Ep 1: Navigating Loneliness and Connection in a Digital World with Connection Strategist, Baily Hancock

“The point of this podcast is to help make connecting with yourselves and others feel so simple, enjoyable, and doable because it is.” - Baily Hancock

About this Episode

In the first episode of Seeking the Overlap, host Baily Hancock shares the inspiration behind her new podcast and dives deep into the importance of connection in an increasingly disconnected world. As Baily celebrates her 40th birthday, she reflects on her journey of self-connection and the evolving nature of friendships and relationships. Whether you're struggling with loneliness, tired of superficial small talk, or seeking deeper bonds with yourself and others, this episode offers insights on how to build meaningful, authentic connections. Join Baily as she explores why self-connection is essential for fostering stronger relationships and how intentionality, vulnerability, and empathy can lead to a more connected life.

Timestamps

00:00 Welcome to Seeking the Overlap

00:44 Why Another Podcast?

01:31 The Importance of Self-Connection

03:12 Reflecting on Relationships

06:29 The 3Cs to Saving Humanity: Community, Connection, and Collaboration

07:29 What to Expect This Season

About the Guest

Baily Hancock is a Connection Strategist, Keynote Speaker, and Host of the “Seeking the Overlap” Podcast. A self-described “Professional Friend-Maker,” Baily teaches people how to build, nurture, and leverage relationships to navigate challenges, thrive during transitions, and achieve greater success with the support of their community.

Throughout the last decade, Baily has taught hundreds of individuals, from business owners to executive leaders, how to harness the power of The 3C’s: Community, Connection, and Collaboration to increase visibility, attract aligned opportunities, and amplify their impact in the world. Happiest when sharing her story and expertise, Baily is a Connection-Centered Thought Leader™ who has done over 150 speaking engagements and appeared on nearly 50 podcasts. Her writing and interviews have been featured on media platforms such as Forbes, Create & Cultivate, and HuffPost.

Baily is a recipient of the Empowerment Leader Award from the Business Relationship Alliance, a past President of the Santa Monica Junior Chamber of Commerce, and holds an MBA with certificates in Entrepreneurship and Management from the University of South Florida. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two kids and can often be found walking through various neighborhoods, listening to audiobooks and podcasts at 2x speed.

Interview Transcript

Baily Hancock: Welcome to Seeking the Overlap, the podcast where we're creating a more connected world, one conversation at a time. I'm connection strategist, professional friend maker, and your host, Baily Hancock.

Ah, I'm so excited for episode one to finally be here. You guys, I've had the most incredible conversations with people throughout season one. At the time of this recording, I'm pretty much done with all of my interviews for this season, so I can tell you with confidence that you are going to learn so much from these people. I have taken something major away from every single conversation I've had, and I'm quoting my guests in regular conversation frequently now.

So just buckle up. It's such a great season.

So why are we here? Does the world really need another podcast? And trust me, I asked myself this question. This is my third podcast that I have hosted and podcasts take a lot of work. So I did not go into this lightly. I really thought deeply about like, what is the point of this? What are we doing here? Who's going to subscribe? Who's going to listen every week?

The reason I decided to move forward with this project and go ahead and create a whole new podcast and interview a ton of people is because we are living through, I think some of the most divisive times in our species' history, really.

You don't have to look very far around you to see that there are so many people in this world that feel so lonely and so disconnected. Yes, from other people, but ultimately themselves.

I think that the point of connection with other human beings is to feel seen, is to feel heard, is to feel supported and ultimately, loved .

I don't really feel like deep connection with others is possible if you don't first have a really solid connection with yourself. And that can sound a little weird. It's like, well, why do I need to connect with myself? I am me.

I can tell you from personal experience that until you do inner reflection, it's hard to know where you stand on things. It's hard to know who you are as you get older, because I'll tell you, I am not the same person that I was 10 years ago. 10 years ago, and certainly not 20 years ago, and certainly not 30 years ago. If you're listening to this episode, the date comes out today is my 40th birthday, and I'm thrilled about that fact because well, for one, I've heard nothing but amazing things from people about being in your forties.

But for another, it's brought me to this place where I'm doing a lot of deep reflection on a lot of things, but most specifically the relationships in my .I am a professional friend maker which means I make friends very easily. That has never been a problem for me. In high school, I was the girl that would bop around to like 10 different tables during lunchtime because I had friends from all different groups.

I had lacrosse friends, and IB friends, and drama club friends, and student government friends, and my friends that I hung out with on the weekends, and my friends from class. I've always had a lot of circles, but I have not always felt connected to those people. And that might seem a little weird because how can you have a lot of friends and not feel connected to them? The same way that you can be deeply lonely, surrounded by people.

So as I've gotten closer to this big birthday milestone, I've really been thinking a lot about who are the people in my life that I feel close to? Do I feel like I always have somebody that I can send a text to at any time of day? Or if I really needed it, pick up the phone and call them. I have really taken a hard look at the people that are in my life because we're all so busy. I don't know a person alive that doesn't feel like they don't have enough time to do everything they want to do. And the time you spend with other people, whether that's in person or communicating online, even if it's just sending each other memes or Tik Tok videos as you scroll in bed at night, that takes time and it takes effort.

And so if you have relationships in your life that you don't feel like are really worthy of that precious free time that you have, I think it's important to take a beat and figure out how you want to proceed from here.

I think it's important to continuously check in with not only yourself, but with the friends that you're surrounding yourselves with, because as you age, as you evolve, you inevitably change and not every relationship is going to change with you.

So this is why self connection is really, really important because if you're not paying attention to the ways in which you're growing and changing and you're interests and your desires and your goals are shifting, it's going to be hard to maintain friendships that keep up with the you of today, not the you of 10 years ago, or whenever you guys met.

So why start another podcast? Because connection, I believe is one of the most important things that human beings can strive to have in their life. If you think of Maslow's hierarchy, the pyramid that has all of our needs with the most basic ones at the bottom and the highest ones at the top, connection is right there down at the bottom.

Thanks. If you go back all the way to the beginning of humanity, we needed each other to survive. If you weren't part of a tribe, you were eaten by a lion. If you weren't in a community with people, you weren't getting fed. You weren't being protected. You weren't safe.

Obviously, times have changed, but our bodies don't always know that. So if you're feeling lonely or disconnected, that feels very scary on some very deep psychological level.

The point of this podcast is to help make connecting with yourselves and others feel so simple, feel enjoyable, feel doable because it is.

And look, here's the thing. Disconnection, it's easy. It is. It's easy. And it's lazy. It's easy to say nobody gets me, you're not like me, you're an other. I'm right, you're wrong. And it is an easy thing to shut people out, but it's also deeply lonely. And I believe it's the root cause of most of the suffering and wars and hatred in this world.

So the point of this podcast is to help fix that. That's why the tagline is creating a more connected world, one conversation at a time. I can think of no bigger purpose for me in my life than helping people learn how to connect more deeply with themselves and others. So that's what we're going to do here.

In my work at Overlap Collective, my company, I talk a lot about the 3 Cs to saving humanity, community, connection, and collaboration.

And it's not hyperbole. I believe that unless we put a priority on building community with others, Going deep with our connections with ourselves and others, and leveraging collaboration to share our resources, time, energy, and effort, we are doomed as a species. I mean that. Whether it's in ten years or a thousand years, I'm telling you, if we don't prioritize the 3 C's, we're not going to make it very far.

While division is super easy and it's super lazy, Connection does take a little bit more effort. It takes intentionality, it takes empathy. And good connection takes vulnerability. And those are three things that people can be really uncomfortable with. But I promise you what comes on the other side of connection with yourself and others is so much more beautiful and worthwhile than anything that comes from disconnection.

I'm not a researcher, I'm not a scientist, and I'm not a journalist, which is why I have those people on the show this season. I've invited a lot of really, really smart people who have done the homework on connection, how to do it, why to do it, what the hangups are, what keeps us from being able to deeply connect with other people. And I'll tell you, there's a lot of reasons why connection feels hard, but there's also a lot of solutions to make it feel less hard.

I've also invited in mental health experts to help us figure out how to connect with ourselves. How does one build trust and openness with yourself? It can feel really woo woo, or really complicated or confusing, but the people I've had on this show make it feel so easy.

I have storytelling experts on this season, and it's truly one of my very favorite episodes because we talk about neural coupling, which is what happens in your brain and the people around you as brain when you're at a concert, or you're having a really great conversation, or you're sharing some kind of experience, your brainwaves literally sync up. It is the coolest thing, wildest thing.

I'm going to have people on who have written books on friendship and how to not only build new friendships, but be a better friend and maintain your friendships.

And finally, I have some amazing community builders on to talk about how they create spaces where yes, strangers can connect, but even more importantly, those strangers can collaborate and come together in community to thrive together.

I'll also be doing a few solo episodes here and there, where I'm going to bring you along on my journey of connecting more deeply with myself and figuring out how to deepen the relationships that I have. Even as a professional friend maker, I can feel alone and disconnected. And if that's happening to me, then I'm pretty sure it's happening to most of you too.

And there's really no reason why it should have to be this way. So if you are up for joining me on this journey, I promise to not call it a journey ever again, if I can help it, then buckle up, get ready for an incredible season one of Seeking the Overlap.

Thanks for listening to this episode of Seeking the Overlap. I would be so grateful if you would take a second to rate review and subscribe, it really does help others discover the show. And if you share this episode on social, be sure to tag me at Baily Hancock so I can send you some love.

Until next time, happy connecting.