Ep 8: When it’s Okay to Stop Seeking the Overlap with Connection Strategist, Baily Hancock
“You deserve to be in community with people who make you feel safe, seen, and supported.” - Baily Hancock
About this Episode
In this episode of Seeking the Overlap, host Baily Hancock takes a candid look at when it’s okay to stop “seeking the overlap” with people in your life. Fresh off the recent election, Baily shares her own experiences navigating family dynamics and conflicting values, especially when those differences feel unbridgeable. Reflecting on the deeper meaning of “blood is thicker than water,” she challenges listeners to prioritize peace, safety, and support over forced connections. Whether you're struggling to set boundaries with family or wondering when it's time to let go of one-sided relationships, Baily offers compassionate insights on curating a community that aligns with your values. Join her as she explores how to identify relationships that truly nourish you and when it’s time to make space for new connections that allow you to thrive authentically.
Topics Discussed
When it’s okay to stop seeking the overlap with others
The power of boundaries in protecting your peace and well-being
Why “blood is thicker than water” doesn’t mean family always comes first
How to recognize when a relationship is no longer reciprocal or supportive
Curating a community that makes you feel safe, seen, and valued
Resources
Join the next Community Q&A with Baily
Timestamps
00:00 Introduction and Host Welcome
00:13 Post-Election Reflections
02:03 Setting Boundaries for Peace
05:23 Understanding 'Blood is Thicker Than Water'
06:56 Curating Your Community
07:48 When to Stop Seeking the Overlap
10:19 Nurturing and Pruning Relationships
11:50 Final Thoughts and Community Q&A
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 over 55 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
Post-Election Reflections
Baily Hancock: Hello friends. It's going to be a solo episode today with just your friend Baily, because I wanted to talk about some things that have come up for me, post-election. I've been doing a lot of thinking about when it's okay to stop seeking the overlap with somebody.
As you probably know by now, I am a big believer in seeking the overlap, especially with family, friends, colleagues, the people that we're surrounded by. Not only because it helps create deeper connections with those people, but. But when you feel like you have a lot in common and you share a language, you share history, you share interests, goals, and values. It is significantly easier to coexist with those people.
Struggles with Family Dynamics
Baily Hancock: Post-election, and frankly, for the last eight plus years, it's become increasingly really obvious that many of us do not have a big overlap on our Venn diagram circles with family members, as it relates to to politics and values.
We've all been dealing with this in our own ways.
I know for me, I have gone in and out of seeking the overlap, with relatives specifically. There are days where I feel enraged and don't understand why people don't think the same way that I do about social justice, equal rights, reproductive freedom. And other days where I think, okay, but we're still family. We need to get along, we need to keep the peace, we need to have civility in our interactions for the good of the family.
I've gone in and out from blocking and unblocking, following and unfollowing throughout the last decade plus. Yes, but this most recent election period felt a little more fraught, a little more, do or die, a little more make or break. And I've ended up having to block a lot of my extended family.
With the election results being what they are as of today.
Setting Boundaries for Peace
Baily Hancock: I have reached a point where I'm no longer interested in seeking the overlap with people that actively vote for elected officials who mean to strip me of my rights, of my freedom. They put people I care about in danger and are a threat to our democracy as a whole. That. It is my belief. That is what a lot of the facts backup.
I have not been interested in crossing the divide and finding overlaps with people that I feel are fundamental mentally against the things that I hold dear. After the election, I posted did something to my stories on Instagram that effectively said, if you voted for him, you can go ahead and unfollow, unsubscribe you no longer I get access to me and my kids and the cute videos I posted them on Instagram stories because you represent a threat to me and my family.
Really, this obviously did not go over well with the family members that assumed I was speaking directly to them. And it caused a bit of a kerfuffle, if you will amongst my family. I tell you all of this because as the woman that hosts the podcast, seeking the overlap am and runs a company called overlap collective and has a tattoo of a venn diagram on my forearm. It would be easy for me me to come on here and say, you must just put aside your differences, seek the overlap, no matter the cost. And I just can't do do that to you because I don't believe that. I think. Your feelings, your beliefs, your values. There. They're too important to set aside for the sake of maintaining civility with family members or whoever it is that you're going through this with.
I. I can no longer agree to disagree. We can agree to disagree on things that don't involve stripping people all of their rights and endangering others. But on those things that's a hard pass. So I want. I say this to give you permission to do the same.
When you're the only one at risk and the only one crossing the aisle with the family members who are perhaps telling you, you need to get. Over it. We won deal with it and MMN, which there's a lot of that right now going on. I know so many of us are feeling that and not really knowing. What to do with that? But that is not a reciprocal relationship. It's not. Uh, relationship built on respect and empathy and kindness. It's just not, and you don't have to put put yourself in situations where you're dealing with that. I'm not.
You are allowed to protect your peace. And you get to choose who has access to you. Even if it's just digitally.
We can't always stay out of situations in person with people that we'd rather not be in them with, but digitally you have every every ability to block unfollow, mute, whatever. Whatever you need to do to put up boundaries and protect yourself from people who do not have your best interests at heart. And who will actively tell you that with a smile on their face, and probably tease you about it, which is my case.
If this sounds familiar to you and you're like, yup yup yup I feel you Baily. This is something I'm dealing with i I don't know how to handle it. I want to tell you something that I recently learned.
Understanding 'Blood is Thicker Than Water'
Baily Hancock: So, you know the old idiom blood is thicker than water? Well turns out that is not the entire quote. The entire. Entire quote. His blood of the covenant is thicker than water of the womb and to nobody's surprise the words covenant and wound were dropped over time. So what we're led to believe that the idiom blood is thicker than water means, is that. Uh, family ties are the strongest and you should always go with them over anything. Anything else, protect the family bonds, protect family relationships.
But in reality, what the full quote blood of the covenant is thicker than water of the womb actually means is that the bonds between people who have made a blood covenant or have shed shed blood together in battle are stronger than those formed by the water of the womb. Which means the relationships you choose are stronger than the ones you simply inherit.
I am not saying that you should go cutting ties with all of your family members. You are the only one that knows your situation, but what I am saying is don't put your peace and your safety and your heart on the line. Mine. Simply for the sake of maintaining civility with people you happen to share genetics with.
You don't deserve that. You absolutely do not deserve that. You deserve to be in. In community with people who make you feel safe, seen, and supported. Ported full-stop. And that's why I'm so.
Curating Your Community
Baily Hancock: So passionate about helping people understand how to curate community. Because it involves building a support system system for yourself, full of people who are going to make you feel seen safe and supported. That is the point of having community. Okay?
So you'll you'll hear a lot in this podcast, tricks and tips for building a, network and connecting more deeply with yourself and others. And catalyzing and collaboration and all of that is awesome. But at the end of the the day your mission in life is to find your people, seek the overlap with them, and nurture and develop those relationships that are symbiotic reciprocal, brickell, and there for you and that don't make you compromise your values and your beliefs.
When to Stop Seeking the Overlap
Baily Hancock: With that being said, here are three ways to know when it's okay to stop stop seeking the overlap with somebody.
First reason: when the relationship is no longer reciprocal or respectful. If the people that you are considering no longer seeking seeking the overlap with our rude to you, they taunt you, they don't show up for you, they mock you for your beliefs and for your values, you are good to step away uh, my friend.
The second situation when it's okay to stop seeking the overlap is when you no longer feel safe, seen or we're supported by them. This feels very similar to number one, but the difference here is that they're not even doing the bare minimum for you of what you're meant meant to do when you're in relationship with somebody.
The point in having relationships with people is to feel safe, seen, and supported and to do it for them in return. If you're the only one doing the heavy lifting, if you're the one meeting them halfway, if you're the one that's making them feel safe, seen, and supported and you're not getting it back, feel free to pause on that whole seeking overlap. Overlap thing with them.
The third time when it's okay to stop seeking the overlap: the moment you don't want to. You are not beholden to anybody. You do not have to seek the overlap with anybody that you don't want to. Call it a gut feeling, call it instinct or intuition, commission, but I think most of us know on some deep level, whether somebody is for us or not. And if you feel like there's something off about the relation. Relationship or the person, by all means listen to that. Follow your gut. Check the vibes. You do not have to push forward, seeking the overlap with somebody where it just simply feels off.
So find your people. Surround yourself with them. Be good to them. Expect them to be good to you. Make sure that you are making each other feel safe, seen, and supported, and seek the overlap with them.
Not every relationship is meant to be forever and that's a hard pill to swallow. And that's one that I've had to deal with a lot in the last decade. I have had relationships that I I thought would be in my life forever fizzle. Fade right away into the wind. And there's really no blame to be had for that, it just happens sometimes. And that's okay.
Nurturing and Pruning Relationships
Baily Hancock: Which is why it's also important to continuous mostly seek out new relationships. You need to continue to plant new seeds seeds for a healthy garden. It's important that you I recognize that every plant you put into the ground is not going to have the same season. So some plants may bear fruit in the winter like orange trees and others may bear fruit in the summer, like strawberries. So it's important to have a variety of relationships in your community garden. It's. It's important to nurture and water them and watch them grow. It's important to keep planting new seeds. And it's important to contain continuously prune your garden to. Which is sort of the moral all of the story for this episode, pruning relationships that no longer serve you.
'cause you know, what happens when you do? You make room in your garden for new plants, healthy plants, plants that have vegetables and fruit or flowers that match the kind of vegetables, fruit fruit and flowers you are wanting today. Not the kind you wanted 20 years. Or maybe the kind you didn't even ask for, but that you inherited. Maybe. Maybe they were in the garden that you got when you showed up here.
It's your garden. Can you get to decorate it, you get to plant the seeds that you, you get to keep the plants that you want to keep it and you get to pull out the ones that you don't. This is your garden it's meant to nourish you. It's meant to serve you. And if you're no longer getting what you need than. And it is absolutely okay. To make some changes.
Conclusion and Community Q&A
Baily Hancock: All right my friends -sending you all the love in what has been a really. Rough week for so many of us. I have no assumption functions that it's going to feel better anytime soon. And that's why having a community we have supportive people around you is more crucial than ever.
Speaking of which today I held held my first community, Q and a with a group of people. I felt called on election day, too put something on the calendar as a means to share my experience in buildings supportive communities. I put it out to the internet, a ton of people signed up, we had a really great conversation.
If that is something something that you would like to attend, go to the link in the show notes And you'll be able to sign up for more information to hear about when I'm going to do it again. What we talked about in the circle today was where do you find and new people to add to your circles. How do you curate a community for yourself? Itself. A lot of that involves being in community, joining communities of like-minded people and then nurturing the relationships with the people that you start start to feel attached to or interested in. Those are the people that you start to seek the overlap with, and then over time they become part of your coven. Coven, if you will, or community or support system. So if you're interested in learning more about that, make sure you check the show notes for the link. You can always go to the overlap collective.com where all of my information and services and offerings and all the things live.
Final Thoughts and Farewell
Baily Hancock: Until then take good care of yourself, seek the overlap with people that deserve it. And remember, blood is thicker than water, but not in the way you think.
