Off the Grid: Leaving Social Media

When I self-published my first book in 2018, I thought the process was quite simple. But this go-round I hit a few roadblocks… and there were months where I worried that this book might never hit your proverbial (or literal) shelves.

In this episode, I pick up where I left you back in March — having decided to self-publish my book and needing to finish the manuscript. Then I take you all the way through the design process and up to my current launch strategy. 

Tune in to this free preview to learn:

• Why I paid a book designer… then DIY’d it anyway
• How I prevailed through IngramSpark’s Book Building software
• Refusing to work with Amazon in the process
• And how Lexi Merritt helped me figure out my launch strategy!

To hear the whole episode, join the Clubhouse at offthegrid.fun/clubhouse

When you do, you'll get access to over 30 bonus episodes (and counting), curated tech + creative business newsletters, and more. Plus your own private podcast feed, comments threads, and behind-the-scenes updates on the show.

Please join the Clubhouse to support the show! And find this specific episode here :)

Welcome to an episode unlike any other!

Today I'm joined by Melissa Wong of Coherence Studio for a live advising session where I help her work through the age-old question: "how do I really grow my business without social media?"

Then she turns the mic around on me to dig into how Off the Grid has actually grown — and what you can learn from that process.

Tune in as we get super honest and explore:

• Two ways we build legacy in our businesses
• How popularity wounds surface in our marketing
• Looking to other business owners as models for our work
• How Off the Grid has changed as its grown
• Why your intuition is necessary for business survival
• What relationship marketing strategies are working in 2025
• Why Melissa wants to be on social media & if she’s going to leave IG

 
 📘 A more joyful business is within reach. Get your copy of Free Time: Lose the Busywork, Love Your Business by Jenny Blake today at itsfreetime.com/book (sponsored)

RESOURCES + LINKS

👋 Download the FREE Leaving Social Media Toolkit

🌐 Get on the Interweb waitlist for creative business courses + community

💓 Join the Clubhouse for bonus episodes + emails

 
OCTOBER COMMUNITY SPONSOR:
✨ Stop scrolling and start shuffling. Come home to your mind, body, and business with Be With Your Body Tarot. Get 25% off the deck and/or autumn planner with code OFFTHEGRID at: bewithyourbody.com/off-the-grid

Welcome to Paradigm Shift Summer! 😎

This month on the podcast, we're rooting into radical change with ease, softness, and poolside vibes.

Today I'm taking you behind-the-scenes of my business and sharing 3 ways I'm releasing 2025-so-far and gently redesigning my work/life this summer.

I'll guide you through the deep shifts and practical actions I have planned — all with the goal of having a more simple, specific, and spiritual business by the fall.

Tune in to get inspired, and then join me for OPT OUT to do your own reinventing this summer!

RESOURCES + LINKS

👋 Download the FREE Leaving Social Media Toolkit

🌐 Get on the Interweb waitlist for creative business courses + community

💓 Join the Clubhouse for bonus episodes + emails

 
OCTOBER COMMUNITY SPONSOR:
✨ Stop scrolling and start shuffling. Come home to your mind, body, and business with Be With Your Body Tarot. Get 25% off the deck and/or autumn planner with code OFFTHEGRID at: bewithyourbody.com/off-the-grid

I’m not a fan of the #girlboss. But I am a fan of women who build wildly successful businesses. And I especially appreciate when they offer eyes-open advice about what it really took to get there.

Today on the show, I’m joined by Sam Vander Wielen, a lawyer-turned-entrepreneur who’s built a multi-seven-figure online business through consistently $100k+ funnels and launches.

While income claims like that typically make me roll my eyes… Sam is such an smart, honest, and candid business owner that I just had to ask her a million questions about how her business really works.

So if you’ve ever wanted a values-aligned look into a seven-figure business, you’ll definitely want to tune in. We talk about:

• The relationship between trauma and high-achievement
• How social media helped Sam grow her business
• Clarifying the stages of awareness in your marketing
• Clearing fear around the legal aspects of small business
• How Sam handles hate mail and mean messages
• The realities of Sam’s $300k+ launches
• Why you need a copy of Sam’s new book

 
 
RESOURCES + LINKS

👋 Download the FREE Leaving Social Media Toolkit

🌐 Get on the Interweb waitlist for creative business courses + community

💓 Join the Clubhouse for bonus episodes + emails

 
OCTOBER COMMUNITY SPONSOR:
✨ Stop scrolling and start shuffling. Come home to your mind, body, and business with Be With Your Body Tarot. Get 25% off the deck and/or autumn planner with code OFFTHEGRID at: bewithyourbody.com/off-the-grid

I started my self-employment journey by freelancing… but somehow I’ve never talked about it on the pod!

So today I’m joined by Sarah Jutras of Huzzah Studio and Freelance for Life to dive into how to build a freelance career and/or land a few gigs to make ends meet.

Together we unpack a few common Qs, including:

• What is freelancing? 🤺
• Who is freelancing good for? 💼
• How can I land my first freelance gig? 😎
• And is it really possible to turn freelancing into a sustainable career? 🧐

I also ask Sarah my burning question: “Is freelancing only lucrative if you work in tech?” And she has a great answer. Tune in to hear it!

RESOURCES + LINKS

👋 Download the FREE Leaving Social Media Toolkit

🌐 Get on the Interweb waitlist for creative business courses + community

💓 Join the Clubhouse for bonus episodes + emails

 
OCTOBER COMMUNITY SPONSOR:
✨ Stop scrolling and start shuffling. Come home to your mind, body, and business with Be With Your Body Tarot. Get 25% off the deck and/or autumn planner with code OFFTHEGRID at: bewithyourbody.com/off-the-grid

When my business becomes overwhelming, I turn my focus to my systems.

Why? Because systems are the how of everything I do in my work and life. I have a system for doing my laundry, a system for checking my inbox, and a system for making this podcast.

And even when I have no system for doing something… that’s still a no-system system!

Designing my systems with myself in mind has made my life so much better. And I really want that for you too!

So this week on the podcast, I’m joined by brigitte, a neurodivergent systems witch who’s here to help us all get through our work day with more ease.

Tune in to learn:

• What systems are & who needs them
• How to design systems that serve us instead of the status quo
• Examples of systems from brigitte & Amelia’s businesses
• How we can embed our values in our systems
• Brigitte’s 7-step process for creating your own systems!

  
⚡️ Build a profitable, in-demand business in a way that feels energetically sustainable. Get this FREE masterclass from Human Design & Business Coach Bryn Brown: The Secrets to Soulful Success (sponsored)

RESOURCES + LINKS

👋 Download the FREE Leaving Social Media Toolkit

🌐 Get on the Interweb waitlist for creative business courses + community

💓 Join the Clubhouse for bonus episodes + emails

 
OCTOBER COMMUNITY SPONSOR:
✨ Stop scrolling and start shuffling. Come home to your mind, body, and business with Be With Your Body Tarot. Get 25% off the deck and/or autumn planner with code OFFTHEGRID at: bewithyourbody.com/off-the-grid

2025 has been a year of pivots, restarts, and beginning again. So this week on the pod, we’re talking about reinventing yourself and your website!

To do that, I’m joined by yoga-teacher-turned-meditation-studio-owner-turned-designer Anita Cheung AKA Neets!

Anita has pivoted business topics, models and personal brands many times over the past decade, and she’s here to share the lessons she’s learned, as well as to offer practical advice for adapting our virtual presence as we evolve.

Tune in to hear about:

• Anita’s biggest lessons learned from starting over multiple times
• Ways to embrace change and up-level your failure tolerance
• How to reinvent yourself when you want to…
• …VS How to pivot when it’s forced on you by hard times
• Whether or not you should brand yourself as your name
• & a HUGE permission slip to abandon your niche

 
Then in the second half of the episode, Anita teaches us her Top 10 Tips to Elevate Your Brand & Website. It’s a branding & web masterclass you won’t want to miss, just for Off the Grid listeners!
 
⚡️ Build a profitable, in-demand business in a way that feels energetically sustainable. Get this FREE masterclass from Human Design & Business Coach Bryn Brown: The Secrets to Soulful Success (sponsored)

RESOURCES + LINKS

👋 Download the FREE Leaving Social Media Toolkit

🌐 Get on the Interweb waitlist for creative business courses + community

💓 Join the Clubhouse for bonus episodes + emails

 
OCTOBER COMMUNITY SPONSOR:
✨ Stop scrolling and start shuffling. Come home to your mind, body, and business with Be With Your Body Tarot. Get 25% off the deck and/or autumn planner with code OFFTHEGRID at: bewithyourbody.com/off-the-grid

Welcome to Off the Grid CPG edition! 🍜

Today on the show, I’m joined by Molly Clark of Taking Stock Foods to talk about farmers’ markets, food retail, and the realities of consumer product goods businesses.

Molly is the co-founder and CEO of Taking Stock Foods, a functional beverage company based in St. Paul, MN. She is dedicated to being a leader in the conscious food movement, supporting and uplifting other founders in the maker space through intentional vulnerability and authentic connection.

Tune in to our conversation to learn:

• Molly’s lessons from selling at farmers’ markets
• The realities of getting shelf space in major retailers like Whole Foods
• How to cultivate a sustainable cofounder relationship
• Pros & cons of selling products through Amazon
• More about COGs, MOQs, UGC and all the retail acronyms
• & How Taking Stock Foods is changing their product line & pivoting away from IRL retail in 2025!

 
This episode is full of wisdom for anyone in the food and/or retail spaces. And it’s also a great listen for those of us in other industries who love to learn from values-aligned peers!

💓 Biz friend links from Molly: Kate LaBrosse, Lip Esteem, SJC Body Love, Mazaah, Heti

RESOURCES + LINKS

👋 Download the FREE Leaving Social Media Toolkit

🌐 Get on the Interweb waitlist for creative business courses + community

💓 Join the Clubhouse for bonus episodes + emails

 
OCTOBER COMMUNITY SPONSOR:
✨ Stop scrolling and start shuffling. Come home to your mind, body, and business with Be With Your Body Tarot. Get 25% off the deck and/or autumn planner with code OFFTHEGRID at: bewithyourbody.com/off-the-grid

Popping in with a behind-the-scenes bonus episode — where Jen Carrington and I pull back the curtain on everything that's been messy, feel-bad, and chaotic in our businesses this year!

We talk about exactly how much our revenue is down, the problems we've diagnosed with our marketing and messaging, and what we're focusing on to stay in business through 2025 and beyond.

Tune in to feel seen, heard, and (hopefully) less alone. 💓

If you enjoy the episode, make sure to grab Jen's free Design Your Part-Time Business Model toolkit. Then get the recording of my class where we explored How to Run Your Creative Business in Slow Times!

RESOURCES + LINKS

👋 Download the FREE Leaving Social Media Toolkit

🌐 Get on the Interweb waitlist for creative business courses + community

💓 Join the Clubhouse for bonus episodes + emails

 
OCTOBER COMMUNITY SPONSOR:
✨ Stop scrolling and start shuffling. Come home to your mind, body, and business with Be With Your Body Tarot. Get 25% off the deck and/or autumn planner with code OFFTHEGRID at: bewithyourbody.com/off-the-grid

We talk about community all the time on this show. But what does it actually look like when relationships change the trajectory of your creative career?

In this episode, I’m joined by Lauren LoGrasso to unpack all the relationships that led her to her current roles as an award-winning podcaster, producer of We Can Do Hard Things, and VP of Programming and Development at Audacy.

Those relationships range from a random guy in Indiana to the agent who dumped her when she moved to LA to her “radio Jesus” who opened the door to everything Lauren is doing today.

Tune in as we map how a creative career is built in real-time. You’ll hear all about:

• How Lauren landed an internship on the Ellen show & the slump that followed her early success
• Why it’s important to learn all the angles of your job
• How Lauren nurtures & unleashes her creativity
• Amelia’s dance between being practical & being delusional
• Why we have to stop rebranding disappointment as failure
• Two ways to reclaim your voice from “creative monsters”
     

And stay tuned to the end where Lauren guides us through a self-love + inner child healing practice!

RESOURCES + LINKS

👋 Download the FREE Leaving Social Media Toolkit

🌐 Get on the Interweb waitlist for creative business courses + community

💓 Join the Clubhouse for bonus episodes + emails

 
OCTOBER COMMUNITY SPONSOR:
✨ Stop scrolling and start shuffling. Come home to your mind, body, and business with Be With Your Body Tarot. Get 25% off the deck and/or autumn planner with code OFFTHEGRID at: bewithyourbody.com/off-the-grid