Welcome to Seeking the Overlap

Conversations on collaboration, community, and connection

Oh, hello there!

Thanks so much for taking a chance on a newsletter that you may love or may just be indifferent to. I hope it’s the former (that’s the first one in case that confuses you too), but as my favorite southern saying goes, “There’s a seat for every ass.”

In other words, maybe this seat fits your ass, and maybe it won’t. Either way, we’re all going to be fine, so there’s that.

My VERY LOOSE plan for this Substack (is it called a newsletter? A post? I don't know, this is new for me) is to write about collaboration, community, and connection, which is to say all things “seeking the overlap”.

The overlap is the place where you + me intersect. Our commonalities, our shared interests, our place of mutual understanding. I believe that it’s in the overlap where those 3 C’s (collaboration, community, and connection) happen, not outside of it.

For the last 2 years, I worked at a 9 to 5 where I spent the bulk of my days thinking, teaching, and talking about community.

Before that, I spent the previous 5 years eating, breathing, and sleeping (aka, I was an entrepreneur) collaboration.

But throughout my entire life, I’ve floated in the sea of connection, mostly to other people but sometimes even to myself. I’ve come to realize that the act of connecting with oneself and other people is actually quite complicated for most of us, but it really doesn’t need to be. Through talking about it and teaching myself, I figure I can teach us both what we need to learn.

And thus, “Seeking the Overlap” emerged not 10 hours after I was told my position at the 9 to 5 was no longer needed and I tumbled into a spiral of unknowns. Nothing like a good shove out of a moving car by the universe to get your creative juices flowing, am I right?

I don’t yet know the cadence of which these newsletters/posts/essays (pick a name for me wouldn’t you?) will arrive in your inbox (or via the desktop/Substack app if you prefer), so stick around and find out the same time I do.

That’s about it for now - if you’re willing, reply to this email or add a comment below telling me how you feel about connecting with others using the most applicable emoji (bonus points for also telling me how you feel about connecting with yourself.)

I’ll go first: Connecting with others = ☀️, Connecting with myself = 🌤️

xo,

Baily