't be really saved, but because it's a brezzy, I'm able to use the 20 grams, extract a little bit, sacrifice the rest because it's unnecessary for the benefit of my health and also my taste buds. So I am sacrificing the excess extraction from this coffee to be able to get that goodness, if that makes sense. I know a lot of this is off tangent. I'm basically just rambling about compromise and sacrifice as a word. And please, if you take a shot for every time I said sacrifice today, we'd be drunk. But yeah, I hope all of that made sense today. And I am very invested in this topic and trying to figure out a balance between where we can set our boundaries and what's important to set boundaries to, and how we can respect other people's boundaries as well in the process, because we are all trying to live with each other and try to understand each other, but at the same time protecting ourselves and defending ourselves in the process, so it's it's a constant struggle. I know we all go through that, even in the workplace with friends, with family, all the time, especially if you live with your parents or you live with roommates or you have a bad boss or just a lot of coworkers to deal with and mental stress from work, from life, financial reasons, etc. But I hope this gives a little bit more insight into how we can categorize the things that we do and see it for compromise and sacrifice and judge where we are standing in all of these different aspects and values of our lives. So thank you guys so much for listening today. I'm super excited to grow this podcast now. I also want to give you guys a couple more updates before we wrap up this episode. I am planning on really cool releases soon. I'm working with a couple brands, roasteries, to develop really fun and tasty beans and also do like offline events here in Korea with them. So this summer is going to be jam-packed with new releases and fun stuff, and I'm super excited because I can finally share with you guys Korean roasters that are doing really great things or trying really hard, and they're all different kinds of people and flavors, and finally, it's not just me, it's presenting all these different kinds of stories to you guys. So I'm super excited for that this summer, and also I've been doing this diet like insane cut. I think I've lost 12% body fat so far. I've been doing it quietly, but hopefully, I'll have content for you guys to be able to see the process. Dumb, I'm trying to get this really strong and healthy and fit-toned body before my 30s. So that's another challenge that I'm doing on the side that I've been very quiet about. People who have met me in person are like, you can't eat anything, can you? I'm like, No, I'm sorry, I have to eat my chicken and broccoli. So people know, but I'm excited to be able to give you guys the whole rundown on that if anyone is curious. Okay, today, guys, give me this rainbow emoji. I am very much in need for rainbows and sparkles these days. So let me know that you listen to this entire episode because we are all in need for some happy sprinkles and rainbows and sunshine, aren't we? All and yeah, I will see you guys next week. Thanks for listening, guys.