My Journal Entry #1

Its time to share my thoughts and journal entries over the past week or two summed into this post here. I hope it offers a unique feeling for you guys where i try be as open as i can be. This is copied straight from my hand written journal and extended on the brief points i write. I will not edit it or worry about grammatical errors, i might ramble. This is just purely me and my brain dump.

Lets begin with recent restock of my little pottery business Shaka Pottery, we had on the 30th of June. Thanks to our legends of an audience we hit a massive milestone, for the first time ever we had more returning customers make an order over first time customers!

For us that ensures we have a very healthy and happy business which makes me so proud and so grateful. I will share some restock stats.

Total Orders: 287
Online Sessions: 3687
Returning Customer Rate: 50.6%!!! (a good score is roughly 30%)


I think i needed that, i’m not sure what was happening to me but around 4 weeks prior leading up to the restock i was becoming scared of the future Shaka Pottery. Im terrified of creative burnout, i wonder all the time how far can i take this? It gets really stressful trying to keep the creative flywheel spinning and keeping our audience fully engaged. I think it began when i saw two highly followed and successful potters drop their business overnight because they burnt out. I was getting tired but im not over working, my brain is.

I come across a podcast that were two writers and one said - if your mind is spinning and your feeling like your almost suffocating in thoughts…you need to write, you have something to offer. This stuck with me and it instantly felt like this could be my cure.

Thats when this newsletter was created. I become a little obsessed on the idea of sharing my journey and offering a unique perspective and advice going from hobby to full time. I am already feeling rejuvenated, writing is quickly becoming therapy in a way.

I am lucky i have a switched on wife.

On June 25, Harriet made it clear to take some time for reflection. I never reflect, i just push for more. Im massively impulsive, i have bright shiny object syndrome, i just want to keep creating cool shit! Then we had the restock. So if your a follower of Shaka Pottery…Thank you, Thank you for always being the best community we could ever hope for.

So ill finish up with my current state of mind. I have added a new challenge now, i need to juggle time for this but remain focused on Shaka Pottery and keeping time for my family. Im not sure how to navigate it, Having 2 young kids and working from home has always been pretty challenging and im just winging it to be honest.

But ill make it work some how. I have too, i need to write!

Cheers

Brad