Off the Grid: Leaving Social Media

By Softer SoundsBusiness Entrepreneurship Technology

Off the Grid: Leaving Social Media episodes

October 23, 2024🧿 How to Cultivate Creative Resilience — with Pascale Coté
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.

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:
What creative resilience is
How to expand your window of tolerance in business
Common creative blocks to work with — like perfectionism, procrastination, self-sabotage & more
How social media causes creative blocks
Ways to redefine success & measure it differently
Navigating positive & negative feedback
The importance of pacing ourselves & our expectations
Additional resources from Pascale ♡

📲 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)
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
1 hr 2 min
October 16, 2024🔑 Social Media Boundaries & Success on Substack — with Dacy Gillespie
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.

Together, we talk about:
The high-stress worlds of music, teaching, arts admin & academia
Why Dacy started working in fashion — even though she felt like a total outsider
The role that Instagram plays in Dacy’s business
How Dacy has right-sized her business for her capacity
Ways to navigate the highs & lows of a fluctuating client load
Why Dacy started her Substack newsletter & how it’s grown to over 10,000 subscribers
How to market your work when you hate the feeling of selling yourself
“is it possible to be an ethical influencer?”

📲 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)

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
1 hr 6 min
October 09, 2024🤖 Getting Out of Your Algorithm — with Kate Smalley
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 is
How algorithms function on social media
Why it feels like "The Algorithm" is working against us
Collaborating with algorithms for expanded possibilities
How it feels to be stuck in your algorithm & ways to get unstuck
Our fave non-algorithmically-mediated spaces
Mentioned in the episode: Algorithms by Panos Louridas, The Social Dilemma, Are.na, Sublime, Readwise

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
49 min
October 07, 2024 🔒 That Time I Almost Became a Youtuber...
This is a free preview of a paid episode — where I share a behind-the-scenes recap of how I decided to start a new podcast…
Including how much time I spent almost becoming a Youtuber...
Then almost launching a Substack...
Then almost abandoning my idea altogether…
Before I remembered that it all started with a simple idea for a public sharing practice.
Tune in to come along for the ride and consider how easy it is take on a platform’s goals — instead of following our own desires.
And 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 :)
10 min
October 02, 2024🔮 How to Build an Intuitive Business — with Michelle Pellizzon Lipsitz of Holisticism
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 dance
Evolving from newsletter to booking platform to online courses & community
The 4 Pillars of Intuitive Business
The realities of Radical Generosity
Why some ideas aren't meant to be businesses
Exactly how Michelle markets her paid membership, The North Node
Why Holisticism moved their newsletter + podcast to Substack
The magic of the low-cost class as lead magnet
How Michelle has grown (& shrunk) her team over the past 5 years
Planning a self-employed maternity leave
The meeting creep & how to correct it
Navigating chronic illness & family emergencies as a business owner
How Michelle organizes her offerings
Running multiple businesses at once
& so much more!

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
1 hr 6 min
September 25, 2024🌈 Self-Employment is a Spectrum
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 take
Why black-and-white thinking about work is never supportive
How to expand your sense of how you can make money
One of my regrets from my first year in business
& way more — all in less than 30 minutes!

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
25 min
September 18, 2024👩‍🌾 “The Plants Made Me Do It” — Leaving Instagram with Liz Migliorelli of Sister Spinster
“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)

Together, we talk about:
The benefits of being in the right place at the right time
How Liz shifts her business model between products & classes
What our approach to marketing has in common with herbalism
The clarifying gifts of nettle
Why we need to get out of our online echo chambers
Creating clear, kind systems that support your work as you grow
How Liz prepared her business/self to make less money this year

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
1 hr 12 min
September 11, 2024 🌾 Sacred Labor, Small Business & Anti-Capitalism — with Megan Leatherman
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!

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

52 min
September 09, 2024🔒 How I Manage Having 3 Brands & 4 Podcasts...
This is a free preview of a paid episode — where I talk about how I connect the many projects I work on, and the brand containers I use to organize my creative energy.
Tune in to hear about:
The relationships between my personal brand, Softer Sounds, and Off the Grid
Reflections on parasocial relationships
& How I keep my private life private even when I’m sharing a ton online

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 :)
7 min
September 04, 2024 👀 How to Be Seen Off Social Media — Visibility & Bias with N. Chloé Nwangwu
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!

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

57 min

About Off the Grid: Leaving Social Media

From the publisher's feed

Off the Grid is a podcast for artists, writers & creative business owners who want to leave social media without losing all their income. ✌️ Our host, Amelia Hruby PhD, shares stories, strategies…