My Mini Escape Pod’s (the weekly Zoom calls I do with members) are kept small so we can dig into each others challenges, and get to know more about one another. Today’s call was no different, where I had a great chat with one person for an hour.

We talked about charging our worth for our offerings, and bolstering the belief in our work through our decades of experience. Not taking for granted the many chapters of our own lives, and realizing that those times in our lives bring valuable (and quirky) perspectives that not many other people can bring!

In a broader sense, this can apply to not just how we show up, but where. Since deleting all my social media accounts (except Substack Notes, ahem), there are only a few places to find me. Even fewer ways to actually reach me! But that’s by design, and you can experiment with that, too!

In fact, if you’re not on TikTok or Twitter, you’re already experimenting!

You simply don’t need to be everywhere, all the time, for everyone.

Our regular Escape Pod meetings on Thursday can sometimes reach 10+ people, but our Mini Escape Pod Q&As are limited to just three guests.

I do this so guests can have a chance to bring up their challenges in a quieter space, and it leaves room for everyone to offer feedback and ideas.

I also vary the day and time that I offer these Mini Escape Pod Q&A sessions, too, just so people in different time zones and schedules can attend.

Become a trial member and get 30 days of access to our upcoming Escape Pod Zoom calls, co-working hang outs, and Focus Escape Pods.

Did a surprise Substack Live today on a whim. Just me, a webcam, and my cat (Blue) losing his mind in the background. OBS melted down half the time (I have no idea what I’m doing), but here’s some threads worth pulling out:

Serving the people who already showed up

I keep saying this because it never stops being true: Notes is just social media. Chasing the feed means a few winners and everyone else shouting into the void. The only sane move is making your best work for the folks who already subscribed, not every stranger on the internet.

Why I nuked every platform except substack

Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn — all deleted. The only “social” thing I use now is Substack Notes, and even then it’s more of an on-ramp to my newsletter.

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Priya Parker spoke to over 1,000 people in a ballroom and said it felt intimate. She asked the organizer how that happened, and they said they invited with a capital “I.”

“They send a printed invitation to each guest as a formality. But months before the event, she personally calls every single potential guest by phone to invite them to the dinner. When I remarked that that was a lot of work, she smiled and said, “My entire job is to build community. The one-on-one time I get on that phone call is as important than the event itself.” Inviting with a capital “I,” means letting people, in whatever way appropriate to you and your context, know that you actually want them there.”

I tell anyone looking to start their own group Zoom calls to invite.

You can’t just put the Zoom link in a newsletter and expect people to show up. Be intentional with how the room is assembled. Invite the people that you’re already having conversations with, who show up with the same enthusiasm and energy.

When your brand new room has people you’ve already had conversations with, your guests will feed off the energy level they’re seeing. This sort of sets an example of how they can present themselves, and feel comfortable doing so because they see other people feeling the same way.

The biggest thing about getting away from social media and staring at our phone is remembering that things weren’t always like this.

The iPhone was launched in 2007, not even a decade ago, and we’re exhausted.

This new behavior came about by major companies (the unholy trinity) spending billions of dollars to instill the belief that we must be connected with everyone at all times.

In a recent Email Guidance session, someone told me about spending too much time on social media promoting their podcast.

Promoting our work on social media leads to likes and replying to comments and responding to DMs.

Thus, our marketing efforts on social media lead to more work on social media; we keep feeding the machine, and the machine gives you more busy work.

Eventually our work suffers because we’re also cos-playing as a social media manager.

Instagram and Facebook love all the time that we devote to promoting our work, all while we’re spending less time doing the work. We’re on their platforms engaging and interacting in the hopes of getting more likes, views, impressions. Pull the lever, win a prize!

But the prize we’re looking for rarely comes. We’re hoping for the click, which could lead to the subscribe. We engage, we like, we spend another 20 minutes interacting, hoping for the elusive click.

Let’s stop hoping and realize the truth: RSS exists.

Podcast players pull in new episodes via an RSS feed, and “feed readers” like NetNewsWire (my favorite) let us subscribe to blogs (even Substack newsletters and YouTube videos).

So when we publish a new piece, people get it without interference from algorithms, spam folders, or promotions tabs.

And if we devote time to making great work instead of feeding social media platforms, it would seem that our work could grow by delivering it directly to the people who care.

More on RSS:
“In defense of RSS” by Seth Godin

“The ancient technology of the RSS feed” by TK (YouTube short)

Tt’s hard to find intimacy and community on a platform that’s open to the entire internet, so stop looking for it.

Make sure you send your signals, find your weirdos, and make sure you know where the exists are located, for both you and your fellow freaks.

I was honored to be asked to be Bree Noble’s podcast recently to talk about musicians trying to “make it all work” in 2025, coping with social media burnout, the vanity metrics, and how to maybe build something sustainable without sacrificing your sanity.

A lot can get distilled to the fact that a lot of what you post isn’t seen by like 95% of your followers. Or the gut-punch that every artist has felt, when you do everything “right” on social media and still get just four likes. As I put it on the show: “You reached fourteen people. That’s disheartening.“

We dug into what actually works, like playing a Tuesday-night show to fifteen people and making fans, or how grabbing a few emails after a set beats begging a platform to show your post to strangers on the internet.

Bree is a legend, and has spoken with so many artists over the years. She talks to Elaine Ryan about balancing gigs and sync work, Marc Christian about booking high-end events, Raven Rae about sustainable music careers – check out all of those interviews here!