Notes from Chapter 1 of Overlap by Sean McCabe

Most of us have many different jobs throughout our lives.

Sean starts off the book telling stories of his past jobs.

He washed windows and played in a band.

When he needed more money, he started a computer repair business.

Here, he made his first Overlap to web designer.

From there, he made his next Overlap to Hand Letter.

He Overlapped several other times to where he is now, which is teaching entrepreneurs how to get started and achieve success through audience building.

Overlapping is when you work a day job to pay your bills and spend your extra time working on another craft with the goal of making it your next full-time job.

Overlapping is a major part of the No Alarms Club.

Most of us are in day jobs that we want to switch out of.

It doesn’t mean we hate them, but we may just feel the need for a career change.

The smart way to do that isn’t to quit our jobs suddenly and try to make it work.

The smart way is to Overlap.

My drive in life is to help people.

Sean talks about how great it feels to help people get out of a job they hate.

He talks about how great it feels to help people realize a full time income from pursuing their passion.

That’s exactly what I want to do with Online Business ONE.

Sean mentions that there’s a lot of people out there who teach people how to make money, but they only make their money by teaching people how to make money.

It’s kind of scummy, and I know exactly what people he’s talking about.

He felt imposter syndrome despite having the track record of being a successful hand lettering artist.

Not to mention the other businesses he ran in the past.

It’s normal to feel this way. You feel like despite having done what you’ve done, people will think you’re a fraud for some reason.

I feel this way, too.

With Online Business ONE, I’m overlapping from my day job working as Communications Director for a non-profit.

But, I have at this moment over a decade of experience in internet marketing and have ran my own successful online businesses.

Plus, I’ve helped many other online businesses achieve success through digital marketing.

Yet, I still feel like an imposter.

There is no wrong first step.

Sean points out that no matter what, there is no wrong first step.

Everything we’ve learned in the past, and will learn in the future, will help us towards our goals.

Every step is a step forward.

And most importantly, when we overlap, that thing doesn’t have to be the thing we do forever.

In fact, it’s unlikely that we will do one thing for the entire rest of our lives.

We should never be afraid to overlap to the next thing.