Who am I and what do I do?
Hey everyone!
I’m currently in Estonia and I figured maybe now would be a good time to give you a little sneak into my professional and personal life so that you can get to know me – Johanna! I’m the girl writing these blog posts and well in charge of quite a few things in the JIV world.
But first
Hey! I’m Johanna and I’m a figure skater. I started skating when I was 5 and competed till 2017/2018. I’m not gonna bore you with all the details of my skating career, but if you’re interested you can listen to my whole figure skating story on my youtube. I did the channel during covid and occasionally post videos about skating and my life today. There’s also some really beautiful figure skating filmed in nature, which is also on the channel. My youtube is here https://www.youtube.com/@JohannaAllik7.
But shortly, I used to skate in the elite level and now I’m just a hobby skater I guess. I do skating as a lifestyle, because I’ve stopped competing 2017/2018 season and I’ve also created a life, where I don’t hold back with tasks I have to do.
So what do I do today
I work at JIV – obviously. The brand is founded by my mother, who is also the CEO. Having this brand since 2002 has been an amazing parachute for me to land into after stopping my career in skating. So in that sense I’m very blessed to have a job, where I could continue my passion towards this sport. What I do at JIV is many things. We’re a small business and we outsource minimal work and this is because we don’t really see the need. I’m in charge of marketing, content creation, project management, organising photoshoots, customer relations, finding new customers, events and pop-ups (organising and going to them) and lastly my big part of my job is product design.
What do I like about my job
One of my favourite parts is the pop-up shops for sure and this is because I get to travel to places and see our customers in real life. My job is so digital and secluded that I work from home and never get to connect with anybody. This was also the inspiration behind starting a more personal marketing where I get to share and connect more with all of you. I also enjoy coming up with different content and photoshoots and having the shoots.
What I dislike about my job
Thankfully- not much. I dislike unexpected situations I guess. The last years have been so challenging with Covid, wars and inflation and gas price and transport price increase that we’ve had to tackle so many new different issues and we’ve had to reinvent ourselves. I also dislike it when our suppliers have unexpected situations occur, because their delays are our delays and I hate delays 😆.
How much do I work and what else do I do?
Because it’s a family business, you’re never really off work. I can’t just not reply to clients or shut off social media for weeks, but it’s okey, because I don’t have a set schedule of 9-5. My work is flexible and I follow a to-do list and deadlines. When things are done for the day, I focus on other things and I try not to have work thoughts during family time and weekends. Besides work I’m doing a second degree. I graduated from law school two years ago and continued a completely new path -graphic design. That has been super helpful in my work, but it’s quite demanding and I’m happy to graduate in a year. So every month I take a few days to do school things and now at the end of semester I’ve been focusing more on school and less on work, because of the low season.
I also do choreography and coach skating. This is a hobby that I’m passionate about. I love connecting with different skaters and coming up with creative programs and it keeps me active. This is something I do monthly, but not weekly. I just don’t have more time to do it. But this summer I will join Jorik Hendrickx summer camp for third year already and I’m very excited to do that.
Do I have any free time and what do I do then?
I do have free time. I’m not a workaholic. I have the tendency to be one, but I’ve become quite frugal to make sure I take time for myself and my wellbeing. I got a dog a few months ago and that has been amazing in helping me plan my time. He is currently sleeping in my lap, so he is really like a therapy dog.. I love going on very long walks in beautiful nature, I love ice lattes that have a lot of whole milk, but I hate coffee. I could never just drink black coffee. I like to shop online for great second hand finds, I love planes, I get very excited to travel and fly planes, but I still get anxious during turbulence, my favourite colour is white and my favourite food is sandwiches. I don’t like impolite and rude people and I always feel bad for old people when they struggle. My weird habit is that I’m obsessed with air miles. I collect them and use them and try to find hacks to get myself upgraded on flights.
Anything you would change about your life today
Today I would really want already Sunday to come around, because that means school is out for the summer. Otherwise I don’t think I would change much. I do have a vision board and I aspire for many things to happen in my life, but those are for my future. I’m quite excited about the present.
