Editor’s Note: This article is the companion piece to Episode 24 of Unstuck to Finding Your Edge, my weekly Live series with Robyn Levin and our recent publishing features and Robyn’s trip from New York to Quebec!
Robyn Levin spent nearly two weeks traveling.
I spent part of that time trying to see how many Substack Lives I could squeeze into two days.
And somewhere in the middle of all that, Substack changed a few things again.
Welcome back to Unstuck to Finding Your Edge. 😂
After nearly two weeks apart, Robyn and I finally got together for Episode 024, and we had some catching up to do.
She’d been traveling from New York City to Quebec City, with a stop in Nantucket for a wedding.
I’d been home, collaborating with other creators, publishing, and trying to remember what day it was after doing four Lives in roughly 36–48 hours.
Two very different schedules and somehow, we both came back with plenty to talk about.
🎙️ Watch Episode 024 of Unstuck to Finding Your Edge above!
Robyn Went Traveling and Came Back With STORIES.
If you’ve ever listened to Robyn talk about traveling, you know there’s usually an adventure involved.
This trip was no exception.
First, there was Nantucket.
Robyn was staying at a glamping-style resort for a wedding when a loud crash woke her in the middle of the night.
Pitch-black room, unfamiliar furniture, and the very reasonable question of whether someone from another wedding party had somehow wandered into her cabin.
Nope.
The shower curtain rod had fallen.
Then, when she tried to take a shower, the handle came off in her hand.
Five-star glamping, apparently, but that wasn’t even the most interesting part of the trip.
Robyn also flew from Boston to Nantucket in an eight-seat plane.
Eight seats!
And when someone asked whether she wanted to sit up front, she said yes.
Turns out, up front meant sitting right beside the pilot.
She had a control wheel in front of her and everything.
Thankfully, the pilot made it clear that she wasn’t supposed to touch it.
Meanwhile, the other passengers were so quiet that Robyn suspected they were all praying.
She loved the experience.
I’m still envisioning the mental picture.
Then Came Quebec City and Seven Layers of Clothing.
Robyn’s cruise took her from New York City to Quebec City in October.
She’s a fan of shoulder-season travel—those months when you might avoid some of the peak-season crowds.
However, this trip came with a catch. It was COLD.
We’re talking temperatures in the 20s to 40s, a walking tour after hail, and six or seven layers of clothing.
At one point, she bought a windbreaker and questioned why it was called a windbreaker when it didn’t seem particularly interested in breaking the wind.
Fair question.
The ship itself was beautiful. She loved the entertainment, the food, and the people she met along the way.
She even invited one of the singers to dinner with her group after enjoying her performance and that was one of my favorite parts of hearing about the trip.
Robyn didn’t come home talking only about the places she’d visited.
She came home talking about the people, the musicians, the tour guides, the unexpected conversations, and the stories behind the people making those experiences happen.
That’s the stuff you remember and it’s also the stuff that gives you something interesting to write about afterward.
Meanwhile, I Was Doing Four Lives in About Two Days.
While Robyn was traveling, I was doing my own version of running around.
Except mine involved a laptop.
I participated in four Substack Live sessions within roughly 36–48 hours, collaborating with several creators, including Chris B. Writes, Alex Searle, Ellen Newhouse, Virgil Brewster, and Duncan The Sage.
Two Lives on Tuesday, one on Wednesday, one on Thursday, and one of those conversations started at 8 a.m. because we were trying to coordinate three different time zones.
By the time I finished, I was completely disoriented.
I remember thinking it felt like seven o’clock at night.
It was around 11 a.m. 😂
Don’t get me wrong.
I enjoy going Live and I enjoy collaborating with other creators and some of my favorite ideas come out of conversations I didn’t know I needed to have.
However, four Lives packed into that short a window?
That was too much.
There’s a difference between having opportunities to collaborate and trying to fit every opportunity into the same week.
I learned that one the exhausting way.
We Both Had Some Publishing News to Celebrate 🎉
Something else happened while we were busy living our very different lives.
We both had work published that we were excited about.
I was featured alongside other nurses in a nursing collective organized by Dr.Patrick LaRose on his Substack, The Second Shift.
The theme was how nursing had shaped us as people.
What made it especially meaningful was reading everyone else’s stories after the piece came out.
Different nurses, different experiences, and different ways the profession had influenced who we’d become.
I was honored to be included.
💜 Read the nursing collective feature: Click here
And Robyn Levin had some exciting news of her own.🐐
Her article about testing ChatGPT for travel planning—and the interesting ways it failed—was picked up by the New York Post.
📰 Read Robyn’s featured story: Click here
We spent a few minutes celebrating both because when you’re constantly thinking about what you’re publishing next, it’s easy to move right past something you’ve already accomplished.
Sometimes you should stop long enough to enjoy seeing your work out in the world especially when other people are helping it reach new readers.
And While All That Was Happening, Substack Changed Things Again
Robyn had barely returned from her trip when she noticed something different while publishing an article.
New audience options and different settings for who could receive a post.
Changes around comments and then we started talking about chat.
Substack had introduced more options for organizing conversations, and we were both trying to figure out exactly what was available.
Which, honestly, is a pretty normal experience on Substack.
You open the dashboard to do something you’ve done a hundred times and suddenly there’s a new button or a different menu or an option you’re fairly certain wasn’t there yesterday.
Robyn was looking at the settings and I was checking mine and neither of us was pretending we’d already mastered the changes.
We were figuring them out in real time, but the chat conversation brought up something more interesting than the buttons themselves.
Just because Substack gives you another feature doesn’t mean you need to build your life around it.
Do We Really Need More Chats?
I’ve already got a chat available for my paid subscribers.
It’s a place where they can reach me, ask questions, and get access to me as part of their subscription.
That makes sense for what I’m offering, but when we started talking about creating multiple chats for different topics or groups, I had a different reaction.
That sounds like a lot to manage.
Could it work for some publications?
Absolutely.
If you have a community with different subjects that genuinely need separate conversations, I can see the appeal, but there’s also moderation.
Keeping conversations going, answering questions, making sure people aren’t talking into an empty room, and remembering where the hell everyone is talking in the first place.
I’m not interested in opening five different chats simply because Substack lets me.
A new feature is an option. It’s not an assignment.
That’s a distinction worth remembering.
Especially when you’re already writing articles, publishing Notes, answering comments, collaborating, and trying to have an actual life.
Robyn’s Substack Survived Without Her
Here’s the part of our conversation that made me laugh.
Robyn mentioned that she hadn’t been posting as frequently while she was away.
She was traveling, she had limited time, wi-Fi wasn’t always reliable, and she was busy doing the things she’d traveled there to do.
She shared some photos and updates along the way, but she wasn’t trying to keep up with the advice telling creators to post Notes five, ten, or even thirty times a day.
And guess what?
She was still gaining subscribers.
So I asked her: “So your Substack survived without you for a couple days?”
And Robyn answered: “My Substack survived without posting, yes, many times a day.”😂
Now, I’m not suggesting that everyone can disappear for two weeks and expect their publication to grow.
That’s not what this proves, but Robyn’s experience is a useful reminder that the internet doesn’t necessarily punish you the second you stop feeding it.
You can travel and you can get sick.
You can have a busy week and you can step away from your usual schedule and then you can come back.
Your publication doesn’t have to become a source of panic every time life happens.
Two Different Weeks. Neither One Was Wrong.
When I think about this episode, what stands out isn’t really the new Substack features.
It’s the contrast between what Robyn and I had been doing.
She’d spent nearly two weeks traveling, meeting people, collecting stories, and posting when she could.
I’d spent part of that time collaborating with creators, doing Lives, and filling my calendar a little more than I probably should have.
Neither of us had stopped creating. We were just doing it differently and when we got together again, we had plenty to share.
That’s what I don’t want creators to lose sight of.
Your publication is part of your life, but your life is also where your stories come from.
Sometimes you’re going to have a week where you’re everywhere.
Sometimes you’re going to have a week where you’re barely online.
Sometimes you’re going to open Substack and discover three new settings you don’t understand.
And sometimes you’re going to end up sitting beside the pilot of an eight-seat plane wondering what the hell you signed up for.
Okay, maybe that last one is just Robyn. 😂
Life happened. Substack kept going and we came back with another episode.💜
Resources From This Conversation
Robyn’s new article about the luxury cruise from NY to Quebec →
Robyn’s special feature in The NY Post → CLICK HERE
Jess’s special feature in The Nurse Collective →
Jess’s new article about Hersey chocolates →
Follow Jess at NP Fellow Become The CEO of Your Health →
Follow Jess at Unstuck to Published →
Follow Jess at Nurse in the Market →
Follow Robyn at Finding Your Edge →
Follow Robyn at Rare Finds - Luxury Travel →
Scan Robyn’s QR code to access her Youtube channel →
Thank You
Thank you so much for everyone who tuned into this live, your presence is truly appreciated, and to the people who are watching the replay, thank you!
See you next Friday at 12pm ET for our weekly show, stay tuned!
-Jess, The Creator & Robyn Levin
