Off The Grid: Leaving Social Media

“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