Episodes
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I’ve admired Jenny Blake’s work from afar for years.
First for her seemingly endless success with book deals, big-name podcast guests, and six-figure corporate contracts.
And now for her incredibly honest accounting of how her business dissolved during the pandemic and hasn’t rebounded since.
So in today’s episode, Jenny joins us to share the highs and lows of her 13 years of self-employment. And together we go deep into all the practical, intuitive, and creative things she’s tried to keep her business going… even though nothing’s really working (except maybe Substack).
This conversation is a must-listen for anyone who has struggled or is struggling in business. ❤️🩹 Big hugs to all of us!
👋 Thinking of leaving social media? You don't have to go it alone! Download our free Leaving Social Media Toolkit today🤸 THE CLUBHOUSE IS OPEN! Join us on Substack for members-only episodes + secret, curated emails. Only $5/mo or $50/year.
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Happy Halloween, business witches! 🧙
While I typically keep things pretty practical here at Off the Grid, this week I wanted to lean into the mystical, magical and alchemical aspects of creative business.
To do that, I invited three brilliant practitioners to each share a unique and powerful biz magic ritual with us!
✨ Brigitte starts us off with some practical magic as she shares her opening + closing rituals for each workday and workweek. [9:00]
✨ Then Cecily Sailer offers a tarot spread and community reading for connecting with our business spirits. [17:00]
✨ And finally, Ash Canty gifts us a meditative practice that serves anyone asking — “what do I do when everything goes quiet? or when things feel slow? or when I put something out there and nothing happens in response to it?” [31:45]
I hope you’ll press play then keep reading to learn more about our magical contributors and find all the links to their work! 🪄
Contributors:
Brigitte (she/her) is a systems and self-care witch who builds intentional systems for neurodivergent creatives who want to feel proud, successful, and get shit done. She makes Notion templates and custom workspaces that are a launchpad to helping you cross the finish line on your projects and goals.Cecily Sailer (she/her) is a creativity coach, writer and tarot reader. She runs a business called Typewriter Tarot, which is a sanctuary and learning community for creative mystics.Ash Canty (he/him) is an Afro-Indigenous, queer, trans-masculine, psychic medium, mentor, and death guide. Ash is also the co-creator of his business, The Sovereign Spirit Medium, and all the millions of umbrellas that are underneath that, that he manages and runs and also lets go of all the time.
From Brigitte: notion daily dashboard template, custom notion workspace consult, website, youtubeFrom Cecily: typewriter tarot website, fifth spirit tarot deck, podcastFrom Ash: the sovereign spirit medium website, substack, portland grief house
Additional Resources & Links:
👋 Thinking of leaving social media? You don't have to go it alone! Download our free Leaving Social Media Toolkit today🤸 THE CLUBHOUSE IS OPEN! Join us on Substack for members-only episodes + secret, curated emails. Only $5/mo or $50/year.
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Missing episodes?
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Often when business isn’t going well, we think that we can fix it with a new marketing strategy or growth tactic.
We look to new courses, fancy platforms, or expensive mentors to “save” us … but in my experience, what we actually need in these times is to tend to our inner reserves in deeper and more nuanced ways.
So today I’m joined by Pascale Coté of Dear Creative Mind to teach us how to cultivate creative resilience in our artistic, marketing and business practices.
What creative resilience isHow to expand your window of tolerance in businessCommon creative blocks to work with — like perfectionism, procrastination, self-sabotage & moreHow social media causes creative blocksWays to redefine success & measure it differentlyNavigating positive & negative feedbackThe importance of pacing ourselves & our expectationsAdditional resources from Pascale ♡
If you’ve ever had an unexpected pivot, a disappointing launch, or a period of deep burnout in your business, this episode is for you. Tune in to learn about:
📲 Wish you could leave social media, but not quite ready yet? You need to read ➡ The Art of Thriving Online: Creative Exercises to Help You Stay Grounded and Feel Joy in the World of Social Media by Amelia Knott. Out now with Sounds True. (sponsored)
👋 Thinking of leaving social media? You don't have to go it alone! Download our free Leaving Social Media Toolkit today🤸 THE CLUBHOUSE IS OPEN! Join us on Substack for members-only episodes + secret, curated emails. Only $5/mo or $50/year.
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This one goes out to all our listeners who are still trying to make it work on social media!
Today I’m joined by Dacy Gillespie, a weight inclusive, anti-diet personal stylist who has grown her business online over the past decade and is now navigating a major shift from Instagram to Substack.
The high-stress worlds of music, teaching, arts admin & academiaWhy Dacy started working in fashion — even though she felt like a total outsiderThe role that Instagram plays in Dacy’s businessHow Dacy has right-sized her business for her capacityWays to navigate the highs & lows of a fluctuating client loadWhy Dacy started her Substack newsletter & how it’s grown to over 10,000 subscribersHow to market your work when you hate the feeling of selling yourself“is it possible to be an ethical influencer?”
Together, we talk about:
📲 Wish you could leave social media, but not quite ready yet? You need to read ➡ The Art of Thriving Online: Creative Exercises to Help You Stay Grounded and Feel Joy in the World of Social Media by Amelia Knott. Out now with Sounds True. (sponsored)
👋 Thinking of leaving social media? You don't have to go it alone! Download our free Leaving Social Media Toolkit today🤸 THE CLUBHOUSE IS OPEN! Join us on Substack for members-only episodes + secret, curated emails. Only $5/mo or $50/year.
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This week on the show we're getting into it with everyone’s least favorite internet friend — THE ALGORITHM 🙈
To do that I'm joined by Kate Smalley, a small business advisor, educator, and facilitator, who recently wrote a great piece about getting out of your algorithm that had me thinking more about what algorithms actually do and how we can work with them rather than against them.
Today Kate's here to help me explore:
What an algorithm even isHow algorithms function on social mediaWhy it feels like "The Algorithm" is working against usCollaborating with algorithms for expanded possibilitiesHow it feels to be stuck in your algorithm & ways to get unstuckOur fave non-algorithmically-mediated spacesMentioned in the episode: Algorithms by Panos Louridas, The Social Dilemma, Are.na, Sublime, Readwise
👋 Thinking of leaving social media? You don't have to go it alone! Download our free Leaving Social Media Toolkit today🤸 THE CLUBHOUSE IS OPEN! Join us on Substack for members-only episodes + secret, curated emails. Only $5/mo or $50/year.
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Happy October! This week we're kicking off Spooky Season with one of my favorite business witches — Michelle Pellizzon-Lipsitz of Holisticism!
Michelle has taught me so much about online business, magical meaning-making systems, and spiritual practices. She's one of my favorite people to pay attention to on the internet, and I invited her on the show so I could ask her every question I've ever had about how she runs her company.
In this episode, we get real-real about:
How Michelle started Holisticism with a BFA in danceEvolving from newsletter to booking platform to online courses & communityThe 4 Pillars of Intuitive BusinessThe realities of Radical GenerosityWhy some ideas aren't meant to be businessesExactly how Michelle markets her paid membership, The North NodeWhy Holisticism moved their newsletter + podcast to SubstackThe magic of the low-cost class as lead magnetHow Michelle has grown (& shrunk) her team over the past 5 yearsPlanning a self-employed maternity leaveThe meeting creep & how to correct itNavigating chronic illness & family emergencies as a business ownerHow Michelle organizes her offeringsRunning multiple businesses at once& so much more!
👋 Thinking of leaving social media? You don't have to go it alone! Download our free Leaving Social Media Toolkit today🤸 THE CLUBHOUSE IS OPEN! Join us on Substack for members-only episodes + secret, curated emails. Only $5/mo or $50/year.
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Today on the pod, I'm breaking down binary thinking and talking about why self-employment is a spectrum.
Because your only options aren't 'have a full-time job' or 'have a full-time business'. In fact, there are about a million other ways you can support yourself!
So if you've ever felt like an imposter or a failure or just been confused about how to tell people what you do, tune in for a special pep talk exploring:
The many, many forms self-employment can takeWhy black-and-white thinking about work is never supportiveHow to expand your sense of how you can make moneyOne of my regrets from my first year in business& way more — all in less than 30 minutes!
👋 Thinking of leaving social media? You don't have to go it alone! Download our free Leaving Social Media Toolkit today
🤸 THE CLUBHOUSE IS OPEN! Join us on Substack for members-only episodes + secret, curated emails. Only $5/mo or $50/year. -
“I don’t want to perform my job. I want to be rooted in my work.”
Liz Migliorelli is an herbalist, educator and storyteller who has crafted an herbal product line under the name Sister Spinster for over a decade.
In this episode, Liz joins me to talk about how her business flourished on Instagram — growing to over 30k followers! — and the ways that growth impacted her life, eventually leading her to walk away from social media entirely. (Spoiler: the plants made her do it)
The benefits of being in the right place at the right timeHow Liz shifts her business model between products & classesWhat our approach to marketing has in common with herbalismThe clarifying gifts of nettleWhy we need to get out of our online echo chambersCreating clear, kind systems that support your work as you growHow Liz prepared her business/self to make less money this year
Together, we talk about:
👋 Thinking of leaving social media? You don't have to go it alone! Download our free Leaving Social Media Toolkit today🤸 THE CLUBHOUSE IS OPEN! Join us on Substack for members-only episodes + secret, curated emails. Only $5/mo or $50/year.
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If you love your work but wish you never had to work, today’s episode is for you!
This week I’m incredibly excited to be joined by anticapitalist teacher, writer, vocational guide, and naturalist: Megan Leatherman of A Wild New Work.
In this conversation, we begin by defining capitalism and anti-capitalism alongside Silvia Federici’s book Caliban and the Witch. Then we talk about why our labor is sacred, how to navigate the despair that comes with living under late-stage capitalism, and why slowing down is an important deconstruction of the status quo.
Here’s a preview of the rich wisdom Megan shares:
✨ No other organism works for someone else to get the money or currency they need to then go buy the food or shelter that they need. It’s really absurd. And it’s become more than an economic system. Now it’s a culture and a set of beliefs.
✨ Working in an anti-capitalist way, to me, means living in accordance to the rhythms of my body and the seasons, recognizing that there are times in the cycle of the year when things are really busy and a lot of growth is happening and that gets mirrored in my work, but then there are also times that require a quieter, slower approach. And those all build off one another for a healthy, sustainable life.
✨ You know what you need. You are a human animal in a body who has rhythms and cycles, and you can trust those. They’re not usually convenient to capitalism, because they’re not as productive as a machine. But you can trust them.
And if you love our conversation, be sure to check out Megan's next class, Composting Capitalism!
👋 Thinking of leaving social media? You don't have to go it alone! Download our free Leaving Social Media Toolkit today
🌈 Want support building a successful, sustainable business without relying on social media? Join The Interweb — our affordable, annual membership for creatives, artists & business owners, who want to share their work & make money without social media.
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Welcome to season four of Off the Grid! Today I’m joined by everybody’s favorite brand scientist, N. Chloé Nwangwu of NobiWorks.
Chloé is here to talk about what brands are, why they matter, and how we can craft one that breaks past visibility biases.
This conversation is also an extension of our season three finale where I explored how to feel seen off social media. Because in this episode, Chloé explains how to actually be seen off social media — including why so many of us are underrecognized (not underrepresented!) and how to craft a circle of recognition that makes sure we’re actually seen and heard.
Here are just a few of the amazing things Chloé says in this conversation:
✨ All social media is interested in doing is farming and selling attention. It’s not interested in the process of visibility — which is gaining, maintaining, and translating attention.
✨ You are not social media’s client. You are their product.
✨ For some of us, it’s like we have an invisibility cloak on. So no matter what right moves we are making or how avidly we are participating in social media or the other tactics and strategies presented to us — we’re still doing that from underneath an invisibility cloak.
✨ You have to be the obvious choice before you make yourself an opportunity magnet. You don’t just want to be visible. You want to be noticed. You want to be remembered. And then you want people to be influenced by that memory to act. There’s a whole process.
I hope you enjoy this episode! And if you do, please send it to a friend, so they can enjoy the rest of season four, too!
👋 Thinking of leaving social media? You don't have to go it alone! Download our free Leaving Social Media Toolkit today
🌈 Want support building a successful, sustainable business without relying on social media? Join The Interweb — our affordable, annual membership for creatives, artists & business owners, who want to share their work & make money without social media. Doors close September 15.
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Welcome welcome welcome back to Off the Grid! Amelia, here. I’m popping into your pod feed today to let you know that we’re kicking off season four of the show next week. 🎉
Starting September 4th, I’ll be sharing a new interview every Wednesday through the end of November, featuring amazing guests like: N. Chloé Nwangwu, Liz Migliorelli of Sister Spinster, Megan Leatherman, Podge Thomas, Kate Smalley, Michelle Pellizzon, Jenny Blake, Amy Kuretsky, and more!
In this preview episode, I tell you more about what’s to come in season four, including two themes we’ll be exploring —
🎢 Why leaving social media is going mainstream... and how to avoid the grifters glomming onto that
🍁 How online business is changing in hard times... and ways to feel less alone in this moment
And stick around to the end to learn about some big updates for the Interweb, our annual membership that’s getting a glow-up before we close the doors to new members on September 15th. Plus! The next ten folks who join using the code LUCKYTEN can get their first year at our founding member rate of only $99.
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This one goes out to my all my Top Voices™️ out there. Today we’re talking about LinkedIn!
A timeline of LinkedIn’s evolutionThe difference between Social Networking & Social MediaThe phenomena of LinkedIn Cringe™️How LinkedIn has changed thought leadership at largeWhy I decided to (finally) leave LinkedIn
Tune in to hear me unpack:And ICYMI — this episode has been pulled out from behind the paywall of Off the Grid Clubhouse! 🤸 Join today for weekly episodes like this + secret emails all summer long. Only $5/mo or $50/year.
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This week we wrap season three with some #deepthoughts on what it means to feel seen and how social media is messing with our sense of self-worth and community connection.
Tune in as I break down why visibility ≠ connection (or $ales), and I share many ways that we can find connection in our work and our lives without being on all the apps.
And if you're sad that the show is going away for two months, join us in the Clubhouse for private weekly episodes + secret emails all summer long! ☀️
🤸 THE CLUBHOUSE IS OPEN! Join us for weekly episodes + secret emails all summer long. Only $5/mo or $50/year.
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Hey there, biz bestie. If you (like me) have never discovered a milestone or a metric that makes you a Success™️….today’s episode is for you!
Why I hate SMART goalsHow to FEEL successfulWhen to embrace fluctuation + failureWhat alignment’s got to do with itThe exact definition of success that guides my work + life& How to write your own definition (then send it to me!)
Tune in to hear:
And if you enjoy this episode, join me in the Off the Grid Clubhouse! Doors officially open on Monday, and it’s already vibrant community of folks embracing the cycle of success. We’d love to have you. 🫶👋 Thinking of leaving social media? You don't have to go it alone! Download our free Leaving Social Media Toolkit today
🌈 Want support building a successful, sustainable business without relying on social media? Join The Interweb — our affordable, annual membership for creatives, artists & business owners, who want to share their work & make money without social media.
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This week I’m joined by Kening Zhu, an artist, web designer, and dear friend who I’ve known for over 15 years.
Kening’s journey as an artist-entrepreneurDissolving the binary of art vs moneyHuman design & business success as a ProjectorThe internet as a creative practiceBuilding a beautiful world with your websiteAllowing yourself to want more& Re-conceiving the personal brand
Together, we have a deep and thoughtful conversation about money, energy, human design, creative practice, and the magical nature of the world wide web.
This episode is for anyone craving connection, expansion, and deeper meaning in their creative work and daily life. Spend 75 poetic minutes with us as we explore:
👋 Thinking of leaving social media? You don't have to go it alone! Download our free Leaving Social Media Toolkit today
🌈 Want support building a successful, sustainable business without relying on social media? Join The Interweb — our affordable, annual membership for creatives, artists & business owners, who want to share their work & make money without social media.
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Today I’m joined by Cody Cook-Parrott, a writer, artist, dancer, and teacher who’s here to share how they grew their Instagram account to over 80k followers while navigating big feelings, multiple book deals & many social media breaks in the process.
In this conversation, Cody and I meet deep in the both/and of when being ON social media feels bad and being OFF social media feels bad. Tune in to hear about:
How Cody grew their creative business with the help of IGWhat it’s really like to quit Instagram as a public personThe relationship between social media & activismOnline presence VS offline “peace”How Cody made more money while off InstagramCody’s shift from Instagram to Substack
If you enjoy the episode, make sure to grab Cody's new Weaving In Our Values Toolkit and sign up for The Shape of Our Offerings, which starts on June 8th!
👋 Thinking of leaving social media? You don't have to go it alone! Download our free Leaving Social Media Toolkit today
🌈 Want support building a successful, sustainable business without relying on social media? Join The Interweb — our affordable, annual membership for creatives, artists & business owners, who want to share their work & make money without social media.
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Welcome to our #summertime June Biz Forecast episode! This is a pod-feed-exclusive where I check in at the start of the month to share a few fun marketing trends, this month's biz-care to-dos, a preview of upcoming episodes, and more!
the many ways we’re slowing down for summer 🐢how I’m implementing a sliding scale in my business ⚖️different ways to redistribute our wealth ♻️& how I'm clearing out my expenses this season 😬
This month, you’ll hear:
Plus! Listen to the end for news about our season three sponsors and ways we can collab in season four.
Get in touch with Amelia:💌 Email [email protected]
☎️ Leave a voice message at speakpipe.com/offthegrid
Link love 💕 Off the Grid Clubhouse | The Sliding Scale: A Tool of Economic Justice by Alexis Cunningfolk | Your Podcast Is A Portal | DIY Podcast Marketing & Monetization | Off the Grid Ad Opportunities
Sponsor love 💕 Future You Portraits with Will | Nicole Cloutier | Jessica Lackey | Feminist Thriller Club | Lettering Works x Off the Grid | Cody Cook-Parrott | Jess Jackson & Soft Path Healing | Sarah McColl & Summer Camp | Neets & Spring Fling | Send It! Newsletter Group & Write A Winning Welcome Email Mini-Course -
Finally! An episode for all the social-media-ambivalent among us.
Today I’m resharing a conversation I had with Becca Piastrelli for her podcast Belonging — where we go DEEP into how social media makes us feel, including unpacking why I left Instagram AND why Becca has stayed on the platform.
My journey with social media, including how it felt to invest thousands of hours & $$$ on the appsAnxious attachment & my decision to leave InstagramThe creative inspiration AND loneliness I felt after I leftWhy we find community on social mediaHow our personal & emotional wellbeing are connected to our online presence.Misinformation, toxic algorithms, and capitalism
Tune in to hear about:
👋 Thinking of leaving social media? You don't have to go it alone! Download our free Leaving Social Media Toolkit today
🌈 Want support building a successful, sustainable business without relying on social media? Join The Interweb — our affordable, annual membership for creatives, artists & business owners, who want to share their work & make money without social media.
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It’s radical generosity week here at Off the Grid!
Today on the pod, I welcome Chelsie Tamms of Lettering Works for a conversation about how our businesses become more profitable through creative collaborations.
This one is packed with self-employed wisdom, so pop in your airpods and tune in to learn:
How Chelsie uses passion projects to pitch (and book!) her dream clientsThe clarity + generosity of Lettering Works’ Artist Trade ProgramChelsie's FREE branding challengeHow we structure trades so they’re mutually beneficialThe benefits of fully committing to your collaborationsWhy you should focus on the right thing instead of the urgent thing& How to create your own “job perks” when you’re self-employed
If you enjoy this episode, be sure to check out the Lettering Works x Off the Grid sticker collab!
👋 Thinking of leaving social media? You don't have to go it alone! Download our free Leaving Social Media Toolkit today
🌈 Want support building a successful, sustainable business without relying on social media? Join The Interweb — our affordable, annual membership for creatives, artists & business owners, who want to share their work & make money without social media.
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