♾️ “You Needing Money Doesn't Make Stuff Sell” — Consistency & Collapse in Online Business with Nic Antoinette

Amelia HrubyHey there, off the grid listeners. Amelia here popping in before this episode with a special announcement. Come to class, which is my three day workshop intensive, where I will teach you how to teach and sell online with competence and care, has been rescheduled for June fourth, fifth, and sixth. You probably heard me talking about it here on the podcast in May, and I had to push the dates because my beloved dog, Zoe, sadly passed away the week that come to class was going to happen, and I just couldn't teach in those immediate moments of grief. So I rescheduled come to class for the beginning of June, and I added even more support if you'd like to join us.

Amelia HrubySo this is just a very quick message to invite you to head to the show notes and check out come to class. You have until the end of May to sign up. It's going to be a great time. And since it had to be rescheduled, you can still join. Again, head to the link in the show notes to sign up.

Amelia HrubyNow, let's get into this episode.

Speaker 1Okay. Let's go off the grid. Okay. Let's go off the grid. Okay.

Speaker 1I know that you really wanna put your phone away. Yeah. Okay. Okay. I know that you really wanna put your phone away.

Speaker 1Yeah. Let's go off the grid.

Amelia HrubyHello, and welcome to Off the Grid,

Amelia Hrubya podcast about leaving social media without losing all your clients that is also about how to be a person and a small business owner in the world these days, which feels like a more and more fraught subject every time I bring it up here on the show. But before we go there, I'm your host, Amelia Ruby. And today, you have tuned in to a very special series that we have here on the podcast, where I have monthly ish conversations with my dear friend, Nick Antoinette, who is also a tiny business owner, who is a writer and long distance hiker, and as you will soon hear, a mother to two sheep. So in these monthly ish episodes, we unpack what our lives and work have been like over the past few weeks, and we get into some of the topics that we're really seeing and feeling as small business owners online these days and more and more offline as it seems. So hi, Nick.

Amelia HrubyWelcome back to the podcast.

Nic AntoinetteThank you. This is my new favorite monthly thing to do.

Amelia HrubyOne of my best friendship hacks has been podcasting with my closest friends on a regular schedule. So I have this with you. I have my other monthly show with Taylor, and it's just a nice way to you know, you and I talk almost every day. But in the midst of your mundane life, you don't get into some of these, like, more structured or bigger topics sometimes. So I'm I'm really excited for what we have on deck today.

Nic AntoinetteMe too. It's also nice now that we have sort of a running list between us of potential things to add to the agenda for the following month's episode of it's like a a way to bookmark things that I want to talk about with you specifically that maybe we don't have time for, you know, on a Wednesday at 11AM or whatever.

Amelia HrubyYeah. Exactly. So before we get into all of that, how are

Amelia Hrubyyou right now? How has your week been or your past few weeks been?

Nic AntoinetteI am feeling my day to day life on what is, I guess, turning into a mini farm here where

Speaker 1I live.

Nic AntoinetteIt feels very full in a mostly enjoyable way, but, also, it's been pretty chaotic. So the week after we recorded our last episode, something I did not have on my 2026 bingo card was that I adopted an orphan baby sheep, and I wrote about this in my newsletter. So if people want details of how I how I came to have this sheep creature in my life, feel free to go check that out. But that has taken over my life, basically, having this sheep. And then once we decided to adopt the one sheep, they are social creatures, so she really needed a buddy.

Nic AntoinetteSo we were sort of just waiting to be able to get a second sheep. I mean, this is all, like, very new to me. I've gone on this intense crash course of how to keep baby sheep alive, which has been a very interesting learning experience. But just today, actually, a couple hours ago at the time that we're recording, we brought home the second sheep. So I now have two pet sheep, and it's feeling good, but, also, it's feeling like a lot, and spring garden stuff and just seemingly unending projects of house and land stewardship.

Nic AntoinetteSo all things that I want to do, but I feel like in the past month since we podcasted last, I haven't really had any chunks of what feel like really deep work time. It's I'm I'm doing, you know, thirty minutes of this and then thirty minutes of this. Like, I feel a little bit more fractured than is comfortable for me. I'd say that's part of how I'm doing right now is things in my immediate surroundings feel joyful, but, yeah, I feel kind of unfocused.

Amelia HrubyI also feel unfocused, and I've had a lot going on since we last spoke. It was my birthday and also my spouse's birthday, and I planned a lot of festivities for that this year. And so it's been one of kind of the busiest times in my personal life that I've had in quite a while. And that means that I haven't just been able to, like, plug away at work, which I most often do, you know, as someone who lives in a smaller city where I don't have a ton of friends, I don't have any human children, I don't have a lot of things I have to do other than whatever I wanna do that day. And so I typically spend a lot of time at work.

Amelia HrubyAnd over the past few weeks, it's like every day there's something that is pulling me out of the house for hours at a time, or I have to close my laptop by midafternoon. And it's actually been really interesting for me to be more in flow with life that I am with my work. I feel like normally I'm much more in flow with my work and my life kind of fills in around the edges of it. And experiencing the flip of that has been disorienting, but really nice as well.

Nic AntoinetteYeah. I feel like for me, there's sort of a both end of the chaotic feeling is very spring. I think we talked about this a bit last month too, just sort of embracing the chaotic energy, but I also feel like there's I'm feeling it not just in my immediate life, but also holding again the both end of this worsening energy crisis. And the feeling I'm having, which I think I said to you the other day, is the feeling of waiting for the other shoe to drop when the other shoe is guaranteed to drop, right, as far as price increases and shortages of things and supply chain stuff. And, obviously, we don't know how things are gonna look or how they're gonna play out, but I think this is a thing that a lot of people or everyone I know is thinking about.

Nic AntoinetteAnd, obviously, for me, writing a newsletter that is through the lens of collapse, it feels really, really, really present. And it's this fractured feeling again of, okay, bottle feed the baby sheep, and then kind of zoom out in my mind of, are we gonna be able to put gas in the car in however many months? Like this, it's just, it feels not only does it feel fractured and chaotic, I know I keep using those words, but what I keep telling myself is it's not supposed to feel different than that. Like, this is like, these are really intense things that we're living through. And so I'm trying not to give myself a hard time about the fact that it is a hard time, if that makes sense.

Amelia HrubyYeah. I think it makes perfect sense. And I think that, you know, I just got back from North Carolina where I was visiting my mother-in-law. But while I was there, I got to see a friend of mine since high school, and we're just, like, sort of reminiscing about what life was like in high school and the things we loved and what we thought our lives were gonna be like when we were in our mid thirties. And something that she just kept saying over and over again is that she's had this really deep realization that we grew up in a relative peace time, and now we're in a war time, and she doesn't feel like peace time is gonna come back in our lifetime necessarily.

Amelia HrubyAnd, like, what does it really mean to rebuild a life from that new perspective? And that's something I've been, you know, of course, also uncovering in conversations with you and learning about collapse and all of this, but there was something about talking to someone that I've known for such a long time who I see very rarely who was coming to that conclusion from, like, a with different language in a different way, but, like, we're still both landing in this place where it's, like, things are really hard, and that is how they are now. And so as the title of your newsletter suggests or asks, now what?

Nic AntoinetteYeah. So, I mean, obviously, you just mentioned that you had a full month and you celebrated a birthday and you did some travel, but how are you right now today?

Amelia HrubyYeah. Today, I am definitely tired. I am really grateful that I had anticipated this trip would be pretty emotionally and energetically taxing. We were visiting my mother-in-law to spread my father in law's ashes, like, a year after he had passed. So that's been a really big grief portal that's kind of been open with my spouse and their family, and so we went to North Carolina to do that with her.

Amelia HrubyAnd then when we got there, we ended up doing this whole process of, like, going through all the belongings in the house and shipping things back here. And it was actually less emotionally taxing than I expected, but more physically draining because I was not planning to literally, like, send seven heavy boxes of stuff through USPS back to my house on, like, a hot, sticky Monday morning in North Carolina, but we did it. And it made me really glad that I did not make any big plans for the rest of this week. So I flew home yesterday. Talking to you is the only thing I'm doing today.

Amelia HrubyTalking to one person I really like is the only thing I'm doing tomorrow. And then on Friday, I'm actually getting my Internet totally rerouted in my house. I will have no Internet, no work. And I think I plan to have a really restful weekend. So right now, I'm tired but proud of myself that I actually built in a rest break after this trip.

Amelia HrubyBecause if today, tomorrow, and Friday were full of calls, I think I would just be dreading it, and I'd have to reschedule, and I'd be exhausted. And I don't wanna be in that cycle anymore, so I'm really happy to not be.

Nic AntoinetteWell, congratulations on your preplan and what your past self did for current you. I feel like learning one's own rhythms with travel and with other things and being able to set your business up accordingly. I mean, you you got there a lot faster in your self employment journey than I did. I feel like that took me a full decade to be like, yes. I actually can't be at my absolute best at 07:00 in the morning after taking a red eye or so, you know, the things that we used to think that we could do.

Nic AntoinetteBut something else I've been thinking about is I feel like I'm gonna just keep mentioning these sheep, which is what it is. It's my whole life at this point.

Amelia HrubyThis is a sheep cast, lamb cast. We got it.

Nic AntoinetteRight. Lamb cast. Is I've been thinking about and reflecting on the particular fatigue of being a beginner at something, and I think this can be equally applicable in an online business situation if someone's in their first couple of years of business, especially, I'd say, the first year or two, that, yes, there was the crash course of learning what are the best practices for me to keep this baby sheep alive and take care of her and all of that, But then there's actually doing it and trying to problem solve on the fly. And when this comes up and I just feel like I'm making so many decisions every day that I don't feel qualified to make, but that I have to make them and there's no one else to make them other than me. And I feel like that in the garden sometimes of, well, is this enough water or should I add more water or do I need to thin them now?

Nic AntoinetteOr and, again, you can learn online or from, someone who's more experienced than you, but so much of it is you learn by doing, and that's great and beautiful and exactly how the learning process should go. And I find that there is fatigue from having to make all of those decisions and having to feel whatever the opposite of mastery is. Right? There's a certain degree of mental easefulness that comes with a degree of mastery, I think, that I am experiencing in multiple areas of my life right now, that fatigue of being a beginner, and that also leaves less time and energy for more of that deep focused work. So it's I've been sort of looking at that as well of, oh, I think oftentimes we don't give ourselves enough credit for how draining it is to be new at something.

Amelia HrubyYeah. Absolutely. I mean, I'm also going through this in my garden this year because my mom and I work in the garden together, and we grew tomatoes from seed this year. So we have these tomato plants that I'm trying to harden off, get out into the garden. And it's actually really nice to be doing it with someone else because I've noticed that each of us at different times will hit this point where we're like, we totally fucked it up.

Amelia HrubyThey're never gonna work. Like, we we each hit our, like, threshold of, like, too much beginnerness, too much unknown, complete collapse into, like, this just can't be a thing we do anymore. And the other person can kind of, like, keep it going for a while, and then the other person will circle back. And, but I think there's something about doing it with someone else that's made me really aware of, like, oh, I'm in the moment where, like, the unknown is too much here, and I'm too afraid that I'm gonna fuck it up. And it feels easier to just, like, not even do it anymore, to not try to throw out the seedlings than it does to just try to keep it going.

Amelia HrubyAnd we've made plenty of mistakes, which has also been part of it. Like, I had to totally restart a bunch of my seedlings. We definitely started them too early. Now they're like, they've been alive for too long, but they can't go in the garden yet. Like, it's so energetically taxing to me also because it's just like in the back burner of my mind.

Amelia HrubyI'm worrying about it all the time. With a new thing, it's like constant static or stress or something I find all the time.

Nic AntoinetteI mean, that's exactly how I feel about Rosie and Bella, the sheep, that I'm just like, they'll just constantly in my mind. And especially when I I mean, now that there's two of them, I think that's gonna be a lot better. But when Rosie was alone too, that I wanted to give her a lot of social interaction, a lot of outside time, and a lot of but when I'm doing that, it's beautiful. But then I also am not getting to any of the other things on the to do list. I feel like anyone who has human children who's listening to this is like, wow, this is old news.

Nic AntoinetteBut, and also, there's a reason that I didn't choose that path, you know? So there's also a degree of, like, this kind of hands on caretaking. It's very, very, very challenging. And I'm choosing it, obviously, and it's rewarding as well, but I find it incredibly stressful anyway.

Amelia HrubyYeah. But to bring it back to the business context, everything you said also resonates with me there because something I sort of knew when I was in the beginning years of being full time self employed, but is so clear to me now five years in, is, like, those first two years, getting my business up and running was really all about all I had the energy for. I could do that. I could sort of be a person inside of my home. Like, I could do some domestic responsibilities.

Amelia HrubyI could try to pay attention to my partner. But otherwise, like, the literal, like, labor it took to get my business up and running and to build systems that were sustainable or regenerative and to figure out how it worked and to get a clientele, like, that took everything I had. And I couldn't, like, be a beginner at other stuff while I was doing that. I didn't learn other skills. I just learned how to have a business.

Nic AntoinetteYeah. Something I think about a lot. I don't remember what the author's name was. I don't remember the context, but I read a blog post in, I wanna say, 2012 that was about this idea of oscillating obsessions as opposed to, like, quest for some kind of mythical balance that that was the obsession, so to speak, at that time for you was all in on the business. And if that is where the focus is going in really that outsized way, it's not forever.

Nic AntoinetteBut if that is what it is, don't try to add other things into it. Like, I think a lot about how, for me, it's less about time management or, like, time than it is about energetic capacity. And really, I have a tendency to undervalue or under recognize the energetic toll that something takes, and I can kinda get stuck in that loop of, you know, what's wrong with you that you're feeling so tired or what's and which is not a nice way to speak to oneself. And, yeah, I think that that idea of oscillating obsessions, there are gonna be periods of time or seasons where something is really outsized, and that's not a problem.

Amelia HrubyYeah. Yeah. Exactly. And I think that the reason I was able to focus on my business, and I try to say this as much as I can, like, the reason it's been able to become my full time job as quickly as it did in the ways that it has is because I have been a partner, now a spouse, who really has provided a lot of support during that time. And we're also going through that shift now.

Amelia HrubyNow JJ's job is much more taxing on them than my business is on me. And so now I've taken back all of the cleaning of the house, and, you know, we we've redistributed our responsibilities this year because how much energy each of us has is so different.

Nic AntoinetteYeah. This is making me think that a good homework assignment potentially is almost like spring cleaning or some kind of audit of your like an energy map or something, like whether that's from the lens of business or life and business of, am I getting the support that I need in this area? What would need to change? Have I committed to too many things? Which as I'm saying this, these all seem like, well, yeah, duh, think about that.

Nic AntoinetteBut oftentimes I don't, I tend to say yes or no to things in a vacuum and not really reflect on how much they touch the other things in my life. And if I say yes to thing a then, okay, I have a lot less energy for thing d or whatever, and just having a moment to step back and take more of that bird's eye view of what's happening in this season of life feels useful. So I think I will be perhaps doing that in a more focused way in the days after this conversation. So thanks. Thanks.

Amelia HrubyYes. It's like spring cleaning your energetic capacity and commitments is a different type of spring cleaning, but a really important one.

Nic AntoinetteSo that this makes me think of, I, many years ago, did business planning workshops with Mara Glatzel. And one of the things that I still think about all of the time from that was, like, grief anniversaries, and that wasn't really relevant for me at the time that that was happening. And, you know, I'm really noticing I mean, it's not anniversary right now. It's still really present, but I think I texted you the other day of I had gone to the store to get something for one of the sheep, had to go get a baby bottle to feed the second sheep. And it was I I felt like it was Mother's Day at me, that it was just like all the Mother's Day stuff had come out, and it really, really hit me in the dead mom way of I really had to go home and lay down about it, right, and just have all of my feelings.

Nic AntoinetteAnd that was just one I feel like I got knocked out for the whole day because I went to one store where it was a whole bunch of Mother's Day stuff. And that's just one small example of, I feel like, especially in I don't even know what to call this time where people like unprecedented times, uncertain times, wild times, painful time. What that all feels euphemistically but I think everyone in in this collapsing world or whatever that I guess I won't speak for anyone else. I feel more tender even than usual, or than I remember feeling five years ago, ten years ago. And it's just things can just hit really hard at different times and being able to try to at least have some systems in place for that.

Nic AntoinetteAnd also to be honest with ourselves about how that impacts our businesses, Because it does, like, I don't think that we can just continue making work at this borderline robotic pace in the face of personal and or collective catastrophe And the act not just the expectation that we do that, but unfortunately, capitalism's requirement oftentimes that we do that, it feels really inhumane to me. It feels really cruel.

Amelia HrubyYeah. I think that just to sort of offer one more resource, wrap that into our next question. For folks who want to touch in with their capacity and their business planning, I did just teach the gentle business planning workshop inside of the astrology summit that I hosted with others in April, and that recording is live for free inside the clubhouse. I'll leave it up for another week if folks wanna touch back into it because, basically, what it goes through is sort of my gentle business planning process that tries really hard to take into account both our, like, desired feeling states, the priorities in our work, and our actual capacity. And, like, what what is going to impact our capacity when we're making plans, pulling those things in.

Amelia HrubyAnd I remember when we got to that section of the workshop live, I was like, okay. We're planning for May. What's gonna happen in May, friends? And everyone was like, oh, graduations and parent visits and travel and all this stuff. And then everyone was like, oh, I need to take approximately eight things off of the list I just made of what I think I can do this month.

Amelia HrubyAnd that definitely stood out to me. And so for folks listening, if you wanna do your own sort of energetic accounting in the realm of your business, I'll link that in the show notes if you wanna go watch that workshop. It's always there for Clubhouse members. It's free for everyone for another week. And it's my attempt to share some of the things that I have learned over this time of trying to be a human with a business and also just guide us all through a gentler planning process.

Amelia HrubyI also love Mara's work, and we'll link her book, Needy, in the show notes because it's a really great place to sort of grapple with energetic capacity and add like, Mara talked about it a lot as a parent, which is a lens that the two of us can't bring in. And so I think it's another really beautiful place to think about all of this. On the same topic, one of the things that we wanted to discuss today is consistency. And I have such mixed feelings about this, and I'm really excited to talk to you about it because I both rage against consistency and attribute a lot of my success to it. And so it's a pretty fraught thing for me to discuss, but I love to just sort of open with a general question that I'll pose to you and then can answer myself.

Amelia HrubyLike, what does quote unquote being consistent mean to you in your work?

Nic AntoinetteI feel so much of the push pull that you just mentioned. Right? The raging against consistency for the reasons that I mentioned before of consistency at all costs is not the answer. We are not machines. We are not robots.

Nic AntoinetteRight? All of that. And also, I feel like deciding to have a business, that decision means that you are opting into consistency at some level. Because without it, not to say that success isn't possible, but I think it's a lot less likely and or it takes a lot longer or is more subject to the completely unplannable whims of virality or luck or other things that I don't see and don't really have any examples in my fifteen plus years of self employment of knowing people that were able to build a business that supported their needs without being consistent. And I think consistent doesn't have to mean daily.

Nic AntoinetteIt doesn't have to mean weekly. There isn't a prescription for it. I think there are some industry norms, right? A weekly podcast, a weekly newsletter. I think that you can absolutely have success outside of that.

Nic AntoinetteFor me, consistency is about doing the thing that I tell people publicly that I am going to do, like, 95% of the time. And that number is pulled out of nowhere that just you know, it's way more often than not that you do that thing. And so it's almost like stepping back into this energetic capacity conversation. It requires being honest with myself about what I actually can be consistent with and not promising more than that. Like, I really have learned that there needs to be slack in the system, that my business model can't be set up so that it only works when I'm at my absolute highest capacity, least stressed, most grounded, you know, when it's when I'm four days post bleed and it's a new moon.

Nic AntoinetteThat for me is like, let's go. Right? And so if my entire business is based off of, I have to be the Nick that I am on a new moon, you know, on a sunny day with the right amount of caffeine after a good workout four days post bleed, like that's a recipe for failure. Right? So it's, for me, a lot of it has been about creating a flow that suits who you are.

Nic AntoinetteI don't know, maybe 70% of the time, like what is the benchmark that you can clear really often? And so starting there, and it's always easier to add in things than to be like, I'm gonna publish this thing every day or every week or my experience with, because I've done so many different kinds of public facing creative work. Right? Writing projects of different kinds, years and years of podcasting. I mean, and when I had my first podcast, I wasn't interested in the weekly release model that I used to do sees like an eight episode season released all at once every few months, like the way that Netflix used to do it shows.

Nic AntoinetteAnd that worked really well for me to kind of have this period of intense making. And then there was the editing and then there would be, here you go. Here's these episodes. See you again in over many months. And that really worked for me.

Nic AntoinetteDo I know whether my listening stats would have been as high in another, but I didn't care. That's not, that wasn't the metric that I was going for. So I think that you can make it work in a lot of different ways. If you say I am sending a monthly email, if you say this is a quarterly email newsletter, right, it's it's less about what the frequency is than it is, I think, about building trust with your readers, listeners, customers, clients, audience, that I do think that trust is built over you showing up the way that you say that you're gonna show up over and over and over again, which that's where it gets sticky for me because I don't wanna say, okay, we'll do that even when your mom dies or even when you're sick or even when there's, like, there has to be room in there for being human. And so I think that that's part of the planning process is not about, are you ever gonna have to take unexpected time off, but about how were you going to communicate that to people when you have to, that having to do that doesn't go against consistency because the only way to be consistent, like I've had a public writing practice for what, eighteen years or something.

Nic AntoinetteDoesn't mean I haven't taken breaks, but I've definitely done it more often than not. And so I think there's part of long term consistency is having a reliable way to navigate the inconsistent times.

Amelia HrubyYeah. I really like that last point. I just keep thinking, as you're speaking and in my own work and practices, that, like, consistency is about cultivating a rhythm. And in the realm of business, it's about communicating that clearly to the people that you want to be in community with or to your audience. And I also really like, again, where you ended with that sort of long term view.

Amelia HrubyBecause I think that often, when we talk about consistency, we default to these certain norms, right, of a weekly podcast or a weekly newsletter. We sort of see what other people in a space are doing. We think that's the norm. That's what it means to be consistent. We do that.

Amelia HrubyAnd then if it doesn't actually align with our capacity, we burn out, and then we might, like, stop or bail or, like, disappear. And when you are zoomed in on that moment, it feels, like, hugely fraught. But if you do something for a very long time, you can zoom out and see, like, oh, you know, those six months where I didn't write doesn't actually mean so much when I've been writing for ten years as it does when I just started writing a month ago, and now I don't write for six months. And I think that consistency is so contextual, and I think it means something different, like depending on what you're looking at. Right?

Amelia HrubyThere's like, what does it mean to develop like a consistent embodiment or movement practice? What does it mean to develop a consistent creative practice? And then what does it mean to be consistent in your business? Because I also think like with the first two I mentioned, a movement practice, a creative practice, like, your consistency is happening between yourself and the practice. Like, it's for you.

Amelia HrubyBut when you're trying to run a business, as you pointed to, consistency is a way you build trust. And so being inconsistent in that realm where it's happening in public and it may impact the trust with your clients or potential customers, the stakes are a little higher to me there than they are if I just, like, you know, don't do the bike ride one day or, like, what you know, whatever it might be. Like, that's a conversation I get to have with myself. I don't have to have it with everybody listening to the podcast or something.

Nic AntoinetteAbsolutely. I think finding your rhythms takes time for sure. But I do think if you are opting into having a business, you are opting into that relationship or that with trust building, essentially. And I feel like some of the things that I wanna say, I'm like worried that it's gonna make me sound like an asshole. So I guess I'll just preface it with that.

Nic AntoinetteAnd then I'm I will keep going.

Amelia HrubyBut Trigger warning. We might be assholes.

Nic AntoinetteRight. Trigger warning.

Speaker 1Am I

Nic Antoinettethe asshole? Feel free to tell me if the answer is yes. Something that to me feels like an uncomfortable truth is that building up a business that again, success could mean different things to different people. Right? Success might be just getting your work out there.

Nic AntoinetteIt could be a certain amount of money, a certain amount of what whatever. But if if the metric is this pays all of my bills, right, let's say, which I think for a lot of people is what at least they're aiming toward or something that feels, you know, like a goal. There will be many times where you have to do a thing in your business that you aren't in the mood to do. And I think with the consistency and the energetic piece, it's like, I'm always trying to balance. Maybe it's like the left brain, right brain masculine energy, feminine energy.

Nic AntoinetteLike what, because obviously anyone who knows me knows that I'm not like pushed through at all costs, no matter what, like, and I can't only work on my business when I'm in the mood to work on my business and then be upset that I didn't, you know, it's, it's like, what's that quote, don't be upset with the results you didn't get from the work you didn't do. There is like a tension there that it's like being able to be in an honest enough ongoing conversation with yourself to understand the difference between like, I'm not really in the mood to do this versus, oh, I am operating out of my capacity every day, and this is not sustainable and I am going to burn out. And in that case, what has to happen? Right. But there's a difference between those two things.

Nic AntoinetteAnd there's so many times where I'm like, Ugh, I don't really want to sit down and write. And then I do when it feels good. Right. But so I, I think there's something in there that feels juicy to me.

Amelia HrubyBecause we don't currently have universal basic income or a social, you know, system that provides security. It means that we still have to labor, even if we're laboring for ourselves and our businesses sometimes. And I think you're just pointing out the nuance between, like, I can use literally my life today as an example. Like, I thought I was gonna get a bunch of things done on my to do list today. And I woke up this morning.

Amelia HrubyI was exhausted. I, like, walked the dog, drank some coffee, and then laid on the couch for three hours. So I was like, okay. What has to get done today? And is there anything here I really want to do?

Amelia HrubySo talking to you was something I wanted to do anyway. And the other thing I had to do is I was like, I have to send these welcome emails to new people who join the interweb this week because we have orientation Monday. I need them to know it's there so they actually come because that's really soon. And so I sat there. It took me twenty minutes to just sort of, you know, copy paste, change the names, add little greetings, and I sent them out.

Amelia HrubyAnd And I was like, this is the one thing I'll do today. I, like, I just prioritized. Would I rather have watched another episode of the, like, mystery show that I'm watching instead of sending those emails? Yes. That's what I would rather have done.

Amelia HrubyThat's what my, like, you know, dopamine seeking sleepy lizard brain wanted to do. But the part of me that, like, respects my business, wants it to do well, was able to do the one thing. Right? And I didn't push farther, but I still could do the one thing. And like, that's this type of conversation it's happening all the time.

Nic AntoinetteI think that also brings up something else that is interesting to me, which is consistency for the sake of consistency isn't necessarily worth anything, meaning being consistent. I don't wanna say at the wrong thing, but at a thing that doesn't really get you closer to whatever the goal is that you're trying to reach, you know, that, you know, you could post on social media every day. You could do such and such every week, but to what end? Right? I think sometimes the focus on growing certain metrics or various things like, well, I have to send an email every week because that's what has to but it's okay.

Nic AntoinetteWhat is that growing for you? And so in a reality of being a human person with limited energy and also with the reality, like you said, of not universal basic income, not having, you know, security, all of these things that, okay, what are the couple of things that either if you're really new to business, you believe will move the needle, or if you have experience, you have proof, you have passed, you know, evidence from your own business will move the needle, that those are the things that if you are consistent with that and not with these other three things, that it's gonna be fine. And so I do think that there is some Prioritization discernment, I think maybe is the word that I'm looking for that can be really useful because not every task or action or act of consistency has the same value. And the thing that would be most valuable consistently in your business is gonna be different than in my business, because we have really different businesses.

Amelia HrubyYes, absolutely. This is reminding me of

Amelia Hrubyone of the earliest episodes of Off the Grid. Like, episode four, maybe, I talked about the framework that I use to sort of prioritize things and to right size projects in my business. And the way I think about it is it's the necessary, nice, ideal framework. And so on any given day, it's like, what's necessary to do, what would be nice to get done, and what's ideal if my energy is awesome. So I do that to organize tasks in a day, but also to look at projects and say, like, what is the, you know, MVP necessary version of this?

Amelia HrubyWhat is the nice, okay, I got more done. What's the ideal? And I've been using that a lot lately because I haven't mentioned yet, but some of you will know I'm, like, selling two things at once right now. As we're recording this, interweb wait list is open, and so there is a daily, like, sales email campaign going out for that. And I opened the wait list for come to class this week, and I'm thrilled about both.

Amelia HrubyAnd honestly, they're both selling well, But because I was doing two at once, I could not do the ideal versions of those sales campaigns. Like, one of them is getting necessary. One of them is getting nice. I will not tell you which one is which. There are, like, 10 of you on both wait lists who will get all the emails, and you could decide for yourselves.

Amelia HrubyBut, you know, it was sort of like, I can't do everything, but I also wasn't willing to give up one or the other. And that's part of why I'm sleepy this week is because I am, you know, doing a lot at once. But I think that I will also link that episode in the show notes for folks if you're like, how do I prioritize? And also if you're really a beginner listening to this, this is where, like, working with someone who has more experience coming into the interweb or, you know, joining our friend Jen Carrington's simple and spacious business program, like, other people can help you see what they would prioritize. You can take that as an input to, like, okay.

Amelia HrubyIf you say you want this, people who have experience getting there can say, well, these are the things that move the needle for me. Mhmm. And also, like, where you ended, Nick, like, it's not the same for everybody. Like, plenty of people have told me that I could be less consistent with the podcast, but their businesses aren't built around a podcast like mine is. And so it's actually, I think, for my specific business, really important that off the grid is at least weekly, at least one episode per week.

Amelia HrubyAll of you noticing I'm doing two or three a week. That's all bonus. That's me operating in, you know, nice and ideal land, but once a week is necessary for me. When people tell me I don't need to do it, I'm like, no, that's not actually true in my specific business at this point in time.

Nic AntoinetteIt's an interesting question of what's the heart of your business. And obviously, you know, as we've talked about in the past couple episodes, I've scaled my business back back to be just the heart of it. Right? The newsletter is in fact the entire business.

Amelia HrubyThere's no more organs.

Nic AntoinetteRight? There's no more organs. We are just a beating heart. That wasn't always the case, but the newsletter, like the writing was always the heart of the business. I knew that that was true.

Nic AntoinetteEven when I had a podcast, the writing was the heart of the business, you know? And so knowing that is really useful because that can help you. And, you know, I think if for some reason you were to make a decision that you wanted off the grid to be every other week and you were consistent with that, I think the majority of people would stick around. Right? And so it's like, it's, it's also about what feels correct to you and giving people time to transition to whatever the new flow is because more is not always better.

Nic AntoinetteThat all of a sudden, if you were doing daily episodes, I'm sure there's a

Amelia Hrubylot of people who would

Nic Antoinettebe like, bro, this is too much.

Amelia HrubyOh, yeah. Even now, there are people where the the I've scaled up too fast for them. And I think that what's coming up here though is like pacing too. It's like sometimes doing more does get you where you wanna go faster, and sometimes it doesn't. But it's a really delicate thing to figure that out.

Amelia HrubyLike, I think that sometimes we just get told to do more and more, and then all of a sudden you're doing daily episodes and people are exhausted and you're not making any more money anyway, if that's your end goal. But I have I am definitely making more money when I do two episodes a week. And it's interesting. That's a correlation, not a causation, but that's a noticing that I have this year. And in May, I'm scaling back to one episode a week because I can't keep it up anyway.

Amelia HrubyDoesn't matter if I'm making more money. I like, I have to slow down for myself. So it feels very all tangled up together a bit for me.

Nic AntoinetteBut I I like this as a conversation because I feel like what we're doing is underscoring that there's no right answer here and that every person in every business will go through phase shifts. It's like, I think there's this tendency or there can be this tendency to be like, all I have to do is find the the best business model or the one way for me, and then I'll never have to make another decision again because I will just do this. Like, I think that was what a lot of the big launch evergreen, you know, funnel product thing promised. Right? If you just create the one signature course that is the perfect thing and do these three things, then capital p passive income, essentially.

Nic AntoinetteRight? And I think most of that's nonsense. So really looking at, again, what feels good to you, because that's that's the other thing that I I'm thinking about this from an athletic training context, that it's like, The best training plan is the one you'll actually do. So if someone were to say, okay, here is the most complete, most ideal, most there, but if I'm gonna find that overwhelming and therefore not do anything, that's not the right plan for me. And the same is gonna be true for any of this other stuff.

Nic AntoinetteAnd, you know, I also think there is some degree of trusting your own intuition. I think it's the both end of what you said of talking to people more experienced. But for you, you know that the weekly cadence is necessary and that you have evidence that the twice weekly cadence makes you more money. My sort of version of that is having a newsletter where all but one piece of writing a month is behind a paywall. That is not the path to growing a really big list, But I make a lot more money than when fewer things were behind the paywall.

Nic AntoinetteSo again, it's what are you trying to optimize for? Or what, what are your goals there? Because to some people having the biggest free email, like list of free subscribers that they have, that they can sell other things to, maybe that's more valuable. And for me, that's not what I'm aiming for. And so it's, again, like for me being consistent with things behind the paywall that gets sent out to all readers every week, where the free subscribers are getting a preview of it, the consistency with that, that's what causes conversions for me.

Amelia HrubyI really like this point of like, what are you optimizing for? And I think another way of thinking about that is what is your business model? That will help you see what you're optimizing for. Like, I actually just taught in somebody else's program last week, and someone asked me this question where they are a website designer, and their packages all cost like over 5 figures because they do the full custom built sites, they do your copywriting, they do all of it for you. So they're expensive packages.

Amelia HrubyAnd they have been working to grow an email list through a lead magnet that they have. And And they sort of presented this problem to me of, like, you know, I've gotten what I think is plenty of subscribers. People seem to like the lead magnet, but they're not buying my package. And what I told them was that, like, this is a business model problem. It's too big of a leap from free to that.

Amelia HrubyAnd I was like, you don't actually have to do anything. You can just stop right here and realize that you mismatched your business model with your marketing plan. What you optimize for in the realm of the lead magnet is never gonna get you optimized in the realm of the expensive package. And so this is also where I think, like, that can be just such a helpful way to look at it. And it's a way I'm hearing what you're saying as well, Nick.

Amelia HrubyIt's like, what your business model right now is a paid newsletter business model. And so that is why, like, the paywalls help with the conversion. If your business model was still, you know, I'm selling co working groups and classes, and I need a bigger list to sell people into those things, you would function differently. You might pay well a little less. You would shift the strategy a bit.

Amelia HrubyAnd I think that that's something that I'm going through too, like moving from softer sounds into off the grid. Those are two incredibly different business models that require totally different marketing strategies. Definitely understanding that sooner in my business would have helped me. So but at any point. The other thing that happens is people will get like, what I what I see with successful business owners is you'll build one model and then you get bored, and you'll try to jump ship into another business model thinking that all your expertise and all of your audience just carries over and it doesn't.

Amelia HrubyAnd you're like, oh shit, I can't just have a retail shop because I was good at, you know, 5 figure web packages. It's very real. I mean, I get that myself too.

Nic AntoinetteAnd, and like to tie this back into this question of consistency too, it's if you are making any sort of pivot or starting something new, it's it can take time to figure out what you're gonna be consistent with. Right? And then, you know, something else that I know that we've both been thinking about is, let's say you do figure all of this out, at least for the season of life that you're in or for your business model and it's feeling good and you have the flow and that's whatever. What does consistency look like if you had it nailed within your tiny microcosm, right, of your own life and business, then once you start to bump up against events of the wider world, right, any of these collapse things that we've been talking about or have talked about in the past, how does or does that affect consistency? Because I know last month, we talked about how does grief, death, how does that impact, you know, when do you tell your listeners, your readers that you're going through this thing personally, or do you tell them at all?

Nic AntoinetteAnd then I think the same question can be asked of how do you change your content or your marketing? Like you were just mentioning when you're looking at things going on in the world, you know, whether we're talking about war in Iran or any number of things, I think that's an even stickier question.

Amelia HrubyAbsolutely. And it's one that really came up for me in April, and we had a whole text exchange about it because the day that Trump said he was going to, like, decimate Iran, the day where there was, like, the 8PM deadline, I was watching the news, and I had these emails scheduled to go out the first thing the next morning. And I was like, do I send them early before the deadline? Because I don't know what's gonna happen. Do I leave them to go out in the morning when something horrible could have happened overnight?

Amelia HrubyDo I pause them to see what's gonna happen? And it felt like it's these moments where I'm like, I hate being a business owner. Like, I I don't wanna you know what I mean? Like, I want to be able to actually, like, be with what's at stake in the world, which is thousands of people's lives, which is this horrible atrocity that our president is just perpetrating and perpetuating at this point. Like and instead, I'm sitting here like, it feels both so frivolous and silly, and also, like, it does matter, and I just I can definitely get caught in it.

Amelia HrubyAnd so what I ended up doing is one of the emails I unscheduled and waited the next day, and one of them I just sent out early. It's like a random sort of, like, 7PM email that night to be like, well, I'll do it before anything happens. And then in this instance, you know, there wasn't a major event over those twelve hours anyway. Like, there was an agreement sort of made as we continue to be in an agreement sort of made three weeks later. And, yeah, I don't know.

Amelia HrubyI'm curious if you have any thoughts on those sorts of moments or how you're grappling with them because, like I said, I just sent one email, paused the other, stressed out about it, judged myself, and then kept going, which does not feel like a sustainable approach to this.

Nic AntoinetteNo. And also what are we supposed to do? Right. I mean, this is sort of the principle of collapse is already here. It's just unevenly distributed.

Nic AntoinetteRight. That it's, you know, I very, very much, I remember where I was sitting when we were texting about it and it was, it was kind of this, this, it, it, it almost feels. Dystopians, not the right word, dark comedy. Like it breaks my brain to be like, okay, this, we have a president who was saying, threatening to annihilate an entire civilization, which is horrific on so many levels. And then to be like, do I send my sales email before we maybe bomb Iran or after like there's some that I feel like is the most US 2026, like text conversation that in and of itself is just, it's so awful on so many levels.

Nic AntoinetteAnd so, yeah, I mean, I guess I'm curious what in this feels interesting to you to talk about, because there is no way you are the only person who had some version of that question happening. And I feel like that's happening for me less given the fact that my business is a really small and sort of touches on the lens of collapse anyway. So it's not something that feels really out of left field to talk about. Right? And so again, navigating that there's no right answer to this, because how do you align what you're creating, making, selling, offering with what matters?

Nic AntoinetteI think in fact, there could be some really gross ways to do that. Right? Like preying on people's fear in such an uncertain time. Right. It's not like all of a sudden everyone needs to become a war reporter.

Nic AntoinetteAnd something that I think about a lot is that it's such a mental and emotional relief to have certain areas of my life and certain like aspects of online content I consume not to be related to the news in any way. And I'm sure there are arguments to be made that that's escapist or privilege or any number of things. And also there's a reason that even if you are the one experiencing crisis, you know, people are still dancing or cooking with each other or laughing or do you know, you have to find joy somewhere. Right? And so I'm always interested in reflecting on within myself the difference of what I expect from some people online, but I don't expect it from others.

Nic AntoinetteRight? Like what does it mean to quote, stay in your lane? Like, why are there some people whose newsletters I receive or podcasts I listen to that when they don't acknowledge, you know, I I felt this, and I still feel this a lot with Gaza, with Palestine. Right? If they're not acknowledging certain things that

Speaker 1I'm

Nic Antoinettelike, okay, this person is mismatched with my values and I'm not gonna get their newsletter anymore versus the clearest example is I listen, I listen to and watch and read a lot of ultra distance trail content. So ultra running stuff or, you know, long distance hiking stuff that I am so thrilled that when I push play on one of those podcast episodes, that that's exactly what it's going to be about. That like my brain needs that place to go. That is 100% focused on that in a way that I think could be

Amelia Hrubyproblematically like a political. And also it's like who gets

Nic Antoinetteto political. And also it's like who gets to stay in their lane and who doesn't. So those are all of my like word vomit thoughts on this. I think right now.

Amelia HrubyMy initial thought on who gets to stay in their lane and who doesn't is that each of us makes that judgment through a combination of that person's stated values and our perception of their privilege and how that interacts with our own understanding of our privilege. And so if someone has clearly stated that they have progressive values or leftist values, I'm gonna expect a certain degree of political, at the very least, acknowledgment in their content when major events happen. And I would put myself in that category. Right? I have these, like, stated values.

Amelia HrubyI try to be clear about them. And so when things happen, I am going to acknowledge them. At the very least, like, I expect that of myself, and I expect it of other people who I see claiming to have these values. Also because we benefit from signaling that we have these values. And to me, you only get to have that benefit if you're also doing the work of, you know, speaking about things and and living that out in practice to me.

Amelia HrubyThat that's my belief. So, you know, if I see someone trying to benefit from aligning themselves with a progressive world view, and then they never mention Gaza, they never mention the war, they never mention Ice, you know, I'm kinda like, I don't know. You know? And then I think the other side of that is I'm constantly assessing. What is my privilege in relationship to this person?

Amelia HrubyWhat is my perception of their privilege? I have different opinions about what white people should be doing in different situations than I do about what people of color, how they should be handling or speaking to different situations, because I understand the danger and threat that can come with speaking up in those situations. Right? So those are just some of the things that I'm always kind of noticing. And that said, sometimes when I'm doing my own escapist things, which for me is like reading a romance novel or a thriller, like, I just when I wanna escape, I read genre fiction.

Amelia HrubyAnd sometimes when those books try to get political, I'm like, ew, stop it. Get out of here. And I will read literary fiction that does that very well. And I will be so immersed in it. I've read so much climate fiction in the past year.

Amelia HrubyThat's been beautiful on those fronts, but like I'm with you on there also realms of my life where I don't want

Nic Antoinetteit. This sort of overarching question that I feel like we're talking about is how to plan content and sales. When fill in the blank here, sort of. Right? And what to, what to talk about and when to, you know, quote, stay in your lane and when not to.

Nic AntoinetteAnd I love the way that you broke all of that down. And I feel like there's some nuance between what do you do within the art itself? Like what do you do in the romance novel or the mystery novel, the content of it versus what do you as the author do? Right. And I think some like potential reflection questions, if someone is asking themselves how to be as a business right now but first I'll say for years, I worked with Bear Hebert for business coaching and they're incredible.

Nic AntoinetteAnd one of the things that they said, it was kind of like an offhand comment, but it really stuck with me was that they the reason they don't really post about, let's say, current events or news events or whatever, is that anyone who is even remotely tuned into their public facing knows what they stand for. Because if the only time you're ever, you know, quote unquote standing by your values is when something is in the headlines of the news, like, question mark there on that. And so it's like, how do you have a life and a business and a creative practice that is so aligned that you aren't really pulled so much at the whims of, like, a news cycle, which back to this idea of consistency and sustainability, like, that doesn't feel sustainable. Right? Obviously, there are outlier huge events that, like, not only do, but I think should take our attention away.

Nic AntoinetteBut a a question that comes up for me is, like, if someone's feeling friction around this, as I definitely have at various points in the past and still do sometimes, is what's the real source of the friction? Is it that you want to be talking about more politically and or values aligned things, but you don't quite know how or don't quite know how it fits into your business? Or is it that you actually don't wanna be doing that publicly, but you feel like you should? Because I think those sources of friction, like, require different processing and action steps. Right?

Nic AntoinetteAnd then it's like what you said about the get this out of my romance novel, like sort of like tongue in cheek, but but really that it's like, okay, what vision do you hold of the kind of world that you want to live in and where and how can your business or your practice uplift that vision and build toward it maybe in a different way? Like I think about a public redistribution practice where let's say one of those authors, right? A certain part of their proceeds or, you know, a certain type of sale that that money percentage of revenue goes directly to an organization cause a mutual aid effort. Like there are other ways it doesn't all have to be in the content. There are ways to be present with that, that aren't necessarily riding the waves of the news cycle or making your content all about any given crisis.

Amelia HrubyI also am always here for, like, us to get more creative. Like, I would rather people do things where, like, material resources are at stake, where, like, interesting things are happening, where they're experimenting with new ideas of redistribution or of, you know, how to embed your values in your business than just like everybody add the two lines at the top of the email. That's like, I know that there is a war happening, but I have to sell anyway because I'm whatever. Like,

Nic AntoinetteI could not be nodding anymore to this. Right. But, and yeah, but that's what I mean. Right. You still had to have the moment of, do I send the email at Tuesday night at 7PM?

Amelia HrubyAnd I have added those lines before. Like I've done it.

Nic AntoinetteYeah. That is part of it as well. And so there's something to me about this is a time that I feel like requires us to be more human than ever. Meaning you don't have to expect your one person, tiny business to have the resources of an entire corporate marketing team or PR team or whatever that has contingency plans in place for how to still do this kind of ad rollout during such and such other crisis. Like, I would say most of the people listening are just one person businesses.

Nic AntoinetteRight. Or at the most, a couple. Right. Or some contractors or something. And so it's like leaning into the fact that we are human.

Amelia HrubyAnd that's why we can sometimes pause our campaigns because of what's happening in the world. Like, we're very nimble. We can adjust because we're one person. You know? If I don't wanna send an email, I just have to go into Flodesk and unscheduled it.

Amelia HrubyRight? There's not a whole a huge mechanism behind that other than literally me logging into Flodesk and unscheduling it. You know, the reason I sent one of those emails early and paused the other one wasn't some, like, proactive statement of my politics. I just didn't wanna be tone deaf. I didn't wanna land in an inbox in a weird way, and I had the space to pause on it.

Amelia HrubyAnd I think about this too. It's like both from a political context of sometimes it feels gauche when people sell through a really hard moment. Or, like, I know everyone listening to this has made judgments of that. They've seen a post or gotten an email on a day where they're like, what is happening? I mean, even you going into, like, the drugstore and seeing the mother's day stuff.

Amelia HrubyRight? Like, that's so personal. You're not saying, like, how dare they? But, like, it hits right.

Nic AntoinetteI'm not saying Mother's Day is canceled for everyone.

Amelia HrubyRight. But, like, all of us have received a marketing communication in a moment, in a way that just, like, totally wrecked us. And sometimes that's happening on a much bigger scale because something's happening to a lot of people.

Nic AntoinetteOkay. So here's my question for you. Again, not expecting you to have a right answer to it, but what would you say to someone maybe whose rebuttal is having that kind of flexibility requires a degree of financial stability, right? That if if you have to launch X, Y, or Z thing at this time in order to make rent and you pull that and again, there's not an easy answer to that, but I do think that that's part of the nuance that we're dealing with.

Amelia HrubyOkay. Here's my am I the asshole moment. Great. Love it. I think that if you're in a position in your business where you can never skip anything because you're always month to month, something in your model is not working.

Amelia HrubyI think a healthy, sustainable business has to get to a point where it cannot be launch to launch month to month, do or die all the time. And for anyone listening to this who's in that position right now, I'm not saying you did anything wrong. I'm not saying it's your fault. It may be that you haven't figured it out yet or the past few years have wrecked you. But I do think that the goal should be to not live in a business where every single month you're like, I gotta make rent, so I have to launch no matter what.

Amelia HrubyBecause one month it's gonna be that a war is happening, and the next month it's gonna be that you're just sick. And I don't want

Nic Antoinetteyou to launch when you're sick either. What you're speaking to makes me think back about the consistency piece of part of having a business is creating buffers of different kinds. And I will say that I am historically really not good at this specific thing of, I always say that I wanna have multiple essays written in advance or have like a bank of things where if that week does come and I have unexpectedly adopted a baby sheep And you know that there are pieces for whatever reason, my writing style tends to be very present moment. And I think that's part of what I find fulfilling about it. And I think that's part of what people like about it, but I also think that I have let the fact that I've been able to get away with that for such a long time be a narrative that I believe in, that I think that's the only way that it's gonna be good writing, and that's not true.

Nic AntoinetteSo, you know, it's like, okay. So if it's difficult, for example, to find a certain amount of time each week to write, would it maybe be easier to block off four days and batch do of an a bunch of, you know, whatever this could be could be someone's social media content. It could be certain podcast intros or outros or other things. And I think the same is true sort of on, like, the financial or, like, the business model planning side that, like, I almost feel like part of the responsibility of having a business that I have, again, sometimes really not been great at is planning for things being hard personally or collectively. Right?

Nic AntoinetteSo how do you build in that resilience, whether it's in your money or in your tech stack or in your own production schedule? And I think that that's the lesson I wish that I could have learned a lot earlier is that I need to be able to have more slack in the system.

Amelia HrubyYeah. And I think that sometimes you are just gonna have to sell through a hard or a bad thing, and that's okay. What I want is that it's not true every time. What I have seen is, like, if every single sales cycle is do or die, it's just a fast track to burnout. And so I like that there's space in my business, whether it is for a personal reason or a political reason, that I can always push a launch, that I can always shift a schedule.

Amelia HrubyAnd I think that, you know, I want more of us to have more sustainable businesses like that. And I also see how that's getting harder. Like, I I do. I I mean, I think that I talk to lots of people who are launching to crickets and who are not making money right now, and they're doing their best, and it's still not working. And I have so much, like, care, and I'm always down to troubleshoot and to think it through and to figure something out.

Amelia HrubyAnd, yeah, it's like, how responsive can you be? And how much privilege do you have? Right? Like, can you take the hit on not doing a launch because of x, y, or z? There's also another piece the other side of this too, though, is, like, sometimes even if you really need the launch to work, if you're doing it in a really hard week for everybody else, it's not going to work no matter what.

Amelia HrubyRight. You needing money is not a reason stuff sells.

Nic AntoinetteOh my God. That I'm sorry. That's the pull quote from this episode. Like all of this is underpinned by the fact that you and I, and I would assume everyone listening shares the belief of, we want everyone to be well and resourced and taken care of and want all of the systems to be different and all of the fit, like, so, okay. Operating within the fact that that is not true and that there's no moral high ground.

Nic AntoinetteOkay. Then how do we make decisions to live within that? Because yeah, you needing money doesn't equate necessarily to things going along with the way that you need them to go along.

Amelia HrubyYeah. So real. And I've definitely seen that when the, you know, general stress level is very high, things don't sell as well. Even if I do proceed with a launch, I've certainly sold through periods where, like, there was a lot of hard stuff going on. Right?

Amelia HrubyI did a huge launch in January when ICE was, like, actively being incredibly violent in Minneapolis and around The US and murdering people. Right? And I was launching, and that felt really weird, and it went fine. Also, that's the other thing. It's like, you can't no.

Amelia HrubyIt's not a straightforward, like, do it or don't do it. It's gonna depend on your capacity during that time, your sort of energetic vibe check with your audience and the people you're selling to, and your needs. Like, how urgent is this? Can you shift, cancel, change the plan? Or when you're honest with yourself, is that not an option right now?

Amelia HrubyAnd I trust anyone listening to this to make that decision.

Nic AntoinetteYeah. I mean, I think a potential takeaway from this or action step or whatever, if it feels useful for someone, is if any of what we're talking about or the things you just mentioned feels like a point of friction, right, like using as an example, if someone feels like they are constantly in that, you know, do or die like launch cycle, that I'm always interested in what are we focusing on behind the scenes in our business? Meaning like, okay, so we've identified this thing isn't working. Then the responsibility of the business owner is you have to carve out some time to work on the business, not just in the business. Right?

Nic AntoinetteLike if something about the business model isn't working or the consistency, the pacing, any of the, you know, the things that you've mentioned that it's like, okay, hoping it's gonna get better. Not to say that we have to, again, take reactive action all the time, but if something like I think about for my own business, if something has proven to be a little bit of a pattern, then assuming it's gonna be different the next time tends not to work out for me, that things shift when I take a step back and I'm like, okay, what could I try differently? And that also, what can I try differently feels more empowered than just feeling like I'm at the whims of something unknown?

Amelia HrubyAnd this is also for me where, like, yes, I carve out the time. I, you know, will sit down with myself. I'll journal. I'll go through my revenue. I'll look back at my calendar and the projects I've done recently.

Amelia HrubyBut a lot of times for me, I also need, like, a mirror. So I'll pull tarot cards or I'll talk to a biz friend or I'll be like, can I tell you what I think is not working? Can you read these emails or look at the sales page and then tell me what you think is not working? And can we, like, work together from there? It was really helpful to me to bring in some, like, community or some other, like, mirror in those moments because when things aren't working, also the stakes still very high in a business when it's not working.

Amelia HrubyAnd it's really hard to have, like, clarity or regulation in

Nic Antoinettea moment when the stakes are really high. Especially if we're too close to it and or if, like I said, we get attached to a certain narrative. Right? For me, the narrative of it's only powerful writing if I'm writing it in real time. That's actually just not true.

Nic AntoinetteLike how many books have I read that were written like twenty years ago that I'm like, this book changed my life, you know? So some of it is also what are the stories that you're telling yourself about your business that actually aren't factually correct. 100%.

Amelia HrubyAnd that's still where I even now side eye myself. Does the podcast need to be weekly or twice a week?

Nic AntoinetteI don't know. I think we'll probably be talking about this off air. Right? Right. This, this is, will now transition into our text friends.

Amelia HrubyYeah. Don't worry, friends. The podcast is staying weekly. That feels great to me. I think the thing that actually makes me more money is putting the clubhouse previews on the main feed.

Amelia HrubyThat's what moves the needle. Stop the extra episodes. Okay, Nick, before we go, I know we each wanted to talk a little bit about something we're focusing on behind the scenes in our business, which feels like it kind of follows from this. Like, what are the things that we are doing that people aren't seeing that are part of the way that we are, like, tending to the structure of our business or thinking strategically about how we move forward. So do you wanna share kind of what your next behind the scenes focus is?

Nic AntoinetteYeah. I don't know if this is spring cleaning vibes or what, but I definitely every couple of months, at least every six months, I like to do a website audit. And for people who use other public facing platforms, social media, whatever, I think, basically, anywhere that you are public facing, I like to

Speaker 1set

Nic Antoinettea timer for, like, thirty minutes, go page by page of the website, update any copy that doesn't feel correct or aligned, make notes of any changes that are more substantive that will require more time, and then actually schedule that time. Really just kind of checking in with, like, the avatar of self, essentially, that is online, and does that still feel current and fresh? So that is definitely something that I have started doing and I'm gonna be doing a little bit more of. And then sort of along those same lines are reviewing all the services that you're paying for within your business, right, like tech stack or whatever, and does the current iteration of the business need those things? Like, a good example is that I relatively recently canceled Flodesk because that's what I was using for marketing emails or less I mean, yeah, wait lists, marketing emails, and then also, like, workshop correspondence content, right, with and but I'm not offering any of those things in my business right now, and I haven't been offering them for well over a year.

Nic AntoinetteAnd so I kinda kept it because I had already paid for the annual version, but now I'm like, nope. Actually, that's hundreds of dollars a year that I don't have to pay for. I exported my list, and if I ever wanna come back, it's not like they're not gonna let me come back. So really just realizing, okay. I don't need that in my business right now.

Nic AntoinetteSo if I cancel it, I can save some money.

Amelia HrubyAs a Flodesk partner and affiliate, I will just asterisk that for people. If you have one of the old 50% off deals, if you cancel it, it goes away. So do notice if you are grandfathered into pricing in any software, just be aware of that when you cancel, but it still is probably the right decision if you're not using it for years at a time.

Nic AntoinetteWhat about you? What are you focusing on behind the scenes in your business?

Amelia HrubyThe thing that I am focusing on this month actually really speaks to this consistency piece, which is that I am doing all the things that I need to do to be able to have a fully asynchronous summer. So I have decided that I do not want any calls on the calendar in July and at least the first half of August, if not the entire month of August. So what that has meant is that I have to one be ruthless with the requests that I get in my inbox. Lots of people ask me to do stuff. They wanna be on my podcast.

Amelia HrubyThey want me to be on their podcast. They wanna do a coffee chat. And if it is not happening before the end of June, it is not happening. I am just saying, nope. I am taking these two months to not have calls.

Amelia HrubyThe other thing it's requiring is I had to think about, okay, what are the ongoing containers that I have? Because I'm pretty committed to a lot of long term containers in my business. That's part of the sustainable foundation I have built has been through long term containers, but that also means that if I want time off, I have to decide, am I pausing those things? Am I gonna have content go live when I'm not really doing much? Like, how is this going to work?

Amelia HrubySo to be more explicit, like, you know, off the grid is a weekly show. I always go on break every summer. That's been very clear. But now that I have the clubhouse, what I typically do is just move a weekly episode into the clubhouse instead. So everything goes over the main feed goes quiet, and the clubhouse has one episode per week when I am on break on the public feed.

Amelia HrubyAnd so I've been recording all of that in advance. And then it's very rare that I do this, but I am working with one of my editors who is gonna do the editing for me because I don't have time to get it all in before the summer, and I don't wanna be doing it. Even though asynchronous business could include me editing episodes, I don't want it to. So I've recorded a ton in advance. I am working with a freelance editor who I've worked with for a long time through softer sounds to get that stuff edited and scheduled before the end of June, so there can be these live episodes in July and August.

Amelia HrubyThe other long term container I have is the interweb, which is an annual membership. I had calls scheduled in July for them that I rescheduled, moved one into June, moved one into September, and I'm gonna host an asynchronous business school over there in the summer, which is just gonna be me resharing things from the resource library at the start of each week. And it's like, I've already mapped it out. It's very simple. It's like a couple options of classes to take each week, go back through.

Amelia HrubyHere's what it is. And I'm gonna do these, like, really mini audio intros to each week that I'm gonna put in our private podcast feed for interweb members. People can listen, see why I think these are important, pick a class to take, and then I'll probably check into Slack if people have questions or wanna do it with me. But that way, I don't have to be on a single call. So excited for this.

Nic AntoinetteYeah. I love that you're sharing about this. I mean, obviously, these are the details of your business and your situation, but I think that it's really easy to get caught in a cycle of feeling like you can never take any time off as a business owner, especially if you're a solo person. This used to happen to me all the time. I'm like, well, if I'm not making the things, there are no things, and then there's no money.

Nic AntoinetteAnd I would often feel envious of people who were taking these big chunks of time off, especially early on in my business, and especially because it seemed like it would just happen. And what, you know, like we are talking today on the April 29 and you are sharing a big breakdown of things that you are already putting in place so that you can have this happen in July. It brings up the question for me of whatever the vision is that you hold or the thing that you want, let's say it is taking a certain amount of time off. And for some people, it might be a week of time off. Right?

Nic AntoinetteThe question that comes up for me is what would have to be true in order for that to be possible? Because I also think it's very easy to just, like, write something off. Like, well, that wouldn't work for me. I can't take time off. Maybe that's true, but maybe it's not, or maybe it could look different.

Nic AntoinetteSo what would have to be true in order for you to do that? And how far in advance would you need to start stacking those bricks or putting those things in place? Because maybe it is true that on the April 29, you can't take time off in July, but maybe you could take it off in October. Getting out of that, this is for me, this isn't for me. And what I appreciate about what you're sharing is the details of, you know, you've mapped out your vision, what it includes and doesn't include, what you are and are not willing to do.

Nic AntoinetteOkay. What has to happen now? And some of that will look like extra work. It might look like batching content. It might, you know, and so it's essentially opting into a period of higher work in order to have a period of less work.

Nic AntoinetteAnd I like that a lot. And I think that it's a helpful framing for if somebody wants something to get honest about what it would take and, you know, make that happen.

Amelia HrubyYeah. And that means that in April, I recorded 10 off the grid episodes. In addition to all the content that everyone saw go live, those are just pre recorded for future things. Right? And so, yeah, and I, and I think it also really matters, like, what does time off mean to you?

Amelia HrubySo in the past, I've talked about taking a summer sabbatical, which I was really thinking of as not working during those periods. This I'm calling an asynchronous summer because I think that what it will mean for me is my goal is to work two days a week. So I will check-in, I'll do some Slack, I'll do some email, but I will not be actively content creating at or on any calls. What I just want is to not be on Zoom. I want to be invisible for the summer.

Nic AntoinetteI mean, it's extremely relatable. I wanna be invisible just in general. Yeah. And also, I like what you're saying too because it's not it doesn't have to be all or nothing. It's not like you're a 100% working or a 100% not working.

Nic AntoinetteYou can have it look various different ways.

Amelia HrubyYeah. Exactly. Well, final question for you, Nick, is what's coming up for you in May? What's on deck other than two baby sheep?

Nic AntoinetteI know. Right? I'm like, can I make a single plan? Everything is baby sheep all the time. Okay.

Nic AntoinetteWhat's on deck? Life and work. At work, I'd like to close some open loops. I mean, the one the main one that comes to mind that I know I've talked to you about personally, I can't remember if we've talked about it publicly, is my two books that are you know, that I published years ago that are all under Nicole Antoinette. Like, I don't go by Nicole anymore.

Nic AntoinetteEven saying that feels weird in my mouth that I essentially rehired the designers to make some changes that they all say, Nicole Antoinette, changed it throughout the things, but I haven't uploaded them yet. And it doesn't take a long time, you know, but just I, I would like to close some open loops. So and closing an open loop could be deciding not to do it. Right? To be like, I'm just gonna let these books live on in the past version of me and that's really fine.

Nic AntoinetteBut I there's a couple of things in my business that I'm like, I don't want this to be living at the back of my brain anymore, the way that we talked about earlier. So closing some open loops. And then continuing to explore the question of what can a newsletter be, which is something I'm always interested in. I'd like to post some kind of thread for interested folks to connect with other readers who live in their area for, like, IRL meet basically, like, if you want friends who you maybe have something in common with because you read this newsletter, I'm, like, interested in that potentially as well. So I'm just, yeah, sort of thinking about that.

Nic AntoinetteSo that's some work stuff. What's on deck in May? I mean, sheep, definitely sheep, getting the soil ready for planting the warm weather veggies toward the end of the month. Right? The tomatoes, the eggplants, the peppers, the squash.

Nic AntoinetteSo I think the end of May will be a little garden focused. And then, you know, I feel and maybe this is why I wanna post that thread on the newsletter. I'm feeling very much like I'm in friend finding mode. Something that has come out of this, like, era of the dead parents for me is I really do feel lonely in my hyper look. I feel very well supported by people, you know, friends like you, longer distance friends.

Nic AntoinetteBut of all the places I've ever lived, and I have moved a lot, this has been the hardest place by far to make friends. I don't know if it's because it's the suburbs. I don't know, but it's constantly perplexing to me and I feel lonely here. And so I'm like, okay, what does it look like to make more friends here? And so that's on my mind in terms of what's on deck.

Nic AntoinetteWhat about you?

Amelia HrubyI look forward to your newsletter thread about making friends, where I always scope out, is there

Amelia Hrubyany other Nebraska person anywhere?

Nic AntoinetteRight. I know. I'm sorry. Sometimes there are.

Amelia HrubyOn deck for me in May is I am teaching this workshop intensive on how to teach called come to class. It is currently open for registration. If folks hear this the day it drops, you can still get the early bird discount. I'll link that in the show notes as well. I'm really excited about this.

Amelia HrubyIt was a very emergent idea. I did not plan to do this. I'm gonna be teaching on a Saturday for, like, the first time ever. I was very stressed about how to schedule it. Was it gonna be during the week?

Amelia HrubyWas it gonna be a weekend? And it turned into a Thursday, Friday, Saturday thing. So we'll see how that goes for me. I'm really excited for the people who've already signed up. It's gonna be a great group.

Amelia HrubyWe're gonna talk about teaching and making money online, which is, you know, kind of my favorite thing to do, so that will be fun. I'm talking to you for it as well. We're gonna record a conversation about how you facilitate space, which honestly, I feel a little bit like this is like a an archive of your practice as you have fully stepped away from it.

Nic AntoinetteAnd this is completely selfish, but I'm so grateful, a, to be a guest on this podcast reoccurring. But I'm so grateful that you are interviewing me for Come to Class because I have so much to say about online facilitation and, like, curating digital intimacy and things that I feel like skills that I worked on for such a long time and that were really important to me that at least currently I'm not using anymore, but there's still like an outlet. So I I'm like personally very grateful. I'm like, thank you for giving me a place to

Nic Antoinettebe like, here's everything I know about this stuff.

Amelia HrubyI know I'm also very excited, selfishly, to capture all of it because I've been in your containers and they've always been excellent and I miss them. And I don't wanna pressure you to do any more of them, but I want if you're not going to, I want more of us to do more like them so we can have them again. So, yeah, that's on deck in May. And then I haven't even told you this yet, but I think I'm gonna try this thing that I found in a cookbook that I got at the Dollar Store recently, which is I got this cookbook called Cook 90, which sounds diety, but it's not diety at all. It's a challenge to cook all of your meals for a month.

Amelia HrubyAnd cooking can mean, like, putting ingredients together, like yogurt and granola, but to actually make every meal you eat for a month.

Nic AntoinetteAs opposed to what?

Amelia HrubyAs opposed to takeout, eating out.

Nic AntoinetteOh, okay. That just shows what my life is, but I was like, what do you mean?

Amelia HrubyYou live a cook 90 lifestyle. I DoorDash ramen to my house today because I was so tired.

Nic AntoinetteOh my God. I know that you know me well enough to know that what I said, as opposed to what like that, I feel like someone would be like, wow, they're such an asshole. But like, you

Amelia Hrubyknow that I, you prepare and cook everything that you eat. I do not.

Nic AntoinetteIt's mostly a function of the fact that I don't like any of the restaurants where I live.

Amelia HrubyThat also attracts. And also money. And, you know, JJ's gonna be traveling a lot this month, and JJ's the one who cooks the food in our house. And instead of defaulting to like subpar food and feeling bad internally, because I'm not getting the right nutrients, I'm gonna try to cook all my meals in May.

Nic AntoinetteSo Obsessed. I'm obsessed with this. We will be having an offline conversation about this.

Nic AntoinetteI am like, I'm here for this. I will be your biggest cheerleader. I love this.

Amelia HrubyYeah. And it all happened because the cookbook just happened to be at the dollar store, which you know is my other favorite niche habit, which is to go buy back stock books at Dollar Tree. So all of that, Jared. Listeners, thanks for hanging out with us. Nick and I love doing this every month.

Amelia HrubyAnd if you want us to keep going, let us know that you love it because I personally appreciate positive feedback to keep me at work.

Nic AntoinetteOkay. Amelia needs words of affirmation. Please tell her that this is great and that she's the best and, and all those are true.

Amelia HrubyLeave it in a review on apple podcasts because they're all a year old at this point, so they could use a little love. So if you like this series, tell us in the reviews on apple podcasts, we'll We'll be forever grateful. Go subscribe to Nick's newsletter because you wanna be there for everything that they're writing about now, what? And with that, we're gonna sign off. I hope you all have a beautiful May day and a beautiful May.

Amelia HrubyI'll report back on how my cooking goes next month. And until then, we will see you off the grid.

Speaker 1I kinda hate social media feeds on my brain like a bacteria. If you're read my Wikipedia, it'll say I kinda hate social media. Host a picture of myself. Sacrifices my mental help. Use your product time to tell.

Speaker 1I would rather go to hell. Do you like this? Leave a comment? Can you share this? Would you wear this?

Speaker 1Do you like this? Leave a comment? Can you share this?

Nic AntoinetteOkay.

Amelia HrubyThat was an abridged version of Social Media by Surfer Boy and Rectangle. To hear the entire song, find Surfer Boy on Spotify or head to the link in the show notes. Thanks so much to them for sharing the song with us, as well as to Melissa Caitlin Carter, who sings our theme song that you hear at the start of every show. I'm your host, Amelia Frooby, and if you enjoyed this episode, I hope you will download the free Leading Social Media Toolkit @offthegrid.funslashtoolkit. Until next time, I will see you off the grid.

Amelia HrubyHello again, it's me, Amelia. Remember me? That voice you just heard seconds ago? I'm popping back in because I wanna share a special gift with you, or three gifts, in fact, as thanks for staying tuned in to the very end of this episode. This spring, I led a program called Close Biz Friends inside the interweb, and I helped people create resonant free resources that they could share strategically on their marketing channels and then amplify their visibility through cross promotion.

Amelia HrubyAnd I'm arriving here to share a few resources that folks created in that program with you. The first is from Andy of Spiral Tending. Andy's a therapist and they made a super helpful toolkit with 10 ways to market your healing business when time and money are scarce. I got a few new ideas from it myself, and if you're a healer, I highly recommend heading to the link in the show notes and grabbing it right now. The second gift I wanna offer you is from Heather Backs of Small Business Rodeo.

Amelia HrubyHeather's created a simple tech stack field guide that is an essential resource for anyone who's ever wondered, what invoicing tool should I use? Or where do I find a good calendar link? How do I pick a website platform or an email service provider? If you've ever wondered any of those things, then you're definitely going to want this amazing Notion dashboard full of recommended tools and advice on building your tech stack without overcomplicating it. So head to the show notes to grab that free resource today.

Amelia HrubyAnd then finally, Julia Kiambi has just launched the free Soulepreneur Corner, which provides support for the inner work side of running a business. Julia is a medical doctor turned intuitive guide, and her Soulepreneur Corner missives are beautiful compliments to the very practical, tactical work that we do here at Off The Grid. So if you could use Soulepreneur Corner messages or a simple tech stack field guide or 10 ways to market your healing business when time and money are scarce, head to the show notes to grab those free resources today. And thank you so much again for being here. I am forever grateful that you tune into the show.

Amelia HrubyAnd until next time, you know where to find me, Off the

Nic AntoinetteGrid.