Hello, this is Healing Santa, Kim Ji-yu.
We raised the six pillars, widened our view through people-centered entrepreneurship, and met the heart-jewel within us saying “I am me, and I am okay.” Now the ninth story goes to meet the seed of wealth within me.
1. Preparing for a healthy 2027, back to my first intention
For 2026 I chose the slogan “Healing Santa’s year of pausing and regrouping.” Looking back with gratitude on a year well spent, I am preparing for 2027.
I do not know what 2027 holds for me. Yet I believe it will be a year of leaping forward, of loving, learning, sharing and growing together, with wonderful news waiting.
So I want to unfold once more the first intention I held when I opened Haengbok Yeolgi (Opening Happiness) in 2005: “to work together for a healthy and beautiful world.”
But there is one thing I know for certain at this very moment: that I am a happy person.
After spending a night at my younger sibling’s home in Seoul and making breakfast for the couple before they left early for work, I am a joyful person who chooses happiness. Today again: a click of gratitude, a click of happiness.
2. Meeting Dr. Choi Chi-young
Yesterday, at a restaurant near Gangnam Station, I met Dr. Choi Chi-young, who developed the Wealth Design Thinking RiCH system. I was so grateful for his advice on the PuNolChi Wealth RiCH program I am preparing. He treated me to a delicious meal and shared many good words.
He told me that Korea’s coaching-lecture market is already a red ocean, but that PuNolChi, as a special somatic coaching (one that meets people through the body and the senses), will spark a healthy boom of creative convergence in the age of AI.
I find myself recharged by his words. My wish to build the program well and share it with the world has grown, for I believe that when we are ready, Kairos, the god of opportunity, appears.
Writing “gratitude” with the ingredients on the table and eating it joyfully, the gratitude grows even bigger. With a thankful heart, I filled my cells with gratitude.
3. RiCH: the seed of wealth is already within us
RICH is the English word for “wealthy.” Dr. Choi says the seed of wealth is already within us.
His book Rich Thinking notes that many people know “why” they should become wealthy but are not sure “how,” and it guides readers along a practical path for that “how” in the four RiCH steps.
R Recognition | knowing the source of wealth within me
I Ideation | finding my golden key
C Creation | designing to turn ideas into value
H Habit | building habits I carry out every day
One sentence from the book’s introduction stays long in my heart:
“Wealth does not simply come from outside; it becomes reality through my interpretation and attitude, my habits and choices, my relationships and actions.”
4. The seed of wealth and self-esteem share one root
Reading this sentence, I thought of Branden. He said self-esteem, too, is not given from outside but is built on what we practice and do every day. So he called those practices “the six pillars of self-esteem.”
1. The practice of living consciously / 2. The practice of self-acceptance / 3. The practice of self-responsibility / 4. The practice of self-assertiveness / 5. The practice of living purposefully / 6. The practice of personal integrity
Branden called the two wings of self-esteem self-efficacy, “I can do it,” and self-respect, “I deserve to be happy.” And he said that this happiness holds the belief that achievement and success, friendship and love, and abundance too are fitting for me.
So the belief “I deserve abundance” is another name for self-esteem.
When I set the four steps of RiCH beside the six pillars, they looked remarkably alike.
R Recognition: living consciously, awake and aware, and accepting myself as I am
I Ideation: self-assertiveness, finding the way in my own voice
C Creation: living purposefully, picturing whom my strengths can help
H Habit: self-responsibility and personal integrity, doing every day what I said I would
At the end of last year’s class, I expressed the PuNolChi RiCH system in this drawing. I had nearly forgotten it, so I am grateful the memory came back. I resolve to express it again as a PuNolChi Mind Journey and engrave it in my cells, giving thanks in advance for the dream coming true.
Awakening the seed of wealth and building self-esteem both came down, in the end, to believing in myself and piling up small practices every day.
5. Good wealth: wealth that shares good influence
When I teach PuNolChi Dream Coaching at schools and institutions, I often meet teenagers who say, “I want to be rich and do nothing.”
I do not want to blame them. It is true that money is a means we need for a better life and happiness. I would just like to ask them, “With what can you create value for the world?”
A child who recognizes the strengths within (Recognition), imagines new paths with them (Ideation), designs them into value that helps someone (Creation) and practices a little every day (Habit) grows into a child who respects themselves, a child with high self-esteem.
That is why I really want to recommend this program to teenagers too. And I hope all of us become good wealthy people who share good influence and do many good deeds.
6. Six years of self-esteem cooking, now one table of a book
It has been six years since I began writing a PuNolChi self-esteem cooking book based on Nathaniel Branden’s six pillars. Now I mean to polish and finish “Healing Santa’s Self-Esteem Mind Cooking: PuNolChi 5-Minute Table” with care. It also has a PuNolChi RiCH Table corner.
And in January 2027 I plan to begin a new Mind Journey with you through PuNolChi RiCH THINKING.
7. Today’s five minutes: my seed-of-wealth table
Are you perhaps sitting at a table right now? What feeling would you like to put into your meal?
A gratitude table, a love table, a peace table, a Joy table….
R. Choose one seed that resembles you and give names to three of your strengths.
I. Move and add to that seed to make a new shape.
C. Draw on the plate: “Whom can my strengths help, and how?”
H. Write down one small thing you will do for five minutes tomorrow morning.
Then say to yourself in the mirror:
“The seed of abundance is already within me.
I deserve to be abundant and happy.”
Closing
I am deeply grateful to Dr. Choi Chi-young for sharing his precious time and wisdom.
Isn’t a truly wealthy person someone whose heart is full of trust in themselves, gratitude and sharing, even before their bank account? Apart and together, each in our own place, as much as we can, I hope we become people who share abundance.
What is the seed of wealth sleeping within you? Let’s awaken it together. Today again I open happiness with gratitude and begin a full day.
Healing Santa Kim Ji-yu
References: publisher’s introduction to Choi Chi-young’s Rich Thinking, writings on Nathaniel Branden’s official website, and posts in the Healing Space Haengbok Yeolgi cafe: “PuNolChi Wealth RiCH Coaching with Dr. Choi Chi-young” (2026.10) and “RICH Opened with the Golden Key of Love” (2025.5)
This story was first posted in the PuNolChi Mind Journey healing writing of the healing space Haengbok Yeolgi cafe.