“My constant longing to be without social media is actually a longing to be in deeper connection with the world.”

River Selby was born in Los Angeles and grew up in the Pacific Northwest. They worked as a wildland firefighter for seven years, and their debut memoir, Hotshot: A Life of Fire, was published in 2025 by Grove Atlantic.

Today, River joins me to talk about the realities of being an author from a working class, no-safety-net background — and how that has shaped their relationship to social media.

Together, we explore:

• The gifts (and perils) of refusing to niche down
• How to quit performing & projecting on social media
• What to do when compare & despair becomes unavoidable
• How financial insecurity might impact your social media options
• Why many authors have to hire publicists (but we couldn’t afford to)
• Ways social media impacts your financial well-being
• Why we have to stop commodifying books

 
 
RESOURCES + LINKS
👋 Download the FREE Leaving Social Media Toolkit
🌐 Get on the Interweb waitlist for courses + community
💓 Join the Clubhouse for more episodes + emails
📔 Buy Amelia's book at yourattentionissacred.com!
 

  
FREE GIFTS OF THE WEEK

❊ Rebel Archetype Assessment from Meg Kissack

❊ Standout Reinventions series on Substack from Kevin Chung

❊ Enter to win a free monthly website review from Ana Luísa

❊ More free resources from Close Biz Friends!

🌟 Join COME TO CLASS — a 3-day intensive on how to teach online with confidence & care. Rescheduled for June 4th, 5th & 6th. Learn more & sign up here: https://softersounds.notion.site/come-to-class

If you’ve been paying attention around here…

You likely know that next week I’m teaching a new intensive called COME TO CLASS!

It’s a 3-day workshop on how to teach online with confidence and care, and it’ll guide you through everything I’ve learned in 20 years of teaching — with a special focus on how learning to teach can help you improve your sales.

One of the bonuses that COME TO CLASS students get is behind-the-scenes conversations with my favorite online facilitators and course creators, and today I’m thrilled to bring you one of those conversations totally for free!

Tune in to hear the brilliant teacher and Notion designer Podge Thomas and I discuss:

• How Podge fell in love with teaching — even though she hated school
• Why studying metacognition is the secret to better classrooms
• How to stop recreating the harms of traditional education models
• What to do when a student says “I don’t get this”
• Why your teaching style doesn't have to be for everyone

 
If you like this conversation, sign up for COME TO CLASS! It's only $299 to sign up (payment plans available) and registration closes May 30th.
 
RESOURCES + LINKS
👋 Download the FREE Leaving Social Media Toolkit
🌐 Get on the Interweb waitlist for courses + community
💓 Join the Clubhouse for more episodes + emails
📔 Buy Amelia's book at yourattentionissacred.com!
 

  
FREE GIFTS OF THE WEEK

❊ Rebel Archetype Assessment from Meg Kissack

❊ Standout Reinventions series on Substack from Kevin Chung

❊ Enter to win a free monthly website review from Ana Luísa

❊ More free resources from Close Biz Friends!

🌟 Join COME TO CLASS — a 3-day intensive on how to teach online with confidence & care. Rescheduled for June 4th, 5th & 6th. Learn more & sign up here: https://softersounds.notion.site/come-to-class

I’ve had SO MANY conversations about the problems with online course platforms.

Mighty Networks vs Circle vs Kajabi vs Teachable — none of us like the existing options, and we’re waiting for someone to build something better.

So today I’ve invited Sally Burns to the show, because she’s building an alternate platform for teaching and learning online — a digital neighborhood called The Portal.

Tune in to hear about:

• Why Sally left corporate e-learning to build The Portal
• How to stop piecing a million tools together to host your course
• The false promises of Online Course Culture™️
• Why we have to break down teacher/student hierarchy
• How The Portal helps you fill your classes — especially if you have a small audience
• What it actually takes to bootstrap a learning platform
• Ways to help old offerings reach new audiences

👉 If you’re excited about The Portal, learn more and join here!

👉 👉 And if you want to COME TO CLASS, here’s your link to sign up. Registration closes May 30th.

 
RESOURCES + LINKS
👋 Download the FREE Leaving Social Media Toolkit
🌐 Get on the Interweb waitlist for courses + community
💓 Join the Clubhouse for more episodes + emails
📔 Buy Amelia's book at yourattentionissacred.com!
 

  
FREE GIFTS OF THE WEEK

❊ Rebel Archetype Assessment from Meg Kissack

❊ Standout Reinventions series on Substack from Kevin Chung

❊ Enter to win a free monthly website review from Ana Luísa

❊ More free resources from Close Biz Friends!

🌟 Join COME TO CLASS — a 3-day intensive on how to teach online with confidence & care. Rescheduled for June 4th, 5th & 6th. Learn more & sign up here: https://softersounds.notion.site/come-to-class

My monthly-ish series with Nic Antoinette continues!

This time we’re talking about what it means to be “consistent” when you’re running a business in this economy.

We get into:

• How we simultaneously rage against consistency and attribute our success to it
• The relationship between consistency and cultivating trust with your audience
• Ways to build better (for you) rhythms in your business
• What to do when your launch plans line up with a major (horrible) event
• Why it’s important to get off the do-or-die, boom-or-bust, sell-or-go-bankrupt hamster wheel
• Cute baby sheep, gardening and cooking as tiny balms for the present moment

 
LINKS MENTIONED:

• Nic’s newsletter on the baby sheep
• Amelia’s Gentle Business Planning workshop
• Needy by Mara Glatzel (affiliate link)
• Jen Carrington
• Off the Grid episode: Nice, Necessary, Ideal framework
• Off the Grid episode: How to plan a summer sabbatical in 5 simple steps
• COME TO CLASS earlybird list
• COOK90 (affiliate link)

   
RESOURCES + LINKS
👋 Download the FREE Leaving Social Media Toolkit
🌐 Get on the Interweb waitlist for courses + community
💓 Join the Clubhouse for more episodes + emails
📔 Buy Amelia's book at yourattentionissacred.com!
 

  
FREE GIFTS OF THE WEEK

❊ Rebel Archetype Assessment from Meg Kissack

❊ Standout Reinventions series on Substack from Kevin Chung

❊ Enter to win a free monthly website review from Ana Luísa

❊ More free resources from Close Biz Friends!

🌟 Join COME TO CLASS — a 3-day intensive on how to teach online with confidence & care. Rescheduled for June 4th, 5th & 6th. Learn more & sign up here: https://softersounds.notion.site/come-to-class

If you want to build a business around your know-how…

You have to learn how to teach.

In today’s episode, I’m talking about why learning to teach is the best sales “hack” I know — and I’m introducing you to my upcoming spring intensive, COME TO CLASS.

In just 30 minutes, I walk you through:

• Why online courses aren’t ‘dead’ or ‘over’
• How to figure out what you want to teach
• What you need to know about boundaries before you start teaching
• Ideas for nonhierarchical and nonlinear classrooms
• Why writing a syllabus is like writing a sales page
• & more!

Tune in then drop your email right here for access to earlybird pricing through May 1st. Can’t wait to see you in class!

 
RESOURCES + LINKS
👋 Download the FREE Leaving Social Media Toolkit
🌐 Get on the Interweb waitlist for courses + community
💓 Join the Clubhouse for more episodes + emails
📔 Buy Amelia's book at yourattentionissacred.com!
 

  
FREE GIFTS OF THE WEEK

❊ Rebel Archetype Assessment from Meg Kissack

❊ Standout Reinventions series on Substack from Kevin Chung

❊ Enter to win a free monthly website review from Ana Luísa

❊ More free resources from Close Biz Friends!

🌟 Join COME TO CLASS — a 3-day intensive on how to teach online with confidence & care. Rescheduled for June 4th, 5th & 6th. Learn more & sign up here: https://softersounds.notion.site/come-to-class

Today I’m very excited to share a workshop on gentle business planning — AKA how I make ambitious plans for my biz while also healing my burnout!
 
In this audio (and video!) workshop, I walk you through:

• Why we’re always planning (even when we think we’re “behind”)
• My 6 tenets for Gentle Business Planning
• List-making prompts for the season ahead in your work
• How to turn reflective prompts into a clear marketing & sales calendar
• & How I use the Nine To Kind Digital planner to organize my projects

 
Tune in here to hear my 6 tenets of Gentle Business Planning. Then head to the Clubhouse to enjoy the entire workshop. The recording is free for everyone this week only and available to paid Clubhouse supporters forever. 

Paid subscribers also get an edited audio version of the workshop AND a Notion doc with all the prompts to make this process super easy to do any time.

 
So press play for a preview, then head to the Clubhouse to support the show! You can find this specific episode here :)

This is probably my fave conversation I’ve ever had with a therapist.

Today Lauren Ruth Martin, LPC-MHSP is here to talk about the anti-perfectionist planners she created for her company Nine to Kind.

We discuss:

• Why most planners force us into a productivity mindset
• How gentle scaffolding can help us plan without perfectionism
• The therapeutic exercises Lauren included in her planners
• Why we prefer DBT to CBT personally
• How to redistribute your f*cks — instead of trying to care less

 
If you enjoy our conversation, make sure to explore Nine to Kind planners! Get 50% off digital planners with code OFFTHEGRID50 & 25% off analog products with code OFFTHEGRID25. Learn more & claim your discount at: ninetokind.com/pages/offthegrid

 
 
RESOURCES + LINKS
👋 Download the FREE Leaving Social Media Toolkit
🌐 Get on the Interweb waitlist for courses + community
💓 Join the Clubhouse for more episodes + emails
💫 RSVP for the 2026 Astro & Biz Planning Summit

  
FREE GIFTS OF THE WEEK

❊ Rebel Archetype Assessment from Meg Kissack

❊ Standout Reinventions series on Substack from Kevin Chung

❊ Enter to win a free monthly website review from Ana Luísa

❊ More free resources from Close Biz Friends!

🌟 Join COME TO CLASS — a 3-day intensive on how to teach online with confidence & care. Rescheduled for June 4th, 5th & 6th. Learn more & sign up here: https://softersounds.notion.site/come-to-class

We talk a lot about privacy at Off the Grid… but what does that actually mean in practice?

Today I’m joined by Patricia Egger, Head of Security at my fave privacy-focused tech company Proton. 

Together, we have a non-technical-person-friendly conversation about:

• Why Proton insists on ‘privacy by default’
• The difference between online privacy & security
• Why we love Proton Mail & want you to use it (affiliate link)
• What it actually means when emails/messages are encrypted
• Proton’s Born Private initiative (& how to claim a $1 email address for your kids)
• Why AI has major privacy problems

 
RESOURCES + LINKS
👋 Download the FREE Leaving Social Media Toolkit
🌐 Get on the Interweb waitlist for courses + community
💓 Join the Clubhouse for more episodes + emails
🙅‍♀️ I wanna help you leave Gmail with this workshop 👉 OPT OUT:  5 Steps to Break Up with Big Tech Today

  
FREE GIFTS OF THE WEEK

❊ Rebel Archetype Assessment from Meg Kissack

❊ Standout Reinventions series on Substack from Kevin Chung

❊ Enter to win a free monthly website review from Ana Luísa

❊ More free resources from Close Biz Friends!

🌟 Join COME TO CLASS — a 3-day intensive on how to teach online with confidence & care. Rescheduled for June 4th, 5th & 6th. Learn more & sign up here: https://softersounds.notion.site/come-to-class

Today I’m resharing my conversation with writer, therapist, and creative Lisa Olivera in honor of her upcoming book — When the Ache Remains: Lessons on Tending to the Unfixable and Finding Beauty Anyway— which is out on April 28th. 

Lisa and I talk about how her work and life changed as her Instagram platform grew to over 400,000 followers. Together, we dive into:

• Two reasons Lisa joined Instagram + how it felt as her account grew
• The allure of online business + what we’re “supposed to do” when we have a big platform
• Social media addiction + the compulsion to post/like/share/scroll
• Facing the big hole that’s there when social media’s not there
• How to make the choice to stay on social media

If you enjoy this episode, please preorder Lisa's book! Here's my affiliate link, and here's more info on her website.

 
 
RESOURCES + LINKS
👋 Download the FREE Leaving Social Media Toolkit
🌐 Get on the Interweb waitlist for courses + community
💓 Join the Clubhouse for more episodes + emails
📔 Buy Amelia's book at yourattentionissacred.com!
 

  
FREE GIFTS OF THE WEEK

❊ Rebel Archetype Assessment from Meg Kissack

❊ Standout Reinventions series on Substack from Kevin Chung

❊ Enter to win a free monthly website review from Ana Luísa

❊ More free resources from Close Biz Friends!

🌟 Join COME TO CLASS — a 3-day intensive on how to teach online with confidence & care. Rescheduled for June 4th, 5th & 6th. Learn more & sign up here: https://softersounds.notion.site/come-to-class

Today I'm answering a question from Kate Henry about why summits often feel sketchy... and how I designed our upcoming Astro & Biz Planning Summit to be the opposite of that!

Tune in to learn:

• How the summit model works  ⚡️
• Why affiliate strategies can make summits feel weird  🧐
• The questions I ask before agreeing to participate in any event  🙋‍♀️
• How to make sure a summit benefits the host, speakers AND audience  ♻️
• & Why you should RSVP for the Astro & Biz Planning Summit ASAP (if you want to)  🤗

 
 
RESOURCES + LINKS
👋 Download the FREE Leaving Social Media Toolkit
🌐 Get on the Interweb waitlist for courses + community
💓 Join the Clubhouse for more episodes + emails
📔 Buy Amelia's book at yourattentionissacred.com!
 

  
FREE GIFTS OF THE WEEK

❊ Rebel Archetype Assessment from Meg Kissack

❊ Standout Reinventions series on Substack from Kevin Chung

❊ Enter to win a free monthly website review from Ana Luísa

❊ More free resources from Close Biz Friends!

🌟 Join COME TO CLASS — a 3-day intensive on how to teach online with confidence & care. Rescheduled for June 4th, 5th & 6th. Learn more & sign up here: https://softersounds.notion.site/come-to-class